We Bought the CHEAPEST HILUX in Australia (then fixed it in ONE DAY)

In this episode of MightyCarMods, we are doing a shakedown of our all-new workshop, SuperGarage. So for this episode, we thought we'd work on something really, really special. And as such, Marty's RX-7 with the blown gearbox is not getting touched at all. No, we bought the cheapest 4x4 dual-cab diesel Hilux in the world, and today, we're going to fix it, because it is completely f***ed. Believe it or not, people, in Australia, this kind of vehicle... Welcome to another episode of the best four-wheel driving channel on the internet. Send it! So big! Send it! Look at this sick rig! This is the dirty rig of the 4x4 Hilux unbreakable Toyota. These are the most popular, basically, class of car in Australia at the moment. The sales of this kind of car is just through the roof. Amaril, Rangers, Navarro, Hiluxes. Dual-cab, diesel, four-wheel drive, high and low range. All the stuff that means you can go anywhere, even if you never go anywhere. And, pretend that it's a business expense. There is that too. That's one of the reasons why so many people have it. They're probably not pretending. They probably legitimately are using them for business, but there are tax benefits by using a commercial vehicle like this for your business. The 10-second nerdy version of that is, it has to carry a certain load up over a ton, used for commercial purposes, for equipment that you would otherwise... Anyway, it took me too long. Look it up if you're interested in that. But, that's what have made these things extremely popular, because people can buy them with their pre-tax money in their businesses. Tradies love them. They are actually exceptionally useful cars. They'll get you out of a bogged building site. They'll get you over the country ranges. They'll get you pretty much anywhere. Yeah, people go camping in them. People do adventures and stuff. There's all sorts of different setups you can do, from kind of fully hectic off-road rigs, so you can drive around Sydney, pretending that you're an adventurer. Some people actually do take them off-road as well. This one here was the cheapest Hilux in the country. A dual-cab diesel Hilux. It is completely rooted. It's utterly, utterly thrashed. This here, I got for $14,900. He was asking for $15,000, and I legit said, can you please give me $100 off, so I can buy some chicken? And he said to me, I don't think you're going to buy any chicken with it. I ended up getting it for $14,900, and I took that $100. I bought chicken. I took a photo of the $100 note. I held it against the chicken. I'll put the photo up, and I took the photo, I sent it back, and I said, thanks for lunch. Didn't you have a petrol V6 version of one of these at some stage? I did, with a steel train. That cracked. That was fast. Yeah, that was excellent. Not four-wheel drive, though, was it? Not four-wheel drive. And it was the space cab, so it was two-door, and had a little extra kind of thing in the back. So, like a bench seat along the back. And I've had a manual 2.7-litre petrol version of this, and a 2.7-litre auto version of this. Basically, trade a UTC memory. They're so useful and so cheap, really. This one here is still a baby. It's only done a little under half a million kilometres. That was a joke, people. It's done almost half a million. I think people picked it up as a joke. OK, they got that. That's good. Third gear. Fifth gear. Do the other gears work? The other gears work. So, you can just be going from first to second to fourth, if you want to. It's leaking diesel. One of the tyres is not holding air. Currently, it's set up. Come and have a look at the back for a second. So, the back of it is kind of set up with this, what I think is kind of like a home brew builder's setup. It's a tradie rig. As a tradie rig. So, I think this is actually from a Triton, but they made it fit or something. And the tray's apparently from a Rodeo. Is it? So, it's actually longer than I think it's meant to be. You've got some free rags. That's cool. And it's got these little... So, why would you run a rig like this? Well, the reason is you can still put your supplies... A rig. You can still put your dirty supplies through there. You can still use it as a ute, but you've also got the toolboxes, because security and your stuff on site is really important when you're doing tradie stuff. The racks means and ladder bars, I think they call them, means you can chuck your ladders and your big lengths of timber right across the top. It's pretty strong. This is an aluminium tray. It's really beat up. It's also got this, which I don't know. Which is pretty cool. I didn't even know I had that. That's pretty cool. For tools and stuff as well. So, that's pretty common in these trays. These are aftermarket trays. So, usually you buy this as a cab chassis, and then you can sort of spec whatever tray you want. Toyota make genuine ones. I think this is an aftermarket one. Yeah. And you can even pull these off completely and slap new ones on. But this is a big tray. And I think someone put this tray on to get the extra size, even though I don't know the technicality of how actually legal it is. So, we're basically going to use this as a workshop truck, because Super Garage, you may have seen the other videos we made about this space. This is not the space we are all the time, but it's a space that we set up, so friends and people we know can come and do projects. So, there's going to be heaps of cool stuff happening here all the time. But, it does have a tow bar, which means that we can put cars on trailers. And also, it can become a support vehicle when we're kind of heading out bush and stuff like that. So, there it is. We got a whole lot of stuff that we bought from Super Cheap Auto for it. So, we got kind of everything from stereos to just servicing it, and making it work, and fixing some things. Going to give it a new car once over, basically. Yeah, give it a clean, get rid of the human slime, and then, I mean, it's going to need a new gearbox. But for now, we also thought if we come into the space, we can try out the hoist, we can try out the tools. As we do things, we can kind of work out what's needed, and then organize it. So, that's it. I reckon we have a quick look at the car. Show the people some details. And then, let's just clean it, service it, fix it. Toyota Hiluxes have been dominating cities, farms, bushland, deserts, and war zones since the late 1960s. And they're famous for their reliability. This is a 7th generation, which was produced from 2004 right through to 2015. Ours is a 3-litre turbo diesel, which makes around 120 kilowatts. It's also dual-range manual and four-wheel drive. Originally built in Thailand, ours has been a tradie-ute since the day it rolled off the dealer's yard, and has all the scars to prove it. So, that is the car. And today, we have got lots of stuff to get done. More than you ever needed to know about Hiluxes. Um, that's our mate, Pauly. He's going to help run this shop, um, which is pretty cool. He's stoked to be helping us. He looks really stoked to be helping us. As you can see. On our Hilux today. Anyway, you're going to be seeing Pauly around, because he's, um, he runs this shop. And unlike us, he's actually qualified. And knows what he's doing. At least he said he was. Our first job is getting rid of these toolboxes, which are currently only being held on with hopes and dreams. We need a clear tray for pallets when parts arrive from Japan, and also to be able to pick up bulky items. We just sold these one second-hand for 200 bucks. So, before we put the car up onto the hoist for the real work, we're just going to give it a quick clean, because it smells like this car's had almost 15 years and half a million kilometres of tradie butt sweat in it. It absolutely stinks. Now, at this point of the game, which is why we put this in here, to try and combat one of our little air fresheners, but I don't think that can even battle that much ass sweat. Um, normally at this point in the game, we go through the car, but the thing with dual-cab utes, they have hardly any storage pockets in them at all, um, compared to a normal car. So, you've got a glove box, which has got something boring in it. Uh, there's a tiny pair of sunglasses, someone with a minuscule head, I gather, was using those. Nothing in there, nothing in there. There's a bag of... There's a bag of Skittles. Do you want a Skittle, Martin? No. Yep, neither do I. And, under the seats, there's nothing. In the back, in the doors, there's nothing. It's, it's kind of... It's just dirt, mud, sweat. It just smells really bad. So, the first thing we're going to do, we're going to wet back this, and then we'll start to see some of the kind of grottiness coming out of it. Then, that can stay wet. We put it on the hoist, and just kind of have a look under the hood, and see what we've got to fix. So, we are going to run our wet-back over this, uh, whole interior. But, to give it a bit of a head start, I'm going to spray it with some multi-purpose cleaner, and then I'm going to give it a scrub with one of my favourite new tools, actually, which is this. It's a Robi scrubber. Is it a scrubbing brush with a motor on it? Yes, it absolutely is. I actually made one of these when I was about seven years old, and gave it to my dad as a Christmas present. It was literally a toothbrush that I cut off and put it in the motor with a nine-volt battery, and said, there you go. It's like an electric scrubbing brush. He never used it. Um, but he kept it forever, which is really cool. Anyway, this is a Robi scrubber thing. Basically, press the button. It's all waterproof. That is so satisfying! Look at it! It just does so quick as well, for a time-saver. That's mad. The human slime that's in these seats probably started out as a gas, which then congealed into a solid, and the best way to remove it, is to scrub it into a liquid, which can then be sucked out. And we're not going to scrub just the seats of this ute. We're going to scrub every single bit of this interior, until all the brown is gone. That's so chat. 14 years ago, we did an episode using a rug doctor to clean the seats of my Nissan GTI-R. Now, all these years later, we're doing it again. Now, in the past, you had to hire units that could do this. But now, you can buy them for relatively cheap. Just a couple of hundred bucks. Which is totally worth it, if you're spending as much time in filthy nuggets as we are. With the interior cleaned up and disinfected, we've hung one of our new air fresheners in the middle to try and get rid of the stink. And now, it's time to load this car up under the hoist. This is a bit of a momentous moment for me, because, uh, we finally have a hoist. So, uh, as I said, the concrete here is really thick. It's like 400mm thick, so we can actually have a hoist. And this hoist will take four and a half tonnes, which is pretty cool. So, yeah, a space where we can lift stuff into the air, which is just easier on your body. Martin, we got a hoist. Finally. And to mark this momentous occasion, we're putting a Hilux on it. The shittest car. Well, no, it's not that shit. Massive thanks to BendPak, by the way, who came and installed our hoist. Yeah, they put them in, which is awesome. Similar to the one I've got in my shed at home, that's an asymmetric one. This is just a straight one, which is good for big vehicles like this. It also comes with some extensions, which is handy if you've got something that's big or lifted. And basically, you just lift them out, and throw them in, and then you've got a bit more height. You can get all sorts of different heights for doing all sorts of different stuff. So, should we send it up into the air? Let's send it up, Martin. So, using a hoist does take a little bit of thought. You always want to try and centre the load of the vehicle, so try and work out where the midpoint is and try and put that right where the arms are. But you also want to pick the most solid points. Now, on a big, like, cab-on-chassis-type build like this, you can use these rails, which is really solid and as far apart as you can to get the most stability. Look up hoist fails on YouTube if you want to see what happens if you don't get it right. If in doubt, always check with someone. Paul's a qualified mechanic, so he's been doing this for a long time. So, we just want to make sure it's in the right position. On a normal car, you might be using sort of the sills. But you also don't want to crush the sills. So, there we go. That should be just about right. For anyone who hasn't hoisted before, the way this works is it's basically a giant hydraulic pump. That's the motor. That's the switch that runs it. That's the handle that releases the pressure. And that's the reservoir where all the oil is. You'll also see it's hanging onto this brake. That's the little locks that go in there, like what's in an elevator. That means once it's up on the locks, it's actually mechanically sitting on that and you've got to release it to get it off. So, to go up, we just pull this so it doesn't click on the locks. Turn the handle. And away it goes. All right, Pauly. So, we've got our old Hilux up on a hoist. What do you see? I see leaks. A lot of leaks, bud. Oh, what is that? So, tell me something. Just from a quick look around, how much did you pay for this five grand ute? $14,900. Well, I didn't pay for it. Technically, my friend paid for it. Did he pay too much? Look, realistically, it's a Hilux that runs. Yeah. The chassis looks straight. So, it should be all right. I mean, it's missing a few bellhousing bolts. Missing bellhousing bolts. So, these leaks, I mean, is that oil? No, bro. These things are quite... It's thin, isn't it? Yeah, it's definitely diesel. Okay, so all this is just dirt that's sticking to diesel, hopefully. Hopefully, yeah. I think, after a good clean, we'll be able to... Might be all right. Yeah, might be all right. And down the back, I mean, they're pretty simple under here, aren't they? Fuel tank, exhaust. Yeah, it's... Transfer case. Old school. It does have little airbags for the... Oh, do you think someone's fitted them? Yeah, that's... So, in case it gets overloaded. But, this one looks a little... A bit sad. Yeah, but you can always just try to put some air in it and just see if they... It looks like the diff's been apart too. It's got sealant on it. I wonder if that's been a part of that factory. Ah, it's probably someone's had a bit of a go. But, I mean, it's... Man, honestly, I think it actually looks pretty honest. Look, it actually does. It's dirty because it's a builder's ute. But, like, it's, you know, it's got all the good stuff. It's got a tow bar. It's definitely worked. But, it's... That's what it's made for. And in the back here, it says only LSD oil on the LSD diff. Which is pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Perfect for skids. I don't know how many skids you're going to get out of this thing. But, it'll do it. We just changed all the fluids, right? I'll start off with that. Even with the noisy gearbox and things like that, let's just change it up until we get another gearbox. It's the best we can do. When you get to, like, 400,000km, people sort of let the servicing history down a bit, don't they? No, they do. I mean, that's... So, we'll just change it. You know, it's all cars are looked after at the start. And then, as things go down, they tend to get a bit left out. OK, so the car's not looking great. But, that is to be expected. I literally found the cheapest one and went and bought it. So, it's not that surprising that it needs quite a bit of work. So, I've just discovered that the sump plug, someone has very professionally done that. Finger tight from its last service. No... There we go, yep. No tool required. If it's crossed your mind by now that maybe we should have bought something else, it's worth noting that Hiluxes hold their value way better compared to similar spec cars from the same era. Parts are easy to get and they even ride pretty well, considering they are essentially a small truck. People love them for their off-road capability. And once you head out into the country, it's unusual to see a farmer in anything other than a Land Cruiser or a Hilux. The diffs on these things are pretty beefy and this one is also LSD, which means it requires a specific type of oil. All right, rear diff is done. Has some fresh limited slip 90 weight oil. There's even a sticker on the back that says, only LSD oil. So, we've ticked that box. That will not be needed to be done for a very long time. While we're at it, the gearbox and the transfer case are also going to get a fresh batch of gear oil. So, while we're giving this utter pile of shite a makeover, Marty and I will end up in this car going and picking up parts for his shitboxes and my good cars. And so, as such, it's got a really old-school, you know, head unit in it that came from the factory that just does AM, FM and CDs. Remember those. So, we picked this up from Super Cheap Auto. It's just a kind of basic head unit thing that has carplay. I got one of the ISO connectors, but the others weren't available. So, this here is the car side for the factory plug. And so, normally, if you get all the right connectors, you can just kind of plug a big snake together. I don't have that. So, I have the stereo side, which is here. And I have a universal plug, which is here. And then I have the Toyota side, which is that. So, I'm basically going to solder all of that together and I'll do it here on the bench. And then once the boys have finished getting the fluids in there, then we'll go above because we've got timing belts and other things to do, plus trying to look for diesel leaks. And I'll get a head unit in there, so we can kick some mad tunes while picking up the gearbox for Marty's RX-7, which I do believe is happening soon. Is that correct, Martin? Correct. Changing head units has started to feel a little bit old school and we haven't had to do it for a while. Modern cars usually come with fully integrated entertainment systems with steering wheel controls, navigation, head-up displays and 500 speakers, which makes changing the system difficult and also unnecessary. Our Hilux came out before all of this new Fendangle technology, so this is a quick fix. While I'm wiring up the head unit, Marty's going to take off the wheels so we can have a look at the brakes. If the rest of the car's anything to go by, these will need to be changed as well. Going to replace the front rotors and pads. The reason being, it's got lots of pads. So, if you looked at it and went, you've got heaps of brakes left. That is true, there's lots of pads. But I have a feeling this has been pad slapped a couple of times, which is where you don't machine the rotor, you don't change the rotor, you just chuck new pads in and go again. And there's heaps of grooves in there. You can get your micrometer thing on there and actually test the thickness, but the lip in there is big enough to tell me that it's probably worth changing. And also, disc rotors are cheaper than they used to be as well, so just slapping a new one on and recycling that is quick and easy. Put some new pads in as well, and then we'll fully bleed the system using some Castrol brake fluid. Job done. The brakes on the front of this thing are pretty big, which makes sense when you consider both the weight of the unit itself and the payload it's legally able to carry. It's quick and easy to change the pads and rotors, we just push the pistons back, remove and replace everything, and then bleed the whole lot. Alright, so here's the little loom that I've made up. So this end here is going in the back of the head unit like that. And all going well, these should be the factory connectors that are on the other side of the old head unit that's on there. So it's going to be coming down off the hoist in a second, we're just finishing the brakes, and then I'll rip the old one out, and hopefully that just works. Cloudy headlights are an instant fail, but you can fix it yourself with some DIY. You can make up your own mixture of toothpaste and urine, or use avocado skin. Alternatively, you can buy a headlight cleaning kit like a regular person. Next up, I'm pulling the oil filter and replacing it with a brand new one. Then if you need to know what kind of fluids you need for your car, you can use Castrol's Rego to Oil app, where you enter your number plate to get a full list of all the fluids and the amounts that you'll need for your car. In our case, we're using Castrol GTX Diesel 15W40, and we're doing a coolant flush while we're at it. Filthy, old, leaking, dribbling, scummy. Oh mate, give yourself a bit of credit. The Hilux. I would never describe you that. I was describing our Hilux. Oh, sorry. But I'm also impressed, considering this has like near on half a million kilometres on it. Just it all works, man. Yeah. Well, all the fluids have been dropped, they've all been replaced, everything's been checked, coolant, oils, diff oils, gearbox oil. What else did you do down there? We did brakes, brake fluid, and we were also about to do power steering fluid. We pulled out what was in that reservoir and it was black and gross. So we're just going to do it a few, give it a few cycles and then do it again. We put some air in some tyres. There's going to be some other tyres coming, but for now that'll get us around. Martin, it's time to turn the key. Let's kick it. On the next episode of... No, I'm just kidding. All right. Here we go. Let's hear it, Martin. Let's hear how exciting it is. Listen to it. Listen to that. Does it just get you excited or what? That is the least excited I've ever been hearing a car start for the first time in our garage. Look, diesels don't sound great, I don't reckon. It's only up from here, mate. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, that's true. But we're going to cycle our power steering, then we're going to check the oil again as well. And then that's our medium service. I wouldn't call it a major service done. All the fluids. A quick and easy method to change power steering fluid is to suck out the old stuff, replace it with fresh fluid, then steer the wheels lock to lock, then rinse and repeat until it looks good. Meanwhile, I can pull the factory head unit out. On this Hilux, it means removing three knobs, undoing one screw, unclip the switches, and then the whole face will come off. All right, so I'm just getting rid of the factory head unit. It's meant to have four 10 mils holding it in. It actually has three. And as is becoming a bit of a theme with this car, you would think that you may need some tools. But no, you just use your fingers and you undo whatever screws and bolts are left and then you pull the thing out. So this one here is, um, there we go. That's one out. No tools required. That one there is looking good. So I'm just going to plug the head unit in before I do all of this stuff and find out that maybe something's not right or, you know, some part of it's not working. I'm just going to plug the head unit and make sure it actually powers up. The head unit has powered on successfully. So now it's time to check that the speakers, microphone and USB are all working properly. Yeah. My car goes pshh pshh pshh. Goes pshh pshh pshh. My car goes pshh pshh pshh. Oh, whoops. Oh. It's all good. It's fixed. Next job is the timing belt. Timing belts can be a bit scary. If you're from Subaru land, they're a big, big job because there's so many cams and things going on. On these Hiluxes, it's reasonably simple. It's only a couple of hours labor in mechanic land to do it. And so we are going to do it because the previous owner said that it got done 80,000 k's ago, assuming he's telling the truth on that one. Even that is getting close to when it needs to be done. So we're just going to slap on a new belt. We're just bringing it around now to get the phasing right between the cam and the crank. We're nearly there. And then we're going to swap it out. A timing belt replacement on this engine is simple and straightforward. Way easier than a motor with four cams and blown head gaskets. Old belt's off. New belt's going on. It's okay. But you can feel how much harder that is from the life that it's had. Throw this new belt on and our timing belt swap is done. It looks like the old belt was way past due with small hairline cracks and old brown burnt rubber, which is the clear giveaway. While we were here, we decided to investigate the diesel leak and down the rabbit hole we went until we found this buildup in the intake. This gunk was seriously clogging up our intake, so it all had to be removed. I want to give a quick shout out to Shannon's Insurance for Motoring Enthusiasts. They can also offer insurance for your daily drive, your motorbike, and even home and contents insurance. Check out more on the Shannon's website. All right, we got heaps of stuff done today. Now we got some mad technology in the cabin. Hopefully everything's going to be working. I'm pretty keen to drive it because we haven't even driven the thing yet. Fully serviced. And now we are waiting for some new tyres to arrive, which is pretty exciting. And a lift kit. Why? Why not? Because... Best four-wheel drive channel. It's the best four-wheel driving channel in the world. And when you go down to your local Harris Farm to get your coconut and passion fruit kombucha, you need the hype. And you need the hype. You need the hype. Just to make sure you bash that little like thing that hangs on the garage on the way. Yes. Kabang! Everyone goes, yeah, you're so sick. If you're not bashing the thing, you're not living the four-wheel drive life. Exactly. All right. Well, let's get these pots here. Keep going. My Harlux is sick. Your car is shit.