133 replies to this topic

[El_Freddo]

Hmmm… I wonder what the drive ratios are. Could be good for the 3.7 ratio swap, then keep the 4.44s on the shelf for Ruby Scoo to convert her to 4.44s.

With the brumby I’m aiming to run the standard tyre diameter, which I think is 23 inch overall from memory. I’d also like to work out how to marry a set of Pajero brakes to the MY gear to retain the 140x4 pcd, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish!

While I’m here, this was on my way to work last Tuesday before our big trip to Queenscliff with school:



Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Redback made a friend down the street in the next town over today:



She looked a bit rough compared to the lifted one. Need to find some time to get some stuff done on her.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Wow, bit of a drought between posts not much really goes on with Redback other than driving her and topping up the oil as regularly as I do the fuel tank.

But now a really cool chapter in the Saga of Redback as many of you may have seen, this is the backstory:

This one started unbeknownst to any of us way back when Subarino shared some exciting news. Then the night he arrived in Skidney he messaged me to say hed landed! I remember Mrs El_Freddo and I were getting take out since most of our kids abandoned us for sleep overs at their Auntys or Grandmas for the night (that blew out to seven nights!!). I said to Mrs El_Freddo that I should duck up the road to see Subarino and that I could take the Brumby. Her reply was why not?. That sealed it for me.

So the next day the Brumby copped a much needed oil change and I packed the usual camping gear, tools and spare jerry can for the trip while I waited to hear from Subarino that hed have time to chill out with me. I got that notification that night, the next morning I was off earlyish, 7:30 - only to find out local coffee trailer was closed, so I had to wait until I got to the Elmore Bakery for a coffee. Worth the wait. Driving conditions were challenging with a windscreen that was fogging up and the amount of fog outside the car too, it was very taxing driving! This was after 1.5hrs driving when I thought I should take some pics of this trip, the fog was lifting at this point:



Subarino had told me he was chasing some bits for the MY so I thought I might be able to help out since Sydney wasnt turning anything up via the usual social network channels and there was bound to be lots of wreckers in my travels. I drove past a place I knew on the other side of Shepparton with half a paddock full of various cars with some being old Holdens from the late 60s. Curiosity got the better of me so I hooked a U turn and asked if they had any old Subarus. They didnt have any Subarus let alone old ones! But the old fella there told me of a wreckers in a town in the direction I was headed in that might have something that I was chasing.

So off I went to this town, topped up with fuel, filled the jerry can and gave Redback a much needed wash to make her more respectable:



I went to the wreckers on my way out and called the number on the gate. The dude said that they had a 1985 wagon and a 1989 wagon. I knew both of these to be the L series but thought it worth checking them out. While waiting I spied a flat roof of a beige wagon from the front gate but couldnt see anything else to identify it, and I thought maybe they had it listed incorrectly. The fella let me check it out and it was indeed a 1985 Subaru wagon - of the MY variety! Never heard of any MY other than the brumby being from 85 onwards! And it had the bits I was looking for! A price was negotiated, a forklift was almost bogged getting the wagon out of the yard and I had a small pile of parts to take with me as the end result. Heres the MY wagon some may recognise:



After that bit of excitement it was lots of this:



I had planned to camp out at a place off the side of the Hume but worked out it would be better to drive all the way into Skidney and find some accommodation. I booked some in Greenacres. More on that later.

When doing road trips youve got lots of time to think about things - like the fan belt that runs the water pump and alternator that you forgot to replace before leaving home - an hour before close of business! Typical



The mechanic in this town was awesome to deal with but unfortunately didnt have the belt size I needed. Yass had a store that probably had what I needed but I was still ages away and there was no chance of getting there in business hours. While in town I had a toilet stop and emptied the jerry can into the Brumbys tank.

So on with the driving, listening and monitoring for that belt letting go. I figured my voltage would drop pretty quick and the temp would to rise at the same time if the belt snapped. If this was to happen I was dead in the water until the next day when I could work out a game plan. Fortunately only this happened:



If you squint closely at the odometer it rolled over the 250,000km mark. Nice trip to do it on I reckon.

I got to my accommodation at Greenacres. I went with this place for the price and because it said it had parking that was a back street public car park, not really happy with that. The place was crawling with ppl when I arrived at 9pm, my brumby was the oldest piece of tin on wheels by a long shot! I was nervous about its safety. I setup my room then headed over to see Subarino at his hotel about 20mins away to catch up before returning to my accommodation that had a mattress that was far too soft average night sleep had!

The next morning I picked up Subarino from his hotel and we grabbed a cafe brekky before heading to MCM HQ.

At this point I thought it would be some sort of a meet and greet, hand over the parts I collected and off we go to cut a lap of Sydney and cruise over the big coat hanger that is the Sydney Harbour Bridge - two mates on a cruise in a brumby in a big city... Nope (not disappointed!).

I was invited in to check out the brumby project then ended up removing the dashboard with Moog. Subarino worked on other stuff that I dont remember and I cant remember how my brumby ended up in the Super Garage but Im stoked it did! When Moog did the filming with me about Redback I thought it might end up as a short video on MCM2 - but to my surprise it made it into the opening scene of episode 4! Here she is, chilling out watching us work on a fellow project brumby:



An awesome day and experience had! I didnt think Id be meeting the boys let alone working on their project. Im forever grateful to the MCM boys and ultimately Subarino for opening up this awesome opportunity for me to be part of a) the MCM self described biggest project yet, have my car featured in one of their main videos for a moment and c) doing all of this with a best mate of mine! Unreal is an understatement!

Marty sorted me out with a new fan belt (thanks mate!) and some gearbox oil old cars! And I failed to check this before leaving home. Rookie mistake but no issues.

At the end of the day we packed up, Subarino and I jumped in Redback, we fuelled up the brumby and the jerry can too, and had an interesting drive navigating our way to the airport. Theres one intersection Im sure Subarino will remember for the rest of his life, no near-collision or anything like that, we were just in the wrong lane but wanting to turn right EA81 pow-ah :twisted:

At the airport we smashed some dinner, I saw Subarino off then jumped in the Brumby to head for home myself. By the time Subarino was home I think I was at Gundagai refuelling.



I drove for a few more hours, but once over the Vic border I felt that heaviness of fatigue setting in and knew I couldnt make the three and a bit hours left of the drive home. So I found a decent back road to camp on the side of, set up and got an awesome night sleep. Waking up on sunrise after a truck rumbled past it was a bit fresh:



I headed into Wangaratta as I needed some engine oil. I had breakfast in the carpark and the brumby had some too After this it was pretty much a straight shoot for home. Once home I unloaded my gear then headed to my sisters place an hour and a half away for a round trip to help her out; because family and whats a few more hours of driving at this point??

I got back home and my kids didnt even know Id gone since they spent so many nights with their Aunty or Grandma, that was kind of funny!

I hope youre all enjoying/have enjoyed the brumby build series! If you havent seen it go check it out from episode 1

I was lucky enough to be asked back to help out later, as was Subarino! We were pinching ourselves on this adventure - two mates hanging out working on a vehicle were both passionate about with two other genuine fellas (that feel like old mates) that are in the same book!!

Thats it for now. Next epic adventure is Subinats at the end of Sept23 Ill have a story there too Im sure, hopefully another good one!

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

Sounds like you had an epic trip there Bennie! Always love reading about people's adventures, especially when they're passionate about them!

I'm glad you've linked the episodes too, I haven't had a chance to go looking for this yet, so this way I don't have to!

Gotta love being included in some pretty well known youtubing!

Looking forward to the next update!

Cheers,
Ben

[JDP]

What a great experience for you, Bennie. You would've been in your element twisting spanners on the MCM Brumby and I'm sure Subarino's and your knowledge would've been a massive help for Marty & Moogs to get the job done a lot quicker (along with Aaron). It's great seeing some Subyclub lads getting in on the Action.

 

I had a good old laugh when it clicked to me that it was you & the redback in the vid 

 

I'm not a big MCM fanboy by any means, I mostly watch the Subaru related content and I kinda wish they were longer videos and a go into more in depth on the builds (Only because I really enjoy them). They seem like great guys and obviously enjoy what they do. Props to them for what they have achieved & living their dreams.

 

 

Fan belt - One time I snapped a fan belt in a VH Commodore and the Tacho needle went bezerk bouncing & swinging around. I wonder if Suby's do the same thing when it goes? Glad you didn't find out though.

 

 

Redback is looking great mate.

[El_Freddo]

Yeah awesome trip Ben! So lucky for it to all fall into place like that! I wish I was more involved along the whole process but really can’t complain at all about the whole experience! Still stoked about Redback being on the program! Being at work is taking a bit of the excitement off it all atm, just got a lot of shit going on which can go take a lie off a cliff.

Thanks Kong, Redback looks good in motion or from afar, that keeps the Rosie coloured glasses doing their thing It was nice to work in a shed/garage that had some organisation to it - and it’s about the size hat I want in our backyard so it was good to see how the space could be utilised.

I’m looking forward to the trip in the school break, thinking of detouring through Bilpin to see if I can score a Bilpin sticker

Got a bit of work to do on Redback before we leave - main thing is putting the interior back together and cleaning all the crap out from behind the seats. I should also remove the EJ22 wiring loom and computer as it’s no longer needed.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

I’ve booked in for the show and shine at Subinats. Selected a couple of categories but doubt I’ll be in with a chance, it’s more about shits and giggles at this point, and to have my brumby in the line up with others.

Now that excitement has worn off I’m stressing already about making it there and back on my tired old EA81. The pinging issue that happens in warmer weather is my main concern. It started doing it driving into Sydney about half an hour out. I cringed and ignored it…

Did some reading and some suggest old plugs could be part of the issue. I’ll look into this one and also the centrifugal weights in the dizzy as I believe I’m only running something like 4° advance. Anything more and ping ping ping she goes. This is a long term issue and is the reason why she runs on 98 all the time.

Hopefully I’ll work it out and this workhorse runs flawlessly. Can only prep and hope…

That’s it for now. If anyone has other brumby/EA81 specific info on this I’m all ears! And yes, shoving an EJ22 in there has already crossed my mind with the L series 5spd. I’ve got everything except the one piece tailshaft to mate that box to the rear diff. The two piece will work but I don’t want to go drilling holes in my floor pan. So I’ll run the EA81…

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Well Redback Brumby did me proud - she lapped up the Sydney trip like it was nothing. Awesome drive and an awesome day out!

More to come later once I get some things squared away

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Pack a lunch for this one... nothing unusual there!

Subinats happened on Saturday the 30th of September 2023. My preparation plans went out the window when I did my back for the first week of the holidays - very frustrating! So I got down to the essentials - put the interior back together = door cards, rear wall panel & roof glass straps. I got all that done between other work but couldn't find my straps so I'm guessing they're at M&D's.

Gave the interior a clean out, removed the EJ22 engine management harness that I'd originally planned to run with the NA/t setup several years ago. I also pulled the instrument cluster out to investigate a chattering noise that developed on the way home from Sydney last time. It turned out there wasn't any issues developing that I could see, so I added some moly CV grease to the worm gears that had old lube present and this seems to have solved that issue. While putting it all back together I dropped a screw behind the heater control settings and spent two hours going down the rabbit hole with sorting that out.

With that we packed our gear, threw it under a tarp, strapped it in and we were off at 8:20am Thursday morning after fuelling up at our local servo. From there the first stop was Deniliquin 2hrs into the drive:



It was the Deni Ute Muster weekend too. We missed being pulled over by the police that were everywhere. Following the GPS we went through town and past the Ute Muster paddock - there were loads of vehicles already in the venue with plenty more moving in too. After this traffic died down to nothing which was odd. It turned out since we were off to Conargo we should've been diverted around a big block of land to avoid the area. At Conargo it was a surprise (a good one) to see the old pub rebuilt. Last time we were here in 2019 it was a burnt out pub with only the façade saved. More on this later.

We had a great run into Griffith. I decided to detour the trip to Griffith to visit my old forum mate FROG. Sadly I never got the chance to meet him in person. I took the opportunity to visit his grave to pay my respects. The dudes mowing the grass in his block spoilt the moment a little, it was still good to drop in none the less.

At this point the brumby got 8L/100km from home to Griffith - probably because there's about two hills between start and refill and no wind. Still stoked! Cruise control made the trip very easy too - one of the great mods worth doing!

We filled up in Bathurst a number of hours later, many hills traversed with long steady climbs, loads of fun and good scenery too. 9L/100km. The engine also needed some oil at this point as it was sounding rattly. It usually needs oil added to the engine when fuel is added to the tank, which I failed to do in Griffith...

We continued on looking for a feed and a place to camp for the night. Dinner in Lithgow (they have the weirdest Bunnings that's retrofitted into an old pub, wish I took the time to get a pic even though it was dark). Camped at Mt York Campground and Lookout. We got there at about 9:30pm, the place was packed but we managed to find a little spot for ourselves. In the morning we were well rewarded with views and mainly by the still weather - this place would not be fun if it were windy since it's on top of the western edge of the Blue Mountains!



We hooked off early and found a neat spot for breakfast that allowed us to take in the awe of the Blue Mountains - Mt Banks picnic area. Stunning views!



Next stop was Bilpin! It was interesting because looking at the road maps on my phone I thought the road and the town would be in a valley like they typically are in Victoria where the settlers followed the gold or the grasslands up the valleys. Nope, this town was on a ridgeline. Stunning country, the town was tiny! This was the only big feature in town on the side of their cafe to note we were there, other than pulling over for a photo with an orchid or cidery's sign; pretty good and a bit of fun:



We arrived in Sydney's outer suburbs mid morning, checked out our hotel location, contacted a mate and arranged to hang out with them for the arvo. Our other plan was to cut a lap over the big coat hanger (aka the Sydney Harbour Bridge), that wasn't needed. We checked into our hotel, had a bite to eat (tailgate cook up in the hotel carpark!), then headed off to pick up Subarino and Tim81coupe (who I haven't seen since my 2007 trip to WA!) in my mate's car. But that's another story! We got back to the hotel at 1am!

Up early the next morning to put the show and shine sticker on the brumby, give it some tyre shine and get into the line for an 8am bump in.



Then onto the skid pan for the show and shine setup. I was totally out of my league here. Ppl were still polishing up their vehicles, I washed mine the night before at a car DIY wash 20mins from the hotel... Good from a-far, far from good. If there was a wooden spoon prize, I wouldn't be surprised if Redback took it out - it was all in good fun though. I definitely had the best bullbar there!





^ There's Redback in the middle of all that straight, perfect paint sporting Subarus! I can't get over the amount of money people put into their cars! It was nuts thinking about how much coin there was collectively dropped into all of these builds. Some weren't for everyone, others were awesome. There was a concourse RS restoration that was up for sale. It was minty fresh and an awesome example of another awesome model. I digress...

There was loads of stuff to check out - races happening around the Sydney Motorsport Park (Eastern Creek), drift rides in the new BRZ, the Subaru display of their collection including the infamous 22B, a concept XV (offroader fitout) and the MCM built Brumby - it looked mint in the sun!







Looks so good and it was great to finally see it all together with all of the interior fitted, it looked mint! Someone is going to be a very lucky person when they win this Brumby!

My Brumby got a new sticker - shout out to the Legend that is Marty for this one:



There's also the Subaru 50th anniversary sticker in the lower centre now.

Alex took out Best Brumby Award out of the four that were there. Unfortunately we were spread out other than Alex and Mitchell that came down from Qld together in the EJ turbo Brumbys, they bumped in together. Mitchell's Brumby:



Alex's award winning Brumby:





^ WRX interior fitted and customised by Alex himself. Very tidy! Harrison's Webered EA81 with the MINTIEST Scorpion rims I've ever seen!



Awards were done and we were "kicked off" the skidpan for the shoot out and gymkhana. Subarino, Tim81coupe and I began watching the skid pan action from the grandstand then moved down and hung out with Alex and Mitchell for the rest of the event. It was awesome watching the drivers become better with their skills as the day went on. There was also one Sigma station wagon that was there in the middle of the Subarus in the comp (including Alex's Brumby) - this wasn't a regular sigma - it was AWD! This was achieved by fitting the station wagon body to a caged WRX floor pan. Different!

Hanging out watching the skidpan action. I moved my brumby in because I could. In doing that I found another Brumby in the carpark - a beige lifted one with stock sunnies. That totals seven Brumbys known to be there on the day, I thought there would be way more!





We were there all day until the last event! Awesome day seeing all the cars, the stalls and all the ppl met on the day. HUGE! After hanging out at the hotel for a bit with Subarino & Time81coupe, I got to bed at 12:30am - not great for the drive the next day.

We were up at 6am, packed the Brumby and off from the hotel at 7:10am - but since daylight savings kicked in that night it was "really" 6:10am! We fuelled up our third tank not far from the hotel and threw in a bottle of octane booster as I was anticipating warmer weather that brings on pinging with my EA81 - most likely due to the oil usage.

The drive through the Blue Mountains was spectacular - up and over 1090m above sea level from memory! Very enjoyable even though it was windy, it would be better with the EJ turbo AWD drivetrain... I was looking at fuel in Bathurst but we continued on and had our second breakfast at Grenfled (I can vouch for the bacon and egg rolls!) where we stumbled across this little beast:



And some silo art in the same town:



We filled up our fourth tank of fuel at Narrandera and this tank got us home easily. I don't have the fuel stats worked out for this yet.

Last stops on our way home for some pics were at the Conargo Pub where we swung in for a softie and grabbed a new bullbar sticker:



^ Morning pics are WAY better at this location due to the front on angle of the sun

And I stopped off to grab a better pic of the Deni Ute Muster site since the front gates were now shut and not blocked by copious amounts of utes entering the venue:



We made it home by 7:40pm as the sun was going down. I'm yet to fill up the tank and get the final stats sorted for the run. The octane boost was a great insurance policy running in the warmer weather. My co-pilot (the senior little El_Freddo) did amazing throughout the trip and it was awesome to have him along with me! He was stoked to meet Marty and Moog in person this time!

Epic trip, the Brumby didn't miss a beat - very proud of it considering how I found the engine. The gearbox had a whine on the July trip and was eased with some gearbox oil, but this played on my mind for the first bit of the trip. Hopefully the oil burning and gearbox whining will be sorted some time soon (maybe several years yet who knows).

I hope you enjoyed my Subinats story! If you're keen to have an awesome day out, I recommend getting to next year's event - I'll be considering heading up there again in 2024, but no promises!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

The old girl isn’t very happy. At cruise it’s got a miss and it’s idling really low. I don’t know what’s problem is as under load it’s fine.

So far I’ve checked vacuum lines and that the spark leads are connected correctly. I haven’t had time to do much else yet.

Maybe the fix is same for a dodgy carby - an EJ conversion. I need to get a gearbox crossmember sorted as well as shortened shifter linkages and a custom tailshaft. On that last one I’m going to have a work around from an old Holden. I’ll look into that further when the time comes.

It’s also nice to have the interior all back together as a result of prepping for Subinats!

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

That is an epic read dude, and it looks like the photos don't do justice to the scenery and cars! An absolutely insane trip!

Hopefully an easy fix whatever it is causing grief! If you need one in a pinch, I've got a 2.0 out of a GX. Has the engine loom still there, but I don't know where the rest of the car's loom or the ECU wound up. Probably got scrapped. But. It does have 400k on it.

Cheers,
Ben

[El_Freddo]

Hey Ben, thanks for the offer. If push comes to shove I’ve got an EJ22 that can go in. I don’t think the gearbox would like that though as I’m not ready to drop the matching AWD box in which is my end goal. I’ll keep the EA ticking along once I get a chance to look at it, hopefully later today given that it’s a public holiday for me due to the Bendigo Cup. The race that stops a nation doesn’t stop rural Victoria

I also need to pull my finger out and sort out the fuel stats from the trip.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Redback makes a cameo appearance in the latest MCM video (thanks Marty, I know you secretly love Brumbys too)!

At about the 26min 28s mark:



Thats about all thats happening other than avoiding this misfire issue. Ive cleaned up the dizzy contact and rotor button without change so its pointing at the carb that I really dont want to have anything to do with atm!!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Finally put a carb kit through Redback’s carb. They’re not cheap these days, nor easy to find like carb kits once were. Sign of the times understandably.

The rebuild took roughly six hours from start to finish. Lots of cleaning crud off the carb happened. Then carby cleaner for all the other bits. That stuff is serious business! Probably not good for your skin…

At the peak of the rebuild it all looked like this. I didn’t get any pics of the carb looking semi new…



Now Redback cruises along without issue and doesn’t rattle when revving hard up near 5500rpm. Not an everyday thing but good to know it can be done.

It was really good to be cruising in Redback again! Basil is good but he’s no brumby

Happy days again! Now to remember all the other little bits that need attention… and continue on the conversion work.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

So I had some issues with idle and initial acceleration.

I need to pull the top of the carb off to sort out the accelerator pump. After assembling I found a note in the kit saying that flexing the grommet/gasket bit that seals on the walls of the accelerator pump cylinder will make it work properly and not doing this can cause a momentary flat spot when you push on the throttle. Guess what I have, it seems to be getting better but even so…

Early days but it looks like I’m getting better fuel economy but won’t know until I refill the first time to get an initial indication. Atm the fuel level and kms travelled is looking good though. Not surprising that it’s potentially going to get better fuel economy. Fingers crossed!

The engine also runs smoother especially when accelerating through the rev range.

That’s it for now, it’s great to have her running again! And as usual with these things - I should’ve done this ages ago! ;(

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

On my way to work today I was several kms out of town, things were still warming up properly, 100km/h, cruise engaged and things are normal. Then the cruise seemed to be working hard to maintain 100km/h and the engine sounded more rattly than usual, and was quickly struggling.

I couldn’t work out what the issue was other than it was engine related. It was an odd one as it almost seemed like a CV joint issue - the noise had a weird rhythm that got worse with load.

Under heavy load the noise got worse and the vibration even worse again. I was able to limp it home at 65km/h, and swap into the Liberty. I was really late for me at this stage - and concerned the issue with Redback was a terminal engine issue.

I was like a pet owner waiting to hear about their severely injured animal at the vet… only I was the vet and couldn’t wait to get home to diagnose the issue.

And here’s the issue:



Exhaust valve - explains why when loading up the engine the noise got worse and the vibration so violent it sounded like something was going to break.

Re-adjusted back to spec and all is good now, I’m glad it was an easy fix!

It was good to go for a drive again without any issues - I thought it was going to be a while before I could do that again! I’m not ready for the EJ conversion, there’s still lots to be done on that before it can go in. For now I want to keep this engine doing all the work.

That’s all for now.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Redback got her shake down drive today - about 300km of towing a ute trailer picking up household items. Nothing heavy or big, just flat pack stuff that didn’t all fit in the brumby. Redback took it in her stride once again. Stoked! Couldn’t do this before the carb rebuild!

Hopefully this streak continues!

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Last weekend we headed out to collect some wood at a community wood collection coup. Mrs El_Freddo doesn’t like trailers in general and since her family bus was towing one we swapped vehicles to get into where the wood was. As a result I managed to snap this photo of Redback brumby in its natural environment. There’s something about a vehicle in motion in pics:



Not much going on for Redback at the moment other than needing the water pump replaced as the current one is leaking and it’s slowly getting worse. I’ve got one ready to go, it’s just a case of putting it in.

Cheers

Bennie

[El_Freddo]

Water pump replaced last weekend. Bolts not properly torqued up as I dont trust the threads in the block - theyre known for pulling themselves out. 16Nm is the specified torque setting. Ive done them up as much as Im willing to go and that doesnt even register 10Nm. No leaks though.

After that it was a small loop of central Vic - home to Lancefield then Heathcote > Elmore > Lockington > Cohuna > Pyramid Hill > Serpentine > home. Redback didnt skip a beat! And she returned 8.6L/100km! Thats nuts for a 30+ year old car thats not fully rebuilt.

We did another bit of a loop today visiting some pubs - Benders to Redesdale (below), Maldon, back to Castlemaine as our preferred pub in Maldon was temporarily closed. Had dinner then back to benders and on to home.



I dont know fuel stats etc yet. There were a few hills in this trip and some twisties which was fun.

Cheers

Bennie

[allpaw4]

Nice Bennie! Been looking at maybe trying to find one of these for a wood ute to be honest. I know their tray isn't huge, but the low range 4wd and decent ground clearance would be prime. Plus I wouldn't be shelling out lots of cash for one like most other 4wd utes these days.

Looks like you've been having a good time with this one man! Glad its performing well!

Cheers,
Ben