YCHU

My bad, I forgot that I'd need the split paper gasket.
I will get a new paper gasket in case if the old one is all torn up.
Thank you for all your help.

shiann

I sent you back a PM. Feel free to email me.

Since you're ordering stuff, it probably wouldn't hurt to add in some RTV at the cut on the paper gasket. I had planned on using Honda Bond since it's really excellent stuff, but pretty expensive for black goop.

DVR

Shiann

As always, I am enjoying your work. I thought I would share with you my storage set up in the rear of my G.

I had a set of aluminium drawers (with sliding table) made up. It is installed on the RHS of the rear as the rear door of the G doesnt open to a full 90 degree. On the otherside I made up a wooden carcass from 12mm 5 ply. This bolted to the aluminium carcass of the drawers and the combined 'unit' is mounted to the floor and sides using the existing bolt holes for the tie downs. I have installed an ARB aircompressor in the LHS and have access via a trapdoor or rear door. I have then placed a 'roof' over the unit which serves as the new floor which goes the full width across which maximises my storage (and means I can fit my golf clubs sideways).

I have a number of tie downs installed as well as several nut inserts as I have a secondary set up for short camping trips. This secondary set up includes a carcass for storing plastic tubs, a spare 12v battery in a smart box and a small Engel fridge. Photos are attached.

regards DVR


Short Camp set up installed

shiann

Hey DVR,

Your setup is pretty cool. Nice and simple overall and makes really good use of the space. I may just take some inspiration from your design! I most likely won't find the time to dig into this build until spring time next year.

How loud is your ARB compressor being in the cabin? I was thinking through different options how to mount a Viair 400c under the G but not sure if that's a good idea being exposed. A sealed box with an air filter wouldn't be too difficult but overheating would be a concern. I also dream of mounting a secondary fuel tank between the frame rails way way way down the line since the range in these G's is pretty terrible.

Thanks for sharing your setup!

DVR

Shiann

The air compressor is only on when I need to inflate tyres after beach driving. I had trouble reaching my camper from the engine bay posts so I needed a more central location. It is noisy when it is on but spends most of its life off.

I agree that range is an issue on these beasts. I can fit 2 jerry cans on my Rhino rack or up to 4 on my camper trailer. The jerry's where pretty useful on my recent Oz trip.

DVR

s02g500

Jeep Wrangler shocks fit ?

shiann

Sort of, and not really.

The Eurowise kit consists of the Jeep Part numbers above, used in reverse on the W463 chassis. The front shocks need an adapter on the lower mount, which is an eyelet to a stem adapter. This kit was made when Fox paused making the W463 specific kit last year.

The Jeep shocks that Eurowise uses for their kit cost ~$400 each x4 = ~$1200, and you'll need that the bracket made for the correct bolt size and eyelet bar length. The Eurowise kit costs $1850 so there is some $ left in there if you can get those mounts made.

I will say that I believe the valving of the Jeep shocks vs the W463 specific shocks are most likely not the same. The weight difference between the Jeep JK and the W463 is quite significant already. I'll look in the valving difference in Fox's literature as I may re-valve mine when I rebuild them.

shiann

112436

Nothing much interesting with the G lately. Changed the oil today a little bit late (10k interval). Came out pretty black, so I think I'll stick to 5k mile intervals from now on. Otherwise it looked pretty good overall.

Oil Change kits from FCPEuro make it pretty easy.


I'm still getting a intermittent clunking from the front end, so I'll be ordering a new steering tie rod so that everything in the front is all replaced. Also will be flushing the power steering system and replacing the fluid reservoir just in case.

Then I'll go for an alignment before heading out for our long east cost road trip.

Cheers!

shiann

Last minute maintenance items to tackle before leaving for our annual road trip.

Made an alignment appointment at a local shop that could squeeze me in so began tackling replacing the steering tie rod as I'm pretty sure this is the source of my last remaining steering/suspension clunk.

As a note, I picked up a set of these bottle jack/jack stand combo units on Black Friday to help lift the G in a more convenient/easier manner than having to jack by the bottom of the diff. Seems promising after using them to stabilize the G slightly higher than just being up on ramps. Time will tell if these work well for things involving removing the wheels/tires.


Removing the steering arm was easy with a cheap ball joint press/pitman arm puller. I just removed/reinstalled this bar not long ago so it wasn't seized.


Old bar vs new bar. I matched the lengths as best as I could.


A close up showing the condition of my steering arm ball joints. They looked to be in pretty good condition and it seems to have been changed out sometime in the past. The paint/powder coat on the bar was in very good condition overall. I tried to find any vertical play using knuckle busters but couldn't feel any, but there was definitely a clunk in the steering system.


I, of course, forgot that I had to drill out the steering damper shock mounting hole for the upgraded Fox steering Damper. Noticed this AFTER I installed the bar and couldn't mount the steering damper, so had to remove everything to drill out the hole. Always use cutting fluid!


Everything installed back up without an issue. Everything torqued down properly and cotter pins reinstalled. I dropped it off at the alignment shop but apparently Mavis stores DON'T have any G-Class specs in their system, so unless they configure it custom, they can't do it. The service manager was nice about it, but I still ended up leaving without an alignment.

So I had to resorted to a string alignment! Overall I'm not too far off. My driveway is not level which makes things difficult, but I did some guessing to try to dial in the front toe (only adjustable setting on the G suspension) I believe I'm slightly toe out in the front which is confirmed after lots of highway driving, but it's not too terrible.


Packed up the G with the family for our annual road trip down to Florida. 4 Frontrunner Wolfpacks on the bottom with emergency/recovery/car project supplies, and misc everything else on top. Didn't bring a ton down this year, but it'll probably very full coming back up after holiday presents.


Took the boring/direct route down Route 95 this time. Left early afternoon and arrived right around 8AM. Didn't stop besides fueling and to swap drivers in the middle of the night.
1124 miles
18.5 hours
11.9mpg average

Arrived to a nice, warm and sunny Florida?


The G was a champ cannonballing down the east coast. The alignment being off is definitely an issue and I'll address that in the coming days down here. Comfort overall was pretty ok, but those front seats will definitely need to be addressed in the future. They're hard as rocks and remind me of premium economy airplane seats. Slightly comfortable, but too hard. They're ok for an hour or 2, but anything more than that leaves you pretty sore and uncomfortable. I made the pitch to the wife to upgrade to some Scheel-mann seats in the future and she didn't say no! Now just to convince her on the retro plaid fabric center section!

Happy holidays everyone!

Cheers.

Gznutz

^^The 07-08 seats had softer cushioning. Perhaps you could locate a set of those and sell the existing ones?

almostordinary

Nice! Enjoy the holidays down there. I miss driving my old range rover classic from NYC to Tampa every year. Would much rather do that drive in a G though.

My wife also gave the thumbs up on the seat upgrade, but I actually don't mind my 08 seats these days.

But on a side note, we're gonna have to get that headliner addressed. LOL.

Great work per usual though!

shiann

Great hearing from you Ian. How's the process of moving back down the coast going? I checked out some of your commercials an other works. epic stuff!

I may have to track down an 08 and test out the improved seats. Not sure the cost difference between a good set and a set of Scheel-mann's will be that different though.

Yeah that headliner has been on the backburner since I picked up the G and is really getting pretty bad! Hope to finally get time to fix it this winter now that a majority of the car related projects are finished (All the suspension work on the G, as well as all the suspension and clutch work on the Volvo). I'm now debating whether or not to switch the color or just use the material I purchased over a year ago. Now if only I could find it...

8899

It's the Vario F seats from Scheel-Mann that will fit the Gwagon. Cost per each seat is $1,897 (for the clothe seats which includes heat and map net). Arm rests can be added to either side of any seat and are $159 each....but don't think we would need an armrest. BUT, we do need the Scheel-Mann adapter brackets...no idea how much they are though. Slight up-charge for the plaid and full leather.

almostordinary

Thanks man! It's been a crazy end to the year for me, just finished directing a commercial series that I sold in through AZURE at Microsoft. My wife surprised me with land in Mexico, and I've had my car at the Merc dealership only to get fleeced out of $700....

If you got the greenlight on the seats, I'd just go the Scheel-mann route. I sat in a plaid pair up here in Seattle and they were super comfy! Do it, don't waste your time w/ anything OEM and just enjoy the ride.

Currently my G has a fuel pressure damper that's blown its o-ring which I just ordered all needed parts to repair. Just need to wait for them to arrive and the weather to clear.

Headed back to LA for a month starting 1/3 to finish my films, then my wife is coming down so we can do some house shopping. Hoping to be back in LA no later than March, which can't come soon enough.

Ha I feel ya on buying and misplacing stuff.

Hard thing w the color change on the headliner is buying all the complementing black parts ( I spent ~$1600 on visors x2, handles x4 and numerous other bits only sold in Europe to go black). Worth every penny.

But if you're going to invest in the seats, just use the stock color for now. The seats will take that money a lot further.

Enjoy some down time!

Happy Holidays!

almostordinary

When I talked to the guys at Scheel-Mann they said that the armrest kit they offer wouldn't fit in a W463, one of the real reasons I wanted to go w them was I miss arm rests like myy old land rovers and range rover classic had. Made long drives a lot more comfortable. Although the steering on those trucks vs my G55 was night and day. The w463 has some of the heaviest steering I've ever muscled.

PeriodCorrect

Why is it that the 13+ 463’s have lighter steering? The suspension setup is the same, so would that mean it has a beefed up power steering system?

shiann

The steering damper is supposed to be a revised version. The mounting hardware is larger, which I would take a guess and say that the newer steering damper is larger/higher force than the older one.

The power steering pumps between the older G55's and the newer G63s are also different (different engines), but no idea what the pumps output.

Ian, another reason may be those GIGANTIC 35's you have on your G compared to a OEM sized wheel. haha.

almostordinary

Oh yea, I forget about those sometime. LOL.

8899

Are you aware of any SRS fault issues with the seat switch to S-M? I'm particularly interested in the front passenger seat which has the occupancy sensor? TIA.

almostordinary

Yea you'd have to get the seats coded out using MB Star.

PeriodCorrect

Thats very interesting. That happened in 13? Could you retrofit a 13 damper to an 11 relatively easily?

shiann

I'm not sure what year the change over happened, but I read it was somewhere in the middle of production.

The only difference is the hardware size of the mounting points on the bracket that connects to the diff and the bracket on the steering arm. I believe the 'older' damper uses 10mm bolts and the newer damper uses 12mm bolts (I used a 1/2" drill bit when I had to open the holes up since I didn't have a 12mm drill bit). An easy way to see would be to measure the size of your hardware.

If you're planning on upgrading to the newer damper, it will probably feel exactly the same if your damper is still working well. I changed over to the Fox 2.0 steering damper and it was night and day compared to my OE damper that completely leaked out all its fluid and was dead, so I can't really compare. It just made sense for me to go with the Fox damper (time will tell if that was a good idea).

PeriodCorrect

I’m after the lighter steering wheel feel the 13 G550 has. It almost feels like the power steering is 2x as good, you can whip the wheel back and forth with little effort. The enginr is the same as mine, so it would follow the power steering pump is likely the same, correct?

I wonder where the lighter steering is coming from…Because I want it. Lol

shiann

Lighter steering depends on a lot of things. Wheel/Tire size, tire type, wheel offset, wheel spacers or not, age of your steering fluid, condition of your steering box, etc. I believe there is also the ability to adjust the steering box, but that is mostly for backlash in the gears.

I think my steering is overall pretty good. I have 32" BFG KO2 with the Fox 2.0 Steering Damper. It's not an easy 1 handed affair, but not too far off.

shiann

Alignment attempt #2 - FAIL

Brought the G to a local firestone shop down here in FL. They gave the G a whole once over checking over everything, but in the end still could not/would not align the front. Their excuse was the steering box had too much play. I think this does make sense overall since I am feeling a little vagueness in the steering, even after changing out all supporting steering components.

They did give me a printout of the current alignment results which were quite surprising:

- I had thought based on the feel of the G that I was toe-out. Turns out I was very badly TOE IN.
- My front caster angle is only at -4 degrees, which is surprising given I am using the caster correction bushings. I do wonder what my caster angles were prior to installing those.
- Thrust angle for the rear is a little bit off. I believe this is due to the worn rear radius arm to frame bushings. I'll have to address this in the spring along with new radius arm bushings for the rear also.
- My G does have an odd lean towards the driver's side. I wonder what the cause of this is, but I know that G's do tend to have a lean in one direction or the other.
- Front camber is a little bit weird also. Not sure what could cause this but I'll get another alignment in the spring once the rear bushings are swapped out and I rebuild the front Fox shocks and redo the top mounting situation.



I decided to take an hour to do a proper string alignment given how bad the results were. I used this guide to string align and took some careful measurements:

ClubWagen - String Alignment



Alignment Attempt #3:

I took the initial measurements and it was quite far off as the alignment printout suggested. I had to think about it carefully about the measurements I took as it's a little backwards when you think about everything

I started at 11/16" of total toe-in. From my testing/adjusting, I found that a 1/2 turn of the steering tie rod adjustment nut resulted in changing the toe measurement by 1/8", so I went in increments of 1/2 turns and carefully measured over and over. Just an FYI, the bolts/nuts that you have to loosen to move the adjustment nut are 16mm, which apparently I do not have in my socket and wrench sets. I used a medium sized open ended adjustable wrench for turning the adjustment nut.

After adjusting I was able to get it all the way down to under 1/16" toe in. I think I'm pretty close to 0" total toe, but measurement tolerances are the limitation now. It's way better than before adjusting I definitely know that!


Took it for a drive and got up to 80 in a quick stretch and it felt significantly better at speed and getting up to speed than before. The only thing off now is the steering wheel angle, but that's fine as it doesn't affect the alignment at all and I don't have wrenches large enough to adjust the adjustment and lock nut on the drag link.

Also please forgive how dirty the G is. I purchased a bunch of supplies for a proper car wash tomorrow! Won't be able to compound/polish the paint, but will get it clean enough and prepped for the winter as it will most likely see lots of salt and snow when we head back up North.

Lesson: Do your own alignment and don't trust the shops, unless you have a shop that you know and trust. They wasted 3 hours of my time doing their normal checks and leaving the alignment for the end, and still not being able to complete it (Add this to the 3 hours wasted at the other Mavis location and you get 6 hours wasted vs 1 hour to do the alignment properly). All they ended up telling me was about the steering play, and the error messages on the dash that I already knew about. They did only charge me $10 so I guess I can't really complain since now I know to adjust the steering box when I get home.

Anyway, happy holidays everyone.

Cheers!