Clobbersaurus: A Documentary (1 Viewer)

[SNLC]

I got a vortec in my 80 and it has a K&N. I hate the K&N. Did a 2500 mile road trip last month to KoH. Very dusty in JV. Changed the oil right before I left. Get home and it was 3x or more dirty than normal for the same amount of miles. Soon as I can afford it I am putting in a UMP filter. The K&N is also causing the MAF to get dirty and pop a code.

I got two Chevies with the 350 TBI. They don't even compare tot he vortec, total slugs. Maybe you can upgrade using vortec parts, they are MPFI.

Got to love how cheap Chevy parts are eh!?

Cheers

 

[Heckraiser]

I got a vortec in my 80 and it has a K&N. I hate the K&N. Did a 2500 mile road trip last month to KoH. Very dusty in JV. Changed the oil right before I left. Get home and it was 3x or more dirty than normal for the same amount of miles. Soon as I can afford it I am putting in a UMP filter. The K&N is also causing the MAF to get dirty and pop a code.

I got two Chevies with the 350 TBI. They don't even compare tot he vortec, total slugs. Maybe you can upgrade using vortec parts, they are MPFI.

Got to love how cheap Chevy parts are eh!?

Cheers

Yeah, I've been at a bit of a loss as to what to do for power upgrades. You can put vortec heads and a decent roller cam into the TBI motor and make pretty good power, but with a full 96+ vortec crate motor selling for only $2,000 it almost makes more sense just to get rid of the motor. Seems kind of wasteful, but that's probably the cheapest way. I think I will stick with the TBI injection setup just because it's super simple and easy to work on and tune.

Oh well, that's a decision for later on down the road.

 

[SNLC]

I hear ya! I have been thinking about going 5.3L in mine since it is just cheaper than doing much to the 5.7L. More HP, better mileage and a better motor. Once you have everything and a Chevy already in there it gets temping to upgrade since it is a far less daunting task than starting from scratch.

At my elevation I am at 18-20% hp loss. With only 250 to start with that puts me at about 200! It is enough for the heavy 80 but I sure wouldn't mind more and better mpg. With the 350 TBI in my other trucks I am sure the elevation is playing the part in making them slugs. My biggest complaint with the 5.7L would be mpg. My LQ4 Chevy gets as good if not a touch better. Although I did get 15mpg with the 5.7L on a HWY last Saturday. Best recorded yet!

Cheers

 

[Heckraiser]

Not much going on since work has been extremely busy and I've been remodeling the house. The cruiser has been serving pretty heavy Home Depot duty and I think some add-a-leafs are in order. Left about 600lbs of tile in the back for a week or so and it's looking a little droopy.

But good news! It passed emissions last week and I now have my permanent tags on! This was probably the biggest "what if" of the whole process of purchasing out of state, so I am very relieved. I had to jump through a few extra hoops due to the undocumented swap, but apparently the PPO did a good enough job once the cat was welded in.

 

[Heckraiser]

I just thought I would update this thread with a little bit of tech and some photos.

I'm having some issues with my lockers (which like an idiot, I forgot to test out before buying the truck). Here's what I think is going on: the "rear locker" switch actually operates the front locker and the rear locker doesn't work at all. When the "rear locker" switch is on, the truck pretty much will barely steer at all even with the steering wheel locked in either direction--I surmise that this is the front locker in action since I have owned 4 different trucks with a rear locker in the past (never owned a front locker) and never had this happen. Does this sound like a properly functioning front locker?

As for the rear, I don't think it's working. Tight turns even on pavement do not result in the tire
scrubbing or chirping I am familiar with from other locked vehicles. I'm hoping it's just an air leak.

I was hoping to move the locker switches into the dash in the spot above the ashtray anyway, so it sounds like I may need to re-wire them while I'm at it. Here you can also see my lokar shifter (which really sucks to use) and the carpet that was torn to make way for it.

Second bit of tech. I have a bunch of cut wires coming out of the transfer case, and I have no idea what they do. There are two to the rear of the case and two towards the front. Can anybody tell me what these should be hooked up to?

 

[Heckraiser]

Dash is garbage:

Freon spill on the passenger seat = bitchin' dolphin-themed seat cover. Here you can also see that the door panels are actually FJ60 door panels that were retrofitted for the FJ62, complete with crank window holes.

PO replaced the rear carpet with a rubber diamond plate mat, which is actually pretty cool, but it is torn in a few spots. I may try to replace it with something similar:

 

[Heckraiser]

And some exterior photos. After researching all the work that goes into the round headlight conversion, I am considering just getting a new chrome fj62 face and keeping the square lights. The grille blackout job is in need of touch up and really isn't my style anyway. The tail light lenses have also probably seen a little too much of the AZ sun

 

[norsk]

Got started on the tune-up today. Hit a snag when I realized the HEI coil brackets were riveted to the heat sink on the coil. Didn't have the tools handy to drill out the rivets.


Anyhoo, here's a question for the brain trust: what is the best undercoating method for clean bare metal? I will be chopping my rockers off to make way for sliders (did this on my old 60) and plan to treat the inside area rather than welding in a flat piece to cover everything up. I'm not a great welder, and I'm afraid of burning a hole in the sheet metal. Anyhoo, my plan was POR15, primer, and then either a rubberized undercoat or bedliner or ??? What do you think would work best in the line of fire (pebbles, slush, etc)?

I put Rust Bullet with Shell Black on it - not on the road yet. Another MUD'er put Monstaliner bedliner 'down there'.

You could also just do the whole rig in white Monstaliner as well.

dougbert

 

[Elbert]

4wd indicator and reverse lights switch?

 

[Heckraiser]

After giving my suspension some thought, I've decided to look into getting some custom leaf springs made by Alcan. I would like 4" of total lift (enough for 35's, but no more). I don't like the design of the MAF shackle reversal because the hanger dangles down in the rocks. I originally wanted to go SOA with SR and french in the shackle hangers to keep the ride height down, but I'm quickly finding that I have pretty much zero spare time for fabrication... so the idea of some custom leaves that I could swap in in a weekend, and maybe a new front driveshaft if necessary seemed like a better bet.

Anyhoo, after talking with Bill at Alcan, I went to the local truck stop to get clobbersaurus weighed.

Look at that, near perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Take that BMW, lol.

But on the way back home I was stopped at a red light and noticed some smoke coming out from under the truck. I pulled over and took a quick look and it looked like my AC drip line was dripping onto the exhaust. No big deal. But as I kept driving there was A LOT of smoke. By the time I got home, I pretty much filled my alley with smoke. Stopped in the carport and quickly grew a puddle of red fluid. ATF. It took a couple minutes of digging around to find the culprit. Apparently my front driveshaft got too friendly with one of the hard lines on my transmission cooler and crushed it. I don't know how that happened since I didn't flex out the suspension, just some highway expansion joints. But apparently I need to figure out how to re-route my trans cooler now. :/

 

[Heckraiser]

I replaced the trans cooler line with rubber the whole way and routed it along the frame rail where it wont get smooshed by anything. The old trans cooler line appears to be a hacked up hard line out of the 1994 chevy donor truck. I don't know who thought it would be a good idea to put IFS hard lines into a cruiser with parts that actually move around in the front. Even the soft lines connecting the metal line to the aftermarket cooler look like they had been routed by a three year old with severe ADD. Doesn't give me warm and fuzzies about the conversion, but I guess you just chip away at the problems one by one.

I also ordered a new AC Delco EGR since the truck has been stumbling on acceleration when partially warmed up (this problem is all over the interwebs).

And my present finally came from the FedEx man. It only took three months to get here :/ Complete with 6-pack coozie!

 

[Wile E Coyote]

For the chopped rockers, I'd go with a red scotchbrite pad or Rolloc pads in a die grinder to give the existing stuff some tooth, then coat with Zero Rust or Rust Bullet. The glossier the finish the less mud will stick, or at least slightly easier to spray off. Monstaliner on the whole thing sounds like a great plan, as well.

For the errant TC wires, those are the 4wd indicator and 4lo switches, your PO may have purposely left the 4lo switch unfixed, as that bypasses the 62's stock characteristic of engaging 4wd automatically when the TC shift lever moves to 4lo...you now have "The 2lo mod" for 62's. You only have 4lo when you manually depress the dash switch, desirable for a front locked vehicle but not nearly as necessary when that locker is selectable like your ARB.

For the lockers, I'd get it up on 4 jack stands, then engage/disengage the lockers and spin the tires by hand...that'll tell you more than what you described above. Engaged, the locker will make both tires spin in the same direction, disengage and the tires will spin opposite (just like an open diff should behave)

 

[Heckraiser]

Wow, that's good to know. Shows you how little I actually know about these 62's. I did a "2-low" mod on my 60 and a couple 4Runners, so I am happy to leave it that way. The other wires just light up the H4 button on the dash? If so, I don't mind leaving that for a while. There are an awful lot of random wires that lead to nowhere, so I kind of have to look past it until I have the time to devote to a wiring clean up project (which I'm assuming will be some time between when I win the lottery jackpot and never).

Thanks for the input, Mike

 

[Heckraiser]

Well I took the 62 up camping this weekend and my wife had to drive her home from the mountains due to a severe allergy attack. Apparently she roasted the brakes, had trouble getting the truck over 25-30mph and pretty much thought she was going to die the entire time. She was so pissed she actually said "I'm not setting foot in that truck again." I had a brief "come to Jesus" moment, but I think I have convinced her to give the cruiser a second chance if I sort out some of the driveability issues.

So my new priority list is:

1) code 22 and code 45, need a new TPS and EGR (already ordered), which should improve power, idle, and hopefully help erratic shifting

2) Go through entire brake system and replace everything. She was adamant about this. I think I'll do the 4runner upgrade & T100 MC

3) Need to get a new shifter for the automatic. It is really difficult to downshift with the lokar (probably why she cooked the brakes) and nearly impossible to tell what gear you're in until you're already on the move.

4) Gas smell in cabin. Not sure if its the gas tank vent in the rear or maybe I need a new charcoal canister

Honestly, the drivability problems didn't really bother me, but she wants me to sell it and buy another 4runner, so I guess this is as good an excuse as I'll ever get to spend some money on clobbersaurus. The downside is I will have to put off suspension and off road goodies for a little while longer.

 

[boots4]

Getting it in good mechanical/reliable order is a good direction to go. That'll only make your offroad experiences that much better since you'll be less likely to get stranded and have to fix something in undesirable circumstances (mud, rain, blazing sun, unhappy wife, etc.)

 

[Heckraiser]

Yeah, I guess I can't complain. A lot of this stuff will go a long way to making it feel like less of a junker, which is good, but will only make me more upset when I dent it up

I' have been doing some research on shifters and I've taken some inspiration from this thread: https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/custom-tuffy-console-w-winters-shifter.699566/. I'm thinking of chopping up my brand new center console to reconfigure it to hold a Winters shifter.

 

[Heckraiser]

I put in a new TPS and EGR, and while I was at it, I did the "ultimate TBI mod." Although the motor climbs in revs quite a bit faster than it did before, and feels stronger in the mid and upper reaches of the powerband, it still feels like it's dumping too much fuel at low RPM. It actually stalled out on my test run. I may have some vacuum leaks to trace down too. When everything is working properly, my butt-dyno feels like all three together amount to about 10-15 hp. Not bad for basic maintenance and a few minutes with the bench grinder I also discovered that the PO-installed "throttle body spacer" is actually one of those rediculous turbonator/sharknado things and it's got to be robbing me of some power just by looking at it. Unfortunately, I can't take it off yet because the TBI bolts are too long without it.

I also just feel the need to say this: this is the first GM V8 vehicle I have owned since I was in high school (before I did any work on my own cars). These things are so stupid simple to work on it's almost easier than building $4.99 Lego set. Damn.

TBI before:

TBI after:

New EGR, TPS and chopped up TBI back on the motor:

 

[Heckraiser]

Took a trip out to Moab last weekend and the truck performed flawlessly with the exception of a loose radiator fan shroud that needed some trimming (boy, that's an ugly noise). We drove up to Top of the World thinking it would be a nice easy trail for the stock suspension. Wow, that was a lot more gnarly than I bargained for. Maybe it has washed out in recent months? At least as technical as Hells Revenge, if not more so. Lots of 2' steps. Had to use both lockers to get up some of them. Shockingly, no tire rub with 33x12.5 on stock wheels. Yes, I flexed it out. Truck did great.

On the highway it was a little different story. It was noisy as hell at highway speed and my wife got a little peaved Driving up and down the mountain confirmed that my brakes are fine, so I'm going to return all my upgrade parts for now. I'll just chalk that one up to the wife not knowing what she's doing behind the wheel


Lousy photos ripped off from my wife's facetoob acount (I'm the doofus with the floppy hat):