Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

The first weekend of November 2019 my wife and sister went of with the Patrol for a lekker weekend, attending a wedding in Newcastle, as well as visiting some family in the Freestate. The trip up went well and they attend the wedding the Saturday. Then Sunday afternoon came the , frantic phone call from my wife, I was overtaking a truck and then it just went bang with lots of black smoke and smell of oil, it sounded like the 375H&H, my wife explaining on the other side of the line, luckily they were with family and the Patrol could be towed to Harrismith......... one dead Patrol. It happened...... way to early I'm thinking, was hoping to get lots more kilometers out of the rebuild motor, it only did 14000km...... my hart dropped, what now, I did not sleep that Sunday night. Organised plane tickets for wife and sister back home/PE and picked them up Monday evening on PE airport, dead Patrol left behind in Harrismith.......

Oh no !!!..... Wait.... black smoke might not be too bad..... boost pipe may have come off or turbo died...again

And then?.....

So Monday morning arrived, and what do I do now phone the Turbonator (Tinus Lotz)!

Luckily, he was sitting at Michael's place - SoJo Engineering, and it was agreed that I can arrange for the dead Patrol to be delivered to SoJo.

So, we started brainstorming available options:

1. Get a good running ZD30 motor, will be the cheapest and quickest.
2. Find a TD42Ti motor for descent price and do the conversion.
3. My 3rd option was to take my rebuild TD42 motor from my GQ and turbo it and into the GU. Tinus words was do not do that, don't break your car...... those who can remember there is a thread on the rebuild of the TD42 engine.

Patrol arrived at SoJo, and the engine were hydro locked.

And a few weeks come and gone, and options 1 and 2 were fading away as the options did not materialize. And off course money is a big factor.........

Luck was turning my way at last and I found a broken TD42Ti motor in Cradock from a farmer who only drives Patrols! The parts I needed was in good nick and I phoned Tinus with the good news and so option 3 was born. The 3.0Di will be converted to TD42Ti! Tinus organised for the GQ body to be sold.

My son and I took a road trip to Cradock to go and fetch the engine, a trip the young man still talks about, and the last one with the GQ.

The GQ with the engine was couriered to SoJo for the conversion to commence.

Parts required from the broken engine is; (the GQ had the inline fuel pump so needed to be replaced by VE pump)

1. Turbo
2. Turbo manifold
3. VE injection pump - luck again it is the 11mm pump!
4. Front cover/part of engine

Michael did an absolute fantastic job with the conversion, I cannot thank him enough for all the hard work, and trouble he went through to make it happen. Also, big thank you to Tinus for all the help during this time, it is much appreciated.

So just over a year later from buying the Patrol, in the first week of March I drove it down from Centurion to Bathurst, this time the King of the Road! It is an absolute pleasure to drive the Patrol now, loads of power, easy to drive, smooth, lots of low-down torque compared to ZD30, the boost compensator makes a big difference and don't feel any turbo lag.