I'm Andrew st. Pierre White join me as I share my passion holding all wheel drive
trucks traveling to the remotest parts of the world.
it's early morning I'm in a town called Geelong small industrial town not far
from Melbourne I'm here to see my lovely new shiny Land Cruiser the first time a
rare treat this then is the start of a project that I've called the toyota land
cruiser 79 dual cab 300 it's a quest to do three things to make the Toyota 79
dual cab available as Toyota should build it with its shortcomings sorted to
do it at minimal cost and to have it available for sale through Toyota
dealerships beginning in Western Australia ambitious sure the land
cruiser 79 300 is called the 300 because 300 millimeters is what we add to the
length of the chassis to sort out its load carrying ability that's the problem
with the standard dual cab when you load anything more than 2 or 300 kilograms on
the standard load bay because it's all behind the back wheels the front lifts
up and handling goes to pot secondly the axle correction Toyota's axle is
narrower at the back then at the front which causes handling difficulties we're
going to sort that out too and because now with the 300 millimeter chassis
extension now the vehicle is going to be able to carry much more load than the
standard we're adding a GVM gross vehicle mass upgrade as well multi drive
technology has been doing this kind of work for fleet and mining for decades
but not much for the average motorist it turns out that there's nothing stopping
them but from a dealer level it's not quite as simple as one might hope I
think the beauty of the Land Cruiser and often the detriment of us
and wheelbase is that the chassis and suspension everything's so robust that
it takes a really great load but that can often be the downfall especially on
the dual cab so just by moving the the wheels back just gives you that bit
better load distribution and it turns a good car into a great caster my job is
to make it easy and by doing it myself every step of the way as if I was
somebody who just walked off off the street I will prove that it can be done
this is not just some fantastic magic trick because there are many companies
throughout Australia and there are approved I don't know what other word to
use by Toyota they are approved fitment centres that are permitted to adapt
change and modify Toyota's pre-delivery pre-reg Oh in my case the work is being
done pre-reg Oh which means a federally approved secondary stage manufacturers
compliance plate comes with the deal doing it this way is far less
complicated than doing it post reg o my dealer organised the vehicle to be
delivered directly to Geelong and once the work is completed it will be
delivered to my dealership where I will collect it so it is in fact quite easy
for anybody to walk off the street and order one of these vehicles that
challenges the dealers don't know they understand the process but most dealers
won't know what this product is and that's where I come in
alright what we're going to do now is extend the chassis by three hundred
millimetres but I'm not extending the length of the overall vehicle by three
hundred millimetres I'm actually shortening the tray so that the overall
length of the vehicle remains almost exactly like the original vehicle phase
is it's it's parks and standard garages it's easier to maneuver in traffic but
what it ending the chassis will do for the
handling it will improve straight line performance that will prove turn
performance it will improve most importantly the load carrying ability
and it's done in conjunction with the rear axle width correction there are two
choices in multi drives pricelist and axle replacement for a GVM of three
nine five o or a rear axle modification called - tracker gvm three seven eight
oh but what is very important to me is that I'm not adding any complications to
the design if you think about the land cruiser 70 series if it wasn't for the
Australian mining industry my guess is that the land cruiser 70 would have been
discontinued many years ago because the rest of the world's market is just too
small to sustain it this is my theory and my evidence that this is true is the
fact that all of the major modifications and advancements on these vehicles are
directed by Toyota Australia and follows through to the rest of the world the
process of lengthening the chassis is straightforward the vehicle is put on a
jig the chassis is cut so the join page obviously we cut it roll the chassis
back and put our replica piece in there right
so the jigs and the yellow RHS underneath allow us to align the join
piece and thence obviously tapped in we remove all the join Jenks once the links
set correctly and they're joined faces in there and
young process of prepping and then welding around so once that joins in
then the reinforcing channel comes underneath all the way to the back
spring hangar to up near the crossmember here and after that is the center
bearing crossmember goes in which reinforces the join as well as an
additional cross member an additional cross member that which serves two
purposes I used to mount the center bearing and
B's to add the required virginity into the join right and Keef yeah you're
allowed a maximum of 1 meter centers between the join okay 25 yeah between
cross members so we put that in there and it serves two purposes but of course
extending the chassis means extending lots of things for example the propeller
shaft driving the rear axle and so there's two pieces that's a cradle there
with the bearing and then the second piece is this piece here and these all
finally balanced and the Shelf here full of bracketry for example this piece here
is the piece that is weld underneath and that gives rigidity to the chassis the
holes in it are for once the welding has actually been completed they then spray
anti rust paint inside they do that through those holes and all these other
bracketry here for example these things prefabricated pre-made new mounts for
the body and of course new mounts for the tray all of these things have to be
realigned repositioned but one of the questions that I am anticipating is why
not go for J max coil springs or are these frankly wonderful
modifications to the bankers r79 why aren't I going the full distance and I
have a very simple answer I don't one - hey because I don't need to and be what
I'm trying to do here is create I'm trying to make a very very good vehicle
great without spending a huge amount of money this conversion is not expensive
it's easy to think that this is a simple process I put it back together again but
it's actually not simple at all break lines but they have to be rerouted the
extra crossmember and obviously the extra length and exactly the same with
the exhaust pipe fuel lines electrical cables it might seem it's a
simple matter of cutting stretching and putting something in between but there's
a lot of work so that basically wraps up day one
tomorrow's an ambitious day we have to reassemble everything and fit the fuel
tank solution and also the tray back solution going to try and finish that
all by the end of tomorrow with the bulk of the conversion work completed
including the GBM upgrade operated springs and shock absorbers it's now
time to turn our attention to some of the additional mods and equipment that
can be fitted before delivery the standard fill tank is 130 litres
generous but not generous enough we could increase its size with an
aftermarket tank to 180 litres but it hangs off the back behind the rear
wheels and we are working to get the weight in front of the rear wheels so
I'm going to leave that tank as standard and add a supplementary tank ahead of
the back axle it's made by a company called brown Davis and they make
actually this tank which is fourth to 300 millimeter chassis extension then it
comes in two parts needed range out of a vehicle is about 1,000 kilometres in
Australia maybe a little more than that but even in the United States Africa
thousand is about minimum gives me 110 liters so I've elected not to change the
back tank the back tank a standard tank is 130
litres so that gives me two hundred and forty liters at about fourteen between
14 and 15 liters per hundred kilometers that gives me over 1600 kilometer range
but I know what you're going to ask me next what is all this for and what am I
going to put on the back at some stage in the future I will be putting a camper
on the back but first of course a tray must go on and I have chosen this beauty
it's from the much admired nor wealth catalog they build a tray specifically
for the 300 millimeter extension final stages leading the breaks
everything is done and now the vehicle will be put back on its wheels and it's
time to put on the train to me this combination of land cruiser
79 and noir wheel tray is the ultimate manifestation of the Ute the pickup the
Bakke whatever
and now I can really start getting excited about this project
I mean just look at it I'm very very nearly finished the best part of the
build
I've always believed that a good four-wheel-drive vehicle sometimes you
can tell if it's gonna be good just by looking at it
anyway I think that's true and look at this one
thank you for watching see you next time
you