Builds My Budapest-Bamako build

[fvaleur]

Sup' 80 buddies? After getting a lot of good advice on here i figured it was about time i give something back. Over the course of the last half year or so, i've been building up my HDJ81 to function as both a daily driver, and to take on the Budapest Bamako, and maybe a trip to tunesia after that. The truck is mostly finished, or maybe ready is a better word, my cars are never "finished"
This means that things won't necessarily be posted in a chronological order. I think i'll just post a bunch of the photos i took during the build process, and if anyone wants to see or know more of/about something just let me know.

This thread will mostly cover mods/things i find interesting. I've done a s*** ton of pm, atf flush, front axle rebuild, brake job etc. but i think everyone's seen that stuff before.

About the truck:
1991 HDJ81
175000km's
A442F hydro gearbox
Lockers all over the place
Sun roof, cooled center console - all that good stuff.

Mods:
Home made front bumper - also functions as air tank
12V connector for jump leads on front bumper
Winch in the front bumper, moved solenoid pack to the engine bay
Home made aux tank
Home made ss roof rack, with mounting bracket for accessories
York oba setup, take off inside front bumper
2 19 row ATF coolers with manual bypass
Weidmuller rockstar connectors on roof for lights
Light and transfer pump switches in center console
SS Antenna bracket on bumper
SS "light rail" for front bumper w/ 2 IPF super rallys
SS number plate holder for front bumper
SS tow attachment in the rear (20mm stainless )
All breathers moved to the head of the snorkel
CB mounted in second DIN slot
2.5" OME springs, +400kgs in the rear
OME nitro charger sport shocks
OME Steering damper
OME Castor correction bushings
Cheap ebay snorkel
15x8 brazil rims, blasted and powder coated
33x12.5x15 BFG A/Ts
2 75Ah yellow-tops
Whole things been Tektrol treated with 3 layers of wax, oil and bitumen, which should be good for 3 years of rust protection. Fingers crossed.

I have a good contact at the local powder coaters, so if it's not stainless, it's powdered

That's all i can think of right now. So i guess i'll start posting pics.

This is the most current pic i have of the truck:

Some pics from the front bumper build. Plate is 6mm s355 steel (50% or so stronger than regular mild steel), tube is 48,3x6,3mm seamless s355. All welds are TIG, cuts in the plate are oxy-acetylene.

The plate parts all cut out and starting to go together

Starting to tack it up, probably should have used more, smaller tacks. Bonus points if anyone can geuss what the big shiny thing is.

The pipe is ground down to a taper, as is proper practice for thick-walled pipe.

Pipe all tacked on

More ground down pipe

Welds!

I decided to lay an extra piece of steel on top here, to increase the strengt around the tow points. Proooobably should have used a stick welder for this. Those big welds swallowed an ass load of filler.

Aaand ready for powder coat

More pics coming after i finish watching wheeler dealers

 

[fvaleur]

Tank stuff. It's a 120l aux tank, 2mm s235 steel, it uses a mazda rx7 fuel pump to transfer fuel to the main tank, filler is in the left side compartment in the boot (taking photos tomorrow).
I debated the design of the fuel tank a lot with the guys i work with, some who have a lot of experience building large tanks, since i have absolutely no experience in this area. The end result is fairly light, really, really strong, and it should respond well to impacts. It's mounted with 1.5mm thick "strips" of stainless steel. The idea is that the mounts will break loose if the tank suffers a serious impact, hopefully sparing the tank and truck any major damage. I'll try and snap some pics of that too.

Baffles pre holes:

Baffles in the tank

Test fitting, with the fuel pump in

This should give you a pretty good idea of how it's built. The baffles are spot welded through drilled holes, from the outside. This is to prevent the distortion that you'd get from welding on the inside. Bormadier IC3 trains supposedly used the same design

Aaaand here we are on the way to the powder guy. The u-profiles you can see were welded on to strengthen the tank, and provide mounting points for the bash plate on the left, while also, hopefully distributing the load from an impact to a larger area.

This is the "lid" with pipes for forward and return, breather fitting, and a pg thingy for power to the fuel pump.

Test fitting, without the bash plate.

I'll try and get some pics of the tank all fitted up tomorrow when it's light out

 

[half k cruiser]

Either my computer is f'd or your pictures aren't all showing up. What I did see looks pretty cool though, and i'm sure there will be lots of interest in your custom aux tank.

 

[jhunhapi]

Its not showing. Use imgur.com

 

[fvaleur]

Better now?

 

[greentruck]

Yeah, looks good now. Sweet build.

 

[newtomelx]

Very nice!

 

[Finnyfam60]

"Bonus points if anyone can geuss what the big shiny thing is. "
Its a huge paper weight to hold the bumper down while you fab on it.
Ok, real guess: a xxl spindle

 

[fvaleur]

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Paper weight is correct! Before it became worn and was demoted to paperweight it was a piston in a homogenizer. Thing is solid stainless steel - so yea great paper weight

 

[Douglas S]

Do you know what the part # is for the Weidmüller connector you used on your roof?

Truck looks great.

 

[fvaleur]

Buying a complet weidmuller kit is by far the easiest way to do it.

For 90deg base, with 4+1 poles the numbers are:
Metal housing: 1802700000
Plastic housing: 1802720000

I used the plastic housing because i had 2 half kits laying around, and could buy the rest for cheap. Never tried the metal ones.

Here's a pic for those who haven't seen them already. They're mounted right where the rear-most speakers sit, making cable routing easy.

 

[e9999]

some nice welds there.

 

[lugueto]

More pics!

Edit: e9999: The "Delta Airlines Chick no-no" avatar gave me a laugh lol

 

[fvaleur]

Roof rack stuff, i really wanted to build something compact/modular enough that it could be taken apart and stuffed in the back of the car if parking in unfriendly places, i did make the feet heavy enough to carry a full size rack though, so they can be reused at some point in the future maybe.

The feet... i ended up welding a piece of bar stock (think that's what it's called) to the bottom of the foot, and i glued a piece of rubber to the little c-thing to protect the under side of the gutters.

Building the "rails"

All ready

A couple of pictures with accessories mounted up

After-thoughts... galvanic corrosion between the aluminum sand ladders and SS racks is a problem. I should have heat shrinked at least some sections of the pipes to lay the sand ladders on. I think i'll apply some rubber or something to sections of the sand ladders.

 

[e9999]

how'd you bend those hooks?

 

[fvaleur]

Not sure what it's called. It looks like this:

It was good for the first 100deg or so, used a vice and a big hammer the rest of the way. If you got it hot enough you could probably do it with a regular sheet metal brake, or maybe just vice + hammer all the way.

 

[GCRad1]

Subscribed!!!

 

[FastCarGuy]

All TIG welds!!! Very impressed

 

[Finnyfam60]

what winch are you running?

 

[mr jits]

Looks like a Runva winch.