NT Family Tourer Build

[mahollin]

Cabin filter time. Old one was a Wesfil
old filter installed.jpg


Went with readily available Sakura.
new filter box.jpg


The following is after a tap out and vacuum of the old filter. The Wesfil dirty side was starting to fray. The Sakura has a lot more pleats and seems better quality.

old vs new dirty side.jpg old vs new clean side.jpg

[outbakjak]

Great Job and good to see you doing a lot yourself. I envy you being able to do this.......Physically I am unable to do much on my car now days. I have recently brought a NT Exceed, and am doing upgrades, maintenance etc etc we go along.....

[mahollin]

Finally had time to read through this thread and great work.

Are you still planning on installing a water tank in the 3rd row seat hole? I have a bladder with a hand pump that I bought off another member a long time ago. Easy to use and install/remove so you can still use the 3rd row when required. Water even tasted pretty good last time I used it.

Hi Trolley, yeah planning on putting a tank in there but currently the boot has a leak that I need to track down before I can put stuff in there. I've narrowed down to the LHS side window and/or the boot seal. I've adjusted the rear door striker to bring the door in further, so just waiting to see if that works.

[mahollin]

Great Job and good to see you doing a lot yourself. I envy you being able to do this.......Physically I am unable to do much on my car now days. I have recently brought a NT Exceed, and am doing upgrades, maintenance etc etc we go along.....

Nice outbakjak! NT's seem to be in a good spot between low price but still has the good turbo and no DPF. Just gotta watch out for rust, particularly in the back doors. Mine has it I'm lucky to be able bodied, but time poor.

[mahollin]

Managed to load the family up and take advantage of the early snow over QBW. Did some tobogganing and made a snow man. Was planning to head to Donna Buang, but there were queues and not much snow left. Lake Mountain was booked out, so headed to Mount Matlock (along with every patrol in Vic it seemed). Tested out the new road tyres: Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season Plus. They were a bit sketchy on the slushy dirt roads at 40psi warm temp, but gripped much better at 25psi.

20220613_134736_resized.jpg

[outbakjak]

Managed to load the family up and take advantage of the early snow over QBW. Did some tobogganing and made a snow man. Was planning to head to Donna Buang, but there were queues and not much snow left. Lake Mountain was booked out, so headed to Mount Matlock (along with every patrol in Vic it seemed). Tested out the new road tyres: Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season Plus. They were a bit sketchy on the slushy dirt roads at 40psi warm temp, but gripped much better at 25psi.

20220613_134736_resized.jpg

I am coming down from Darwin and hoping to catch some snow at teenager's request.... Probably be staying at Ballarat for a night or two, Then not knowing Victoria, I thought I had to head to Mt Buller to catch some snow...... Also will I need chains by law?

[Two Emms]

If you're staying overnight at Mr Buller you must carry chains. Yep it's the law.

If you are only visiting for the day you may not have to carry chains. They announce chain requirements for "day visitors" each afternoon for the following day. This is in two parts, 4wds and 2wds. Depending on the forecast they may require all vehicles to carry chains or(if it's better weather) only 2wds or (if it's a sunny day) no vehicles at all. Plenty of chains for hire in Mansfield.

If you decide to go to Mt Buller, it is a good idea to book your gate entry online the day before. It's been stupid busy so far this season and it's not nice to get to the gate and be told "sorry car parks are full, come back tomorrow" Yep, that really does happen. And at that point you are still a few k's from the actual snow.

[outbakjak]

If you're staying overnight at Mr Buller you must carry chains. Yep it's the law.

If you are only visiting for the day you may not have to carry chains. They announce chain requirements for "day visitors" each afternoon for the following day. This is in two parts, 4wds and 2wds. Depending on the forecast they may require all vehicles to carry chains or(if it's better weather) only 2wds or (if it's a sunny day) no vehicles at all. Plenty of chains for hire in Mansfield.

If you decide to go to Mt Buller, it is a good idea to book your gate entry online the day before. It's been stupid busy so far this season and it's not nice to get to the gate and be told "sorry car parks are full, come back tomorrow" Yep, that really does happen. And at that point you are still a few k's from the actual snow.

Cheers, and sorry to Hijack this post build. I don't have to go to Mt Buller, anywhere there is is snow........ so when time is closer, I will see where to go from Ballarat or Melbourne.

[mahollin]

With the sudden hike in fuel prices it was time to bite the bullet and order an aux fuel tank. I was waiting for some more savings and for the water tank to be installed in the well as I might need access directly underneath. I thought there'd be a bit of a wait while they fabricate, but ended up being 3 months. Reading up on the forums it seems the Brown Davis unit has issues, but LRA only has praise. A bit of a discount came up so I ordered a LRA MPNMRA (D) 58L/60L (depending where you look) to fit around the rear aircon/heater. I liked how the LRA tapered at the back for improved departure angle.

The instructions that come with the tank are a bit vague and leave out steps which I'll try and detail. I've noticed there is no install guide for the tank on the forum so hopefully this will be helpful to others.

The first issue I ran into is trying to route the cabling from the dash to the underbody. There were no details about which grommet to go through. I ended up going through 2. One to get from cabin into the secret compartment revealed by removing the fuel tank access cover under back seat. Then through the grommet on the rear of the compartment to get it under the body.

The next issue was the front bracket fouled on the hard brake line. It took some phone calls and emails to LRA but eventually worked out one needs to unmount the hard line (and the heat shield) and pop the bracket behind. However it still fouled on the hard line.

Fouling on brake line
front bracket fouls on brake line.jpg

Bracket in but fouling on brake line
front backet installed but rubbing against brake line.jpg

After some careful bending and persuasion, managed to get the bracket in
Bracket installed Front.jpg

The RHS bracket was a bit easier. I was worried that I'd have to drop the tow bar to fit as it shared its bolts, but just needed to undo the bolts and add the bracket
Bracket installed RHS.jpg

For the LHS bracket it bolts up to an unused existing threaded hole further towards the front of the car compared to the LHS. The problem was they sent the wrong threaded M12 bolt. I thought the hole was just a bit clogged up after some cleaning up and brushing when the bolt seemed to be difficult going in. I grabbed my spare bolts and worked out the thread was wrong:

Supplied bolt on left and the correct thread pitch on the right.
M12 wrong thread.jpg

After contacting LRA they express posted the correct bolt out and bolted up. Word of advice is when mounting the tank, have this one loose as there is a bit of play which can be useful for aligning with the tank. Just don't forget to tighten up afterwards.
Bracket installed LHS.jpg

Next issue is the supplied transfer pump bracket didn't seem to have the holes drilled out so I had to spend some time finishing it off
transfer pump bracket undrilled.jpg

Also the manual doesn't say where in particular to mount the pump. Just says out of the way. I spent a hour or so trying different locations but couldn't make it work. The singular mounting hole in the bracket didn't line up with anything. After wasting much time I went to Bunnings and got some brackets and made my own:
transfer pump mounted.jpg

[mahollin]

Next stage of the tank install was the piping. Here's the existing piping for reference:
Main tank filler 1.jpg Main tank filler 2.jpg Main tank filler 3.jpg Main tank filler 4.jpg

That whole pipe assembly needed to come out. For the filler the the instructions say to enlarge holes to 8mm. This is due to the new twin filler being a generic item used among multiple models it seems. However when I test fit the new filler I found the holes only needed enlarging in one direction (inwards), so out with the round file and painted up the bare metal.
original filler screws removed.jpg paint.jpg filler mount holes enlogated and painted.jpg

Another thing not mentioned in the instructions, is the filler gasket has 2 locating tabs that have no home on the new twin filler neck and need removing
filler gasket.jpg

The original filler hard pipe assembly needs the fast flow and filler pipes cut. Out with the recip saw again. Becoming a good buy that saw.
recip saw.jpg

[mahollin]

The supplied new filler hard pipe to the aux tank was the wrong item. Back onto LRA and the correct one sent out.

Wrong pipe
wrong filler pipe sent.jpg

Also the new filler had some rusty schmutz and oily residue to clean out
rusty schmutz in twin filler.jpg

It's a bit of a nightmare working out which fitting and hose goes where. I ended up labeling the brass fittings and matching with the instructions. Made life a lot easier, that and the photos on the LRA website. I used Loctite MR 5923 to seal the threads.
Loctite MR 5923.jpg

New piping
new piping 1.jpg new piping 2.jpg new piping 3.jpg

LRA requests popping a magnet in the tank for swirling purposes?
magnet installed in fiiler opening.jpg

[mahollin]

Bolting the tank up was fiddly. I used a high lift jack to rest the tank on and for controlled lift. It's difficult reaching around the subframe to get the hoses and wiring hooked up. The install manual states to mount the tank "behind" the front bracket. The problem was whether behind was the perspective of installing the tank, so looking from the rear, or with respect to the front of the vehicle. A question for LRA who were speedy enough in responding.

Bracket location - Option A.png Bracket location - Option B.png

When the tank first went up it naturally slotted into Option A's position. However LRA informed it should be Option B, so I unbolted and dropped it down enough to relocate to Option B.

I tried to mount the tank level and pump transfer controller where I could see it through the cruise gap in the steering wheel. Sorry for the blurry photo:
pump and level unit.jpg

Tank installed
tank installed.jpg

Ultragauge updated from 88 to 146. Might increase it a bit more after putting 63L in the first fill. Will transfer it to empty, refill it and see how much goes in.
ultragauge update number of litres.jpg first fill.jpg

[outbakjak]

Wow seems QC failed big time with LRA