South African Hi-Lux
South African Hi-Lux.
Yes I call it a truck because my wife drives a
small Nissan 1400 bakkie and both vehicle's park next to each other in
the garage and her bakkie looks so small, anyway to give a brief history
of this vehicle, I bought it from a guy in Delmas which is near Springs
in The Transvaal a few years back, maybe three.
Before I bought this Hilux I used to own a Datsun Tracker which was a
1983 model, it had the small L1800 engine fitted, I re-built this
vehicle collecting parts from all over the place, it was a very reliable
little 4x4, but times change in a person's life, after hitting a few
cattle in the road with my other Nissan 1400 bakkie which I wrote off, I
decided that I required a vehicle that had more muscle to the front end
of it, thus I sold the Tracker for R18 000. wanted more but the guy who
was interested in buying it from me knocked my original price of R22
000. down to the R18 000. luckily he had not seen the vehicle yet, thus
I just removed the new ATX Firestone tyres and fitted other more worn
tyres to the vehicle, which I sold the bakkie to him with, I also gave
him a few extra spare parts to go with the bakkie and then afterwards I
sold the ATX tyres to a farmer who carts milk for R4 000. but there were
in fact 6 tyres basically new, thus at the end of the day I still got my
money in the end.
So I now had a written off Nissan 1400 bakkie, which my insurance paid
me out R26 000. then also the R18 000. from the Datsun Tracker and thus
I started to look around for another 4x4, looking at various web sites
and newspapers as well as The Autotrader magazine.
So while looking in The Autotrader I came
across this advert of a Toyota Hilux single cab 4x4 for sale, I then
phoned the person Carel (will leave out his surname ) anyway there was
one photo in the magazine but a person cannot see much in those pics,
thus Carel emailed me some more, my brother said that this vehicle
looked like a boat, he even asked where is the outboard motor at the
rear?
Well I like what I saw and told Carel that I am interested in buying it,
but first just some info on what it consisted of;
Black Diamond 3" suspension as well as shocks
50mm body lift
4Y engine with branches and free flow
single joint revolver shackles at the rear
A so called Detroit Locker in the front
will come back to that later.
Snorkel
Dual roll bar system on the load body
Shortened load body but the chassis was not shortened
Mounted axe and spade
Funny looking copy type ARB front bumper, had this checkered plate on it
for show.
Side rock sliders
Rear pipe with Bow shackle
BFG Muds in 33" x 1250 x 15" but not much left of the tread.
Rhino seat cover
Rhino tarp for the rear
And last but not least A grade 3 anti theft devise pepper spray system
as well as the alarm system.
There might have been one or two other items that I have forgotten to
mention, well Carel was rather rude to me, he said that if I wanted this
vehicle I must pay him straight away, well I did want it, thus without
actually seeing the vehicle in "the flesh" I transferred R55 000. into
his bank account and then a few days later went up to JHB with a truck
from work to go and fetch it, met Carel in Springs at a place that
looked like a huge ship at some shopping mall, had to wait for him and I
can tell you I was getting worried "thinking you know what".
Well Carel did eventually arrive and took me out to his plot at Delmas
to look at the vehicle, I can say that to buy a vehicle under these
conditions is not very nice, what I saw on his drive way was in fact a
vehicle that had just had some paint put on it.
Thus we then sorted out the paper work, keys and a few other things
Carel pointed me in the direction of the nearest petrol station where I
had to fill the vehicle up, after this I was on my way home, but I can
tell you driving a vehicle of this size down the hiways of JHB at 100km
per hour was not fun, when most of the vehicles were passing me left and
right at 120 to 140km per hour, but the looks that I got from people
that passed me, I am still sure to this day that they were not looking
at this cool dude driving this vehicle but at the Toyota Hilux instead.
First of all so that everybody can see who SYRON CONVERSIONS belongs to
and who we are.
Eventually after many hours I managed to
arrive safely back in Queenstown, this is when I noticed some oil leaks,
the power steering box was leaking oil out through the pitman arm shaft,
colour red ATF oil, and there was also a small oil leak under the
engine.
Thus I will just post a few photo's and then carry on with the various
modifications that we have done to this vehicle in the other section.
Ronny driving my truck and I was taking the photo's, the young guys who were with us, help us to clear back the cut thorntree branches, we normally give them meat and cooldrinks when we braai and some money as well.
Crossing over to the other side, yes this is the route that we have to take, this trail is known as The Rocky Mountain 4x4 Trail, just outside Queenstown, it is mean, rough and tough, but optional by-pass sections are available for the drivers who drive 4x4 vehicles that have side steps and no diff locks.
We call the above crossing Wayne's Crossing, one of our club members left his front bumper behind as well as the electric winch, he was driving a Mazda 2.5 DTI and was not happy, he sold that vehicle soon afterwards and is now riding a 4x4 Quad.
Look carefully at these photo's, you will see that not many 4x4 vehicles
cross these sections, if they did you would see tracks made from the
tyres.
We call this The Spider Section of The Rocky Mountain 4x4 Trail below
The photo below was taken at Somerset East a few years back, I was taking part in a 4x4 challenge, was just showing off here in this photo' was trying to see if I could spray the by-standers.
Simon Morris
Syron Conversions
South Africa
