The "Everybody loves a build thread" BJ74 Trail truck build Thread

Radd Cruisers · 07-31-09, 11:43 AM

Okay, a few thing before I get going...

I won't have much time to reply to any posts asking questions in the build thread...
I don't plan on this being a particularly long thread, but I have few fun things to post up...
If you want to copy what I'm doing, you do so at your own risk...

I'll post up what I have when I have time.

The vehicle's name is "Coleman." Each of the JDMs that has a little more character than the plain jane units has something about it that yields an appropriate name. This 1989 BJ74 is named Coleman because of a large red Coleman sticker on the glove box door.

Here's what Coleman's going to get:

OME suspension with a few corners cut and a little bit of a modification. I'm going to re-use some of the parts that are on the truck, add in a few pieces that are lying around the shop, and even put in a few new parts (other than the springs).
Retro-fit the altimeter/temperature gauges from another BJ74 I have here that's getting parted-out.
Wire in a section of welding cable to the rear which will supply power for my Warn 24 Volt VTC air compressor and/or a rear winch (receiver tube mount).
Install some off-road lights - only because I have loads of the things lying around that were removed from various JDMs.
Install a rear ladder for an upcoming roof rack (the rack probably won't happen anytime soon).

Why am I using Coleman as a build project? Mainly because it's here, and it's too rough to sell in its current form. Coleman does have a few things that make it appealing, such as cable lockers, the factory upright winch and enough minor imperfections that I won't ball my eyes out if I lay it on its side.

I was thinking about building up an HZJ73, but the ones I have here are pretty nice and I prefer the cable lockers to the electrics, and I also prefer the large front diff to the high pinion 8" unit and the (occasionally problematic) electric hubs.

Okay... that's it for now... but first a few introductory pictures.

Coleman's the unit shown in the first picture, and is on the right in the second picture (the other three are HZJ73 - from left to right - 1992 5 spd, diff locks, electric winch; 1990 5 speed; 1990 5 spd diff locks, PTO winch.

~John

bj70_guy · 07-31-09, 02:26 PM

I love the new definition of "too rough to sell" - it still looks great!
Viva JDMs

Radd Cruisers · 07-31-09, 04:22 PM

I'm going to cheat a few minutes out of my day before the Long Weekend (here in BC, Canada at least) and post up some of the numbers and data I measured/crunched/mulled over before installing some new suspension.

Starting height:

The height of the vehicle, measured from the floor, through the centre of the wheel hub and to the bottom edge of the fender was 90cm in the front and 93 cm in the rear.

Long shackles front and rear - 13 cm pin centre to pin centre in the front, 15 cm in the rear.

The tire pressures were a little low, and I later corrected them to 36 PSI.

Spring notes:

Stock spring mount distances - measured from centres of the spring pins - 109 cm front, 116 cm rear (using my worn out tape measure).

Spring lengths:

OME CS006F - 70 series front spring
spring rate: 302 lbs/inch
7 leaves
115 flat length, 105cm free arch length
free arch 22 cm

OME CS017Rx - 70 series rear spring
spring rate: 255 lbs/inch
8 leaves
123 cm flat, 111.5cm free arch length
free arch 23 cm for the RB
free arch 25 cm for the RA

Spring placement:

CS017RA in front - shackle length 13 cm
Spring mount at front cut off and moved forward to provide 112.5 cm centres, allows for a slightly angled shackle (see photos later on)

CS017RB in rear - shackle length 12 cm, mounts not moved, shackle comes up as close to vertical when vehicle unloaded.

In the first photo, you can see the various springs I put out on the shop floor to compare for measurements.
Springs in photo from front to back:
CS003F
CS006F
CS017RB
CS005Rx

More to come later...

~John

Radd Cruisers · 07-31-09, 04:24 PM

The first photo in this sequence shows the front spring pin for the rear springs. The part is replaced with OME GSP01, which provides for a greaseable spring pin. The front spring pins are the same as the 60 series, and I used the Terrain Tamer units since the quality is good and the prices is quite a bit better than the ARB Old Man Emu parts.

The second picture shows the new pin for the rear springs being bolted up. In the end, it was easier to fit the springs to the shackle end first, and then swing it up into position for the front pin to go in. The placement of the fuel tank and how the rear shackles go in as result was why it was easier to do it that way.

Clint79 · 07-31-09, 09:32 PM

4 middys thats very greedy/lucky

i like it

Awl_TEQ · 07-31-09, 09:45 PM

Subscribed

Next time I'm on the Isle I'm definitely stopping by for a meet and greet. Rode right past you four weeks ago - the guys I was riding with weren't cruiserheads and were on a schedule.

Kevin

boogie74 · 08-01-09, 05:03 AM

Hi John,

I like the extended shackles in the rear suspension.
Do you have the same in the front?
Are they OEM or after market?
I would like some like that. Do you sell them?

Cheers.

Jim_Hbar · 08-01-09, 10:38 AM

John:

In the Tsawwassen ferry parking lot, we were two lanes over from the flatdeck carrying 1444 on July 23, but we were driving our Subaru. My HZJ73 is #1512, so was probably built the same day or the day after..
That's one clean machine, with a couple of the options I wish I had!

Jim

boogie74 · 08-02-09, 07:34 AM

Hi John,

Another couple of questions mate

In your pics there is a 74 with a rack that looks like its mounted to the gutters. Do you know the specs on the load this rack
can carry? Would it handle 50kgs (Roof Top Tent) whilst 4x4ing? I'm looking at mounting my rack the same way if the frp can
take the stress and weight.

Cheers mate.

Radd Cruisers · 08-04-09, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boogie74

Hi John,

I like the extended shackles in the rear suspension.
Do you have the same in the front?
Are they OEM or after market?
I would like some like that. Do you sell them?

Cheers.

The extended shackles in the rear are some Japanese units that arrive with quite a few of the JDMs that come in. They are made by "Dune" and are forged according to the stamping on them. They have two length settings, and I cut these ones off to the shorter bolt hole.

In general, longer shackles are not a great way to lift your truck, but I had these and have set up the suspension to make use of the 12cm length quite well.

Do I sell them? No.

I can probably set you up with some longer shackles if that's what you're after. I did find the OME GS1s to be too short for what I wanted to do.

~John

Radd Cruisers · 08-04-09, 10:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim_Hbar

John:

In the Tsawwassen ferry parking lot, we were two lanes over from the flatdeck carrying 1444 on July 23, but we were driving our Subaru. My HZJ73 is #1512, so was probably built the same day or the day after..
That's one clean machine, with a couple of the options I wish I had!

Jim

That's the newest one in my fleet - in the photos, it's the third one from the left - and it's a very clean unit except for a few minor paint chips. It has less than 68,500 kms (looks to be genuine) on it. Runs, shifts and drives very nicely.

I have another one that is not in the photo, and it is the next serial number digit to the one with the roof rack.

~John

Radd Cruisers · 08-04-09, 10:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boogie74

Hi John,

Another couple of questions mate

In your pics there is a 74 with a rack that looks like its mounted to the gutters. Do you know the specs on the load this rack
can carry? Would it handle 50kgs (Roof Top Tent) whilst 4x4ing? I'm looking at mounting my rack the same way if the frp can
take the stress and weight.

Cheers mate.

I had a look and there's a sticker in there written in Japanese that has 30kg written on it, and I'd assume that's the safe maximum load. The supports sit in a length of stainless channel that's dropped into the rain gutter on the FRP top - for load distribution and damage prevention.

I'd think that 50 kgs would be fine, the rack is certainly strong enough to handle it. I don't like putting large amounts of weight on top of short wheelbase vehicles very much, but if you have sway bars or springs that will prevent sway, then I'd expect things to be okay.

I can post some more photos if you're interested.

~John

GLTHFJ60 · 08-04-09, 10:17 AM

Radd Cruisers · 08-04-09, 10:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bj70_guy

I love the new definition of "too rough to sell" - it still looks great!
Viva JDMs

I'll post a few photos later on as to why I said that. The rockers are rusty, one rear corner is pretty bad, there's a dent/scuff at the left rear tail light, the window frame is rusted through on the inside etc... etc...

I had it out on the weekend to a little lake behind Cowichan Lake, and on Sunday we poked around on some of the back roads with it.

Kyla has never been backroading/fourwheeling and was obviously quite surprised at what a relatively stock BJ74 could do. There were a few climbs over, into, and out of cross ditches that were really steep - dragging both ends - and before we went into them she was like: "can you really do that?" Yup, we sure can...

Later we went down into a very steep washout, and again both ends were dragging. On the way back out, which was pretty darned steep, Kyla decided to walk (excuse was picking berries, which is a favorite pass time of hers), and Coleman climbed up and out, dragging the back end through part of it - with the diff locks on - and didn't even slip a tire. (sorry, no pictures)

~John

boogie74 · 08-04-09, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radd Cruisers

I'd think that 50 kgs would be fine, the rack is certainly strong enough to handle it. I don't like putting large amounts of weight on top of short wheelbase vehicles very much, but if you have sway bars or springs that will prevent sway, then I'd expect things to be okay.

I can post some more photos if you're interested.

~John

Hi John some photos of the roof rack set up would be awesome. 74's are few and far between where I am and one
with a rack would be even rarer. I'm deciding on how to mout a RTT at the moment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radd Cruisers

In general, longer shackles are not a great way to lift your truck, but I had these and have set up the suspension to make use of the 12cm length quite well.
~John

I have heard this is the case with extended shackles. My plan is to run a roof rack so anything that makes the rig more unstable is probably not a good idea.

Thanks very much for the info John.

Cheers,

Gav.

Radd Cruisers · 08-04-09, 05:59 PM

Roof rack photos for boogie74:

Radd Cruisers · 08-04-09, 06:01 PM

And even more photos of the roof rack...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 10:43 PM

Okay, so I guess I have to back up a little...

**Please note that I have gone back and edited a few of the early posts and deleted some of the photos that were out of sequence.

Back in post #3 I gave measurements for the springs, with the spring rate and lengths. From my description, it's pretty easy to see that I used the CS017R springs at both ends of Coleman. I chose to go this route since longer springs generally offer a slightly softer ride than a shorter spring, and they will also tend to offer better axle movement over rough terrain. Another reason, is that the typical OME installation has the shorter GS2 shackles all the way around (the GS1s are longer by a couple of cms), and when using the CS006F springs in the front, there is a very distinct forward rake to the truck. I would rather have a truck that sits closer to level, and is pretty much at dead level when there's gear packed in the back.

In the photos I have already posted, the keen observer may have noticed that I put the "A" springs in the rear (and the "B" springs in the front). In retrospect that was a pretty silly thing to do as I ended up with at truck that had lots of lift in the rear and very little in the front. This lead to moving the springs from front to back and vice versa to correct my mistake. The second time around, things were very easy as I used generous amounts of Moly Slip grease and anti-seize during the initial installation.

Photos:

Coleman on the lift, undergoing surgery...

And you can see off the right of the truck that we carry quite a good selection of Land Cruiser rad hoses and belts (shameless plug)...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 10:51 PM

Initially, I tried to install the OME GS1 shackles, but with the vehicle on the lift and the spring hanging, they were clearly too short for the job. It would be nice if OME made the springs just a touch longer, but ARB seems to have its ears plugged when the Land Cruiser market is concerned as this has been voiced over and over again to no avail....

boogie74 · 08-05-09, 10:51 PM

Hi John,

Thanks for the pics of the roof rack. It gives me some ideas for building my own rack. I'll be watching the build mate.
I love the 74's.

Cheers,

Gav.

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 10:55 PM

The longer shackles that came with the truck in the rear have two sets of holes. The lower hole is really too far out there (15 cm on centre), but the upper hole is about right (12 cm on centre). I pulled out the rear shackles, took them over to the chop saw, and cut them off just at the top edge of the lower hole to yield shackles with pin centres at 12cm apart. This is still a fairly long shackle, but it works nicely with the springs and give a touch extra added lift.

Photo 1: shackles as they are coming off...

Photo 2: during my camping trip on the August 1st long weekend to a little lake a couple of hours from here, you can see that the shackle angle is near vertical, but still okay with the truck partially loaded.

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:16 PM

Installing the rear spring was a pretty straightforward effort. They are made to fit the 70 series so they went in very easily. The only real change I made was the modification of the shackle to the longer ones I already outlined.

The OME shocks, in my experience, always come up short when you're looking for maximum wheel travel. In light of this I didn't pay too much attention to their offerings other than to look down the list of what I had, and the various specs, to indeed confirm that they were not going to suit my project.

In the end, used some rear shocks from a full sized Dodge pick up that we removed while installing a leveling kit that came with new shocks. The Dodge shocks are an inexpensive gas shock, and are quite long. The rear shock mounts came up at roughly 63.5 cm extended, and these shocks fit with room to spare. The only modification I had to make was to remove the sleeved bushings and re-use the stock Toyota split bushings that came off the old shocks.

The other thing that I did was to replace the too short stock rear brake hose with one that was longer. The one I ended up using was a little over 43.5 cm long (Napa part number 38796).

The axle breather tubes will need to be addressed in the future...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:22 PM

When it came time to install the CS017RAs in the front, I knew that I was going to be in for quite a bit more work.

The spring length of the CS017Rs from the rear mount to the centre pin is the same as the CS006F (and, of course, the stock front springs), so that part of it was quite easy. It would have been nice to have run the axle forward a couple of centimeters, but I really have no plans to run tires over 33" diameter, and so moving the axle is not a requirement.

The issues that arose were as follows:

- the sway bar links were too short - by quite a bit.

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:24 PM

- The shocks were Wayyyyy too short...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:28 PM

- The shackle angles were okay when things were hanging...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:29 PM

- But way beyond acceptable when the weight of the truck was on the springs....

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:35 PM

A few solutions:

- The sway bar was an easy fix - and removing it solved the problem quite nicely.

- The shocks were taken off, and this was put aside for measuring for fit later on.

- The shackle angle got me thinking... how about another set of mounts? So I went out into the yard and dragged in a piece of BJ60 fame, fired up the plasma cutter and cut the tubes out of the front spring hangers. Once I had the parts cleaned up and in my hands, I took them back to Coleman and sized up the situation... That was going to take too much time and be way too complicated. They got put back on the bench.

So I sat back, took a few sips from my beverage, scratched my head a few times and made a few measurements...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:37 PM

Next, out came the soap stone and I marked things up...

Radd Cruisers · 08-05-09, 11:38 PM

Next came the Makita grinder armed with a zip cut... and short work was made of removing the spring hangers along a (relatively) straight line.

I then moved the mounts forward a few cms and tacked them into place with my hot glue gun.

After a few attempts (and really, I did use some pretty good numbers for my first tacking, but the longer shackles played with that a bit), I got it right and laid in some good beads all round.

Gib009 · 08-06-09, 12:28 AM

What springs are they in the front mate? I have rear springs up front and the shackle angle wasnt that bad..