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So a couple of years ago I was considering a purchase of a 2 or 4 seater ATV, and it occurred to me that a Sierra would be a more practical and probably as capable option. I bought my first Sierra after spotting a for sale ad here. It had a long build thread to look over and appeared to have been done really well!
I have no professional mechanical background, but living in a remote are I'd learned to do a few bits and pieces, changing wheel bearings was about as complicated as it got though. I didn't want to buy a project car, I was happy to pay for someone else's hard work. In this case the hard work included the sweet mods too, G16B, RUF, power steering, WT diffs on a NT, reduction gears, sub tank...
What I didn't take in to account was the quality of the build... I was also buying from 3000km away, though I did get someone to go look at it on my behalf, their instincts are very different to mine it turns out...
My brother collected the car for me, having driven a few km, he called me and described a violent shaking problem. I say, "Oh sure, I've read about a Sierra death wobble thing, apparently it's pretty normal..." He says, "I basically can't turn a corner!" Every time he slowed to approach a corner, in third or second and around 20-30km/h the car would really violently shake throwing everything in the car including him around in a manner unsafe to drive. So he went straight to a suspension place and upon removing the RUF extended shackles and returning it to standard front springs, the car was finally safe to drive. (Still gets the more classical death wobble around 50km/h in a straight line)
On a highway drive between Brisbane and Cairns, the exhaust fell off at the muffler, and the coils crapped out. An unexpected stop at a Townsville mechanic took another couple hundred for diagnosing and replacing the coils.
Finally I meet my brother in Cairns. I had been trying to stay optimistic waiting for him to arrive, figured a few teething problems weren't so bad. But when I saw the car in person, my optimism faded.
The newly painted chassis was already flaking away, the car was full of self tapping screws already working their way loose, the wiring was messy and poorly done. Had I inspected the car myself, I never would have bought it, certainly not at the price that I did... I stopped to see a Mareeba based mechanic I know and trust. On the hoist it was obvious that most of the universal joints needed replacing, the output bearings on the gearbox and transfer case were shagged. His words were, "I reckon you'll get it home, I doubt you'd get it back..."
I had another 980 odd km to get home, to the top of Cape York.
Thankfully, the trip was pretty smooth. We did need to stop and tighten the exhaust headers that had come loose, and did run a tank empty while the gauge still had a decent reading... Oh, I forgot to mention that the car had used 4L of oil between Brisbane and Cairns, oddly enough without any significant leak (doesn't drip on the ground) and without blowing any real smoke either). We used close to another 2L on the leg from Cairns to the tip. We also encountered electrical problems, kept blowing a fuse that killed the clock, stereo and tail lights... We'd replace it, get anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour of tunes, and then black out again...
So, finally home, I decided to wheel it a bit, see what happens. And I thoroughly enjoyed it! It's a really fun car to drive. My other rig is a 2016 GXL Dual Cab Landcruiser, V8, twin locked and nice cold aircon, great for camping and 4WDing. But the little Zook had not only filled a niche for me, there was something just special about it, a completely unique way of experiencing the area compared to the windows up comfort of my daily driver.
I had originally bought and then used the car for hunting with my dogs, and even indulged my inner bogan with some personalised plates, 04PGN.
The Cairns to Cape trip had taken a toll on the wheel bearings, so I replaced the front sets. While I was on the tools I decided to replace the failing uni's on the rear driveshaft. While I was under the car some wiring caught my attention. When the car had been reassembled after painting, the wiring loom to the taillights had been run between the aftermarket sub tank and the body of the car. Upon removal, I found that the wiring loom had been crushed in the process and each of the wires insulation had been worn through, causing the fuse blowing issue I'd been experiencing. It occurred to me that having the stereo and clock on the same wiring loom was a bit weird, but at least they worked again...
I also found the explanation for the loud banging noises I'd hear driving around without the extra weight of 4 hunting dogs, all the body mount rubbers were either completely absent, or crumbled away when touched...
The car ran two transparent fuel filters before a fuel solenoid, and I had seen both clean during an early inspection under their cover, but one day the car began to splutter and choke, after limping the short distance home I found one of those filters was completely filled with a mud like coating. Unfortunately for me the contamination had gone right through to the injectors. I did a bit of Googling and decided I'd have a crack at a home workshop remedy, removing the injectors and injector rail and cleaning them out with brake and parts cleaner via a syringe and a small battery to activate the injectors. It did the job...
I ended up pulling the sub tank out, and it was full of corrosion, the local corrugated dirt roads had shaken up a dirt martini and the injectors weren't in to that... So after cleaning out the fuel lines, and deciding to replace the fuel pump which had already been suspiciously noisy from the beginning, I was back in business again...
I can basically hunt my backyard, so I never drove far from home, I probably only added 1000km to the odometer since getting it home between hunting and the occasional use of it when our main car was out of town. But I expected it to fail at any time. The output bearings were getting worse, there was a problem getting in to first without grinding or slipping out.
I searched around online, and checked ebay and Gumtree regularly for reconditioned gearboxes and transfers. Finally as I started to lose hope of that avenue ever working for me I bought rebuild kits from eBay. The parts arrived and I woke up one weekend ready to attack the task, watched a youtube vid of an overhaul, and decided it was definitely going to be put off for a bit longer...
The car was pretty much benched for the next 12 months, as I again hoped I might just stumble upon a wreck or a recon, but it never happened...
Finally my sister came to live with us, and was working as a teacher in a nearby community. She was getting a lift as a pillion passenger with a mate of mine on his motorbike, but being wet season there were quite a few wet and muddy trips to work. It gave me a renewed sense of motivation to work on the Zook. The mate also offered to be an extra set of hands on the job.
So around mid Feb I finally committed, and dropped the boxes out. When removing the shifters, I found that neither the gearbox nor transfer had anything remotely close to a bushing present. There was some stubborn muck in a couple of spots, perished rubber stuck on the sides but unrecognisable as a bush. I also found that I appear to have an early model shifter, but a later model shifter tower with the larger 8mm locating bolt. The current bolt appears to have been cut on either side rather than being round like it should. At this stage I plan on purchasing an 8mm locating bolt and machining it down to 6mm to suit the stick groove. But if you're reading this and you have a spare stick with an 8mm slot I'm open to buying one for a reasonable price.
The transfer was first on the table, and everything was going well until we overlooked the presence of the speedo gear in the side of the transfer case housing, and as I was trying to press out the main shaft it was crushed, and the pressure cracked the housing where it sits. It was around this time I made contact with Mick at Suziworld in Diamond Creek to start ordering parts. It occurred to me that while we had the gearbox off I should probably just replace the clutch while I was at it so I ordered a HD clutch kit, as well as the body rubbers I was missing. I dropped the case off to a local mate who does a bit of welding and then went to Japan for a couple weeks holiday.
When I got back, I picked up the case, and reassembled the transfer with new bearings and seals, and new handbrake shoes. Interestingly, the casing has white marker on it presumably from a wreckers labeling it an SJ413 '92 but when I called for the handbrake shoes I was advised that it had to be a different model as they'd changed to a rear mounted handbrake by then?
Then, gearbox time. I had a Haynes manual, and had watched Taimo Tonisson's Youtube vid on the overhaul a few times. I set up a video camera, and had a notepad on which I recorded notes about every step. What I'd done to remove something, what direction it faced when it came off etc... I laid every piece on a black plastic wrapped piece of plywood in a manner that meant they would all go back on the way I'd laid them down.
Again, everything was going nicely until at the last stage of the mainshaft, I was facing a situation where my bearing pullers weren't long enough to reach the final bearing holding the last few gears in place. I decided to attempt to press the bearing off through the gears. I double checked the Haynes manual, there was a single ball bearing indicated with a washer on the mainshaft, and that was the last thing I'd just removed.
However, turns out there was another on the opposite side, which I found after pressing through the bearing. Splitting it half with the main shaft bushing behind it cracking the bushing... %$*#
So I was back on the phone to Mick, and he was patient with my sense of urgency to get replacements for the broken bits as I followed him up several times whilst he sourced the parts. He sent them express post from Melbourne to the tip of Cape York after our Wednesday afternoon call, I picked them up Friday afternoon.
With TC Nora approaching our lower left flank we had some wind and rain setting in, and I set about reassembly of the final parts of the gearbox and sat around feeling pleased with myself with a couple of Bundy's before heading off to a dinner with mates.
Yesterday morning, the cyclone was moving past Weipa, and we weren't getting any wild weather, just plenty of rain, and I was too close to just sit around and wait so we got stuck into it. After thoroughly assessing my assembly I applied the liquid gaskets and reassembled the gearbox completely. My mate had come over to help, and we replaced the clutch, and then spent a good half hour fumbling our way through aligning the gearbox to the engine. The alignment tool was tight but easy enough, the gearbox was stubborn... We won in the end though! After we got the transfer back in and installed the sticks and tidied up, there was more self congratulatory beverages.
This morning I had the moment of truth. Having allowed the gaskets to cure, I filled the boxes and slowly moved out of the place where the car has been parked for many months. A cautious but very successful test drive later, I am relieved and very pleased that everything appears to be working perfectly.
Still got the body rubbers to sort out, and I think I'll drop a leaf out of each of the springs to soften things up, but I'm finally excited about having a bit of confidence to go wheel this thing properly! Including purchase price, mechanics and parts I'm in close to $10,000 and I'll finally be able to get something out of it! The Old Telegraph Track is an hour away, I've driven it many times in various Landcruiser's, but I'm excited about Zooking it!
If you're looking for parts, Mick at Suziworld has earned a good review from me, I won't go in to naming and shaming but I found a lot of average and sometimes even very poor customer service during the time I've searched for bits for this car. Mick was always patient and willing to help me resolve queries or research for me. I found a lot of other businesses were really condescending if I didn't know the proper part name, or what exact model each part was from and this thing is a Frankenstein of so many models so I often have no idea!
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