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Daniel's 1984 Pajero Shorty Camping Build
Hey all, I'm new to this site and just thought I'd start a thread to show how my 84 paj has evolved over the years!
When I first bought it, I just wanted a cheap, manual, turbo diesel fourby as a second car for weekend camping trips, so when I stumbled across this old girl ticking all the boxes for $2k I couldn't say no.
Admittedly, she was in pretty rough shape... there was a tear in the passenger door which had rusted badly, the carpets were torn and smelly, the passenger seat was ceased in an awkward position and the seat belt didn't extend properly keeping the passenger pinned to the seat like they were wearing a 4 point harness. It also had a bunch of general cosmetic flaws like faded paint, pealing tint and pretty much every interior globe blown. Mechanically though, she was pretty good aside from a rear main seal leak.
A LOT of days and dollars have past since then though, which have slowly transformed my $2k bush basher into a reliable, capable and decked out fourby that I'm proud to own.
Here she was a few days after I picked her up, and also on our first camping trip
First modification was a new pair of seats, they're suspension seats from another Paj so they bolted straight in which was nice. They certainly aren't in 'brand new condition' but I got them cheap, they work great and are a lot better than what they replaced!
Next thing I got onto pretty quickly was the passenger seat belt issue. I ended up having them both replaced with brand new ones, and went for bright blue webbing. No photo's though unfortunately but you'll be able to catch a glimpse of them in future photos.
Next up was replacing the ratty, 30 year old brown carpet. Now it's worth pointing out here that I've got very little car modification experience but decided that to keep the project of modifying this car cheap as a whole, I would try and do everything myself. The carpet was no exception to this so I headed down to BCF and picked up some marine carpet. Here's some photos:
Pretty happy with how it turned out!
I'd run into a few storage issues on my camping trips so decided it would be a good idea to get some sort of roof basket, a few days later I had found a pair of old adjustable roof racks for $20 and a small basket to clamp on top for another $20! Not going to win any beauty pageants but did the job:
A month or so later I had a go at tinting the whole car myself, armed with a $20 roll of 30% VLT tint from eBay and a bunch of Youtube videos. It actually went relatively well, few mishaps here and there and it took a full day but can't complain too much with result! Bit of a before/after:
4wding up north, may or may not be a bit of tricky photography at play here...
Ok next up is a big one, drawers for the back! I took the rear seats out a long time ago so I had plenty of room ready to fill. I kept the wood as thin as possible to try and keep the overall weight down. I think the pictures explain the build pretty well on their own:
Switch panel instal (switches for interior lights, exterior light and USB charging points).
The finished product! There will be plenty more tweaks and adjustments to come but this was V1.
So roof baskets were on sale at Super cheap so this happened... Also got an tiny awning
Time for some real tyres, picked up some 31" Maxxis bighorns, starting to come along now...
Tested out the new tyres while camping at Waroona Dam, very impressed
For about 3 months, I tried calling all the 4wd shops in Perth to see if they could install a recovery point on the back of the paj, but got turned down by them all. In the end I got this Landcruiser recovery hook welded to the chassis, which works great and has saved me on the odd occasion where I forget the Paj isn't a comp truck
Camping up at Two Rocks:
I put together a new rear table that's a little bigger and has a lip to stop my cooker sliding off when the car isn't level
Eugh, it's not all fun and games! Blew a head gasket and warped the head...
Added a light bar to my arsenal:
Picked up yet another new roof basket...! Very happy with this new one though, think it's a keeper
Been wanting new plates for a while so finally got around to getting some, PAJ-084 because she's a Pajero, from 1984
Back to the shed, this time for a new centre console build. Main objective = cup holders.
Got bored, painted my door trim and put some new speaker spacers in
So, I may or may not have blown the engine
Coming back from a great trip to Kalbarri, pushing the old girl to the limits to make it up a steep hill at 110kp/h, fully loaded on a 40+ degree day resulted in the engine remaining cool for the rest of the trip home... because it was on the back of a truck...
Turns out my temp gauge lied and told me things were fine, when in actual fact the engine got so hot that one of the pistons expanded and bit into the surrounding cylinder before ceasing
Queue full rebuild. Took the whole engine out, rebuilt the lot with new pistons and had the block professionally re-sleeved and refaced. Replaced the entire cooling system, radiator, fan clutch, hoses, thermostat and put in a new water temp gauge and an EGT gauge so it never happens again!!
Scored all this for $50, let me know if you need any miscellaneous interior doodads :P
Chucked on the new door trims, they look more premium than the old vinyl ones, gonna have to start dressing up for trips in this luxury beast now...
Hit a roo at 80kp/h, bullbar took it like a boss but my narva's got smashed to smithereens. Replaced them with these HID's - nothing special but they do the job.
Had a go at fixing the passenger door's rust...
All done and primed, just going to leave it primed for now, will get around to painting the whole car one day...
More repair work done, cut the rusty sills out and welded in some tube steel. Pretty happy with how it turned out
So my old awning got destroyed by heavy winds while I was camping up at Wedge island about a month ago, my own fault for not taking it down and assuming she'd be right... But hey, now I've got a shiny new and longer kings awning and sidewall
Just a beautiful camping spot up at Sandy Cape I thought was worth sharing
Found a nice set of dunes on our way back from Sandy Cape
Time for more new rubber!! Picked up a set of 31" Cooper ST's with 90% Tread
Dropped her off for painting today!! Both my doors had rust so I figured now was the time to swap them over
Continue reading through the following pages for more...
When I first bought it, I just wanted a cheap, manual, turbo diesel fourby as a second car for weekend camping trips, so when I stumbled across this old girl ticking all the boxes for $2k I couldn't say no.
Admittedly, she was in pretty rough shape... there was a tear in the passenger door which had rusted badly, the carpets were torn and smelly, the passenger seat was ceased in an awkward position and the seat belt didn't extend properly keeping the passenger pinned to the seat like they were wearing a 4 point harness. It also had a bunch of general cosmetic flaws like faded paint, pealing tint and pretty much every interior globe blown. Mechanically though, she was pretty good aside from a rear main seal leak.
A LOT of days and dollars have past since then though, which have slowly transformed my $2k bush basher into a reliable, capable and decked out fourby that I'm proud to own.
Here she was a few days after I picked her up, and also on our first camping trip
First modification was a new pair of seats, they're suspension seats from another Paj so they bolted straight in which was nice. They certainly aren't in 'brand new condition' but I got them cheap, they work great and are a lot better than what they replaced!
Next thing I got onto pretty quickly was the passenger seat belt issue. I ended up having them both replaced with brand new ones, and went for bright blue webbing. No photo's though unfortunately but you'll be able to catch a glimpse of them in future photos.
Next up was replacing the ratty, 30 year old brown carpet. Now it's worth pointing out here that I've got very little car modification experience but decided that to keep the project of modifying this car cheap as a whole, I would try and do everything myself. The carpet was no exception to this so I headed down to BCF and picked up some marine carpet. Here's some photos:
Pretty happy with how it turned out!
I'd run into a few storage issues on my camping trips so decided it would be a good idea to get some sort of roof basket, a few days later I had found a pair of old adjustable roof racks for $20 and a small basket to clamp on top for another $20! Not going to win any beauty pageants but did the job:
A month or so later I had a go at tinting the whole car myself, armed with a $20 roll of 30% VLT tint from eBay and a bunch of Youtube videos. It actually went relatively well, few mishaps here and there and it took a full day but can't complain too much with result! Bit of a before/after:
4wding up north, may or may not be a bit of tricky photography at play here...
Ok next up is a big one, drawers for the back! I took the rear seats out a long time ago so I had plenty of room ready to fill. I kept the wood as thin as possible to try and keep the overall weight down. I think the pictures explain the build pretty well on their own:
Switch panel instal (switches for interior lights, exterior light and USB charging points).
The finished product! There will be plenty more tweaks and adjustments to come but this was V1.
So roof baskets were on sale at Super cheap so this happened... Also got an tiny awning
Time for some real tyres, picked up some 31" Maxxis bighorns, starting to come along now...
Tested out the new tyres while camping at Waroona Dam, very impressed
For about 3 months, I tried calling all the 4wd shops in Perth to see if they could install a recovery point on the back of the paj, but got turned down by them all. In the end I got this Landcruiser recovery hook welded to the chassis, which works great and has saved me on the odd occasion where I forget the Paj isn't a comp truck
Camping up at Two Rocks:
I put together a new rear table that's a little bigger and has a lip to stop my cooker sliding off when the car isn't level
Eugh, it's not all fun and games! Blew a head gasket and warped the head...
Added a light bar to my arsenal:
Picked up yet another new roof basket...! Very happy with this new one though, think it's a keeper
Been wanting new plates for a while so finally got around to getting some, PAJ-084 because she's a Pajero, from 1984
Back to the shed, this time for a new centre console build. Main objective = cup holders.
Got bored, painted my door trim and put some new speaker spacers in
So, I may or may not have blown the engine
Coming back from a great trip to Kalbarri, pushing the old girl to the limits to make it up a steep hill at 110kp/h, fully loaded on a 40+ degree day resulted in the engine remaining cool for the rest of the trip home... because it was on the back of a truck...
Turns out my temp gauge lied and told me things were fine, when in actual fact the engine got so hot that one of the pistons expanded and bit into the surrounding cylinder before ceasing
Queue full rebuild. Took the whole engine out, rebuilt the lot with new pistons and had the block professionally re-sleeved and refaced. Replaced the entire cooling system, radiator, fan clutch, hoses, thermostat and put in a new water temp gauge and an EGT gauge so it never happens again!!
Scored all this for $50, let me know if you need any miscellaneous interior doodads :P
Chucked on the new door trims, they look more premium than the old vinyl ones, gonna have to start dressing up for trips in this luxury beast now...
Hit a roo at 80kp/h, bullbar took it like a boss but my narva's got smashed to smithereens. Replaced them with these HID's - nothing special but they do the job.
Had a go at fixing the passenger door's rust...
All done and primed, just going to leave it primed for now, will get around to painting the whole car one day...
More repair work done, cut the rusty sills out and welded in some tube steel. Pretty happy with how it turned out
So my old awning got destroyed by heavy winds while I was camping up at Wedge island about a month ago, my own fault for not taking it down and assuming she'd be right... But hey, now I've got a shiny new and longer kings awning and sidewall
Just a beautiful camping spot up at Sandy Cape I thought was worth sharing
Found a nice set of dunes on our way back from Sandy Cape
Time for more new rubber!! Picked up a set of 31" Cooper ST's with 90% Tread
Dropped her off for painting today!! Both my doors had rust so I figured now was the time to swap them over
Continue reading through the following pages for more...
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