Milo's FJ60 Resto / Refresher / Desmog / build -- (lots of pics) (1 Viewer)

[Miloslavich]

This thread covers my light restoration to my 84' FJ60. I started with the Engine, will be moving to the Suspension, and lastly the Body.

I purchased my 1984 FJ60 Land Cruiser in Aug of 09' from a family member. the Truck has very low miles on it considering the usage of many of the Cruisers on here, i picked up the truck with 110,000 miles total. The rig was used as a ski mobile, when i purchased it, it came complete with a side mounted ski rack - my friends affectionately named the " missile launcher tubes" on the side

it was generally used as a ski hauler, taking skiers to and from the ski mountain in the Aspen - Snowmass area of Colorado. it was rarely driven for more than 5 miles at a time, and occasionally made trips into town and to Denver if needed. It spent the first half of its life garaged, but sadly space had to be made and later it sat outside in the Colorado winters and summers, luckly the rust damage is light, consisting of your typical stuff like the quarter panels and tail gate. Surprisingly, the roof rails are perfect.

Ridin' low with the spare set of wheels in the back.

As you can see, the 26 year old Original suspension is a bit tired. she sags in the butt. - That'll change with the suspension refresher



OK -

STEP 1- THE ENGINE


MICKEY - I HATE YOU. --------------- "The Mouse problem"

Because the truck had been sitting outside for so many years, it developed a nasty little problem from the local wildlife- Deer mice. they made nests in the hood liner, on top of the manifold, near the valve cover, in the air cleaner, and under the seats of the truck.

pics of the mess:

when i pulled the hood liner down, this is what i found:

under the back seat:

stashes of seeds and nuts were found all throughout the truck:

SO, we had to pull out the heavy artillery and do some mousing

I ended up catching about 4 mice that had made the trip home with me, from Aspen to Colorado Springs, and went about cleaning up the nests and seeds from the truck- quite a nasty job, but i got it done.

Once the mouse problem and cleanup was solved, it was time to get down to the real work

The engine had a myriad of problems with it when i took delivery of the truck, multiple vacuum leaks, faulty and non functioning smog equipment, poorly adjusted carb, faulty fan clutch, overheating issues.. the list goes on. so i set about knocking them out one by one.

I did a bit of searching around and found that the fan clutch was toast.. so i replaced the fan clutch, replaced the radiator, and the upper and lower coolant hoses. that seemed to settle the cooling issue for now.. so it was time to sort out the hesitation, stumbling and stalling issues with the engine.

thus, it was time for: THE REBUILD

considering the smog equipment on the truck was not functioning properly, i decided to go with a desmog of the smog components, and a general clean up and refresher of the engine.

I was inspired by Elliot B's desmog and rebuild and used his thread as a reference many times during the engine work. Elliot helped with the initial tear down of the engine, I went about doing the rest myself. Thanks for the help E !

pics:

Here she was, quite dirty as you can see:

Pulled the Air cleaner and Carb, air rail, and smog assemblies:

 

[Miloslavich]

Here's a pic of some of the smog equipment that came out of the rig:

DESMOG

The Carb and Distributor was sent out to Jim C of TLC performance in Ohio to be desmogged, rebuilt, and have the distributor re-curved for the desmog.

then,

I started by disassembling the Smog pump, and de-viening it

pulled the viens:

after cleaning up the pump, and lubing the bearings with some white lithium, i sealed it all up

...

after the smog pump was squared away

I took the engine down to the valves, and pulled the Exhaust manifold in order to square away the EGR components and check valve clearance. The head was in good condition and the valves were in surprisingly tight clearance due to this Rig's relatively low use and low miles.

a pic of the intake- exhaust manifold assembly

I squared away the EGR assembly by following Jim C's recommendation so that the PCV system was left in tact to clear the crank case of harmful moisture and acidity.

Pic of the egr assembly:

Cut the egr pipes so that about 1/2 was left on the manifold side to line up the gaskets, and cut the valve side flush so that it could be plugged and welded up

I sourced a block off plate for the J-tube side of the exhaust mani from Man-A-Fre, as well as gaskets for the assembly from SOR.

After the EGR system was squared away, I restored the Manifold assembly with some Hi-temp paint. It came out great.

Restored Manifold mounted up with new gasket against the head:

you can also notice in the pic that the air rail holes in the head were plugged with plugs provided from Jim C.

 

[Miloslavich]

Next up was to square away the galley plug in the head. I figured i should take care of the plug while i had the truck down for the build, and then it would be good to go for a million miles of care free driving.

As many of you know the galley plug can work its way out of the head, allowing the engine to purge all of its oil very rapidly leading to catastrophic engine failure. The way to mitigate this potential problem is by removing the galley plug, tapping the hole with threads using a tap set, and then plugging it with a set screw.

For this procedure, i used Eporter's galley plug fix thread located here:
https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/351460-my-first-galley-plug-fix.html

SO, i gathered up all the necessary tools for the fix and tackled the work:

everything needed to fix the galley plug

Here you can see the plug as it was in the head when i started:

as you can see, it was not leaking or weeping oil, in fact it was in very good condition, but for peace of mind and prevention of an engine failure i went through with the procedure.

started by using a center punch to punch through the plug, and by using the 90* drill attachment and a 1/8" drill bit to drill through the plug.

eventually with enough drilling, I used a screw which i twisted into the plug and i was able to pull it out.

The plug was actually quite difficult to remove from the head on my truck, which leads me to believe it would have probably been fine for another 100,000 miles, but ya never know with these things, so i was glad to get it out.

Heres where the nerve racking part started.. when you are threading a hole in your Engine's head using a tap by hand, you gotta be pretty careful to do things by the book and not mess it up. if you mess this up, you're pulling the head off the block and sending it to a machine shop to fix your **** up.

Take your time, use plenty of grease in the flutes, and cutting oil in the hole. when the tap starts to bind, back it out and clean the flutes on the tap, and re-grease. work your way in a 1/4 turn at a time. Each time you pull the tap out, clean the hole with q-tips and brake cleaner to clean the threads out. GO SLOW and dont mess this one up.

Pics of the galley plug hole beginning to be tapped

Use plenty of q-tips to clean the threads as you go so you dont pull an :whoops:

Look at those beautiful threads:

(i know that sounds ridiculous but when you are tapping something as crucial as the head on your Motor, it's a little nerve racking, but it is very satisfying when you complete the job and its a job well done.

I tapped the threads almost - but not totally through the galley hole, so that the set screw that is used to plug the head will bind into the metal to form a tight seal. I used 2 set screws: the 1st binding into the head, and the 2nd binding into the 1st, to form a tight secure seal. I also used Red Loctite on the screws to make the fix permanent

Cleaned out the threads (for the thousandth time) and put the screws in:

With the Galley plug fixed, EGR system squared away, Manifold restored, Smog pump gutted, i moved onto cleaning up the engine and fixing a few little things here while i waited for the Carb and distributor to come back from TLC performance.

Pic of the Master's workshop AKA my garage

(there's a method to the madness)

Cleaned up the powersteering pump, and pulley:

 

[Miloslavich]

Next was the air cleaner assembly. The Air cleaner was pitted, rusty in spots and looking pretty bad, so I had it sand blasted, Powder Coated and sourced a new air cleaner decal from Specter Off Road

Before:

After:

I think it came out really good.

Also, I replaced all the seals on the Air cleaner housing. I used Loctite Stick n' Seal all weather and heat proof adhesive to glue the new seals onto the air cleaner housing

some of the cleaned up parts awaiting assembly

The valve cover was looking pretty filthy as well, so i went about restoring it with a buffing wheel, metal polish, and plenty of elbow grease. I also replaced all the top bolt seals and the gasket on the cover.

Before:

After:

as you can see in the pics, the Carb is also installed, took about 12 weeks to get it back from Jim C. He's a busy guy, but its worth the wait.

Replaced all the carb gaskets on the plenum, and the top ring seal that mates to the air cleaner assembly.


Here’s a pic with the air cleaner on and the HAC (high altitude compensation valve) installed on the aircleaner.

STAY TUNED – WAY MORE TO COME,


including an ARB Old Man Emu 3.5’’ Medium suspension install .

Questions, comments, are always welcome

Cheers,

Milo

 

[Spike Strip]

Wow ... very nice work. Looks like a new carb, too.

 

[alkarich]

Looking good!

 

[chitown40]

Very nice work and inspiring as well. Keep it up. Can't wait for more pics.

 

[Tapage]

brilliand job in your valve cover ..

 

[landcruiserjunky]

Keep it up!

 

[Miloslavich]

Thanks for the comments and encouragement fellas,


I now have an Old Man Emu medium 3.5" suspension with everything (shocks and all hardware) sitting in my garage waiting for me to put it in.

im going to get crackin on that soon.

Cheers

Milo

 

[FJ40Jim]

The before and after is quite a contrast. Looks nice.

The gasket that is sitting on top of the carb actually snaps into the opening of the air cleaner. It is C-shaped in cross-section. If it has gotten out of position and is too squashed to stay put in the air cleaner, they are still readily available from toyota.

 

[Miloslavich]

Jim- thanks for your comments.

good to know about the carb / Air cleaner gasket! i wondered why it stayed on the air cleaner when i took it off.

I had a question for you about the HAC's vac line that routes to the 2* advance on the dizzy:

does that line need a check valve or splice into the manifold or anything?

upon review of Elliot B's vac line routing pics it appeared that he had it Tee'd into the manifold for additional vacuum. when i tried that, it applied so much constant vac on the advancer it changed the timing when at idle.

i changed it so there are no check valves or T's in the line. it now routes straight from the HAC to the dizzy. is that correct?

thanks,

Milo

 

[brokenparts]

nice clean work!

 

[johnkappus]

great job!!!

Looks like you are doing a nice methodical clean up job on this one...

...you are going to have a sweet ride when you are done.

 

[Miloslavich]

Thanks john, im trying to clean up bits and pieces as i go, and ensure reliability at the same time buy sorting out everything on the motor that was old / failing. Im not going for a show quality restoration here, but i am trying to freshen things up while building a quality daily driver

 

[dbleon]

Great job so far!

Question: What did you do to prep prior to panting the manifolds with high temp paint? Sand? Sand blast? Pressure wash? Etc?

Thanks

 

[sirenmoses]

Beauty work.

I 'member when you first posted up the ski-tube shot. Nice to see yr rig getting some quality loving.

What are you using to keep the rodents out, other than a garage? (it's on my dream list, just not in the budget right now).

Please esplain the HAC, don't know as I've heard of it before (I'm a but I've got a damn fine shop that takes care of my oldies). Pretty sure my rigs don't have it... (will also Search).

Again, outstanding work...

 

[Miloslavich]

Siren-

thanks for the comments-

as far as keeping mice out, i just drive the truck daily, and keep her in the garage. the reason she got mice laden in the first place was because the previous owner left her sitting outside, and drove her occasionally for about 12 years. the deer mice found themself a nice little home!

the HAC is the high altitude compensation valve which advances timing and adjusts mixture as you go up in altitude. Jim C could comment on that alot more than i could

 

[dbleon]

My question gets no love???

 

[FJ40Jim]

Jim- thanks for your comments.

I had a question for you about the HAC's vac line that routes to the 2* advance on the dizzy:

does that line need a check valve or splice into the manifold or anything?

upon review of Elliot B's vac line routing pics it appeared that he had it Tee'd into the manifold for additional vacuum. when i tried that, it applied so much constant vac on the advancer it changed the timing when at idle.

i changed it so there are no check valves or T's in the line. it now routes straight from the HAC to the dizzy. is that correct?

No, that won't do anything. Route it just like the schematic on p.3-31 in emissions FSM.

It should change the idle timing above 4000'.