Heres my problem.
I have a 99 model diesel hilux that I have owned for the past year. I bought it for 7500 without a rwc (idiot move) and spent a fortune fixing it up.
When I bought it I did not know a lot about cars and obviously paid way too much as I soon discovered oil leaks everywhere, cracked exhaust manifold, worn out
suspension and steering components, a broken pinion in the rear diff and bleep ty wiring. However it only had 220000kms on it when I bought it and have had zero engine related problems over the past year.
I have now fixed most of the problems but still have to do the following:
-Overhaul the cooling system as the radiator and hoses look ancient
- Replace the timing belt and fan belts
- Replace crank seal
- Relace rear main seal and may as
well the clutch too
- Overhaul the power steering as its leaking and find out why the steering is so spongey. Has a bit of play before any actual turning happens.
Now I'm at a point where I'm sick of spending money on it and would rather be out and about 4x4ing and camping instead of working on it every weekend. I also don't want to put all this money into it and then have the engine blow up or the injector pump bleep itself... but then again I'm not sure how likely that is since the engine runs beautifully and only has 230000kms on it.
I'm not in any situation to afford extensive engine work if something bad happened. I have a hard enough time doing running maintainence and 5000km
services.
I have the opportunity to swap it for a nice suzuki sierra in great condition with fully rebuilt diffs and some nice goodies for 4x4ing like dual batteries,
snorkel, spotties, uhf and a 2 inch lift. I think it would make the perfect weekend car for what I want to do which is some 4x4 tracks and a bit of camping here and there. I have a little buzz box that I drive to work so I wouldn't be using it on week days.
I have no idea what to do but all I know is that I either need to get rid of the hilux now and take a loss
OR
Slowy save up the money to fix what I can, when I can and potentially miss out on many weekends of fun times camping and driving.
I would really like some advice from someone thats been in a similar situation.