SD33 is pretty well known. Super tough. The mk swb turbo Patrol is one of the best looking 80's trucks. Fab colour and great choice on the period wheels
Brings back memories. A friend bought one of these new and a very similar colour to this one. I remember how well it rode which quickly justified the reason for the grab bar for the passenger. Don't see any of these around now.
Found one in a scrapyard, chucked a battery in it, didn’t turn over, smacked the starter and she spun, diesel and a lot of start ya bastard got her goin, living on a farm as it’s no longer roadworthy, will use the running gear one day in my cleaner 82 MQ
So happy to see an old Patrol (prior to GRs) from Australia! I inherited a 260 Top Line 2 RD28T from my grand father. A car I’ll never sell. Greetings from Spain!!
I had a SD33 5speed wagon. Slow as, but never let me down. A couple of hundred thou km in the outback. Only changed a clutch, fitted a SD33T flywheel as it will fit the SD33 and will use the larger GQ clutch. Shocks, rebuilt the starter solenoid and new radiator. Great old car!
That Melbourne company he got the crankshaft from that ran out of business would have to he Crankshaft Rebuilders....you won't need a warranty if they made you a crank. Their Ausgrind cranks are still sought-after
That is correct mate. Was a bit of hassle as it wasn't quite finished, oil slinger for the rear main needed clearancing, and the gearbox needed spacing back as the rear of the crank was beefed up. Other than that, it has been brilliant, a real pitty they went out of business.
Great vid Sam, there are some rare and cool retro beasts still crawling around Aus! This is a prime example of a useable and collectible 4x4. Must be so hard keeping it in such great condition and maintaining its originality without going “full send”. This is gotta be one of the best rigs I’ve seen in ages. Top job capturing this Sam!
Best content in a while, mate. Good to see some good, intelligent and relatable discussion around a really cool retro touring setup, rather than all the super custom dollar-sign stuff.
Here in spain we have a tone of those Patrols, we have it in a couple of engines, 2.8L 4 cylinder with turbo or without it, 2.8L 6 cylinder with and without turbo, sd33 with and without turbo, we also have it in petrol 2.8 and 3.0 both of them 6 cylinder N.A. I Still have a 1986 one,with 2.8L 4 cylinder diesel without turbo, is slow as hell but it also works damn good!
Sam you don't know much about Chrysler , they were the Australia's number one selling cars of the 60s and into the 70s , their motor's out lasted all the others in engine competitions and put out more power , the RT Charger E49 was the quickest 1/4 mile car in Australia and only got pipped at the post when the V8 Brock commodore came out! and at the time was second in the world too the Dodge charger 440 engine on the quarter mile and I believe their still making the HEMI to this day 😮
Nice work. I rebodied my rusty MK body to a 81 24v SWB body. Managed to find a 24v pump solenoid of a ute to move away from the tractor pull cable. Is it a wide wheel pack?
Nissan was out to kill Toyota in the 80’s and 90’s.. haha no they did… not that I don’t like Toyota, good competition but I think, I know, Nissan was unbeatable in the 80’s and 90’s.. even early 2000’s…
Sd33t was my first 4x4 it was built tough and uncomfortable compared to my 24mux 😂 so much character, miss that thing. I was so hard to find parts though.
Back in the 80 s you had have either hurricane wheels or turbines in gold I had turbines on my Toyota bj73 which was the equivalent medium wheel base from Toyota Mine was white with blue side decals which were also the had to have thing back then That is absolutely amazing for a Nissan of that age 😍😍
Had a MK with the L28 and 4 speed did a genuine 160 kmh if you had the room to wind it out. It was a LWB wide wheel pack with factory flares top of the range.
We found a MQ rotting away in a yard with a SD33T. not much left of it, earth was reclaiming her. Anyways. We put a jump pack on the thing and she just burst into life. We all stood there looking at each other in disbelief as it purred away like nothing was wrong 😮
My old shorty's edic motor failed as well. Used a shut off cable from a mack truck and worked like a charm. Another weird thing with the old patrols is they were all wired 24v apart from the dash lights and stereo which made fitting accessories fun
Not all of them, only sd33 and sd33turbo come with 24v, Here in spain we produce those cars for a lot of years and here only sd33/T come in 24v, the other engines comes with standard 12v
@trichomez4216 make your mind up dude, when somebody is a junkie they are self administering intravenously they wouldn't waste it in a pipe, On a serious note ive never been keen on meth tbh so ill leave that to you because technically, you're the 1 holding the pipe. You've got the natural progression of glass to steel to look forward to in the future though.
soon as i saw this Patrol i smashed the sub ,glad to be here,my ol man bought a new 78 Patrol and with collaboration with a mechanical workshop i believe called Ritter in Melbourne it was fitted with a 350 chev and 4 speed ,all legal with factory warranty ,it was a specific vehicle meant for long distance towing ,owned it for over 20 years and i recall it ended up in Bega
Must be my age, this is what it's all about...yes he poured some serious $dollorie doos but he in my opinion has done it right....he got something now that is delivering reliable power, handling good with some modern tweaks without taking away or stealing the show of its originality. Thanks for showing this beautiful thing it's good seeing that there is some young people out there with actual taste and not got to far with molestation....builds that people are doing these days on RU-vid I've seen some great vehicles turn into show pony builds some are capable vehicles but at the end of the day it's just flexing between channels who can out build, who has the biggest sponsors....no normal person needs or can afford....This build I can 100% trust now that would be turn key and she will take you a lap....all these other big budget builds I've noticed forever breaking shit or having reliability issues 🤔 can't get them engineered 😂 or paying of yellow stickers...I'm not totally against people doing extreme builds I just find it a little sad seeing stock older vehicles that have plenty of life getting completely chopped to pieces to make way for mods, those vehicles need to be left alone....I just wish that these channels that chop the shit out of everything from a car that had absolutely nothing wrong with it it's sad....maybe save a body from a wreckers next time....
My first car was one of these. It was a 1984 model, bought it in 1991. It was a 3.3 diesel. That was back in Belgium. The "newer" model of these had a 2.8 Turbo Diesel. Can't quite remember when they came out.
Had a83 sd33 Ute was an absolute beast it would tow horse float loaded 120km/hr every where blue had split rims and flares from factory. 460 thousand kms and had no issue was tuned up and a bit more boost. Still running today but rusted out as and stuffed has a spray unit on it gets driven but not often
Cool man. We run an old SD22 in our houseboat. Super reliable donk. Does what you ask and always fire's up. Even after 2 years of no use... always cranks under 2 revolutions of the starter. Not a powerhouse, but suite houseboat lifestyle awesomely!
I was in Qld 2 year ago. There was one of these MQ wagons (silver) parked in the carpark, next to us in our GU (silver) and a Y62 (bronze) park directly in the row behind. That was the logical ascending order, except the GQ was missing. It was so small compared to GU, tiny compared to Y62. The rear access was as a cruiser used to be, lift up top glass, fold down rear tailgate. Chris they were basic back when they hit the market. I recall the short wheelbase units on 4leafs weren't great off road, just didn't flex but guessing the wagon would have been tad better with longer wheelbase base. Early 80's, recall coming up on the Sydney Datsun Club just past Newnes (when you could drive well beyond the pub) attempting to get these shorties up a scrably hill, non off them could do it. A chap in a Daihatsu goes by, gets to the top, hooks himself to a tree and winched all the Datsun MQs up. Thought the Daihatsu would snap in half for certain, certainly bounced around on its suspension, haha. He offed to winch our group up, nah, our guy in his Daihatsu drove up, Suzuki drove up, two hiluxes up, then a new 45 series just made the Datsuns looks hideously hopeless. Only one in our group to have an issue was the Datsun ute (can't recall the model, new in 80's) but with guidance we got him up. Image a Daihatsu winching the whole Datsun Club up, unheard of.
These things were all over NZ when I was a kid, uncle had a 5 door, neighbour had a ute, plenty of shorties around. One of the local farmers had a long wheelbase with the removable steel canopy, not just a ute with a canopy because the cab was open to the back same as this.
When I was a kid in the 80's one of the old man's mates had a sd33t MK tray back which was the only vehicle that could tow the tinny off the beach at Greenhead.
What do you mean, "never knew existed?" I bought mine brand new in 1985, LWB Bronze colour, SD33T engine, 5 speed. At the time, $28,000. Expensive then. It was a great "road going" 4x4 for touring and economical to run. 28 to 29 MPG. But it was a dog off-road! Especially in mud and ruts, it would hang up on the leaf spring plates like the 79 series Toyoto's do today. The gearing was too high, as Nissan raised the ratio's for the turbo models due to the increased torque, but this killed off the crawling ability off-road. Huge turning circle (long wheel base) and the suspension was too low. All up, this model Patrol went soft and lost it's cred for off-roading. It was not until the following GQ model that Nissan partially redeemed themselves.
