Afternoon,
For all who may be looking at getting one of the above items I hereby log my findings:
Showers:
I went to ARB, TJM, and a couple of one man shows to look at Glind's, Twines, and Pirahna showers. My purpose for a shower of this style has a dual purpose, 1. to clean my stinky self at night and 2. to charge the batteries whilst the fridge is running at night whilst stopped for an extended period. I have decided on a Glind for again, 2 reasons: TJM at the Gabba in
Brisbane actually have all of the brackets and will fit it for $250.00. The Glind is some $100 cheaper than the twine, and replacement parts are also somewhat cheaper. TJM has access to stainless quick release fittings and these will be installed into the guard with a cap provided to stop 'crap' getting into the system. Install 1 day.
Rear Drawers:
Again, I went to QLD Bullbars, ARB, TJM and looked at Black Widow, Outback, and Dept of Interior. Whilst the Outback Drawer probably has the best finish, it weighs from memory twice as much as any other drawer (and costs twice as much just about). Also the outback comes flat packed and in about 6000 pieces obviously increasing either fitting costs and/or your own frustrations! Black Widow IMHO did not have a great finish and was also more costly and weighty. Dept of Interior do a 2 drawer setup with fridge slide and removable table under fridge slide (to stop stuff falling into drawers). It's made of marine ply and half the weight of the other drawers, still has bearing runners, quality lock clips and hd carpet. For some $600 cheaper and half the weight than the other competition, I ordered one of those. You will expect a 4 week weight. Install 2-3 hours.
Lockers:
INHO, air lockers are the way to go. Lockrites, and Detroits have become more costly over the years and the airlocker allows the user to disengage when necessary. Downsides, lots more to go wrong and/or playup, relays, air hoses, air leaks etc etc. But, in the long run, proper maintenance will prevent any issues. A member of this site is a distributor and has helped me get a great deal including freight. I thank him very much for his assistance. ARB charge around $400 for fitting, my local perfectionist diff specialist whom I've known for a while wants $150 for install and $100 for my autolecky down the road to fit compressor and hd wiring, and switches. Further, my diff bloke wont re-use the old oil albiet 3000k's old. All in all, saved about $300-400 in total. 2 days install.
Power Upgrade (in 10,000k's time, told to wait until 15000k's)
A fellow I used from the Gabba here in
Brisbane (John Whittaker) from
Brisbane Turbos and Tuning would be my preferred choice. I went to Motsons at
Beaudesert as
well. Motsons for a stage 2 power up want around $2600 for turbo re-fit, anaroid and fuel pump calibration, 3 inch exhaust. If your vehicle is around 60,000k's and older, they will need to replace a sleeve in the turbo with an oversize unit ($190) and another $400 or so to put in a bigger dump pipe. You will get around 30-40% but your highest torgue will come at around 3400rpm. You will get about 125hp.
John Whittaker informed me today that the EGR needs to be cleaned every 10,000k's and is the biggest reason why the 4.2TDI is such a slug. In normal city driving, he said that the pipe will halve in size over 10k of driving. For $1,900, he will increase boost from standard to 12psi, re-cal fuel pump, replace injectors, run 3inch mandrel bent system from turbo out, disconnect egr but leave looking standard for service purposes of course, dyno pre and post, pyro fitted, and provide $150 service including pre and post dyno every 12 months. He has done 20 over the last year and provided me with copies of dyno reports. Getting around 145hp from 12psi. However has told me upfront that I will not acheive better fuel economy, but less EGT when under load. This was the way my previous truck ran. Lost about a k/L but lost 150 degrees when driving up
Toowoomba Range towing 825 kg offroad camper. Install 2 days.
So there you have it folks, after 2 weeks of escaping early from work and do some investigations, these are my findings, hopefully there may be some other explorites out there wondering what the best way is to go. Perhaps my finds won't suit you, but it's a start!
Cya round the traps!
Chris.