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Hi all, I have recently been piecing together my NL to build a bit of a weekend warrior machine. Thought I'd share with you the steps I took to convert the old girl from stock to what she is today.
Please keep in mind I did not build it to be fuel efficient or a daily driver, the sole purpose of it is to get nice and muddy and take me to some hard to reach camp sites for a weekend getaway.
Stock.jpg
I bought the vehicle about 4 years ago with not too far under 200xxx k's on the clock. She was completely stock, and the engine had given me a few issues. During the first 2 or so years it was used mainly as a family vehicle and the only upgrades I gave it were some new spark plugs after the old ones just gave out, a new head gasket after an unhappy meeting with another car, and a new starter motor. Since then these are the upgrades I've done to it:
1) 33" Dunlop ATZ
Being an NL, it came with the factory body lift, this allowed me to fit the bigger wheels in straight away, and I ran these for about 2 years. Bought these second hand off gumtree, and spray painted them myself (spray cans from bunnings). I also pulled off the side steps for nothing other than the illusion of extra clearance.
33s.jpg
2) ARB winch bar
This was by far one of my most important investments in my opinion. Being someone who travels alone a lot, having a winch made life a lot less worrisome, and I have to admit, did look bloody nice. This was bought from a wreckers and came off an NH pajero.
Bull Bar.jpg
3) 2" suspension lift
This was done a while after I had started 4-wheeling, when I decided it was time to upgrade, mind you I was able to complete almost all the tracks I had attempted with just the stock suspension, but my torision bars were getting old and with the extra weight of the bullbar and winch, it was beginning to sag. So I opted for a heavy duty lift kit instead. Ebay had my back on that one. Have had the lift in for months and I'm loving it. No complaints about it. The coils for the back were stock rear coils off a GQ patrol. They're much softer than the wound up torsion bars up front so the back does bounce a fair bit when I hit big bumps.
Shockers.jpg
Lift.jpg
4) 34" Simex Jungle Trekkers
These muddies were bought to sell since I got them for a great deal (2nd hand) but once I had put the lift in I decided to throw em on just for fun and they never came off.
34s.jpg
5) Accessories
In terms of accessories, I first installed a Uniden UHF (bought off facebook), then the lightbar on the bullbar (facebook too), followed by the roof rack (ebay) and the spotties up top (facebook)
Final Product.jpg
Liftoff.jpg
Throughout this whole build money has been my largest obstacle, so patience came into it a lot with waiting to find a good deal on something, admittedly there are some things that would be worth spending the money on to get done properly if you have it, but there are always ways to save a few $$ here and there.
My next mod is to install a stainless steel snorkel I bought, will post pics of that once I get around to doing it.
If anyone else wants to share any tips, tricks, or ideas of any sort please do I'd love to see what other mods I could possibly do.
Please keep in mind I did not build it to be fuel efficient or a daily driver, the sole purpose of it is to get nice and muddy and take me to some hard to reach camp sites for a weekend getaway.
Stock.jpg
I bought the vehicle about 4 years ago with not too far under 200xxx k's on the clock. She was completely stock, and the engine had given me a few issues. During the first 2 or so years it was used mainly as a family vehicle and the only upgrades I gave it were some new spark plugs after the old ones just gave out, a new head gasket after an unhappy meeting with another car, and a new starter motor. Since then these are the upgrades I've done to it:
1) 33" Dunlop ATZ
Being an NL, it came with the factory body lift, this allowed me to fit the bigger wheels in straight away, and I ran these for about 2 years. Bought these second hand off gumtree, and spray painted them myself (spray cans from bunnings). I also pulled off the side steps for nothing other than the illusion of extra clearance.
33s.jpg
2) ARB winch bar
This was by far one of my most important investments in my opinion. Being someone who travels alone a lot, having a winch made life a lot less worrisome, and I have to admit, did look bloody nice. This was bought from a wreckers and came off an NH pajero.
Bull Bar.jpg
3) 2" suspension lift
This was done a while after I had started 4-wheeling, when I decided it was time to upgrade, mind you I was able to complete almost all the tracks I had attempted with just the stock suspension, but my torision bars were getting old and with the extra weight of the bullbar and winch, it was beginning to sag. So I opted for a heavy duty lift kit instead. Ebay had my back on that one. Have had the lift in for months and I'm loving it. No complaints about it. The coils for the back were stock rear coils off a GQ patrol. They're much softer than the wound up torsion bars up front so the back does bounce a fair bit when I hit big bumps.
Shockers.jpg
Lift.jpg
4) 34" Simex Jungle Trekkers
These muddies were bought to sell since I got them for a great deal (2nd hand) but once I had put the lift in I decided to throw em on just for fun and they never came off.
34s.jpg
5) Accessories
In terms of accessories, I first installed a Uniden UHF (bought off facebook), then the lightbar on the bullbar (facebook too), followed by the roof rack (ebay) and the spotties up top (facebook)
Final Product.jpg
Liftoff.jpg
Throughout this whole build money has been my largest obstacle, so patience came into it a lot with waiting to find a good deal on something, admittedly there are some things that would be worth spending the money on to get done properly if you have it, but there are always ways to save a few $$ here and there.
My next mod is to install a stainless steel snorkel I bought, will post pics of that once I get around to doing it.
If anyone else wants to share any tips, tricks, or ideas of any sort please do I'd love to see what other mods I could possibly do.
1999 Pajero 3.5 unleaded NL, w/ ARB bullbar, A/T tires, 5% tint. thats all I need
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