[Henry James the 47th]

three more of the patching process.

[Henry James the 47th]

Today I misplaced one ear plug, so after several hours I was needing a break from the grinding and cutting fun, so back to the front hub install. I took the rear hubs to a machine shop today to get them modified so as to accept the rotors.

I brought my digital caliper to measure the shims and adjust the bearing pre-load accordingly. The shims at the start were 1.0 and 0.3mm under the knuckle arm. The first setting I tried was swapping shims to get a 1.25mm thick stack, which didn't increase pre-load enough, so then I tried going to 1.20.

The first pic shows the bolt doohickey I used to push the knuckle arm off the bearing.

[Henry James the 47th]

more ham-fisted knuckling under. The pull scale indicated 4 lbs. preload at the first try, then only around 5 lbs. after the second shim change, though the knuckle was noticeably stiffer. I was a bicycle mechanic for a long time, so I think I have a decent feeling for bearing tightness. I think I have it where I want it for the time being. I would like to know how centered it it as well, but don't have the special tool for that. I'm hoping the tiny changes I have made won't put it too far out of an acceptable position.

[Henry James the 47th]

After the 1.25 setting, I went down a tad further to a 1.20 setting, and that seemed perfect. Then I took the knuckle off, cleaned off the paint overspray on the face with the surface conditioning disc, and daubed the knuckle bearings in more grease.

[Henry James the 47th]

A picture showing the final bolting down of the knuckle arm, using new cone nuts.

Then, as a last thing, I put a new point into the spot weld cutter, and managed to get through the parking brake mounting plate and remove it at last. Tomorrow I will patch up that hole and weld nuts onto the LHD p.b. mount.

[DanS HJ-45]

Wow!

Progress indeed! It's looking awesome. Why the 60 column? For the tilt, or is it because you had one lying around? Or just to do something different? It looks like good work either way...

You've got to wonder how anyone can weld without one now, don't you?

Dan

[Henry James the 47th]

Hi there Dan - thanks for the questions and compliments.

The 60 column...the tilt feature is nice and all but the main reasons I want to go to the 60 column are:

-I can have intermittent windshield wipers
-I prefer that controls be at my finger tips when my hands are on the wheel, as opposed to dash-mounted switches that I have to take a hand off the wheel to operate
-I want to fit a diesel tach into the dash, and need to make room. With the defroster nozzles coming out of the left and right hand ends of the dash, I can't put the tach (at least, not easily) to the left of the instrument cluster, so it will need to go to the right. With the 60 column, I move the windshield wiper, headlamp, and hazard switches off the dash and onto the column.
-the 60 column has the crash-collapsible feature, which is nicer than the rigid 40 type (though there are 1980~'84 40-series with collapsible columns as well).
-the 60 series column-mounted switches are available and easy to get both new (and used from the wrecking yard), however the same is not the case for the 40 series dash switches and pulls.

With a 60 column, even with the tach and the digi-clock fitted into the dash, I will still have a cleaner looking dash overall, as half the switches will be gone. Also, if I choose to install a pyrometer gauge at some future point there will be room to do so without cluttering it up or recourse to some other sort of mounting bracket tacked on to the perimeter of the dash somewhere.

Once the decision was made to modify the dash, of course, the scope widened from there: I'm debating what to do with the radio opening (either put the stock radio unit in as a dummy and run a more hi-tech system hidden in the glovebox, or make the opening large enough for a standard DIN mounted CD player - or weld in a patch to cover it and go to some sort of iPod based system with an amplifier) and the ashtray (I don't smoke, so I don't make much use of ashtrays in cars). I will keep the cigarette lighter, as it is essential to running accessories, like my girlfriend's cell phone charger for instance.

Further, I have the '83~'84 silver dash plate and dash section as well, but they are for the RHD cab, and thus everything on the plate is laid out in reverse for the LHD set up. I can get a used LHD compatible dash plate (but not the dash section behind it) from a certain vendor, but for a mere $250, so no thanks. The dash insert is cool, and improves service access to the switches, but with a 60 column, I'd end up with a bunch of empty mounting holes in the insert. and the service access issue becomes less important at that point as well.

Thank god for the auto darkening helmet

[Henry James the 47th]

Made some good progress today, working on tasks like getting the floor finished and the cab mounts back in place.

[Henry James the 47th]

more pics of the cab mounts being welded in. Spot welding is a breeze compared to butt joint welds in sheet metal

[Henry James the 47th]

one mount with some primer on it, and a couple of shots showing the hole being drilled in the floor pan for the mounting bolt access. I used a 1.25" hole saw, though the factory hole size is 32mm, about 1.26"

[Henry James the 47th]

A couple more shots of the mounting cab situation

I good chunk of my day went into a trip to a wrecking yard about 35 minutes' drive away. I realized with 4-wheel disc brakes now on the horizon for the truck, the simplest solution as far as the master cylinder was concerned was to put in a master cylinder from a Toyota with 4-wheel discs. That solves the problem of the residual valve changes in the m/c. The unit I went to get came out of an 80 or 90 series Landcruiser. Incredibly, with the amount of stuff cramming the engine bay, the booster could not be removed until one of the engine mounts was taken out and the engine allowed to slump over to one side. What i thought would be a 20 minute job turned into 90 minutes, but in the end the booty was all mine - see picture 3. It's in great shape.

[DanS HJ-45]

I used a 1.25" hole saw, though the factory hole size is 32mm, about 1.26"

Heathen!

Looking good...

Dan

[Henry James the 47th]

Spent most of the day on the truck, and got some assorted jobs done. First, I picked up my rear hubs from the machine shop and took them to E4 Auto to press the studs in. The rear rotors had a bit of surface rust on them, so first I had to spend a while with the surface conditioning disc to clean rotors up.

Then I pressed the studs in, and noticed that they stuck out a bit far on the front face. I considered pushing them back out and putting washers underneath, but John at E4 suggested that it would be better to use a spacer on the wheel side of the hub, as this would lessen any chances of the wheel rim rubbing on the caliper, and would give full bite to the studs in the hub flange. That made a lot of sense to me, so I went with it. Now I've either got to make or buy some wheel spacers.

Then i realized that without a dust shield on the rear brake, the rear seal on the hub wouldn't be spaced correctly and thus might not seal the back of the hub properly. I grabbed the drum brake dust shields and chopped the mountings out to make some spacers.

[Henry James the 47th]

A little work on the grinder, followed by a crushed glass media blast, primer and by the end of the day they are painted. I also blasted, primed and painted the other rad support strut along with the brake pipe junction for the rear axle.

Then I turned my attention to the cab. I got some help and flipped it over. I wanted to get a brace on their so as to protect against warping from all the floor welding. I temporarily threw the cab sheet metal together to see how things looked, and all was well. Tomorrow I will weld a jigging brace into place in preparation for putting the new firewall in.

I have no idea what happened to the third picture, but I'll leave it there for now!

[Henry James the 47th]

Here's a better picture of the mocked-up cab. The new windshield is in the same color I will probably be painting the truck, though I might opt for a Mazda blue instead of the Toyota 857 Nordic Blue. I chopped out the clutch master mounting and will graft it into the LHD firewall, as it has the mounting for the earlier 3-bolt flange clutch master.

[Henry James the 47th]

You know, living in Canada, a supposedly metric country, one is often surprised to find some things which aren't available in metric -like hole saw blades. Even metric u-bolts, to give another example, for mounting the springs to axles aren't commonly available.

I was actually going to file the holes out to 32 mm, but then something came over me and I just let it slide

Originally Posted by DanS HJ-45

Heathen!

Looking good...

Dan

[Henry James the 47th]

Another day on the truck. Did a bit of this and a bit of that.

Started with the LHD firewall and welded the door jamb light switch bosses into place. Then I patched the upper corners of the dash, where the windshield fixing bolt brackets had been previously chopped out I have a set of the brackets to weld in afterwards, and will wait until I can use the windshield on this bulkhead to get the positioning right.

[Henry James the 47th]

Then I welded in the voltage regulator mounting bracket to the LHD firewall, another item that had been removed from the firewall before I got a hold of it. It was helpful having the spot weld nubs there to reference onto.

[Henry James the 47th]

This LHD firewall needed it slave cylinder hose mounting bracket moved from the driver's side to the passenger side, as that is where the 2H located the slave cylinder.

Finally, as far as work on this firewall goes, I shortened the floor pan connecting sections, as I will be keeping that section of the floor with the existing cab, since the bosses are welded in to suit the heat shield mounting for the 2H exhaust.

[Henry James the 47th]

After drilling out the spotwelds (I went and bought a more heavy duty spot weld cutter, and so far so good), I sectioned out the floor pan and ground the spot weld remnants down smooth.

[Henry James the 47th]

Then it was on to finishing off the rear hub/disc assemblies. To mark the center of the hole, I used a pilot point drill of nearly the same size as the hole in the rotor (pic 1), and this turned out to be adequately close enough. I wish I had a set of spotting punches though for these type of tasks.

I drilled and tapped for the fixing bolts. I made an assumption about the size of the fixing bolts that was wrong (10mm, NOT 8mm), so I had to do the drilling and tapping twice. At least the mistake allowed for a simple solution. A little piece of trivia: I learned that the '8.8' that is marked on the heads of the 10 mm bolts must mean the size of drill required for tapping to the correct size (in the case of 10x1.25mm threads), since '8.8' is the correct tap size given in a machinists table or drill sizes I looked at today. All along I had thought that the '8.8' referred to some sort of strength standard. The wheel studs have '10.9' marked on the back of them, so is this the correct size to drill for those as well? Since the size to be drilled for 12mm bolts is 10.2 (http://www.engineersedge.com/manufac...rill-chart.htm), and this hole is sized for the fatter part of the press in stud, I suspect that 10.9 is the size of hole needed for a good interference fit. Or am I drawing completely wrong conclusions here?

[Henry James the 47th]

Last pic, showing the finished up rotor install. I then went and drifted the bearing cups out of both hubs and they are now ready for new bearings, seals and so on. I can't proceed with the install however until I create some caliper mounts. After looking at a couple of options, I'm going to slice the disc mounts from some 60 series knuckles, and find a way to attach them with at least 3 bolts. Looks like a set of knuckles from the wreckers, or G&S, will be $100.

At the end of the day i started work on the jig to orient the positioning of the new firewall and to keep the cab in a set position while cutting the old firewall out and putting the new one in. I should have that done in another couple of hours of work, but I may need to scrounge up some more angle-iron.

[Henry James the 47th]

Another full day on Henry.

A lot of times i spend a whole bunch of hours just thinking about how to do certain things on the truck, and in what oreder, etc, but today I decided to plow on ahead. I was trying to figure the best sequence for removing the RHD bulkhead, and wondering what the consequences of this option and that option...then I just started cutting, without totally being sure of what the outcome would be.

I spent the better part of the morning making a jig to locate the new bulkhead into position and keep the door posts from spreading. I used a couple of 'L' brackets, and drilled them to bolt up to the door limiter goes in place. I forgot about the light switch bosses newly welded in place on the LHD firewall, so I will need to shorten the bottom side of these brackets before the new firewall goes in.

Fortunately I was able to scrounge up enough steel to make the jig without having to buy any metal. After the brackets were bolted up, I put a cross-tie in, and then ran square tubing from the door striker mount are to the crosspiece. Finally, I welded a couple of knee braces in.

[Henry James the 47th]

Then I fitted in a couple of supports from the cross-tie to the floor, standing each one on a hunk of plate directly over the body mounts.

Then, without much further ado, i cut the spot welds on the upper transmission hump, and started cutting the firewall free.

[Henry James the 47th]

At last i can get over my separation anxiety issues

[Henry James the 47th]

Next steps involved cleaning up the spot weld nubs, and getting ready to fit the outer rockers.

[Henry James the 47th]

working in the passenger side rocker, and a picture of the LHD cab inching ever closer to its new friend

[Henry James the 47th]

Ahh, fresh light metal (is that a new kind of radio station?)

[Henry James the 47th]

three more - here I'm working on the driver's side and using to RHD side cowling plate to help align the floor and sill

[Henry James the 47th]

spot light on welding - there were a couple of areas where I didn't make very tight butt joints; in the case of the passenger side, I had to section some rusty metal out from above the patch panel's upper edge would be and there was no way to have one clean cut line to match the rocker.