D22 overhaul

Thought I'd start a thread to show the progress of my D22 overhaul.
i bought the Navara early 09 as a writeoff. I already had a rusty D21 with low kms which donated its engine and gearbox and a few other bits into the newer truck.

After some pretty rough panel work on the passenger door, i took off the tub and sandblasted the rear of chassis, painted and undersealed, made new brake lines as the old ones were corroded, replaced the springs, bushes, shackles and shocks with heavy duty items from milner offroad, and replaced the tub on 40mm lift blocks.

At the front I fitted new balljoints, wishbone bushes, anti-roll bar bushes and shocks. I then put in the rest of the 40mm lifting blocks.
The lower wishbone bushes were a pita as they were too big in diameter so i had to turn them down on a lathe. Actually I used an angle grinder and it worked ok but I would recommend using a lathe if anyone else has this problem.
Most of the wishbone bolts were well seized in the bushes and it took a lot of work with wd40, hacksaw, grinder, blowtorch and sledgehammer to do the front end.
The torsion bars were wound up till the wishbones hit the rubber dampers, then i removed the dampers and made them about 10mm shorter.

Over christmas 09 i bought some rusty old 15x10 steel wheels from a hilux with 35x12.5x15 on them. I then went about cutting and hammering the bodywork to make them fit.
At the rear i cut the lower corners off the wheelarch flares with a hacksaw. The tyres still touch the flares at the top so I need to get extended shackles.
At the front I cut about 1.5 foot off both ends of the front bumper (lower plastic bit) with a wood saw. i hacksawed off the lower parts of the wheelarch flare. I cut a section from the front guards with aviation snips, and moved the front of the sill back about an inch with a sledge hammer.
While i was mucking about with the front bumper i made some spacers to lift it (whats left of it) to match the body on its 40mm spacers.

couple more photos

Today I removed the rear bumper and made a new valance from a piece of 10mm thick alloy plate i had lying aound. it was already the right width so just had to cut a couple of inches off one end, drill holes, mount number plate and lights and make a hole for the rod that lowers the spare wheel.
The mounting holes are in the same place as m6 nuts in the panelwork behind, but I drilled and tapped the treads to m8 as they were the only bolts I had to hand.

I then changed the front brake pads. I was expecting them to be worn out as I was getting metal on metal sound. turns out 3 were not even half worn. On the 4th one the brake lining was completly gone, must have detached from the backing pad.

I also started on the brackets that will hold the tube bumper behind the valance. They are made from 40x40x5mm angle iron. Got 1 made today, hopefully I can make the other identical tomorrow.
Was good to finally try out my mig on a decent bit of steel, I'm not a very experienced welder but I'm pretty proud of the result.

Forgot to take a picture of the valance, will post one later

Looks like you still need to raise your tub a bit for more tyre clearance.
When are you going to fix that door? That BOG looks like it was applied with a shovel!!

Good work keep it up. You definately will need more clearance for those 35's.

Nice work, the tyres look great.

nice. what sort of wheeling you going to be doing? watch out for your transfer chain.

sorry just read its 01? model... no need to worry bout the chain.

08KINGCAB said:

Looks like you still need to raise your tub a bit for more tyre clearance.
When are you going to fix that door? That BOG looks like it was applied with a shovel!!

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The bog was applied properly, there is just not enough on there yet. I should have spent a bit longer straigtening the panel first. It is possible that i did use a shovel at some point of the panelbeating. I used a garden fork to mate the engine to the gearbox!
I cant fit the truck in the garage anymore so the door and other bodywork are going to have to wait until summer when theres more daylight and less snow.
I have shackles arriving soon that should lift the rear about 1.5" and if thats still not enough for tyre clearance I'll take the flares off and attatch them higher up, and cut away any offending metal from the tub.

joshy said:

sorry just read its 01? model... no need to worry bout the chain.

Click to expand...

It actually has the transfer case from a 93 D21. Dunno if this is good or bad? It works which is all that matters at the moment.
I have a spare 01 gearbox/transfer case, clutch etc If anything breaks. Most parts seem to be the same or similar.

Here is the new rear valance. As I said earlier it is made from 10mm alloy plate, panel steel would have done the job but I had the alloy plate and thought why not?

nah thats a good thing. There stronger, although the 01 should be the same.

joshy said:

nah thats a good thing. There stronger, although the 01 should be the same.

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The 93 box bolted straight in the 01 chassis and both front and rear driveshafts fit without any hassle.
There was a difference on the input shaft between the 93 and the 01, they have same number of splines but the taper and spline length is different.
This is why I ended up using the 93 gearbox and transfer case.
Also the linkage system for the 4wd shifter is slightly different. 93 had better rosejoints with rubber boots.

Fitted the extended shackles yesterday, below is a pic showing them compared to standard.
The leaf springs now seem to be a little flatter and harder, which is quite good as the front is pretty hard with the torsion bars wound up.
Overall it seems to handle really well now. It still needs a proper wheel alignment at some point but i'm quite happy with it so far.
Also fitted some avm manual locking hubs on the front as the old auto lockers were knackered. i'm not very happy with the quality of them but they were the only ones I could find in the uk. They work and they were cheap so its not all bad.

Oh, I've also installed a new blower motor for the heater after about a month of scraping ice from the inside of the windscreen.
I couldn't find a navara one anywhere without paying $$$ at the main dealer so I took a gamble and bought one second hand from a pulsar gtir.
Luckily, it's a perfect match!

Mate if your after genuine manual locking hubs, check out eBay Australia - Buy or sell practically anything on eBay, the world's online marketplace and see if they will post them to you. There are often D22's wrecking on there.

Dave.

I wonder what postage to the UK is like for those, and whether or not British Customs will get really excited by them as they pass through the xray scanner?

dunno about shipping from oz but i've got a few bits from the usa recently and after shipping, customs duty and vat are added it usually works out double the price of the item to begin with.
had some gumboots sent over from nz a while ago as they dont have them here (they have wellingtons), and after customs etc they ended up costing $150 for a $50 pair of boots!