Patrol 4.2 Diesel

do yourself a favour and buy the last of the GQ's and turbo it yourself. Better vehicle, will save yourself money be a better vehicle, and will haul arse all over the factory gutless turbo.

TD42 will last you 500,000+ if treated well. Its common.

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Try the patrol groups on yahoogroups.
patrol4wd
nissan_gu_patrol is the other

I use a fairly well equipped 2001 GU 4.2TD coil cab for work in the Kimberley. Done 60,000km, lots of it on rough roads and tracks and very hot conditions. 5th gear failed as predicted for early GU's and the gearbox was rebuilt under warranty and is better than ever now. The new parts bring the gearbox back up to the robustness of the GQ box and unlikely to cause any further concerns. The front axle is stronger on the GU over the GQ as well.

Zero other failures except the original suspension failed after about a year and is now a full OEM system (beautiful!!)

It is important to keep the radiator free of insects and grass seeds lest you overheat on high speed runs. Easiest done by removing the radiator for cleaning once a year and using a shade cloth screen over the bullbar (for spinifex seeds) or a coarse mesh for grasshoppers.

Fuel economy is good up to 105kph on the highway, above that it gets bad pretty quick. It's a rugged, reliable, electronics free diesel that will never let you down provided you feed it clean diesel.

These 4.2 turbos respond very well to after mkt re-turboing and some excellent soltions exist if you want more power & torque with better economy. Expensive, so you need to be planning on keeping it for a few years.

I can recommend his truck. It is reliable, has great bushability and the coil cab with OME suspension rides like a limo on the rough roads.

JohnS
Derby, WA

Thanks all for your thoughts.