MODIFIED LC200 - After 40,000km is it worth the money?? Full Rig Rundown.

Hi guys, welcome back to another vid. This one is going to be all about this big rig behind me, right? So it's going to be my version of like a modified tour of our vehicle, so a walk around of everything we've done to the 200. It's 40,000km old now, we've had it for 18 months, so it's a good chance for us to tell you guys how everything's held up, what we changed, what we wouldn't change, what we recommend for you, what we love about the rig, and just give you a recap on what's involved, and some figures and facts and price about this big girl behind us, alright? So for us it was a long, arduous process to get to this build, like it's a big decision, it's years in the planning and making and saving for this sort of car, and I'll tell you what, by the end of this vid you'll realise we've done pretty good I reckon. Alright, so what I am going to do in this video is I'm not going to be in your face too much, all the camera is going to be on the car, and I'm going to be talking you through what's involved in this build, so I think the biggest thing that everyone's going to ask, and I'll start with that, is price mate, so they are not a cheap car hey? So everything's changed but when we built this car, I'm going to say the full retail value of this vehicle is about $239,000, alright? It's ridiculous isn't it? It's like what used to cost a house, you know, like you can't buy a house for that now but far out, and they've gone up since, so this car is a 2019 GXL and we got it straight out of Grand Toyota on the Gold Coast for 76 and a half grand, that was it, in like December 2019, something like that, and then COVID hit and they went up astronomically, so we got very lucky, but that's the vehicle, a base model 2019 GXL, 76 and a half grand, now it's $239,000 touring machine. Alright, let's get into it, like I said 2019 GXL, dual cab cruiser now, so there's a few options to choose from when you're doing the conversion process and the build process. Now for me, a build like this is something we could not complete on our own, there's a whole lot of factors that go into it with logistics as in the conversion process, the paint, the canopy, the wiring, the electrical, the GVM upgrades, the engine performance, the boat, the list goes on mate, so we employed this fella, Pro Touring Concepts, he did the canopy on our first Mazda BT50 and fitted it out, and after his stellar work mate, he was the only way to go to do this full build process, so he organizes the whole show mate, so he bought the car from Grand Toyota for us, organized the not paying luxury car tax on this because you end up turning it into a commercial vehicle, and he organizes everything else, all the trades, all the bar work, all the components, and he does the whole show mate and delivers you a turnkey package, and he is an absolute weapon mate, we cannot fault his work, it is absolutely stellar, I'll probably say that a few times throughout this vid, but so let's kick it off with what our actual conversion is, ours is a JMaxx conversion, so done by AEV in North Queensland, now they're the only ones that can do the full JMaxx clip and chassis on the rear end, most of the other 200s you see around will be done by places like DMW, Creative Conversions, ASG, they all do a different chassis conversion or stretch right, so ours is a 650 mil extension with a whole new JMaxx clip on the back, a lot of them from Creative you'll see will be a 750 mil extension and you can get another toolbox in here, ours is a 650 JMaxx clip which means it's a whole new chassis from about somewhere up here all the way through to the back right, so they actually cut the old one, chain block the new chassis on with some laser levels, then they weld it all up there, so that means you're not just using the original standard Toyota chassis and extending it, you're actually putting this whole new clip on the back of it, and JMaxx mate do all the work, so everything's double the size of what the original one is, instead of being like three mil plate, everything's six mil plate, you've even got a rear winch carrier here if you want it, we didn't go with that because we're never going to need a rear winch and it's just another 30 kilos that we're going to add into it right, I'll get into more of that later on when I get underneath, I just wanted to tell you that's who did it, and it gives you a 4495 kilo GVM and a four and a half ton tow rating, which is another reason why we went that way, so a lot of them you might be able to get 4495 but you can't get the four and a half ton towing, it's still three and a half towing, our van is about 4.1 if we fully load it up, so we had to go that full spec, all right let's kick off up front bar work, so ARB, they're one of our major partners with our YouTube series, the Road Trip Australia, so we use all their gear or as much as we can, and they provide all the ARB gear for us, so up the front is the ARB Summit winch bar, now it looks a bit different, you'll notice on the paint here, we actually stripped it right back, this is one of Caleb from Pro Touring Concepts' unique things about his builds, it's a UV powder, so yes ARB bars come powder coated already, they're a bit more of a glossy look right, I think they've actually got a finish like this now that they've brought out, but this one here, well it's 40,000 k's old, done a ton of rough tracks and bush and stuff, and you'd notice all this, there's no scratches in it right, the scratches buff out really easy with some of that all black stuff, and it still looks good, doesn't fade in the sun because it's a UV powder, and it just looks neat mate, like it sort of matches the snorkel, the mirrors, everything else, just a nice unique little treat that Caleb does to all his builds, he does the side steps too, might have changed, I'll talk about that in a second, but yeah that's the bar up front, inside that is the bush ranger, there you go, and on the front is an ultra hook, now I like these because they just look bloody sexy, they're lightweight, they're alloy, and they look bloody fantastic on the front of your car there, just keeps that front end looking schmicko rather than just having a dirty big galvanised hook out the front there, but that's the bush ranger winch, love that, we've got a wireless remote, you can also plug it into if you run out of battery power on that, that's been really good for us, it's pulled us and the van out of a few bogs, and also for winching the tinny up the beach at these remote camps, fantastic, underneath just got recovery points there, and the standard bash plates and that from Toyota, so we don't actually do too much off-road, like hardcore four-wheel driving, so we don't need all that silly protection underneath, well it's not silly, we just don't need it, it's extra weight and stuff that we don't use right, intensity driving lights, absolutely wicked mate, we've got a spot and a spread, and I've got black covers on them just to keep them neat, so they're nice and bright red, and we don't do too much night driving right, so I actually like the look of those black covers, they look sick, if you ever watch the build videos, we did have two of the intensity light bars up on top, but that's since changed because we got a new base rack and the integral light bar up there, which I'll show you in a minute, UHF, so the antenna, Oricom, we run a DTX 4200X Ultimate Touring Pack, this one is the, I think it's the ANU 1100 antenna, so I don't like the big fat whips on the front, they block your vision, this one here comes, you can unscrew this, put a cap on it, or you can have the little fiberglass whip on top, I like that, gives us good range, works well, and it doesn't adhere, like obstruct your vision when you're driving and that sort of thing. I'll open up the bonnet after I do a full walk around, but on the exterior you'll notice it still looks pretty bloody good after 40,000km, and we've done the Cape, the Gib, Arnhem Land, Oodnadatta, heaps of rough tracks, so from new, I got this thing done ceramic coated at Codex on the Goldie, Pro Touring Concepts organised that, and since then I've only just got it done again in broom, so I got it tidied up and the ceramic redone, and also underneath all the rust proofing redone, so that's why it still looks pretty bloody good. One of the big questions we get all the time is where did you get your weather shields from? They are actually Ocam 4x4, and we just had to, from memory, we had to trim this front edge to fit because of the Clearviews, that's all, but they are, they're good actually, everyone comments on them, they look good. Righto, Clearview mirrors obviously, these I like, these ones, they're just the basic ones, they don't have the lights in them, I probably would have broken them by now anyway, because they get belted with sticks all the time, they fold in and out, and you can pull them out like this. I reckon they're a must for towing mate, you've got to have them, makes it so much easier when you're towing. And I like the look of these, like sort of Mark 1s, I know they've got a second stage out now, and there's some other mirrors out like MSA, I just still like the look of these hey, I reckon they suit the 200, so yeah I'll be sticking with those. Come down here, let's walk along the sides. Wheels, we run King off-road wheels, so when you're doing a big upgrade like on these cars, you need load rated alloys. King alloys are load rated to 1600 kilos, these are the King Hurricanes, and I can't fault them, they've been a good tyre, they've been a good wheel mate, we've got them on the caravan as well, and I just got new tyres on, and I got old mate tyre fitter to check these rims over for cracks and everything after all the rough tracks we've done, and they are sweet as mate, so you know they're not going to crack under heavy loads and off-road conditions like this. Tyres, well yeah, you'll see that I've just changed to BFGs, we've always run Coopers, we had a couple of gnarly blowouts on the gib with the Coopers, so now I needed to buy new tyres here in Broome, and they wouldn't sell me Coopers up here because they reckon they don't like the heat and they have a lot of trouble with the blowouts, so I've ended up with BFG Mudterrains because they're the strongest sidewall and all that sort of thing, and I was worried about extra blowouts, I'm already regretting that, they're loud, they're noisy, they don't feel very nice, I don't know, I should have gone with an all-terrain, but you live and learn, they do look good though, so that's one good thing. Righto, sidesteps, these are factory, no they're not factory, they're ARB Summit sidesteps, now originally when we first built the car ARB were going to do a set for us from factory that were actually full length, right, because normally they finish just here because they're off a wagon, but because we built this car and then COVID hit, a lot of those projects that were going to be on the side stopped because everyone was sort of panicked about COVID, so it never ended up getting done, but since, we've just been in Broome for a few months and I went to a local fella, Bernardo Fabrication, and we pulled them off and he's extended the steps and we've got them repowder coated black, so there you go, it always just annoyed me how it finished here and you could never really stand here, just sort of looked a bit unfinished, but now I like that, it was super easy, cost me about a thousand bucks to get it done, but it's just one of those things that used to niggle at me all the time, I just didn't like it, but now I've got full length sidesteps, happy days. Up on top here, the base rack, when we first built the car, we had the Rhino Rack Pioneer system or whatever it was, this was always the plan to do, but ARB just hadn't quite finished it and released it yet, so since we've put this on ours, they now do, oh they've actually got a model base rack to suit a CHOP 200 that was designed off our car, so we give them the lengths for all this sort of the distance on the cab and everything and where the mounting bolts were, now you can actually order one for the CHOP 200 and it's the same rack that would fit on your normal 200 if you've got a sunroof or whatever, the one that would sit behind it, so I really like this system, it's lightweight, it's strong, it's fully welded, it's alloy, it's got a wind deflector at the front that stops all the noise and you've got heaps of cool, the mounting system is really cool, so this dovetail rail and you can mount all these different accessories on it, they just bolt on and slide on the dovetail, you can use t-slot adapters for your lights up here, you can put solar panels on it like we have and it also comes with this integral light bar, so ARB have designed the base rack light bar and if you can see inside, the actual lens is cut sort of in half, so you don't, the light doesn't go down, so you don't get any glare off your bonnet, it's designed to be up here, I really like it, it works a treat, throws a nice beam, perfect for when you're in the bush and that and it's a great addition to the big spotties up front when you're doing some night highway driving. My panel up here, this is all Pro Touring Concepts, it's 135 watt rad power panel, I think you can't get them anymore, so he uses another brand, but this has been really good, it's a slim line panel, pumps in about four and a half, five amps in good sun, obviously not great when the tinny's on top, but it's not there for that reason, it's for when we're parked up using the tinny and we're not driving the car to charge the battery, then that will sort of trickle along and top up the fridge right, so there you go. I'll swing around this side to finish off the base rack, because up the top we've got the ARB Tread Pros, there's also a mounting system underneath there that clicks directly onto the base rack, so it goes on here, you've got these pins and then you can put your treads, your Max Trax or your Tread Pros on top of them and click them down, they're easy to get, you just have to push this in to slide it off and take your tracks off, there you go. I like these ones, I think they suit the car better than having a big bright, don't get me wrong I like Max Trax, but I just don't like the bright orange thing sitting on my roof, I reckon they look a lot better sitting up there. Snorkel, Safari Armex with a big head, I like these ones, personally I don't like the stainless or the tubular looking snorkels, I think Safari have done all the research and R&D into creating a good snorkel that works with the Toyotas, so I like that and it looks good on the car too, also the sort of the matte finish matches all the bar work and the colour of the car, so I'm stoked with that, I'll get under the bonnet in a minute and show you that, we'll keep going down this side, side steps again, wheels, tyres, boat loader and boat, so Tinney Makocraft 376 Topper Tracker, absolutely killer little boat mate, one of the lightest roof toppers you can find on the market and the most stable and from my point of view the most suitable rooftop tinny to take around the country, I've had it everywhere and it is absolutely mint mate, I can't fault it for value, for service, Timmy at Makocraft on the Gold is an absolute weapon and he just creates a killer product mate and it suits the roof topper absolutely fantastic, up there is the ALMAC boat loader, so ALMAC is run by a fella called Rob in Bundaberg, he's an old fella and he creates absolutely fantastic loaders and outboard slides and trailers for these things and he powder coats them as well, so this is just an ALMAC boat loader, fully powder coated, sits up on top there, has an ATV winch at the front that actually pulls your tinny up and it's also got a full rack underneath so you can use it to store a heap of gear on like I have, up there I keep like the boat loader thing, some fishing rods, a surfboard, a couple of mats and that, it's also good you can fill it full of firewood and stuff when you're traveling and got the tinny off and that, I even leave my esky up in my boat upside down it holds all my life jackets and that sort of stuff and you notice I don't have any straps on the side of the car, I use turnbuckles, so I have a turnbuckle in each corner that go to stainless eye bolts in the tinny and two of them sort of face backwards and pull it this way and the two at the back face the other way so they're sort of opposing forces and it pulls it one way and the other, never had any dramas mate on all the rough roads we've done so I think if I was to throw straps over the top I'd end up throwing it over and dinging me canopy and that sort of thing so yeah, anyway I like that idea the turnbuckle's a work's a treat. Awning 270 XT from the Bush Company, absolutely killer awning, whips out and it folds all the way around this way and it covers around the back of the vehicle like that, no poles mate, no poles, no ropes, that is the best thing about the Bush Company awnings, yes they're a bit expensive, yes they are hard to get because they generally sell out before you get a chance to go and buy one but they are absolutely wicked mate, like if you're going to spend your money on a good awning look at one of these without poles, just the convenience of it is, oh mate, you've got no idea, once you've had one or once you've had one of the other ones with ropes and poles and when you get a gust of wind they flip over your car and break, yeah you won't want to go back mate, you just got to stick with one of these good ones, yeah there you go and it's mounted, what's it mounted on? The piece de resistance, the cream of the whole build mate, the canopy, this is why you build a shop 200 mate, it's so you can have the best of both worlds, you can have the comfort and the capacity and the dual cab capability of a 200 series and you get the storage and the canopy and the, oh just the awesomeness of having a good canopy on the back of your car, it's life-changing, when we had it, we had one on the Mazda and I'm like oh we're going to get a cruiser, I cannot not have a canopy, so we had to chop it, that was just, I blame Norwell, I had to chop it because I could not have a car without one, this thing mate is an absolute life changer on the road, it makes life so easy, it is a Norwell Pro Touring 200 canopy package, it's a full timer alright, so which means mine doesn't come off, it doesn't have a tray and a headboard and a jack off canopy, it is all one piece, why did I do that? Well it's because if you want to have a headboard and a canopy then you need a second tray skin as well, so your tray needs a floor and your canopy needs a floor, so there's another 30 kilos or so of aluminium that I don't need, this canopy will never come off this car alright, it's always going to stay on, so I didn't see the point in having a two separate things, the jack off canopy and the tray base right, a lot of people ask me that, that's why, paint, yes fully painted, I reckon it looks a lot better, it's a lot easier to look after than bare alley and I think it works a bit as an insulator as well in my point of view, big guards, underbody toolboxes, there's a water tank underneath, I'll show you inside in a minute, I'll just keep doing this, there's a 75 litre water tank underneath, that's gravity fed to taps either side, one here, one on the other side and then on the back we have spare wheel carrier, ladder and a jerry can holder, now the good thing about this here, I can swap those either side or I can run two jerry cans or I can run two spare wheels alright, all I have to do is unbolt this off here, there's one bolt in behind the jerry can and there's one bolt up under the tray here or two here, I'll take this off and I'll put another long threaded rod in here and I can throw another spare up there if I want, so if I'm leaving the van and head off and on rough tracks where I think I might need a second spare, I can do that and take two of them, there you go, righto, that is a bit of the outside walk around, let's get underneath and show you the suspension and stuff and then we'll go back and do the interior of everything right, under here, so what have we got, it's nice and black, it's nice and blue, it's just got re-rust proof right, so his taping up job wasn't that great but anyway, part of the conversion process is a suspension upgrade to get your big GVM and this one is Kings in the front, so you've got Kings struts, remote resi shocks, so you can, they're adjustable for rough roads and that sort of thing and you also have Blackhawk upper control arms up the top here, so they change them which gives you, I think it's so you can get your wheel alignment back to standard because you're lifting it up so high you get more movement with a different control arm, so that's all part of the package and then since I have upgraded the sway bars both front and rear, this one here is the fulcrum one, the heavy duty one, now I think it's a good idea because it's so heavy you get a bit of body roll, especially when you've got the tinny on top, so that's done there and you'll see that little tap there, that is for the probent catch cam which I'll show you in a minute, anyway and then if you look in here, in behind this flap here, there's your remote resi shock, so you can reach in here and adjust your shocks as need be, I've got them on the back too, I'll show you, right so rear suspension, jump under here and I'll show you, we'll start at the diff because that is one of the upgrades that happens when you do the conversion, you get the new JMAX diff which is all beefed up, retains all the factory 200 series components inside, unless you upgrade them like I did which I'll talk about, but everything else is the same inside the diff center and axles and bearings and all that, new tail shaft obviously, a longer one for the 650 mil extension and it's bigger too and then you've got King's remote resi shocks which are looking a bit worse for wear, they've had a hard life in here at the back, getting peppered with rocks and you've got JMAX coils and airbag man bags with sleeves in there, I'll show you how they work in a minute, it's pretty trick, but that is the suspension in the back end and you'll see a nice new upgraded sway bar, I only just did this on the back as well, the old man emu do an upgraded one from ARB, so I've done the front and rear sway bars just recently, there you go, that is the suspension at the back, you'll see that water tank from the canopy, that's that black poly tank up under there as well, all the fuel lines and that there get extended and come back and I'll show you, we've got a big fuel tank at the back, so for fuel capacity, oh we have, it's pretty crazy actually, we have 273 litres of fuel capacity and we get, the car gets about, everyone's going to ask, the car gets about 26 to 28 litres per hundred, we don't drive it too hard, it just sort of chugs along and I'll show you all the engine work in a minute, I think it's cookie from diesel power, he's tow tuned and everything, just makes this thing, it's just so easy, it just does it easy, so I'll show you that in a minute, but fuel, under here there's big dog long range automotive fuel tank in the back, look at this, so this is 180 litre long range tank that bolts directly into the JMAX chassis and that is what gives us a huge range, I'll tell you it's not fun filling it up though, especially when diesel is $1.89 here in Broome, anyways and you retain the factory 93 litre tank in the front, so you don't have to use any more pumps or anything, it's just once you get to about, use a quarter of your fuel tank, I don't know how it works but factory system for a 200, it starts pumping from the sub tank, so the big one at the back is now our new sub tank and it just constantly uses this one until it runs out and then uses the main tank, works well, works real well and it gives you that good range when you're out and about remote touring, you know you've got a good 1200km's about that up your sleeve before you have to get fuel again, so yeah, righto, let's go, I reckon we need to talk about the engine work hey, let's open the bonnet, righto, here's where the magic happens, big V8 mate, righto, let's start at the front, so we changed the battery, Caleb from Pro Touring has done a lot of these builds and he reckons the ones that they don't upgrade the starting battery in, always fail after 12 months or so, so he upgrades them with a bigger battery, it's a Century Dual Force battery, he just seems to get better life out of them and because you're working them pretty hard with a few accessories, winches, all that sort of stuff, it's just a good option to upgrade them straight away from factory, so we've done that, in here let's talk about everything else under the bonnet apart from the wiring, so Caleb does all the wiring as in, this is my canopy power and you've got all over here, you've got a Redarc Smart Start to run the charger and then your roof lighting and all that sort of stuff for your spotties, he does all that nice and neat, but the power upgrades we dropped in after the conversion's done in Mackay, I mean after the conversion's done in Townsville, it gets trucked down to Mackay and Cookie from Diesel Power Unlimited does all the upgrades, right, so let's start with the airbox, we've got a sealed aluminium airbox, so if you've done your research, they reckon 200 Series have issues with the fact your airbox is leaking dust, so I didn't want to worry about that, upgrade it to a sealed aluminium airbox that you bolt down, can't possibly leak dust, so it's a good peace of mind there, look under here, you've got a new intercooler, so Cookie does his own intercoolers, it's upgraded, you get better airflow, cooler air which means better power and it looks good, does a few treats, he gets them powder coated in a bit of Candy Red or whatever colour you want, come over this side, also put a pre-filter on this, Cookie does his own diesel power kits with the brackets and the pre-filter in the back and that's just like a secondary fuel filter or a primary one, catch any water or sludge or ---- before it gets to your factory one, try and save your injectors if you ever get a bad batch of fuel, that sort of thing, righto and catch can, you can't see it, it's under the front here, it's a Marks Adapters catch can kit, it's a Mann & Hummel Provent 200, it's in there, that's a filter that catches all your blow boy out of your engine and then you can drain it into a water bottle and chuck it out from this tap here, but I reckon they're a good thing mate because they actually, they breathe pretty heavy these when you're towing and we do get a bit of blow boy out of this thing so it's nice to have it caught and drained out and not going through your intake system, all right, so that's the physical modifications he's done, now he gets it on the dyno, he's an absolute genius this fella and what I like about him is he doesn't take things too far, it's the tune we've got is very practical, it's good power, it's good torque, it's usable and it's not over the top, you're not going to go blowing things up, you're not going to hurt your engine because he's very bloody good at what he does, gets it on the dyno, tweaks it all, now I can't really remember the figures but I'm pretty sure I've got about 850 newton metres of torque and 200 kilowatts if I use the top tune, all right, so I've got a tow tune and then I've got two other modes I can play with but generally I'll just leave it on the factory tow tune because we don't drive it like a race car, well sometimes I do but only when the kids aren't in the car so we just, when we're towing we leave it on the tow tune, good usable power, absolutely wicked tune and we've had no dramas with it, no issues with fault codes or I don't know, you know what I mean, I hear a lot of horror stories from people who use plug and play chips and get it tuned by, I don't know, probably not reputable dealers or something like that, if you go to Cookie, anyone who works with Diesel Power Unlimited and he's got a few around the country, they're all really good at what they do mate so if you need any more info on him look me up.