Outer Limits 4x4 Board

G'day, a few mates & I just bought an '84 L300 4wd van, and as a bit of a joke we want to give the 'party bus' some lift. Has anyone fitted a body lift, longer shackles or diff over? Any help, direction or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Sounds like a great idea "lifted party bus" Flag the idea of a rear diff over, you won't match it up front unless you do a SAS or buy an expensive front kit. You can get away with a body lift 40-50mm as it a separate chassis, easy! Put some 32" Simexs underneath after a torsion bar twist and a new set of lifted rear springs and then post some pics. Good luck with the build-up.

Yeah, body lift seems to be the go, but we're wondering about steering shaft, handbrake cable, and shift linkages. Can you also fit manualy locking hubs instead of the auto ones?

Steering shaft will be fine, you can undo the knuckle by the pump and then retighten, the handbrake can be dropped and mounted 40-50mm (whatever your lift) on the centre mounts and get someone with a gas set to bend the levers to suit the cabin. Hope this helps?

Think about what your saying, its an L300 van. Don't even think about taking it off the road. However you could get a GQ patrol, take the body off it and put the L300 body on the GQ chassis. then let the fun begin!!!

LET54B wrote:Think about what your saying, its an L300 van. Don't even think about taking it off the road. However you could get a GQ patrol, take the body off it and put the L300 body on the GQ chassis. then let the fun begin!!!

Like BundyBrumby has said "as a bit of a joke" to lift it, doing the GQ idea goes from joke to INSANE Now someones thinking outside the box though!

LET54B wrote:Think about what your saying, its an L300 van. Don't even think about taking it off the road. However you could get a GQ patrol, take the body off it and put the L300 body on the GQ chassis. then let the fun begin!!!

What's wrong with taking an L300 4wd offroad? It is essentially a Pajero chassis, so they can be surprisingly capable off-road.

They're actually quite a short wheelbase, so they're quite manoeuvrable. They're not as unstable as they appear, either.

But if you want to build a hard-core offroad weapon, an L300 isn't the best starting point.

my dad used to own an L300, lifted (slightly) and mud tyres. said it was capable, and picking lines was super easy, but used to cack himself going downhill cos it felt like you were gunna topple over forwards. quite understandable really.

Thanks heaps for sticking up for the ol' L300 guys, it has made us even more determined to lift it and stuff!

And to you LET45B, why not put your overgrown Patrol on an L300 chassis?

i reckon l300's look kickass when lifted and on 31+ tyres one of the mods i'd look at doing is floging of the old 2.0l motor and putting in a 2.6l or maybe a v6 if it will fit.
hope to see some pics soon

i'd like to know what size motor would actually fit in an L300. if anyone knows.. hehe

4wdnut wrote:i'd like to know what size motor would actually fit in an L300. if anyone knows.. hehe

I don't know about V6 options, but the 2.6 conversion has been done. There's not a lot of difference between the 2.0 and 2.6 Astron engines (interchangeable heads, same conrods) so if one fits, the other should too. From memory, the difference in stroke is 6mm, so crank throw differs by 3mm. I imagine worst case difference in block height would be 3mm, but the difference in throw may be in the piston design.

Just do it!

We believe the bus has a 2.0l motor, with the plastic timing cover. it's a little sluggish but it will do for the time being. i will try to have some pics as soon as anything worth while is done to it. At the moment it looks like a stock, baby poo brown van

Go the cordia turb motor, mate this in his with 235/75s i think, definatly scary doing big sand climbs or drops but not too bad off road. The turbo gave it awesome punch

Nic

yeh there was on for sale a while ago with a 2
.6 turbo make a big diferance.
but c how u go

Didn't the Cordia turbo come out with Throttle body injection?

Can we use a "suck through" setup using the original carb??