Builds 1HZ-T HZJ78 All-Climate Expo Build (1 Viewer)

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DamoPeru

SILVER Star
Joined
Dec 24, 2011
Threads
35
Messages
834
Location
Lima, Peru
Well here goes… I’ve been putting this off for a number of years, the restoration/expo build has been agonisingly slow, now in its 5th year, due to a mix of slow local workshops (or car jails as I like to call them), import downtime, my living in a high rise apartment with no decent garage and of late just plain bad workmanship. Whilst I always planned a build thread to give back a little of the knowledge I gained from this and other forums, I had originally thought to hold off until it was finished so everything could be appreciated in one concise block without flicking over too many comments, but the last 6-months I’ve actually taken a rest from the hands-on part of the build to travel and I’m starting to forget what I did, so chau to that idea.

In the next few days (or weeks) I’ll be attempting to post everything done to date in some sort of order. I had debated putting this in the expo build section, but much of my customizing is very specific to the 70, so here it goes...

Edit: this is a better intro photo, my thinned down repair manual, where I replaced all the sections updated by supplements and removed the bits on other models.
00.jpg


I do love Peru but it’s been a difficult place to source and build an expedition vehicle. After a 3-year search, I ended up with a 2002 HZJ78L STD without a single factory extra, one of only 45 registered post-1990 diesel troopies in the country at the time, with no body/chassis rust (due to the very high altitude), painted to sell and absolutely everything mechanical completely knackered after being thrashed in a Peruvian gold mine for 7 years with what appears to be no maintenance whatsoever. Beggers can't be choosers, but I finally had a troopy again (FYI, at that point in time you still couldn't buy a new troopy from Toyota Peru, they had only been brought in on special imports for a couple of mines or by the Red Cross).

The only extras were the sturdy bull bar, a mine spec roll cage, a burnt out Ray Hall adjusted AXT turbo, and a non-operative aftermarket aircon.

As bought.

01AsBought.JPG


02Interior.JPG


It wasn’t driveable, I brought her the 600km home lashed to a trailer.
03Truck.JPG
 
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The motor was dusted, a bit over 200K, she was sucking unfiltered air just above the turbo intake, since god knows when.

04Motor.jpg


Motor resleeved to stardard, rebuilt with new pistons, run in without the turbo for the first 15,000 km. I had problems getting the knackered R151F gearbox right. It came locked in low-range, would spit out in third.… the shifters were mangled. Dropped it twice in the first workshop where the motor was done but they couldn’t fix it. Took it somewhere else and after another two goes it finally “appeared” to be fixed. To be continued.

I rebuilt brakes, alternator, replaced all the hubs, bearings… big list of original parts, basically everything, long process but too long to bore with the standard details. After finally getting her relatively roadworthy I began importing aftermarket gear.

Snorkel was the first import to arrive.

05Snorkel.JPG


Then I received the imported 5 stud rims and weather shields, and could finally give the old girl some shoes that fit.

06Rims.jpg


Prior to replacing the rubbish rims/tires it came with, it had serious death wobbles, which the new steel rims (8x16” - 0 offset) and tyres (285/75/16) mostly fixed, though still present occasionally under heavy load when cornering/braking despite having replaced the steering damper and shockies with original Toyota types while the suspension kit took its time to arrive.

Next raised bulbar, added shackle points front and rear, brushbars, sidesteps and dual wheel carrier rear bar with a local welder.

07Bullbar.jpg


Despite having made drawings, the welder applied his own wisdom on the back bits when I wasn’t around, resulting in that ridiculous barwork behind the rear tyre… long story short I never took it back, and like nearly everything else, to be fixed later on the second or third try …. Peru is a tough place to get unsupervised work done no matter how much you spend and plan, so I learnt my lesson and don't leave it anywhere anymore.

08Barwork.JPG



 
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The original driver’s seat had seen more use with the mine ambulance driver seated with the door open and legs outside (on standby) than in the driving position, felt like i had one bum cheek bigger than the other, so I added Hilux bucket seats in a hurry to save my back, welded new mounts. These lasted well for a couple of years but I’m currently debating what to replace them with. Edit: now replaced with Autotecnia offroad touring seats
09Seats.jpg


Then I strengthened the cabin part of the mine spec roll cage and realigned rear uprights with the pillars… forgot to take a before and after shot but you’ll see the final configuration later throughout. Mine spec is not anywhere near the level of protection offered by rally spec, but still better than nothing at all as it’s just to get you past the gate where rollcages are required. It was a no brainer to beef it up and keep it installed, as I go to mine sites for work and I thought it might be useful for the furniture mounting later. This photo is in the middle of the work.
11Rollcage.JPG


I made up a chassis supported steel roof rack, also to be temporary and replaced later as I didn’t have the roof top tent (or extreme expedition) planned at that point. Edit: I've now removed this completely in favour of a aluminium rack supported by the internal rollcage. Edit: now opted for OEM roof rack mounts that bolt to the roof and do not interfere with the gutter
12Roofrack.jpg


The heavy duty 2” lift (for certified GVM to 3.8t) suspension kit arrived, actually lifted 4” from where it previously sat. The by now only occasional death wobbles apparently disappear.
13Lifted.jpg



Then black out tinting all round, can only see inside if light is on at night, a must around Latin America for deterring smash & grabs in traffic.
14Tinted.jpg
 
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After making up several temporary rear furniture configs between other trips that I won’t bother showing, I striped her for the 4th and final time to work on her “final” config. Started with a paint touchup and a bit of panelbeating after a nose dive in the dunes.

You can appreciate how much the barwork weights her down when its off.
15Painted.jpg


Welded nuts in behind where those useless plastic inserts go, to bolt on all interior side and back door panels which i had plans for, did the same on the floor (nuts with reinforcements) to bolt down rear floor 18mm ply panels and freezer/battery mounts.
16Nuts.jpg


I made up a number of waterproof electrical boxes in the engine bay, this one shown is actually the second one I made up, and not the last, first one being temporary to get us on the road. Bit of a squeeze, prefabbed on the bench before installation, it housed a 120amp dual battery isolator in parallel with 100amp solenoid (for later alternator upgrade), fuses and relays for upgraded 10AWG wiring for high/low, driving, fog and reverse lights, and upgraded horn. I left most of the factory headlight loom in place, used the positive bulb wires from one side to trigger the upgraded headlight relay. To be continued...
18Box2.jpg


I sourced a 90l factory rear tank from a 70 and had some chassis mods done to my underneath spare wheel model to accommodate.

Before
01.jpg


After
21Chassis.jpg
 
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I'm liking the effort and work being put into your LandCruiser. Great job. :)
 
It was about then when 15,000km after the motor rebuild, I rebuilt and fitted the Ray Hall (AXT) turbo.
22AXT.jpg


Turned up the fuel slightly and kaboom went the R151F spine in a matter of hours.

Now I embarked upon a “justified” H151F transplant, donor from a 99’ FZJ105 complete with transfer. Used a new HDJ78 bellhousing and FZJ75 HD clutch, was prepared to accommodate the shifter sticks in a new position. I had the H151F pulled apart to refurbish all the gizzards, vehicle jailed unjustly for 9 months, so I got working on/finishing all things electrical.

I pre-fabbed a dual fuse/relay box for the panel behind the LHS seat. These fuses and relays all power out of the 240Ahr AGM auxiliary battery located in the same spot, running 16 fused and relay/switched circuits to power directly:
(1) the cab roof console circuits,
(2) dashboard circuits,
(3) six interior 12v outlets,
(4) two exterior 12v outlets,
(5) eight additional dash meters/instruments,
(6) hardwired Nuvi GPS,
(7) built-in chargers for two cel phones, 1 sat phone and 1 tablet,
(8) an assorted battery charger compartment circuit,
(9) two 12V 50amp appliance powerboards (solenoid controlled),
(10) fridge/freezer and 4 associated temperature controller ventilation fans,
(11) reverse horn,
(12) exterior sides and rear camp lights and awning light,
(13) front console fridge,
(14) air compressor and 2 associated temperature controller ventilation fans,
(15) water pump and UV water filter,
(16) rooftop tent circuits.

It didn’t start out with exactly that configuration (nor may it be limited to that), but cause I’d run 10 AWG to almost everything in all corners of the vehicle, it didn’t matter that I changed my mind on accessories and their location overtime. Key advice here if going to this level of complexity… keep a track of circuits in a excel worksheet or similar, had I done this on paper I can’t imagine how I’d have kept track of the changes or even contemplated changes without sitting in the vehicle for hours with a multimeter.
01mainrelaypanel.JPG
02mainrelaypanel.JPG
03mainrelaypanel.jpg


Edit: all the above work has been completely dismantled and ditched! I wanted to add more stuff, and the space taken up by the ATO system prompted me to switch to some of the now available MINI fuse waterproof fuse box systems that we're on my radar when i started.

While I’m touching on electrical, you’ll see from here onwards I’ve done a fair bit of wiring. All positive wiring is either 10 or 12AWG cable for longevity and to limit voltage drop; occasionally I go back to 14 or 16AWG just for switch signal cables, while longer runs for other fuse/relay boxes is 8AWG, the 50amp gear is all 4AWG, all battery and solar/AC charger cables are 4/0AWG. All cable runs are put in split tube.

Given the cables now won’t burn out easily, absolutely every cable is double fused (at each end), even the switches have individual fuses. The only things not double fused are the switch-relay signal runs. I’ve only soldered a few miniature low amperage connections too frail for crimping; I’m a believer of proper crimping over soldering to not reduce conductivity and flexibility. But I only use naked crimp connectors with a double shrink wrap covering added after crimp inspection, those cheap connectors with plastic coverings don’t allow you to make a proper crimp (they often don’t even have two sections to crimp both the naked cable and the insulated cable separately), nor can you properly inspect the quality of your finished crimp for peace of mind.

The reverse horn is very handy in a crowd, but because it's usually annoying as hell I put it on a double relay so its activated automatically by reverse gear, but also only activated when I need it to be by a dash rocker switch…. i.e. switch on: will activate automatically only when in reverse, switch off: peace and bloody quiet.

Relay 1: power in from tap on reverse light positive circuit; power out to relay 2 signal; signal power from dash switch

Relay 2: power in from aux batt; power out to horn; signal power from relay 1 power out.

thats enought for today, more to come another day....
 
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I prefabbed a bolt in roof console powered entirely from the auxiliary battery. The rollcage and the missus’s padding job made it very easy to be a neat installation and I didn’t have to worry about finishing the sides, but anyone could use my bolt up method as I didn't use the rollcage to fit at all.

Its fixed to 4 struts that are bent for a pressure fit with the roof and crossbars with recessed bolts welded on to attach a base plate.

07struts.JPG


Then fab the base plate to the struts with nuts/washers and she’s solid a as a rock without drilling into anything at all… and its been tested in a few inadvertent airborne situations where the rest of the vehicle didn’t fare as well. I prefer this design compared to the consoles with everything attached to the single bottom layer, as with my design, you simply take off the cover to do any repairs to anything instead of removing the whole console.

Because of the curve in the roof, I bolted the raw base and cover in place for a couple of months (while doing other things) so it would hold the form of the curve whilst building it.
47.jpg


I fabbed everything up prior to install
48.JPG


Bolted up in place
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Wow, nice work on that console! Must be a few hrs in that. You could match it with some space shuttle graphics on the outside ;) I'd like to get my electrical accessories stuff better sorted one day & you set a good example. Looking forward to seeing more details of your mods to the troopy!

Cheers
Clint
 
I had the dash out for ages while I build a dash extension on the bench. In the meantime I removed and cleaned all the vents and cleaned up unneeded factory wiring. Fixed up the vent controls, actually bought new cables but not the entire control head panel (Toyota Peru wanted 600 dollars for that), but I couldn’t remove the existing cables from the head panel without breaking plastic so I lived with the significantly freed up existing cables.
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I posted about this somewhere else I think, but I had been breathing foam dust for god knows how long… the 5 vent trap door foams crumbled to dust upon touch so out they went (a few passes from my finger and what remained just fell off!), talk about a health hazard. I replaced with a funky pink “yoga mat” foam that should last. Also I replaced all the foam at the vent tube joints, which also were degraded but were a different type of foam to the trap doors that had pulverized.

The idea was to build an extension on top of the dash to house all the stuff that had no home and to avoid the windscreen with 400 suction cups and power cables flying around everywhere catching attention from the outside. I didn’t need to remove the windscreen so it was easier to pull the dash.
80.jpg


The dash extension itself is made from treated ply, used metal angle brackets to bolt it to the metal dash and for joins. In general, all the ply in the entire vehicle was cut to size and put together, holes drilled, screwed up etc, then I dismantled everything to further treat, paint and upholster the ply prior to putting back together and installing.
81.JPG


Houses sensor readouts (left to right) for 1. water temp, 2. oil temp, 3. motor head and ambient air temp in front of intercooler, 4. tacho and hour meter, 5. turbo boost and 6. EGT, all just above the instrument cluster in my line of vision. The cover keeps them in the dark and easy to see any time of day, all with dimmers connected to the OEM park light circuit.
83.jpg


Beside that the Nuvi GPS (only non-marine model I could get that still accepts a GPS antenna connection), and then to the right a space with metal inserted under the upholstery to firmly hold our two hermetic coffee maker mugs with magnetic bases, up at that level I don’t have to move my eyes off the road to get a sip. The space has another function but I’ll get to that in the updated photos (I need to take) later. Beside that are the dual voltmeter, aux fuel tank switch, water tank level gauge and OEM aux fuel tank gauge.
87.jpg


There’s another fuse box behind the tank gauges to individually fuse the meters and gauges, fuel tank solenoid, front 12V outlets, gopro power cords and gps.

I’ve since added much more and finished it off mostly, but I need to take new photos over the next week.
 
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This post will be on LED exterior lights.

Factory signal lights…. I replaced all factory bulbs with LED replacements, tried SMD but preferred the biggest LED types in the end. I had to add diodes behind the rear dual filament brake/park bulbs for the brake to not activate the parkers, an electronic led turn flasher was also required to get the indicators to work normally and it took a couple of imports to get the parkers’ colour right as I didn’t know that much about the white colour names at the start.

These are the types I settled on, 63 LEDs, all in their respective colours but I had to go with some 13 SMD types just for the two white rear licence plate bulbs simply due to the size restriction.

01.JPG


Left shows the slightly blue “cool white”, right the “warm white”. Not too weird until you turn the headlights on, worse at night.

04.JPG


Then added all these sealed LED units to increase my visibility in the prevalent Peruvian fog and for safety in general, especially at the back where the tyres block the vision on the brake/turn signals. These are all fused as well as a safeguard.

07.JPG


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Then the trucklite 7” LED headlamps epiphany … better light output and spread, much lower amperage, waterproof, it was a no-brainer. Removed the basic hella spotties cause I was hoping they’d make no difference to high beam (and they didn't) and now she’s a 100% LED vehicle. Mr. Radiator should be happier as well and I intend to keep it like that. Perfect fit, less aggressive to oncoming traffic yet better light on low beam than factory low beams, and my alternator continues to charge the auxiliary battery while using the wickedly bright high beam.

15.jpg


Thats not the end of the LED exterior lights but I'll continue that another time.
 
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I'm not a fan of the look but regardless I covered them for protection, which doesn't affect their performance. Edit: They're now cluttering my parts cave... they protected from rocks, but it was a pain to clean the backside (= remove grill) because I necessarily added some bolts to the otherwise slip-on design so they weren't thieved. The dirty backside did affect performance of the lights. If I lived in Australia and could leave them unbolted, i would probably leave them on.
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Great job , you must put in a lot of work Damienperu !
Don't you think that the eye view of windscreen has been reduces too much with the added console lift ?

Bye Renago
 
Great job , you must put in a lot of work Damienperu !
Don't you think that the eye view of windscreen has been reduces too much with the added console lift ?

Bye Renago

Thanks Renago, yes the prefabbed consoles etc. literally took many months each, weeks of work with big lags waiting for little components to arrive that I decided to include as I went along

I was conscious of the height, I can still see the last half of the bonnet from my sitting position, so I only loose a small amount of vision to the side (if I don't move in the seat). I've been offroading in it since it was finished and it was fine.

On a related note I think the bucket seats I installed also raised my seating position quite a bit over standard, that or my mates old 70 all have sagged seats.
 
Ten thousand gauges, dials, displays, switches, lights and NO tach.......:lol:
 

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