my first jackaroo

G'day johnny, congradulations, yeah Jackaroo was my first 4x4(long time ago) but it was great and the old girl went everywhere I pointed it, had it for 10years before I upgraded.

Good luck with it

andy

Congrats mate....enjoy...now starts a whole new adventure...regards Phil

Hi there johnny,

You have invested in a very capable vehicle matey.
What vintage (model) is it?

You might like to consider a suspension upgrade at some point. An adjustment of the front stabilisers to wind them in a bit, a new pair of coils on the rear to give a 2-3" lift and a new set of aftermarket shockies will give you a noticable improvement in clearance and ride.

A little thirsty on fuel maybe (unless you have a diesel donk) but a worthy engine all the same.

Just one point on the dual battery system.
Consider carefully what you want to use it for. An approximate price for a quality isolator, the battery holder and battery and the cost of minor engine bay modification to fit it in and you will be up for approximately $800. The battery size capacity will be restricted to an 80Ah "wet cell" (conventional deep cycle), or 55Ah AGM battery, due to the physical size restriction in the engine bay.

As an alternative, you may like to consider a portable battery system, like the "Thumper" for a similar price. This will give you 75Ah+ of usable AGM deep cycle battery power, plus an in-car heavy duty charging system. The whole kit including suitable cabling and Anderson plugs comes complete and can be installed in the rear cargo area by a "handyman" quite easily.

I have both, but given a choice again, I wouldn't bother with a second battery in the engine bay. The Thumper is fully sealed and sits in the back anwhere you choose.
When you consider you may not always leave a fridge in the vehicle when camping, a portable system that can be removed from the vehicle makes practical sense.

Just some "food for thought" John.
Enjoy the Jack.

Johnny do you have a workshop manual for it? I have them on CD for the 1998 -2002 diesel & petrol Engines, yours for the cost of burning & postage...
I'm really pleaased with mine, I'm not pleased with my local distributor though...

I had a Jackaroo that I bought new in 1995. I took it around Australia and it never let me down. Great for touring and medium offroad usage. Deceptively big cargo space in the back and a great seating position.

hello again

yes she is a little old i brought a 1995 se model from a couple of old Italians who never even took it off road in fact it never done any towing either i had to put a tow bar on it

the interior is like it only a year old not a mark anywhere

sandman wow thats a lot to take in all about the suspension will maybe think about that one a little later

i did read a forum that was a bit old about a guy who but in a dry cell 1000 battery on the passenger side under the bonnet read it and i think i even found some pictures of it but i cant find again,, i really like the sound of that setup

i also brought the tray from Piranha and started to fit but i gave up once i realised i had to move the cruse control the canister the water bottle and change the ac cooling line

so im thinking about making my own tray and do the same as that other guy if anyone know of the pictures that would be great

the ball and chain think its turning into a money pit but i didnt hear her complain when kids stopped fighting in the back with the dvd player
i also read a forum about using the light switch for it and i can tell u its to small to run a dvd player on the roof so i ran all new wires to it and kept the lighting wires for what it was intended

any way any info on the duel system that guy had would be much appreciated

sorry forgot to add i put int a waco duel acc plug in the back
i put it in as the jackaroo doesnt have any power sockets in the back

i needed it to run a cf35 waco and a cf 80 which made the missus happy as u can see that alot of fridge but when we go away the whole family uses the fridges thats why i really need a duel battery in the front

now i have 3 x100 amp hours gel cell battery i want to make the starting battery the 1000 dry cell battery move one to where the start battery is now and move all accessorys to it and im going to fit anderson plug in the rear to take the other 2 so when we are not camping i will only have the 2 in the motor bay the other 2 i will take out im hoping i will get at least 4 days with the 300 amp hr batterys before they will need charging

im putting in a 200 amp arb battery isolator with over ride switch with battery monitor to watch both battery set ups

any thing i need to know or i should know im pretty good with wiring and that sort of thing maybe some other people thoughts would be good

Welcome to the Isuzu family Johnny. What motor has she got mate?
Cheers Bruce.

I'm guessing that's the 3.2 V6, good one. They are a brilliant car to drive and very comfortable. Without the suspension lift you will bang the absolutate crapper out of it off road, so I would put that high on the priority list. Rear coils will set you back about $160 and you can fit them yourself in about an hour if you've never done them before. Winding the torision bars up to lift the front is also extremely easy and the only cost involved in that is a spanner (if you don't have one) and a wheel alignment afterwards.

I've been looking at putting a dual battery in my mates 3.5 V6 Jack and have the same problem with the aircon and cruise, however I think it's workable by making a tray that spaces out off the fire wall a little and just moving a couple of simple things around, that way that get's around having to move the air con lines.

Anyway, good luck with her, I reckon they are a good bus. One tip though, keep an eye on the CV boots, if they are starting to wear, CHANGE THEM! We let my mates slip for a while because we were slack and couldn't be assed and the CV joints were realitvly cheap. Yeah, sure enough it let go in the end and then the CV crumpled in a heap, we promptly went out an bought a new one. The Inner CV on the passenger side is an absolute mongral of a thing to change, it is actually a fairly major job involving popping the ball joints, removing the steering arm, removing the entire wheel assembly, shock, swaybar and then you have to get a gasket for the axel seal and it's still a mongral job. We actually got stuck doing it (we've done them on hilux's a million times and thought we'd be right) so put it back together and took it to a CV specalist, he quoted 3 hours and it took him 7!! Even he couldn't belive how hard it was. We can change both the inner and outer CV's and both boots on a surf/hilux in 45 minutes in the driveway!

So basically, boots easy(er) CV it'self MAJOR PAIN!

I'm guessing it's the version with manual hubs, so to check the condition of the boots you just lie on your back and spin the fron axel on both sides around with your hand (should move easy as) and you will be able to see if the boot's are cracked or word. If you pay someone to do the boot's it'll probably cost you about $200 per side for both boots, the boots are only worth about $10-$20 each, but shop around some mongral will try and charge double that!