BJ74 LHD Conversion

[lumpy70]

OK, I am about halfway through my BJ74 LHD conversion, so I actually have some progress to post.

To answer ALL of the first questions out of your mouths...why?

The basic answer is because I can. The more involved answer is: You know those people who say they are restoring a 1969 Malibu in their garage, and that it is their weekend project? Well I don't have a 1969 Malibu, but I do have a RHD BJ74. More importantly I also have a rusted out body from my old Canadian BJ70 (I sold the engine and the tranny to two other Mud members). I was also looking for a project to keep me busy so I could putter away in the garage.

Also, it'll be cool.

Satisfied?

In the three pictures below is the leftover body from my BJ70, what it looked like without the firewall, and the firewall itself.

[lumpy70]

Here is the sad remains of my 70, and the BJ74 unaware of the a pain I am about to put it through.

[lumpy70]

Body comes apart and engine comes out.

[lumpy70]

The cutout I will use for the firewall swap, and what the firewall looked like after.

[lumpy70]

You can see from the photo that the RHD on the left and the LDH on the right (I probably should have switched that) have the same stamp (embossing?), just what is cut out is different.

The big advantage is all of the pedal mounts, steering etc are all on the soon-to-be-welded in firewall section.

Why not just drill out the spot welds? I did a few, in the end this was much faster and easier.

The second picture is the hole I cut into the (perfectly good) BJ74 firewall.

[bj70_guy]

Cool Craig, I was hoping you'd do a build post of your conversion!
On top of keeping you busy and being cool, the extra leg room for your left leg will be awfully nice.

Sad to see poor ol' Lumpy in in that state though

[lumpy70]

So that's about it so far.

I am also switching it from Auto to Manual since I had another H55F kicking around.

The biggest pain of the whole thing has been switching the windshield wipers over and switching the fresh air intake vent from Right to Left and vice versa. That took the whole weekend. The really really nice thing is that I've got ALL the parts and I'm just grabbing them off the shelf when I need them.

For the factory A/C, I can reuse everything except the evaporator case (switches, compressor, condenser are all the same). Dave from Japan4x4 found me a LHD evaporator case. It just bolts right inline with the factory system in between the blower assembly and the heater core (part # 88510-60440). For those who want to do it, the only Toyota parts you'll need are the switches and what Toyota calls the "amplifier". Everything else can be fabricated to work as the don't need to fit integrally with an existing Toyota shape (as in you can attach a compressor, bolt up a condenser etc).

So far I am in for about 85 hours of work including all the teardown of the old BJ70. I've also got about $1200 in parts so far, but aside from the A/C part, most of that is consumables like zipdiscs, grinders etc.

I'll post a complete cost and hourly breakdown when it's all done. I was going to take my time and do this over a couple of years, but now my wife has a bun in the oven and the timeline is...accelerated.

Craig.

[nodaksn3]

Craig- Very neat. Thanks for posting, and keep 'em coming. Most of us south of the border can only dream about '70's Ned

[coldtaco]

Cool, I like your different attack of the swap, haven't seen that before. I have the same project coming up, but will have to wait till June. Will be doing the RHD to LHD on a LJ-78 and also a drivetrain swap. Don't know yet about the paint. Will have to see how my body color matches up with the "new" body colors. Keep us updated.

[prado t]

Originally Posted by nodaksn3

Craig- Very neat. Thanks for posting, and keep 'em coming. Most of us south of the border can only dream about '70's Ned

I would start asking the others how they get them there . When you can find a legal way. there are many 70s you can have.
sorry for the HIJACK

I think a LHD is a neat project very cool, lets keep this thread going thanks

[lumpy70]

Here is the firewall section welded into place and some bondo to fill the itty bitty holes.

Craig.

[Xray]

Nice work

Keep going

[coldtaco]

How about an update as I have started mine.

[crushers]

because you like to be different. owning a RHD is not rare enough for you... come on admit it.

nice to see the progress.

Originally Posted by lumpy70

To answer ALL of the first questions out of your mouths...why?

[lumpy70]

Sorry it's been so long since the last update, I've been waiting for parts, had family in town, been to Hawaii, and lately had some fabrication issues.

It seems my cut and paste is out by about 1/8", not much but enough to screw with the alignment of some things. Added to which, I lost one of the mounting plates that the clutch booster bolted to so I am making my own (picture # 1).

In picture # 2, you can see my LHD A/C evaporator ordered from Japan4x4.

I am in the reassembly phase now, just slowly.

I will try to give better updates.

Craig.

[lumpy70]

Here is the painted and shiny firewall

[lumpy70]

Fabbing up the heater mounts. The holes are from drilling out the spot welds.

Craig.

[coldtaco]

Thanks for the update and pictures You ended up doing what I figured I am going to have to do, remove the mounting tabs from my 70 and weld back in in the 78. I still haven't decided yet what to do with the left and right firewalls, will probably end up cutting them out of the 70 and welding them into the 78, like you did. Waiting to find out what you will do with the wipers

[lumpy70]

Coldtaco, the wipers and the cold air return were by far the hardest parts of the swap. I had to cut a hole where there wasn't one so the blower assembly could pull fresh air, and patch a hole where there was one so I wasn't sucking in rain or leaves, or whatever.

The wipers...I took the 24V windings and swapped it onto a LHD 12V motor, as it points the wrong way. Then I took my LHD wiper bits left over from my donor and assembled it all together, and shoved it all in the firewall. Much measuring and comparisons between the LHD and the RHD firewalls later, I marked where the posts for the wipers come out of the firewall. Then I cut the sheet metal around the triangular bolt pattern from the LHD and traced it onto the corresponding spot on the RHD. The firewalls are both embossed with the same raised area for the wipers, just get the correct one as there are two raised areas per side. I used used a die grinder to make the post hole ovular. It really sucked and I would cut and paste that whole section if I was to do it again.

The pain is over now, but those two issues really frustrated me and were a pain to deal with.

Craig.

[coldtaco]

Thanks, will have to think about this. Would be nice to just cut out the whole firewall, but it seems that it is too close to the windshield for my comfort, unless I removed the windshield and then only cut at the sides and bottom. Hmmm.

[89GASHOG]

Originally Posted by coldtaco

Cool, I like your different attack of the swap, haven't seen that before. I have the same project coming up, but will have to wait till June. Will be doing the RHD to LHD on a LJ-78 and also a drivetrain swap. Don't know yet about the paint. Will have to see how my body color matches up with the "new" body colors. Keep us updated.

Ya get the 78 from Wayne? Shouldn't be a problem registering the new cruiser, right? Glad to hear you're keeping the 70 alive, more or less. I sold my 70 to a guy in Anchorage because of the frame rust.
BTW, that's a great project Lumpy. If you ever wanted to sell it, I would think the value would be much higher as a LHD.

[lumpy70]

Update. A big progress day. First picture is the Brown Bread sound deadening insulation, second is all of the pedals and heater core attached.

I suppose from now on it will start to look like any old LHD truck. Not sure if you guys want to keep seeing pictures.

Thanks for the encouragement Gashog, I have been wondering that myself if I chose to sell what it might be worth.

Craig.

[crushers]

i don't think you are out of the woods yet...
keep posting up your progress.

[lumpy70]

Fair enough Wayne.

I've still got all the wiring to do and find out if all of the 13B-T bits fit well in a LHD engine bay.

Craig

[coldtaco]

Bret, the 70 will live on in the 78 even though there will be more 78 than 70 in it. I did buy one of Wayne's 78's.
Craig, all the 13B-T stuff should fit fine I would assume since my 70 got converted to the 13B-T, but a expert did the fit. Keep us updated till you are finished.

[crushers]

Originally Posted by coldtaco

Bret, the 70 will live on in the 78 even though there will be more 78 than 70 in it. I did buy one of Wayne's 78's.
Craig, all the 13B-T stuff should fit fine I would assume since my 70 got converted to the 13B-T, but a expert did the fit. Keep us updated till you are finished.

crap, i never did send you the second BOS, shoot me an email direct to wayne@crushersrule.com with your fax number and i will get one off this week...

sorry, still catching up on the move and the 2 fiberglass 40 restros i am doing.

[lumpy70]

OK, it's been a while, but I've been busy on the truck.

Here is the electrical process which I think will be controversial but I know what I'm doing and I have strict quality controls.

To make all the RHD controls move over to the LHD side, I had to cut a bunch of the harnesses. This is what I did:

1) Cut the harness in the middle (not near either end) and strip the wires
2) One at a time, wire-by-wire match up the wires on each end
3) Wind back the stripped wires onto each other, then tug test.
4) Solder, then tug test
5) Heat shrink
6) Put new harness into wire loom
7) label each end so I can troubleshoot if I need to without pulling the dash apart.