[Henry James the 47th]

Pulled the column again, finished the welds and ground them down. Then primer-surfacer on the column and it's ready for paint.

[grant5127]

I dunno Man, that looks like its settn kinda low in relation to where the seat will be........ also the 40 column is 15" from mounting bolts on the dash to the tip of the shaft nut that retains the steering wheel and a 60 is 12"

[Henry James the 47th]

Well, I must admit I am not sailing forward with total confidence myself!

I realize that the column sits further in, by @3", and I'm fine with that. I thought the column on the stock 40 set up sticks in a bit far anyhow. I put the seat in and sat there with the wheel in my hands and it seemed fine. I asked some other people on the 45 forum what they thought of a column that put the wheel further forward, and the three people that replied all thought it would be fine. In a 45, there is very little room to put the seat back, so the fore/aft of the wheel is dealt with mostly be moving the seat forward. So, I think it will be fine in that respect - if need be I can slide the seat in a little.

Another point about the numbers you give for column length from the bolts - there are different lengths out there - I have measured two of them from differnt BJ60's , and they differ by about 3.5". Check out post 15 again please.

As for the height, that seemed okay at the mock-up, with the column in the neutral tilt position. So, even if it were to end up a tad low, I can always tilt the column up a bit anyhow, AND I'm probably going to put a smaller steering wheel in, possibly out of a mini-truck, and that will give me more room as well. I can go to the smaller wheel since I'm putting in power steering and don't need the leverage of the larger wheel.

Well, proof will be in the pudding as they say. Maybe I'm up sh*t creek without a paddle and just don't know it yet. IF at the end it doesn't work out, I have only some sheet metal to repair and a new pedal box to find and all can be returned to stock. Hopefully, that won't be necessary. I am taking a risk here, and i know the stakes and can live with them.

I'll post pics as I go along, including ones of the finished install with me sitting at the wheel, and you can be the judge then if you like. And, if it doesn't work out, I'll have learned something by trying, and others here on the forum will have a good idea about what NOT to do. That alone makes it worthwhile for me.

At least wish me luck!

Got the column into paint tonight anyhow.

[grant5127]

Sorry, didn't want to bum out this project but you need at least 7" clearance between the top of the seat and the bottom of the wheel to have a smooth entrance and exit. If you have to leave the wheel in the up position all the time that kinda defeats the purpose plus there will be a issue of hitting your knee on the big bulky section of the column. The 3" shorter maybe livable but I think a 4" rise would be cool Anyway your doing really good work and good luck

[Henry James the 47th]

It's taken me a few days to get back to the column project as I've been welding up other areas of my cab. I thought I'd mock the steering column into place, using both the stock 'Cruiser wheel and the mini-truck wheel, comparing clearances off the seat in various positions.

First off, here's the stock wheel in neutral, highest, and lowest positions. As you can see, in the highest position there is more than 7" of clearance, and in the lowest it probably wouldn't work.

[Henry James the 47th]

Now here's the mini-truck wheel, in the neutral, highest, and lowest positions. this gives ample clearance at the highest, and would work fine in the neutral position. Once I'm behind the wheel i find the range I prefer is from one click above neutral to one click below.

[Henry James the 47th]

here's the two wheel side by side for comparison. I was checking out a couple of 80 series wheels at the wreckers yesterday, and they are pretty close in size to the mini-truck wheel.

I guess it could be said that this conversion, as I have done it so far, would best suit power steering and a smaller wheel than stock.

[Henry James the 47th]

Finally, here's a picture from the driver's perspective through the mini-truck steering wheel. It gives me adequate line of sight to the instrument cluster, as well as the tach I will be fitting to the right side of the cluster.

Also, I took a picture of the seat clearance to the back of the cab - allowing 1" space, which gives me about the right amount of leg room. Obviously, in a 40 series, there is more room to slide back if necessary.

When I sit in place on the seat with the mini-truck wheel, the driving position feels good to me. I haven't yet a taken a serious look to see what other steering wheel options are out there. For more leg room under the wheel, a steering wheel out of a Toyota sedan, or perhaps some after market product, would always be an option.

[Henry James the 47th]

The column install has progressed a little, along with the rest of the truck.

I've got the tach installed into the dash - here's a picture of the view through the mini-truck steering wheel. The install is a little further along now than in this picture, and the dash is nearly complete.

Then I scooped up an HJ61V steering column, a RHD unit, and spent most of a day getting it, cannibalizing it and in the end finding that most of it wasn't usable in the conversion. anyhow, I did gain a nearly new (the donor vehicle had less than 90,000 miles on it) upper steering shaft and bearing, along with most of the tilt head. It was a non-collapsible type of column, so everything from the tilt hed on down was different and unusable to me.

[Henry James the 47th]

After taking apart and rebuilding three of these columns now, I have them pretty much figured out. The difference in column lengths i noticed earlier was due to the inner lower shaft being pushed up (as it is designed to do when the column collapses in an accident).

[Henry James the 47th]

For about $60 I had a local machine shop turn this adapting collar to join the 40 lower shaft section to the 60 unit.

[Henry James the 47th]

Then I made sure that the lower bearing could be removed upwards (it could, and then drilled some holes in the collar and welded it to the 60 shaft. The 40 column piece was then media blasted and primed with anti-rust chemical.

[Henry James the 47th]

Last picture i have for the moment. The column is reassembled now and waiting to be put back in place to I can get the length of the 40 piece sorted out.

i have a little sheet metal work to do around the raised opening for the column on the dash, as well as put the cab back on the chassis to be able to figure out the remaining details. More pictures will follow as this proceeds.

I still haven't found the exact steering wheel I want yet, though I have been looking at a bunch of different ones.

[Henry James the 47th]

Once i put the Bandierante steering box in place, I discovered that I needed to shorten the coupling piece, and get a little machining done to the end of the 40 series coupler to allow it to slide a little further into the coupler. I also had to chop down the shaft on the coupler another 0.5" to complete the modification. That means the connection if completed, and all that remains is a little more work on the dash sheet metal to the left side of the column.

[Henry James the 47th]

I am leaning towards using a drift pin to secure the connection of the lower flange to the shaft, and maybe to reinforce the sleeve to shaft connection.

I completed the lower dash lip sheet metal work.

[Hugh Heifer]

Ever finish this...and has anybody else tried it?

[freebie]

Thanks for all the info Henry, I plan to put a 60 steering column in my 42 soon and this is a great thread.

[Henry James the 47th]

Oh - forgot all about this thread. Thanks for the bump.


The steering column install is still going ahead, and I now have everything finished and have had it all assembled and working. I still need to plumb the p/s fluid lines, and will probably install a p/s cooler. I fabricated a mounting bracket for the p/s reservoir some weeks ago (detailed in my build thread, linked below).

I'm also looking for another steering wheel - I've settled on a wheel around 14" diameter, with 3.75~4.0" of dish. Grant makes one or two that fit the bill, but first I'm hoping to find another Toyota wheel that will do the job.

The steering gear is all connected up now, with the recent purchase of a new oem drag link. The drag link end for the pitman on the Bandierante gearbox I got from Brazil.

I have nearly completed the re-wiring of the harness, which proceeded from scratch, incorporating the 60 column wiring, along with the 60 fuse center and 60 relay pod. Any day now I will complete the fusible link connections at the battery and power up and test out the harness.

I will post up some more pics when the details are ironed out. It is looking like it will work fine.

[Henry James the 47th]

Well, this is still moving along. The column now has a new wiper switch, the install of which was detailed on my build thread around page 34 or 35, and I have a new light switch on the way too.

I've been working on the body for the past month or two, and recently did some more work to the dash, so I thought I would post up a couple more shots to show the progress there.

The steering wheel still remains to be decided upon. I sat in another 45 the other day and realized that the legroom is tight no matter what - the seat just doesn't go back very far. I'm still thinking of getting a Grant steering wheel around 14" diameter, with 3.5~3.75" dish, but I keep looking for options anyhow. That smaller wheel will give a little more legroom. Of course, with the column tilted up all the way, the legroom isn't so much an issue, but I'm trying to get as much as I can.

[Henry James the 47th]

Things have moved along a fair bit since the last update. The parts are finally going back together over the fresh paint, and the column is back in position.

The biggest snag i discovered in this type of conversion, and it didn't become apparent until late in the game, revolved around something i wouldn't have suspected: getting the wiper motor to work.

My original plan was to use the 60 column switch to control the wiper motor and washer fluid pump. Using 60 switches leads to using 60 relays, and for intermittent wiper motor function you need a relay with a built-in timer of some sort. As it turns out, you can't get the 40 series wiper motor to work on the 60 series relay. There is something incompatible between them. I heard from someone else who tried the same conversion that they had an electrical engineer take a look, and after a bunch of work he did manage to get the wiper motor to operate, but not on delay mode.

for a while i thought this whole conversion might be doomed, but upon further consideration, I realized that desperation was demanding i not give up quite yet.

After considering using a 60 series motor, a definite no-go proposition, I was looking to see if there was another type of 40 series wiper motor available, and staring at dozens and dozens of other Japanese brand wiper motors in three wrecking yards, all to no avail. Then I discovered in some parts catalog info that I had laying around that Toyota had a 40 series intermittent wiper option available from April 1981 onwards, but only in Europe and Australia. And there was also, whaddya know, a "wiper control relay" also listed, coming into existence, at the very same month and year as the intermittent switch.

Now, call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but since there is no wiper relay used in the normal 40 series 2-speed wiper set up, the only purpose i could see for the control relay was that it must associate directly to intermittent wiper function. I then realized that this relay was the key to making this conversion work.

Miraculously, this relay is still available out of Japan, so I have one on the way. I'm confident that so long as I wire it correctly, the relay will give me delay wiper mode, and that means, I kid you not, that this entire conversion hasn't been a total waste of time.

Whew!

Anyway, here's a few pictures of the column mounted into place today. Nearly finished. I even found the throttle cable bracket no problem to mount, very close to the stock location.

[Henry James the 47th]

another few pictures of the column. The Shadow Grey column cover is a new part.

[Henry James the 47th]

Here's how the dash and steering set up are looking now:

[Henry James the 47th]

I had to do some minor shimming with washers to get the steering box into good alignment with the steering column shaft. The copper bolts slide into place easily.

I then had to make up an exhaust heat shield to protect the head of the ZF p/s gearbox - a spare exhaust manifold heat shield provided the basis.

[Coolerman]

Man you have put a lot of work into making that column work, but it sure looks good... I like the tach also!

[4XLT]

HJ -

Did you ever decide on a steering wheel? Wondering about smaller Toyota steering wheel options...

thanks

[Henry James the 47th]

4XLT,

well, things kind of decided themselves, at least for the interim. I had a last minute rush getting the truck together, and wasn't able to find the perfect steering wheel, despite searching quite a bit. I put a 60 series steering wheel in there, which at 15.75" is a bit larger than might be ideal ,but interestingly, it has been just fine so far. I do have the column fully tilted up, and the view of all the gages is excellent.

I wonder what sort of Toyota wheel might be the best choice? I looked at so many different ones in wrecking yards and couldn't find the right ones. I though a wheel from an old 1980's Celica might do the trick, but they are the same diameter as the 60 series, surprisingly.

Another option I am strongly considering, for the future (maybe) is taking a good condition 40/60 series wheel and sending it to a guy in Australia who professionally makes them to pretty much whatever size you want, keeping the stock appearance:

PEARLCRAFT. The most beautiful steering wheels: Welcome

Not too cheap I'm sure, but would solve the problem perfectly. Or go with a Grant, Momo, or other similar after market wheel. For now, I'm doing fine with the 60 series wheel.