South African HJ-47 Pick-up (1 Viewer)

[cult45]

The reason they cut your bib is because they used a 70 series PS box, and the arm is to the rear. If you use a 60 series box then the arm will be at the front. The advantage is twofold.

1. The 60 box is mounted further rear behind the bib, allowing you to run a full bib.
B. The arm faces forwards, giving more clearance.

There's too much happening back there at present. Two links, the arm, the diff housing. It's too messy. Swap the box if you can.

 

[Scrrapper]

Thank you Cult45. I understand. 70s are a dime a dozen, and 60s are hard to find down here. I will wait til I am back in the US to do the swap. You said messy. What about functionality. Will it be dangerous until the swap?

 

[Scrrapper]

Always fun when you get something in the mail. My son just called and I got my new old stock euro mirrors. Super stoked. I was talking to Heinrich and told him I paid exactly half what is paid in the states for the mirrors and he guffawed and told me it was 6 times what he pays for the gray plastic ones. I did not argue.

I was watching these below on ebay. They went for $182 for the pair. Nice.

I am figuratively and literally wrapping everything up here in Africa. I have been extremely busy this last few weeks. I know this is a truck forum, but I can't help myself. I include a picture on my '56 Triumph Speed Twin being wrapped up. I have the registration, but it always makes sense to ship motos as "motorcycle parts", and then my lenient DMV allows me to get a title by just showing I had legal ownership sometime in the past.

She looks kinda like a steer.

 

[Vossie]

scrapper, you in harare? i noticed in one of your earlier posts you said you were in the cold of harare...

 

[Scrrapper]

scrapper, you in harare? i noticed in one of your earlier posts you said you were in the cold of harare...

Vossie, I am here in Harare. I will be here for another 5 weeks before shipping out. I just read your build and looked at your truck. I also noticed on your profile that it says you sold it? OUCH! I was just over to Cruisers, (not Mr. Cruisers) over next to ZIMTOW in Masasa looking for some stuff. If you run into difficulty finding parts in the future, you might try him. Good sort of fellow. Or you might try Alex Hawkins, the guy that started Mr. Cruiser and sold it cause he became ill.

I have some more picts for this build, but not on this computer. I am hopng to get them up in a few days. I am hoping to get the truck on a boat in Durban in 2 weeeks.

One other question. Your load body on your truck, it was different from every other laod body I have seen on HJ-47s in Southern Africa other than one. Most are the angular home-built looking beds out of Durban built back in the 70s and 80s when the trucks got here from Japan. You know ther ones I am talking about, the ones with the squared off rear wheel openings. I saw one truck here in Harare exactly like yours for sale in Classifieds. co.zw and after looking at it, I found out it was owned for 25 years by City of Harare. Yours may have been one of a batch that City of H owned. It was pretty beat up. Tye load bed looked like they dropped boulders into it from 5 meters up. I walked away.

Parhaps we should go over to Tin-Roof and gets some PerPeri chicken!

 

[Vossie]

Vossie, I am here in Harare. I will be here for another 5 weeks before shipping out. I just read your build and looked at your truck. I also noticed on your profile that it says you sold it? OUCH! I was just over to Cruisers, (not Mr. Cruisers) over next to ZIMTOW in Masasa looking for some stuff. If you run into difficulty finding parts in the future, you might try him. Good sort of fellow. Or you might try Alex Hawkins, the guy that started Mr. Cruiser and sold it cause he became ill.

I have some more picts for this build, but not on this computer. I am hopng to get them up in a few days. I am hoping to get the truck on a boat in Durban in 2 weeeks.

One other question. Your load body on your truck, it was different from every other laod body I have seen on HJ-47s in Southern Africa other than one. Most are the angular home-built looking beds out of Durban built back in the 70s and 80s when the trucks got here from Japan. You know ther ones I am talking about, the ones with the squared off rear wheel openings. I saw one truck here in Harare exactly like yours for sale in Classifieds. co.zw and after looking at it, I found out it was owned for 25 years by City of Harare. Yours may have been one of a batch that City of H owned. It was pretty beat up. Tye load bed looked like they dropped boulders into it from 5 meters up. I walked away.

Parhaps we should go over to Tin-Roof and gets some PerPeri chicken!

Cool man. ja, my last 45 i had to sell unfortunately... but i have just purchased a new one from a guy down in Bulawayo. I use Burj auto for most of my parts, thats Alex Hawkins new company, located in Southerton. but i will give that guy in masasa a visit.

So are you Zimbabwean? or from states over here visiting?

about my load tray, i tried to do as much research about it as i could. heres what i know:

My old 45 and 3 others i managed to find were all stamped FJ45 on the chassis and data plates, but all had 2H motors in them. all were from 1983 and all came with that tray body. i spoke to Johnny C about them, and he reckons they were dealer fitted with those engines and those trays. Whether or not that happened when they were imported into Zim is still a mystery. one thing we know is they are not the willowvale body type. the willowvale cruisers were assembled here in harare, but had that same nasty looking load tray like the durban ones.

heres the thread i started about it and some of the responses...
https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/an-fj45-mystery.781701/

Its odd though, bc about half of all the 45's i have seen here in Zim have that tray like my old 45, including my newly purchased 45 from byo, i think... it hasnt arrived yet and i didnt take any pics of the tray when i saw it. but im sure it does have that tray. either way, having paid $1500 for the entire 45, im pretty happy.

Parhaps we should go over to Tin-Roof and gets some PerPeri chicken!

sounds like a plan, but Coimbra has always done the best chicken in Zim

 

[cult45]

Thank you Cult45. I understand. 70s are a dime a dozen, and 60s are hard to find down here. I will wait til I am back in the US to do the swap. You said messy. What about functionality. Will it be dangerous until the swap?

I don't think so unless it's badly engineered. Just make sure at suspension compression there's no binding of rods.

 

[Scrrapper]

Copy that. I will take a look at it and make sure. Suggestions on how? Get a bunch of friends to stand on the front bumper? I am open to any suggested methods. Thank you for your reply.

 

[Scrrapper]

Vossie,

Yeah Coimbra is the bomb. I work here, but am from the States. Been here 2 years, but did 3 years up in Central Africa before that. Had an 80 series that I took everywhere. Kigali to just below the South Sudan border, down to Kampala, over to Nairobi, down below Lake Victoria and back to Rwanda. Did another long trip Kigali, Burundi, total length of Lake Tanganyika into Zambia. Then across Zambia to Northern tip of Lake Malawi, up to the southern Highlands of Tanzania and back to Kigali through central Tanz. Actually ran into a wealthy Zim family looking for land up out of the way 2-3 days from tarmac. That was in 2009. Maybe they saw some writing on the wall. I just came from Baghdad and in Europe someplace in 2013 I ran into a Family from Mutare and I had been researching Zim. They were farmers and I asked if they still had their farm. They said they were set, they had an in. They were good friends with a lady named Joice Majuru. Too funny how life likes to kick you, isn't it? Anyway, I have about 16-17K miles on dirt here in central and southern AF. Did the Triangle to Boli to Chiqualaquala, Moz border crossing. Then through about 12 hours of sand to Vilankulos. On the way back it was raining and made the trip on the same roads like a different route. I was in the floods up in northern Moz this last January and I tried one river too many and my 100 series was in the river for a few days. It should be back on the road next week. I had to source parts out of Oz since my 100 is a Oz market beast, the parts are so expensive here and the parts numbers are different. And I wanted used (again for price-example: I had to replace the accelerator position sensor- they wanted $850 for it new at thge dealer- Alex had a deal at over $400. I got it in Oz for a little over $50)

Did you see this nasty piece for sale here in Harare? It started at $7K, then 6K, I have watched it go all the way down to 3K. I bet if someone offered $1500 he would take it. It looks a little bent in the middle to the right, at least it turns right real easy, eh? Hard to say no to a 47 with a diesel that runs and drives.

Now about the truck:
Sorry off track here for a few days. We have been working the paperwork for exportation. Also getting the right paperwork for the enigne/body marriage. The truck is a 1982, built in 12/81, and the engine is a 1990 3F. We did this step before, but we forgot to get a police examination to confirm numbers. We should be good now. I will try to get fotos up as soon as I can, and before it goes on the boat in Durban.

 

[Scrrapper]

Well Dang it. Everyone assured me it was going to be fine. All said that when it was time to ship my truck I would have no problems getting it in my name in SA prior to shipping. Now the South Africans say since I am a resident of Zimbabwe I cannot register it in my name. They all want to ship it in Heinrich's name. But the question is, can I get it out of the port in the US with just a bill of sale and a letter showing relinquishment of ownership and full payment? AAAh. I hate it when people who should know (shipping agents) tell people who trust them things and then say "sorry" when it does not go that way.

Anyone ship a car in someone else's name and then pick it up in the states?

If I can get it out of the port, I am pretty sure I can get it registered in my name there in the US.

 

[Scrrapper]

Well it has been a while. As I said in my last post my customs status in Zimbabwe made it easy to ship a truck to the US, but since the truck was in South Africa I ran into a little problem with the title transfer into my name. Had every little piece of paper needed to put it on the boat. But I needed one from the local police to get it in my name. But they would not look at it for export paperwork UNLESS it was in my name. Catch-22 South African Style. Finally had to do some negotiation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (due to my status) and voila done after only 4 months late.

But as you see it is sitting in front of my house in Virginia. I was absent as about 10% of the work was left to do. Finally got to drive it, and I will need some suggestions and help in doing a suspension upgrade. Heinrich was adamant that the suspension was very good as he was building it. Sure it was fine for the farm, but I want to drive it on the highway too. Well it drives like I ski. I turn, but keep going straight. After several heartbeats, it starts to turn, but only 75% of what I was expecting. I guess do I need to do a suspension upgrade.

The brake lines and/or master cylinder are leaking up a storm. I have to figure out where all the fluid is coming from. I will take some more pictures Monday night. Let it all be gin here in the US!

View attachment 1232140

 

[Scrrapper]

Here is the fat bastard with his little brother.

 

[Michael B]

Welcome home! I'm glad to see you finally got SA to turn the 47 loose. What part of Virginia are you in?

 

[Scrrapper]

Up NOVA way. I work in the city. Yeah they went to pick up the truck in SA and my Afrikaaner friend in his defense was really trying to be righteous. He filled it up to the brim with gas. They would not take it with that much gas in it and told him. So they came back a week later and he had fixed the situation. He had drained every drop of gas out of it. It got here and and they could not start it. I told them about the SNAFU. Next day they said they could not add gas to it since the cap said "Diesel" they would not put gas in it. I insisted and they finally got it to start. Finally it got here. It seemed EVERY step of the way was a screw up.

 

[Michael B]

Wow! That's a lot of drama around one LC. Hopefully that's the last of it and you can just enjoy your rig now. I used to live in the Tidewater area before moving south.