GQ Patrol in the 4X4 Australia shed

• Part 1: GQ arrives in the 4x4 shed
• Part 2: GQ's first camping trip
• Part 3: Hot under the collar
• Part 4: Keeping it simple

Part 1: GQ arrives in the shed

I recently bought myself a GQ Patrol, and it’s going to serve as my introduction in to this new world of raised suspension and intentionally getting dirty. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

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I’ve been toying with life-size cars since I was around 13, mainly R31 Nissan Skylines, a Hyundai Excel rally car and Holden Commodore utes. I’m 24 years old now, and last year it occurred to me that in my 10-odd years of playing cars there was one gaping hole in my list: not a single 4x4.

Being a country boy meant there was really was no excuse as to why I didn’t have one, so straight away I started searching for a budget fourbie to fill the void in my stable. My criteria was pretty simple: I had a buy-in budget of $5000, it had to be 25 years or older so I could put it on a Club Permit, and it had to be reliable with a decent amount of aftermarket support. The body could be a bit beaten up and, because it wasn’t going to be a daily driver every day, luxuries like central locking and power windows weren’t necessities either.

Being a lover of boxy old Nissans meant a LWB GQ Patrol wagon rocketed straight to the top of my list, so I spent a few months casually browsing to see what I could find. The market for GQs is massively varied, and a key part of that depends on what engine you want. My budget immediately ruled out the top trump TD42 turbo-diesel, but because I wasn’t planning on towing, I was happy to settle for the petrol TB42 powerplant instead.

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Just a few days out from Christmas last year, this GQ Patrol popped up on Facebook Marketplace and it fit the bill perfectly. A 1988 LWB wagon, TB42 carby, auto, with a beaten-up body but, critically, a valid Victorian roadworthy certificate, solid mechanics underneath and all for $4500! It was also pretty much standard save for a two-inch suspension lift, steel bullbar and a dodgy light bar. I think it’s safe to say I bought the cheapest useable GQ Patrol off Facebook Marketplace with walk-in rego – score!

So far we’ve racked up around 2000km touring around our local Bendigo region in the GQ with the family and it’s been nothing but smiles the whole time. The car has been pretty-well faultless except for a few carby gremlins, and despite the kettle warnings, it survived all summer without overheating. It’s also allowed me to see parts of my local area I never would’ve been to, and now I don’t have to worry about bottoming out my VZ SS ute when I go hunting for mountain-bike trails.

But I didn’t just buy it to go mountain biking. Being a country kid I’ve loved camping my whole life, and with a bunch of my friends recently buying 4x4s and hitting the dirt for lengthy camping trips, it seems like the perfect time to build a touring rig.

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Because I know virtually nothing about modifying 4x4s or what it takes to go off-road, there’s been a lot of questions asked and Googling to find out what I’ll need to get the GQ ready. First things first, I’ve been told to bin the factory 31-inch all terrains in favour of some 33-inch mud terrains. I’ll also need a set of front and rear recovery points, a snatch strap, a proper set of side-steps and preferably a roof-rack (with awning) to strap some fuel to because the TB42 loves a drink! I’ve already got all the actual camping gear, so that’s no stress.

So feel free to come along – and probably laugh – at me on this journey as I build my first 4x4. I know it’ll be a steep learning curve, but I’m not afraid to get dirty and I haven’t been this excited about a car build in a very long time.

TOTAL KM: 314,000km
DATE ACQUIRED: Dec 2020
PRICE: $4500
AV FUEL: 20L/100km

Part 2: First camping trip

After enjoying the car for around six months, it was time for the mods to begin. My mates and I set a deadline of the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in the middle of June to get the car ready for its first off-road camping trip in the Victorian High Country before the yearly winter closure.

I drafted up a list of essentials I knew I needed to make the GQ more capable on the trails and at the campsite. First was a set of recovery points because, despite what I initially thought, the factory Nissan ones aren’t to be trusted when snatching out of big bog holes. I bought the front one online and the rear one on-sale from Repco, and all up it was less than $100 for the pair.

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Next was a new set of side-steps. Not only did I want a set of rock sliders to protect the sills on the hilly terrain, but the mounts for the flimsy factory side-steps rusted and snapped off! I originally wanted to go cheap and get a second-hand set, but after struggling to find a set, I ended up buying a brand-new kit from eBay for $650. The steps also came with a pair of brush bars, but I’ll wait until I get a winch-compatible bullbar later down the track before I cut them down and bolt them on. For a cheap kit, the side-steps bolted up relatively easily, but I did have to make a trip to Bunnings when I discovered the kit was missing half the bolts.

From factory, GQs already have a pretty solid diff breather set-up. The front diff, transmission and transfer box all meeting at a single breather right at the top of the passenger guard. However, the rear diff breather just goes straight into the chassis near the fuel tank, and that didn’t seem high enough if we needed to do some river crossings on the trip. So I got myself an ARB diff-breather kit for $95 and routed a new hose from the rear diff to the engine bay, with the ARB breather mounted right next to the factory breather location for the front. A snorkel will happen soon.

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Next on the list was a roof rack and awning, because I knew I’d need somewhere to carry some extra fuel (the TB42 loves a drink!) and the awning would be perfect to protect the swag from nasty weather. The awning was a score from Facebook marketplace, a no-name 3x2-metre unit with an extra side wall that had never been used for only $80!

The roof rack, on the other hand, was less than ideal, because while it was only $150 second-hand, I made the mistake of picking it up with a tray-back ute rather than taking the GQ. Lo and behold, the rack with non-adjustable mounts that I was told would fit a GQ was about an inch too short. Bugger! So with the help of the missus and a good mate, we had to cut the old mounts off, extend them by an inch and weld them back into place.

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The last thing on the list was a new set of tyres, as the 31-inch ATs the car came with wouldn’t cut it in the High Country, especially with wintery conditions forecasting mud and even snow. Read the full write-up on the tyres in a separate story (see page 122), but the short of it is, tyres was the one area I was told not to cheap-out on, so I opted for a brand-new set of aggressive Mickey Thompson Baja Boss’s in 33x12.5R15 on some 15x8-inch Sunnys a mate gave me from his GU.

After a last minute thrash, the car was all prepped and ready to hit the road to the High Country, where I quickly found out the kettle memes about Patrols are all too real – but you’ll have to wait for a future issue to read about that debacle.

KM SINCE LAST UPDATE: 500km
AVERAGE FUEL USE: 20L/100km

Part 3: Hot under the collar

It’s no secret that GQ-GU Patrols aren’t exactly famed for their cooling systems, having been the butt of ‘kettle’ jokes for all eternity.

Sadly, during my very first off-roading trip in the Vic High Country, I found the memes all too true with the TB42 in our 1988 GQ Patrol wagon. The Pooey did the four-hour road trip from Bendigo to Jamieson with no problems, but as soon as we left the tarmac and started the climb to the top of Mt Terrible things went really south.

The temp gauge rocketed to boiling point within minutes heading up the first track, and the Patrol proceeded to boil over three more times before making it to the top. This was just as much of a problem for the transmission as it was the engine, given the trans cooler is housed within the radiator. Granted, the car was fully loaded with four days’ worth of camping gear, water and fuel – but outside temps were barely hovering over 12°C (this was a June long weekend trip) with nice, cool air outside and the car still refused to stay cool.

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We managed to get it through the rest of the trip by taking the bonnet off for any climbs, but I knew even with all the kettle jokes about Patrol’s that surely a fully functioning cooling system shouldn’t be this bad.

My first suspect was the radiator fitted by the previous owner. It may have been a big three-core alloy unit, but I wasn’t convinced about how well it actually flowed and it also didn’t seem to hold pressure very well.

The other culprit in my sights was the clutch fan. The plastic fins themselves were fine, but the fan wouldn’t cool the car down at idle when it got warm and unless the car was moving quick enough to get airspeed through the radiator (such as normal road driving), and temps would rise.

Rather than pay a fortune for a new viscous hub, I decided to ditch the current set-up and go all-new and improved. I’d read about an upgraded, bolt-on clutch fan kit from Qikazz 4x4 and Camping, which uses a Mitsubishi truck fan and custom-made adapter to bolt to the factory water pump. At $550 it wasn’t by any means cheap, but online research told me that this fan combined with a good radiator is the way to go.

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The upgraded fan kit only fits with a single-core standard-size radiator, but that was fine by me. I was more than happy to ditch the puss-nut eBay three-core alloy rad for a genuine one, and luckily enough I managed to get my hands on what was probably the last brand-new genuine Nissan TB42 auto radiator in the country.

The install process was a fairly simple one, the radiator went straight in with no fuss and the only tricky bit was getting the fan shroud back down between the clutch fan and radiator without damaging the fins. I also used this opportunity to fix some leaky trans-cooler lines going to the radiator.

The in-and-out job only took around two hours with some ball scratching, but I made sure I set aside an entire afternoon to bleed the cooling system. This step often gets glossed over, but make sure you take your time, put the heater on full blast and get all the air pockets out and give the car a decent drive to make sure it’s happy. Once that was done, I topped up the transmission and she was set.

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Since fitting the new radiator and fan, I’ve given the GQ a few solid stretches on some local tracks and I’m delighted to report that I haven’t even got close to boiling over. The car will happily idle for long periods without getting hot, and I recently took it through some very long and steep hill climbs in much warmer temperatures in the Pyrenees State Forest with no dramas at all. And the fan is much quieter than the factory unit too!

The real test will come when summer hits and I give the cooling system a real workout on and off road but for now at least, I’m happy to say the issue is fixed! Now hopefully, the only time I’ll be boiling water when I go off-roading is for a nice cup of coffee in the morning.

KM SINCE LAST UPDATE: 700KM
AVERAGE FUEL USE: 20L/100KM

Part 4: Keeping it simple

Since my boxy, cheap as chips GQ Patrol was last featured in these page, a fair bit has happened to turn this thing in to a functional camping, off roading and all ’round usable rig on the cheap.

The GQ spent all summer carting us out to the local swimming spot on the weekends, Esky in the back and the awning providing valuable shade. After the joys of summer faded, we decided our next big camping and off-roading trip would be over the Easter long weekend. The plan was to spend a good four to five nights out in the sticks exploring tracks in the Vic High Country, so I knew an Esky wasn’t going to cut it for provisions.

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I started looking at a cheap 12-volt system for the GQ, preferably removable. The reason for this is, as the GQ is used as our camping toy, there are plenty of other tasks it does for me that have nothing to do with pitching a tent. I decided on a removable battery box in the car, and got myself a HardKorr Heavy Duty battery box and wiring kit.

All in, that cost around $250 (excluding the battery), and it’s a super simple system that’s removable for more interior space when the car is being used for jobs like carting kids and car parts around. I borrowed a Waeco fridge from the in-laws and job done! We had nice cool food storage for a week’s camping.

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The next job was to fit a snorkel, as I’d been told our route in the High Country would involve a lot of river crossings. I did 100-per-cent the wrong thing and got the cheapest kit I could, and it didn’t take long for regret to set in. While it only cost around $80, the template was inaccurate that a half-a-day snorkel install turned in to a whole-day affair with some fabrication and trips to the parts store, completely outweighing the cost saving (you get what you pay for).

A final upgrade before the trip was a new bullbar, which actually wasn’t planned. A good mate of mine managed to score me an Ironman 4x4 winch bar for a slab of beer out of the scrap bin at a local panel beating shop, so we bolted that on, along with some brush bars I’d had sitting around. And with that, the car was ready to go.

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A sudden turn in the weather deviated our plans at the last minute, with nasty rain predicted for the majority of our trip. We decided to head west from our Central Victorian starting point to the Grampians via the Pyrenees Ranges, to escape the majority of the rain belt that soaked Victoria that weekend.

The Pyrenees offers heaps of intermediate and difficult 4x4 tracks just outside of Avoca, with plenty of camping spots. After a dry first day on the tracks, the second day gave us some slippery downhill tracks to contend with, but even fully loaded with camping gear the grippy 33-inch Mickey Thompson Baja Boss M/Ts never let the GQ slip out of line.

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Our time in the Grampians didn’t involve any 4x4 tracks, but we did get a chance to test out the GQ’s camping merits with three days of sightseeing and exploring around Halls Gap. With the big awning and OZtrail stretcher tent, we had everything we needed without spending thousands on a set of drawers or rooftop tent.

On the route home back to Bendigo we had one last overnight stop at Mount Bealiba, just outside of Dunolly. A bit of an unknown on the Victorian 4x4 map, it has a heap of tracks to explore that lead to High Country-rivalling views over Central Vic.

We wrapped up the trip by spending the night at the base of the mountain, and it’s there where I had time to reflect on how the GQ had done. Other than a few carby hiccups and excessive fuel usage (a given with the old TB42) it ran great, got over every obstacle with ease, and the super simple 12-volt system and camping set-up proved you don’t need to remortgage your house on camping gear to spend a week away in the sticks.

TOTAL KILOMETRES: 317,300km