5 PATHS to a 4WD DISASTER

There are so many different four-wheel drives, so many different requirements, so many aftermarket options, but we all have one thing in common. The five important areas on a vehicle we must avoid taking shortcuts on, or this could be you. Building a four-wheel drive and setting it up for your ideal needs is a very fun experience, or should be at least. It can be expensive, but there's plenty of aftermarket options out there so you can do shortcuts and you can cut down on cost of those items. Anything that doesn't compromise the reliability of your vehicle is what you can compromise on, but there are five particular areas you cannot compromise on. The old saying, buy once, cry once. That seems true to these five. What are those five? Well, I'm going to share those with you right now so you can bulletproof your 4x4 and all your future plans. This is awesome. As usual, we'll start from the bottom and we'll work our way to the top, which is the most important of them all. But to be honest, they're all pretty much as important as each other. What type of mods you can do, what you should modify, more importantly really, what are the areas and why you need to be careful? All of that starting from number five. This squiggly object right here with three bolt holes is called a tie-down point. This is not rated to do a snatch strap recovery. It's not rated to do a winch recovery. This could potentially become a flying projectile, which means this is one area you cannot do a shortcut on. Not only are you putting your own stuff at danger, yourself at danger, but also anyone else who's willing to come and help you. So you're pretty lucky today that somebody's with you. Or in like a recovery situation, regardless of what the situation is, don't use this. Get a recovery point like this. Also, when you're looking at buying a bull bar, what are the recovery points that come with that bull bar? Some brands only offer you one recovery point on one side, but I would suggest you go for one on either side. Not only will it give you multiple options for recovery. It equals the pull and the stress. It's not really the stress to worry about. We want to have an equal pull on this vehicle. Distribute the load between those two points. Now, what about the back of your vehicle? What are you going to do there? If you have a tow hitch receiver, then you're fine. You have the pin and you can put a strap into that hole. I would not, under any circumstances, use a tow ball. Don't do that. Plenty of reasons right behind me there. If you want to check that video out, I'll put a link to it at the end of this. Get those recovery points on the front, or at least just get that recovery point on the rear. You can get a block that slides into it. Those are great. On a strict budget, you can use a pin. Just be mindful, that pin can bend if it's a hard enough pull. So just be aware of that. It's only a pin. A pin doesn't cost much. Recovery gear is also another important thing. I'm not saying go and buy the most expensive brand quality of whatever it is. No, no. Get what suits your needs, but just make sure it is proper rated Australian standard approved recovery gear. That is very important. If you get those things in place, you're good. Number four, and had you asked me about this a year ago, this wouldn't be on my list. So what is it? Wheels. I'm not talking about your tires and all that. I'm talking about wheels on your car. No, not steel versus alloy. If you want to know the results of that, though, I did a video a while ago, which I'll link to the end of this. Cheap inferior wheels. That's what we're talking about. They are a great problem. Recently, I purchased some cheaper steel wheels. I'm not going to mention a brand name because I don't want to defamation case you, but what I will do, I'll mention the two brands that I have used for the last two decades. One of them is Dynamic and the other one is King Wheels. I'm not associated with either of those brands, and they've been absolutely fine. Never had a problem. Believe it or not, these rims that I put on the vehicle were rated for the mines, which is the scary thought. Rated to at least 1400 or 1500 kilos per wheel, which is important for my 79 series when I used to have it because of the GVM, the weight it could take. I finished up doing a little bit of light duty forward driving. After just doing 5,000 kilometers, I noticed a horrible wobble on the back and something on the front. It actually forced me to take it back to the tire shop. I normally ignore these things, but this was so bad, I had to take it back. I didn't receive the phone call. The rims are buckled in the middle. Buckled in the middle? Really? You must have done some real hard driving, mate. I didn't. So I contacted a wheel manufacturer. They sent me two new wheels. Problem was, I'm not going to put those on my car. I don't trust them anymore. I also didn't want to sell them to anyone because I didn't want to pass the problem on. So I left them at the tire shop and I purchased a new set of rims. Guess what I got? I got some more dynamic rims. If there is a cheaper version of a steel wheel, do some research. If you see anything about the center of the wheel buckling, hard to balance, stay away from them. Coming in third on my list, engine mods. You have to be so super duper careful here. There are a couple of different scenarios though, so let's go through those now. If you have a brand new vehicle, you likely have a new car warranty. If you have a new car warranty, do whatever you can to refrain from doing anything to that vehicle, particularly in the engine bay. However, there are some instances where you might want to do something so you avoid having a problem out in the middle of nowhere. As an example, if I was going to buy a Ford Ranger, oh man, come on, they're not a bad car. I would 100% be upgrading the transmission cooler because it's not that great. Gearbox temperature, it got pretty hot there. An upgraded trans cooler would be the first thing I'm going to do to that vehicle, but if you don't need to do it to the vehicle, just don't do it. It's not worth it. If something goes wrong with your car, the vehicle manufacturer now has a scapegoat. They can point the finger at the modification you've done and said, that's the reason why. Two more examples I'm going to give you. The 70 series alternator is absolutely shithouse. The V8, because it hangs so low. I've spoken about this many times before, but if you don't know about it, it hangs low, it's susceptible to dust and mud. It's not a matter of if it will fail, it's a matter of when it will fail. But there is a fix for it. You can buy a sealed alternator that costs a lot of money. My last point, this should also be done to a used 4x4, particularly speaking if it's a turbo diesel. All modern turbo diesel vehicles have a filter, which filters the diesel before it gets to the injectors or the engine. Let's just say the engine. You can add another layer of protection to that and I highly recommend that you look into that. If you're worried about new car warranty, this is where it matters, so listen carefully. If you put the secondary filter before the main filter, then you should be fine, because you are adding a layer of protection before it gets to the manufacturer's protection. However, should you put that protection in between that and the engine, that's when you're in a bit of a dicey situation. So make sure that if you are going to do it, what you're doing is you're protecting the main filter before it gets to the engine. Okay. So secondary filter will be here, main Toyota filter here, then it goes to the engine. Is that because I'm doing a lot of outback sort of dodgy... Even if you're not doing outback, it's a really cheap mod and it's just extra insurance, because not all insurance companies actually cover dodgy fuel. And don't do shortcuts on filters. Use genuine filters only, or something that you know or you are convinced is better than the genuine filters. And that brings us to the used car, the one that's outside warranty, which means that if something goes wrong, it's on you. You need to take it to a mechanic and get it fixed. Make sure to use genuine parts. The genuine parts is what have been tested with the engine. It's what the engine has been made from. So don't go cheap aftermarket parts just to get yourself by. The old saying, buy once, cry once. It's going to lead down to trouble. There are some instances though where you might want to upgrade these parts, which means you have to go to the aftermarket area. And that's okay, as long as you know these are in fact better. It does have two cooling fans underneath. It's consistently 50 degrees cooler. And are going to improve your vehicle over the genuine part. For example, an upgraded radiator. There are some rubbish ones out there you can save costs on to put a replacement in. Don't do that. Get the factory one. However, if you need to upgrade your cooling system, that's when you look into it. You get one that's got a bigger capacity, but you may have to upgrade other things to make it work proper. So these things can lead to quite a bit of cost. Choose carefully when you are going to upgrade or do engine mods to your vehicle. Coming in at number two, the driveline. Now you might be wondering why number two is driveline and not the engine. Wouldn't the engine be more important than the driveline? Debatable, but the reason why I've shuffled this one up to number two is because it's very tempting to get the cheaper parts when it comes to a driveline. CVs in particular. Snappy, snappy, snappy. If you've already increased the size of your tyre and the lift on your vehicle, and it's IFS being an independent front suspension vehicle, and you're giving it a hard time. If you're too jerky, too sharp on the accelerator, too sharp on the brakes, that really loads up your driveline. And when you think about it, low range, it multiplies the torque and the force going through the driveline up into your diff centres. And then the diff centres, in my case, they're four to one. So you're multiplying it again, and all that torque and force is then being transferred out. Snappy, snappy at some point. Should you snap one and then you buy those cheap CVs? Well guess what? That's going to snap. I wouldn't say twice as easy, but pretty close. Pretty close. I've had a couple of mates who have got the cheap CV. That's all good. We go on a trip. Guess what? Snappy, snappy. There goes the CV. Had he gone with a normal CV, I guarantee you, it wouldn't have snapped. That was on an Isuzu. Do not go for the cheaper driveline. If you want to increase the strength of your driveline, that is maybe a good reason to look into the aftermarket world. Chromoly, that is a stronger material. But be warned, it doesn't mean it won't snap. When Chromoly snaps, it can actually lead to worse things. It's got damage on it, so that's just going to cause premature wear on my diff. I look very excited now, don't I? Or perhaps you are increasing the strength of a weak point on your vehicle. Guess what you've just done? If you do break something now, you're going to send the load to another point. And if you're upgrading your axles, just be aware you could destroy your differential. I look very excited now, don't I? And that's going to cost way more than just replacing an axle. If you want to save cost, save cost somewhere else in your vehicle. Do not compromise, particularly on your driveline and your engine. We're now going to jump to number one. Before we get to number one, here's my shameless plug for my four-wheeling Australia Armrest. The perfect companion on your long travels. Perfect fit for a 70 series, the Hilux, and many other vehicles, but does not fit a 200 series or the Ineos Grenadier, because it already has an armrest. All right, number one. It's the first part of your suspension. It's the first part of your vehicle that's going to come into contact with anything sharp, slippery, abrasive, uneven, the tyres you have. Whatever you choose should make you confident enough to travel with just one spare. If there's a particular brand out there that gives you that confidence of just having one spare, you'll be fine. That's what you should go with, because not only are you going to have peace of mind, you are likely going to be onto a good thing. Do not buy those cheap tyres if you need to rely upon them. In fact, I would rather buy worn, reputable brand tyres over brand new, cheap, inferior tyres. The only time you would maybe consider that is if you only do really local trips and you are on a tight budget. Sure, but they're going to wear faster, they're going to be less safer on the road because they have less grip, they're not going to be as puncture resistant. Completely blown the tyre out. There are so many things that they are not compared to a proper brand. See, a proper branded tyre, if they release a batch that is sh**, that really hurts them, because there are so many other brands that people would just turn to and go to instead. It is in their best interest to do everything they can to make tyres that are up to the quality, up to the standard that we're used to driving on. Whatever you choose, if you feel that you could travel just with one spare because you trust that tyre enough, then you're onto something. Now, if you want more useful content that's going to help you with your vehicle build or make your choice easier, there's a video there and there's another one right there. Thanks for watching. Well, go on, press one of these videos and give it a thumbs up if you haven't done that yet.