Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

I'd appreciate that. the scary thing is,......i'm serious!

Hi Ross - As JG suggested - you want all the locks to go with the same key again - so, Either have the key adjusted to the new locks, or the locks to the key [if you in Pretoria or near, oompie will do for you for free]
Get the door and ignition lock from a scrapyard - transfer your existing transponder to the new key, and you should be "GO" [for less than r1000 the insurance will cover.
What you do with the crooks? No comment

I got a Patrol Pick up - no central locking or transponders !

Also, i'd rather keep things as original as possible, but i will go scrapyard route if all else fails.

Ps: Glass is a bitch to get, only arriving from jhb tomorrow! flip man, only gonna get my truck back by thurs avie. Outrageous.

So what were the blxzms after? They try steal the truck or radio .. or what? [of lees ek nou weer soos my alie?]

Hi Russ

I was taking a look at the post where you describe painting the wheels, your lorrie looks flippen awesome. Do you have the ally canopy you built permanantly on?

Just a story, a buddy of my brother's (this is quite a few years ago now) bought himself a new Isuzu. Two days later it was swiped. So he bought another one, which got swiped within a week. So he bought a third one, took his baseball bat and smacked it full of dents. He drove that bakkie for five years, and nobody ever touched it.

@ Kagiso - They took nothing. But i generally do not leave anything in the vehicle except some stuff behind the seat and some stuff hidden in the Canvas seat covers back pockets. So they just threw stuff out the cubby all over the place finding nothing. I hate these people.

@ Peter - Yes, wheels done, and had to do another one the other day cause i wrote one off on a flippen stair case - i know, its been a bad month for my troll if you include the damage to my side panel at work. AAAAArRrGGGgg.

The canopy is on full time by means of 12 M8 bolts to tub. I have them running through the 50x50mm square tubing, but its not actually ideal. What i'm going to do is have them drill out and weld in a compression tube at each bolt point, so there is no give in the square tube.I'm doing this as i do not want the canppy to be thrown off in an accident, i have removed the roll bar so i designed the canopy internals strong enough to take this place. i've just modified the spare wheel holder that comes with the roll bar (now in storage) . I'll post a bunch of pics soon as i get my truck back.

Thing is, when i bought this vehicle i really had to dig deep to afford it, so i decided there and then that everything i do will be done properly without exception. It very easy to take a short cut when time is a problem, not to mention money. Eish. I'm a huge fan of the patrol and it was a dream vehicle since i was young, so i plan on doing my utmost to look after it, however, i have already put some huge scratches into the paint, but thats from bushes and trees when offroading, and i can;t be too sentimental about that otherwise we'll never get off the road!

Hi Russ

Compression tubes are the strongest way to go, but expensive and difficult to do. What I normally do is to drill a large hole in the top of the tube (with a hole saw), then the bolt (fitted with a nice big high-tensile washer) rests on the bottom of the tube instead of trying to crush the tube. The other nice way to do it is to weld an angle onto the bottom of the canopy sides such that the one leg fits snugly inside the loadbed. That way if (God forbid) you end up on your roof, the load is transferred into the loadbed directly instead of through the bolts?

I guess I am sort-of lucky that the only Patrol I could afford was a relatively old one, which already had some scars, and therefore I worry less about adding a few scratches. And there is less interist from crims since it looks fairly scruffy and is a relatively scarce model anyway (this may just be wishfull thinking).

I saw a Hilux for sale once where the guy had done quite a clever mod. He had made a very solid frame from 50x12 flat steel bar that fits in the footwell, with a 5mm steel plate hinged at the bottom. When it is closed, it encloses the pedals so that nobody can steal the car and it doubles as a very handy safe for locking small valuables in.

Yes, thought of the hole-saw,large washer at the bottom inside the tube thing, but then if i wanna take it off i would inevitably loose the bolt/washer in the frame work, the the bolt cannot be longer than 50mm (in fact it can only be about max 38mm so to not make contact with the tub edge fold on the outside), with would then leave the silly thing rattling around for ever!

Admittedly on another forum i started a thread about fuel taps - and i have many great replies including a final solution which matches what i had in mind. I will definitely post the results here for all to benefit from. This as a last form of defence. Mechanical inline fuel tap - i'm picking up the parts monday next week and will begin the install asap - soon as i have a final product i will post here.

Thanks for all the reposes guys, i really appreciate it.

sorry to hear about your patrol's woe's dude!! on my last trip i picked up plenty of scratches, a nasty bump and a bit of rust - always an issue when you want your pride an joy to be in show room condition 100% of the time, but then also be in the bush, 100% of the time.

Catch 22 mate!

Shot Dave! Welcome back to the forum, we've missed your input !

Ps: Where's that trip report dude, we all waiting !