SO MUCH DAMAGE we should scrap it... mud ruined EVERYTHING

Keep going, please. We need to move. Cars can get lost here. When I first heard about what happened out in the Simpson Desert, we had genuine conversations about whether we should actually ride it off or not. We took buckets and buckets of silk out of this car. I was really worried about whether we were going to even be able to get this vehicle back on the road at all. This right here is one of our four-wheel-drive 24-7 camera cars, and this thing has just got back from a once-in-a-lifetime trip. We got caught in a flood in the desert, and this car travelled for kilometres with the headlight and bonnets underwater. And as you can imagine, that really took its toll on the vehicle. And we thought this is the perfect time to bring you guys along and show you what it takes to keep these vehicles running. And for a job like this, there's only one place we would trust to bring our cars down to pinnacle 4x4. Steve and his crew down here are all passionate four-wheel drivers. So today, they're going to show us exactly the extent they go to to get this thing trip-ready. So when I first heard about what happened out in the Simpson Desert, I was absolutely mind-blown. I knew that we were going to get this vehicle back in an absolute state and have to try and figure out if we can even get it rebuilt and what that's going to look like. There was so much work needed on this four-wheel drive that we had genuine conversations about whether we should actually ride it off or not. And when I realised that it was going to be sitting around for five or six weeks before we could even get it back into the shop and start assessing it, I knew that I was going to add an entire another level of complexity with corrosion starting to kick in. I was really worried about whether we were going to even be able to get this vehicle back on the road at all. Now Steve, you guys had a chance to have a quick look at this before I Yeah, so obviously we've got a couple of things to deal with. We've got the height of the water through it and we've also got obviously like sand and silt. We found silt everywhere in this car and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. We took buckets and buckets of silt out of this car. If water got near it, it was packed with silt. So we were into everything with this car, full interior strip out, gearbox was out, doing clutches, rear main seals, we had the front of the engine torn down, we had all the transfer case, had new seals put through it, you name it. If there was silt that could get into it, we stripped it apart and cleaned it, put it all back together again. Speaking with the guys, asking them when is this car leaving on the next trip, next trip is straight to the Kimberleys. So we had a super tight deadline to take a vehicle that was not operational and we had to turn it out and it had to go straight back out into service. So it was an absolute miracle that the engine survived, the gearbox survived, all of the main key health components survived. So once we'd sort of established that the engine health is okay, the gearbox is still okay and those key items are still okay, there was a real relief and meant that we was really confident, you know, we're going to be able to resurrect this thing and get it back out in service. So obviously working with these vehicles, we know that they're not staying local, they're going to So all of our guys work with their eyes open, whatever we're taking off while we're there or anything in the area around it, we're taking careful note to look at everything. So obviously if we're doing something like, you know, taking a turbo on and off, looking at all of the pipes nearby and making sure that everything else in that system is in good condition is really important. If we replace the turbo but we're not taking care of any of the pipes that feed to it or come from it, then obviously, you know, we're really not taking a complete approach to fixing the vehicle and making sure that it's reliable. So we're just going through all the fuses in the engine bay, giving them all a good contact clean. So if you can see that there's a lot of dirt and debris and silt and that's all through all of the plugs. So we're just going to go through everything and give them all a clean. We've gone through the entire underside of the car, unplugged everything, contact cleaned it, dielectric grease, put it back together again. So that's a really good example. We can see all the corrosion building up inside of this one and it'll be on all the contacts as well. So that's exactly why we want to get in here and give these all a really good clean up to try and avoid those electrical gremlins that are going to crop up, not just now, but in six months, 12 months, two years time that are going to start creeping in. The sooner we tackle it, the better we're going to be in the long run. So I guess what probably a lot of you are thinking at home is that, you know, why would we even consider writing this vehicle off when it's got, you know, the bones are good, the engine's good, the gearbox is good. Well, with all of the work that had to be done, the repair expense is really, really big when you're trying to get every component of the vehicle torn down, rebuilt, and back together again. But in this circumstance, you know, we've got a big investment in a vehicle fit out and to replace all of that fit out and the time that it takes to replace that fit out, we can get these guys back on a road in a vehicle that we know that we've rebuilt and we'll go and do exactly the purpose that these guys use this vehicle for. So it is a bit of a tough one out there when you're, you know, trying to decide these things, but in this circumstance, it was a really good option for us to do the rebuild of it and get it back out into service for them. Well, Steve, you've got quite the bench of parts here and I can see in all of them there's silt, there's some rust that's been in this bearing, even in the back of this brake piston far out. Yeah, so this is just a small sample of the stuff we've had to change out on this car to get it, obviously, back on the road. Boys have been really hard at it this week, getting this all fixed up. There's quite a lot of parts here that aren't even all that old. Wheel bearings and tensioner pulleys and that kind of stuff and clutch wasn't really all that old, but obviously what you guys did out in the desert, even though you're putting really high quality, brand new parts in, you just can't stop the wear and tear of sand, silt, mud getting in and just chewing things up. So, obviously, this is the alternator, mate. As you know, in a GU, they're actually mounted pretty high. You don't necessarily have to do these too often, unlike some other cars, but yeah, this one, obviously, you were born at height and water doing, you know, kilometres and kilometres of silty, that silty water. As soon as you spun that before, you could just, by the noise you could hear, you could tell it's cactus. Absolutely. Very dry and those bearings didn't have much life left in them. Exactly. It gets in there and just, you know, eats away at all the brushes internally as well and gets into the bearings and destroys them. So that one passed ago. Next up, starter motor. So that one, again, same deal, just drowned in water. They're not a waterproof item, so just fills with water and then that's the end of that. And I guess what would have added to all these problems is the vehicle, once we got out of the desert, we couldn't actually drive it. It had to sit there for a few weeks and that's the worst thing you do for a car that's been wet, just have it sitting there, not running and getting heat through things, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Check the clutch out, mate. What do you think of that? To me, it looks like, you know, I'd probably put that back in one of my cars, got a bit of meat left. When it got back here, it was actually working not too bad. It felt okay. In years gone by, before tuning and all those sort of things, that clutch probably would have held up a little bit longer. But we know now that basically when we're sort of getting to the end and there's no steps in that friction material anymore. Yeah, getting close to the rivets and everything. As soon as we get close to that, we know that as soon as they're tuned, that's not going to hold power anymore. So it's definitely time to get that out. So when we're actually traveling through the Simpson Desert, this clutch felt so much worse than it actually looks. We've got the car stuck a few times in a break through the surface. We had to really ride the clutch to get it out. And then in the end, third gear, it was slipping when we were driving. Obviously had a bit of water and moisture in there too. And the pedal, my last one or two mil would grab and get the pedal out. This is actually the back of the engine there. And you can see all of this. Far out. Yeah. The silt was up high up near the rear main. Right up near the rear main. Now, technically speaking, that rear main's not actually leaking, right? But if you have a look. You can see all the silt around it and everything. Exactly. So again, take no chances. We can't afford for a rear main to be letting go while you're in, you know, on a trip. At the end of the day, this four wheel drive, it's never going to be the same again. There's just no way. But what we can do is keep it in service, keep it maintained and keep it on the road. And obviously one of the unique things about you guys is that all of the vehicles are constantly on back to back trips. Yeah. So normal people might do one big trip a year, whereas these cars, we gave you like a one week period and it's on another big trip, isn't it? Exactly. And it's not, you know, a local trip. It's straight into Cape York or, you know, straight into another big trip to wherever Tassie or something along those sort of lines. The fact that we've worked with you guys now for, you know, around about six years or so, it actually has helped us really steer into what parts we actually choose to use because something that we can get to last in your cars for 12 months, 18 months, two years. If we can get it to last like that for you guys, then we know that what we're putting in a customer's car is going to last as well. When we're searching for parts, we're trying to stick as close to OEM quality as possible that are readily available for us to get our hands on, you know, Nappa, Drivetech. And we know for sure that most of the Drivetech parts are OEM quality because they're coming out of Japan. So we know that they're high quality, all of their bearings, all of that stuff is all Japanese made and Japanese quality. So we can be sure that we're getting that same standard as we're getting out of the OE manufacturers on those parts. And you know, sort of Drivetech's always on the shelf somewhere you can grab it, whereas if you want genuine, sometimes you have to wait. And with us, we don't give you much time, do we? There's no time to wait, mate. You've just got to get in and get it done. So obviously next up, a couple of brake calipers here, mate. So this one's got a bit of a split in the piston. Not that the silt inside the, you know, down inside the piston here is the be-all and end-all, but it's certainly going to be in behind that piston. Yeah, because you grab a bit of that silt, put it in your hand, it's so fine. So let's pop that piston out and have a look at what's going on behind there. Sounds good. Beautiful. Quite surprising, the results of this one, actually. That's the piston out of the side with the split boot. Obviously, there's some debris in there and some rust starting to happen. But then we got this one. That one had a good seal. This was a good seal. Absolutely. So much silt. Pitting. Look at the pitting in that piston. So you just, you can't take for granted what is or isn't right. You really just have to check everything. These wheel bearings have definitely copped the Simpson treatment, haven't they? They have, mate. And the crazy part is that these are actually not very old at all. Like, they might have 5,000 k's on them. Yeah, that's wild, isn't it? We've actually seen this quite a bit with what you guys do, particularly, you know, lots of water crossings and they're just, you'll always get water in. It's just going to happen. The other thing we see quite often is, just from corrugations, you can see the impacting of the bearing and where the bearing was sitting afterwards. And even though that bearing's not very old, being a four-wheel drive going to remote destinations, we just can't afford for that kind of failure to happen. So, and where that impacting is, is where... Yeah, there's a lot of it, isn't there? And that's where the case hardening is going to start to disintegrate first and, you know, come apart and then that'll just chew the bearing up. Yeah. But if we look at the actual bearing side of that, there's so much debris on here already. And the actual hardening, face hardening, is already starting to get eaten into by the corrosion and water in there. Yeah. So obviously the last part, a couple of CV knuckles. So we replaced both CV knuckles in this. You know, whenever we're stripping them down, any part that comes off, we're physically inspecting it and mechanically checking it. Yep, yep. And these were just tight. So if you just see inside there, just... Water and pitting starting. Yeah, just starting to get some pitting in there now. Might have done another turn, but again, can't take the risk of breaking a CV shaft because we didn't replace it. Even on this section here, you can see the pitting where that needle roller rolls around. 100%. The water's just gotten in everywhere because we were in it for so long and stopped in it and stuff. Yep. Just sitting in it and it's just eating away at that. So again, that'll just chew a bearing out. So just needs to be replaced. Check this out now. It's obviously been all torn apart. Oh, it's tripped out, yeah. Yeah, you guys did a good job of flooding us. So it was all full of sand and silt. Typically, we'd probably, you know, recommend guys at home probably rip that out and give it a good clean themselves. Some people probably aren't aware of what would happen if you left in there. What would happen if you just left all the seals and wetness in there? I mean, ultimately, it's just going to get into all the connections and corrode everything out. But also, the carpet and the silt is just going to rub on the floor, wear through the paint, and then it's just going to cause rust. Cause a bit of rust. Absolutely. No one likes rust. Nobody likes rust. That is not a mechanic job. We have some good clean mechanical. So just when we thought that we had this vehicle done, I mean, we've got a team of guys working on this vehicle non-stop. We thought we were ready to get this thing back out on the road. We took it for a test drive and it just doesn't make power. We went through everything, airflow meters, fuel filters, fuel systems, making sure that everything else was right. We could not fault this car. And in the end, it really came down to an ECU issue. The ECU itself had died. It had failed. It was running. It would drive. It would start. It just wouldn't make any power. Now, it was a real challenge to get an ECU. We had Jesse running all over the place to get an ECU, to get in this vehicle so that we could get it on the road. But, you know, that was a really tough thing when everybody worked so hard to get this vehicle back together and back on the road and ready for this trip. And then right at the last minute, to not get that over the line was a real disappointment for everybody. So Jesse did a cracking job of finding us a secondhand ECU to put in this vehicle. Downside, wasn't tuned. So we had to get it in and get it tuned to get it back on the road again. Once all that was done, it's been great. It's out on the tracks doing the trip and couldn't be more pleased with the team and their efforts to get this one done. Well, Steve, it's just about ready to put the bonnet down and take this thing out the front and pack our gear. And thanks for all your help and all the crew's help. I'll tell you what you've done. A mammoth effort in such a short amount of time. We never continue with our timelines. Boys have pulled out all the stops and done all the overtime to get it done. So when we say we had an enormous amount of hours in it, I mean huge. We had well over 150 man hours in this vehicle. And these guys are trying to, you know, get customers' vehicles turned out. And then at night, we're working through this car to get it done. So huge, huge effort by the team to actually be able to pull this off and get it together. And all of that, we managed to jam in and get all done in just a week. I want you guys to put in the comments down below and tell us what you've had to repair after a big trip like this car's just been on. That's all we have time for today. So we'll see you next time on 4WD 24-7. We've set ourselves a bit of a mission. Can we transform this dirty old 60 series that's completely rat infested, mould ridden, a bit of a biohazard inside to be fair with you, into a track ready beast within 24 hours. Now keep in mind, this thing has not been driven in 10 years. What's happened to this battery terminal? Oh, it exploded. Believe it or not, yesterday I found a snake in here as well. It's got a bit of a whip to it because it's been locked up for a while. That's not saveable.