HDJ81 guts in FJ80 (1 Viewer)

[huckthehaus]

I had another thread going as a a feeler to get an idea how I was going to attack this. I've since decided to go in a direction that I guess hasn't been done before. Basically, I rolled my loaded HDJ81 and I'm going to attempt to rebuild it using a FJ80 body and frame.

I want to make it clear that I know there are easier ways to go about installing a 1hd-t and factory lockers into an FJ80, but I figure since I have two complete trucks I'm going to try an get as close to a factory LHD HDJ80 as possible. Did I mention I'm glutten for punishment?

So I've really been screwing the pooch in regards to the car farm. Due to other obligations, its been weeks since I have done anything, last thing I did was rent a steam cleaner and clean some parts, the donor truck, etc, and before that I pulled everything apart.

Today I swapped engine mounts and some brake and fuel line plumbing from the HDJ81 to the FJ80.

Unlike the FZJ80, the FJ80's 3FE engine mounts will not allow you to bolt the 1HD-T in. They are quite different, in fact. I gouged the welds out around the HDJ81's engine mounts, sacrificing the frame to preserve as much of the mount as possible. On the FJ80, I did the opposite, hacking the 3FE mounts to avoid gouging the donor frame.

 

[huckthehaus]

I then cleaned up the 1HD-t mounts, and the FJ80 frame, and the tacked the mounts in position. The mounts are staggered, meaning the right side is farther forward than the left side. Now the are several ways to to accurately transplant the mounts- if it was a totally custom engine install, I'd probably bolt the mounts to the engine, drop it in and tack, then pull the engine and finish weld the mounts to the frame. However, since the frames are the same, I simply took several measurements for each mount and mocked them up that way.

Had I some steel around, I would have tacked a couple pieces in an 'X' formation from on mount to the other, as well as some depth stoppers extending to the front crossmember on each side, to serve as a welding jig. Then I would have cut the mounts off the HDJ81 frame, dropped the whole thing on to the FJ80 and welded it up. That method works great, again, if only I had some steel around.

I welded the mounts on with 1/8" Arctec 223 XC. Best rod for outdoors by far. I would have set up my wirefeeder, but I was too windy for running MIG. Anyway, root pass uphand, with a downhand weave and die grind the stress risers. I was pretty meticulous about the welding, because my HDJ81 has some s***ty factory welds, huge stress risers all over the front panhard support. It cracked three years ago and I repaired it, as well as a fishplate behind the steering box. I was thinking about being proactive and reinforcing the FJ80 steering box area before it cracks, I still might. I heard the RHDs were more known for cracking than the LHDs?I dunno if that was a quality control things or a RHD truck leading a harder life?

More to come tomorrow. I've got someone kicking my ass to get this done before the snow flies.

 

[mainlander]

Looking good! That's going to be one great FJ80 when you're done!

 

[Enigma]

Are you going to try and swap in your 81's console fridge as well? I understand the plumbing has scared a few folk away from that swap.
Or was your's a 5 speed, I forget.

 

[huckthehaus]

Hey Jeff, swapping the console fridge would require some custom lines- something I am actually looking into. The fridge is plumbed in parallel to the HVAC evap core, very simple plumbing except what looks like an electric open-close valve in the evap circuit so you can run the compressor/icebox without the evap core getting cold.

I haven't been able to touch the truck since last Sunday. Work and life are swamping me right now. I'm hoping to duck out long enough this weekend to roughly finish the mechanical end of the swap- its pretty easy if you have two complete trucks, I'll put what I did up here in detail later. Hopefully I can start the electrical work next week. First I'll lengthen the engine harness, and I'll decide after doing that whether I feel like making a LHD HDJ81 harness or simply modding the existing FJ80 cowl harness.

One thing I will stress is that this is a budget swap- While I am repairing and refreshing my drivetrain as I swap it, if I had unlimited funds, I would have started this swap with a mint locked FZJ80- there are a few up for grabs on the Whistler market right now including one at the local garage that needed a headgasket. My FJ80 cost me $1800, and the frame is mint, body straight and rust free, and thats it. Its a cheap blank canvas.

 

[goldchaser]

Was the frame on the HDJ twisted? If not.
I thought it would be easier to swap bodies,i bet you'll find the holes in the frame for the left steer box.

 

[huckthehaus]

I don't think the frame twisted as it still drove straight. LHD and RHD frames have the front panhard mount on opposite sides. Sleeves need to be added to the steering box holes, and my frame had pretty severe cracking around the panhard mount and steering box in the past (former trophy truck so it made sense to ditch the HDJ frame. I also want my VIN numbers to match should I ever lose my mind and sell the thing.

 

[goldchaser]

Ok,got ya.

My thinking was if it was easy to use the HDJ frame when you were done just rivet the HDJ compliance plates on the other body then you have a matching numbers and left hand drive.

 

[huckthehaus]

Update:

I've put in a least 4 or 5 lazy weekends since my last post 2.5 months ago. I suck at web wheeling, hence the lack of reports.

Before installing the drivetrain, I installed the 81's diesel specific fuel tank, line and filter base/primer pump. I also changed the fuel filler neck out. The gas neck has restrictor plate, prevents the diesel nozzle from fueling. Changing said filler neck was a PITA. I had undo that body mounts and lift the body to get enough room to change it. Lastly, I swapped out the brake hardlines as the FZJ/HDJ mounts interfere with the 3FE specific brake lines. Another plus to starting with the pricier FZJ platform for the swap. Note the use of the off road creeper and rounder in lieu of the floor jack for installing the nearly full fuel tank.

 

[huckthehaus]

I'm noticing from my pictures that sometime before the drivetrain I must have swapped in my full floater/e locker HDJ81 rear end, along with the some straight lower control arms with non mangled bushings, and my Old Man Emu suspension. It should be noted, that a 81 full floater bolts right up in place of the stock semi floater, but the FJ80 ebrake cable is too long (or was it too short?) In any case, I swapped the HDJ81 cable in, it works, though the casing is a tad on the short side for a LHD application with a 3" lift.

While I had the drivetrain out, I powerwashed and checked everything, replaced the Oring on the PS pump inlet, and replaced the tranny filter. I also replaced some rotten split loom and cleaned the engine/tranny harness routing a bit. I hate bad routing.

 

[huckthehaus]

Installing the drivetrain went smoothly. Injun mounts were spot on. Tranny crossmembers are identical as I recall. I used the 81's plastic skids for now, but I'd love one of them fancy cruisenoffroad skids. But most likely I will make my own one day...

This first pic was taken from my front steps. Why dismantle vehicles 3 feet from your front steps, when there are plenty of better, flatter, out of the way work areas on the claim, you might ask... Well, the idea was that the unsightliness would speed progress so I finish with a couple months, clean up and get on with life. But in reality, I been screwing the pooch on this a lot. Work, life, and other projects have gotten far more attention than the poor Landcruiser in the past few months.

And the mess at my front door? I don't mind too much

 

[huckthehaus]

Powersteering!

So the HDJ81 uses a RHD box obviously, connected to the gear driven pump by a #6 hose with banjo bolt fittings at the pump outlet, and steering box pressure side and return side. This steering box is also proportional, meaning it uses the electric coil mount at the inlet to modulate hydraulic pressure through the box. It provides less steering assistance the faster you're cruising so you maintain a feel for the road.

I really liked it. The FJ80 box does not offer this option. I thought about building a hybrid box, but like the HDJ81 box, the that inlet casting appeared to be RHD specific and would have interfered with the fender when used on a LHD box. So screw it.

Using the FJ80 box has its own small challenge. It uses double flare fittings, M14 I think. So I set out to make a hybrid high pressure hose using the HDJ81 pump banjo fitting, and half the hardline. Cut/sleeved/silver soldered to half of the FJ80 hardline. It fit good, and no bubbles when I pressure tested it, but I ditched it. The main reasons:

-This line was also to serve as the PS cooling circuit. But it was high pressure. Ideally you want the cooling to be on the return (low pressure) side.

To remedy this, I could have put my spare tranny cooler in the return side, that would be boss, and I will do that when I ditch my M12000 warn for a MileMarker hydraulic, but the main reason I ditched it:

-It was a one off. If the hose or crimps failed in the future, I'd have to get a custom hose made for sure. No good for a vehicle I intend to take far from a half decent hose shop.

So in the end I bought a Napa hose for a 1994 FZJ80. It had 2 rubber sections. I clocked the crimps and formed the hardline in a U shape and mounted on the LH frame rail, pointing upward, right behind the front crossmember.

The cooling circuit for my powersteering system currently uses the water to oil heat exchanger in the bottom of the rad. I will use the air to oil in the future, just didn't think that one through at the time

It gets pretty tight on the USDS of an 80 engine compartment with a 1HD-T installed. The front left corner of said compartment has vacuum, brake, tranny and powersteering pressure, return and supply lines. I spent a lot of time here on routing, and installing split loom. I hate chaffing.

 

[huckthehaus]

Got the front clip on, and the front clip harness in nicely (Used the one from the HDJ81). Throughout the this build, and any work I do (except where inappropriate of course) I am a Never-Seize freak. I love that stuff. The front clip is full of 6mm bolts that seize and break, and this is a great way to prevent that crap.

The FJ80 shell is almost identical to the HDJ81 when it comes time to swapping parts over. 99% of the weldnuts and stud are all there. The only instance I recall missing anything was the when installing the diesel specific fuel lines in the FJ80, there was 1 or 2 studs missing on the bottom of the body to clamp the lines to.

I had two rads, both 3 row, both Yota, both in good-great shape, I opted for the FJ80s copper rad over the HDJ81 plastic-aluminum timebomb.

The FJ80 also had a stock air-oil tranny cooler, I opted for it over the aftermarket one I installed on the HDJ81.

At this time I think I was pretty much done pulling wrenches and onto the wiring...

 

[huckthehaus]

Wiring!

That's a huge part of this swap. Basically the concept I had was to keep the HDJ81 functionality, but in the FJ80 shell. Since the LHD HDJ80 cowl harness is no longer available and cost over $3000 when it was, I adapted the RHD 81 cowl harness to the LHD FJ80 shell. Adapting basically means lengthening, shortening wires, relocating plugs, basically 1500 feet of wire, and a s***wack of shrink tube, tape, loom, solder, and two Snap On soldering guns later... lol

So I figured that since I was drastically modifying my cowl harness anyway, I may as well save the 300 bones for the LHD 1HD-T engine harness (still available) and just lengthen the one I had. So I did.

I have a good system for this kinda thing. Its not that bad

The system is simple. Measure 10 times to determine the length you are lengthening by. Of course too much is better than too little, but the more wire the more resistance you are adding, and more importantly, the more room you are taking up behind the dash!!!

So measure 10x.
Determine the colour and gauge of wire.
Cut new wires, as many as you want at once, just no doubles of the same size/colour combo.
Install 2 pcs shrink tube to each wire.
Wrap tape around group of wires to be soldered, ~6" from ends.
Strip ends.
Cut corresponding wires on actual harness.
Strip ends.
Western Union connection, solder, all connections, one after another so you don't wait for the gun to heat up.
Check joint, slide shrink tube over.

I shrunk all the tube at the end.

In the last pic you can see there was a shielded cable I had to extend. Tach circuit? I used some cable from a VHF I installed.

That's all for tonight. The truck is now running/driving. I had to take a break from putting the dash back in. Can't fit the glow timer box back in the stock spot and its pissing me off. Anal like that...

 

[lumpy70]

What do you figure the cost of your conversion is going to be in the end?

Craig

 

[sandcruiser]

impressive amount of work

your build seems to be coming along nicely

 

[huckthehaus]

Hmm, can't post anymore pictures.

First off, I'm only converting because I rolled the HDJ81, and needed a shell and a frame. I could have bought a HDJ shell/frame for 2000 and been done is about a week, I found the price kinda insulting. IMO, without the drivetrain, its worth the same or less than a FZJ80 shell but whatever... I guess I needed a project to compliment my hobby.

Cost of converting:

Price of 1991 FJ80, complete, 160k miles: $1800
1994 FZJ80 Powersteering hose: $150
Solder, wire, shrink tube, loom, other supplies to modify harnesses: $200
Might need an FZJ80 ebrake cable. We'll see what happens when I flex her out.
Also I'm gonna want the LHD compatible climate control system out of a FZJ80, the FJ80's stock system will be fine for now.

When you build a vehicle, you'll probably run into standard maintenance as well. I did my brakes, front axle, rear hubs, tranny service, added my extra gauges, brake controller, stereo, etc. I considered doing the injectors and turbo, but exhaust smoke=social status in these parts

And then there's the time.... Steve at EBI is a good guestimator. I will be 150 hours into this by the time I'm done, but that's working slow, drinking too fast, and doing that maintenance and upgrade stuff as well. It could be done in a 100 I think...

 

[huckthehaus]

Another post, as of last weekend she runs and drives, everything except the HVAC and console fridge work. I plan to get an AC compressor and FZJ80 climate control system in the future, for now I'll rig the FJ80 HVAC to make do. The console fridge, I'm not overly concerned with. I plan on picking up an Engel fridge, already have Bluetops.

 

[huckthehaus]

To finish the project, I need to install my Polar Start 2705, my pyro, boost, and trans temp gauges, my brake controller and towing harness, my aux flood switches and relays, finish routing, looming, and securing the cowl harness, and dash and driver seat back in. Then off to the paint and detail shops. I have a front bumper and Warn M12000 that I ran on my HDJ81, but I might leave that off for now. I'd like to sell those, build a different bumper and run a hydraulic winch. More better.

This was a lot of work compared to other ways you could swap a 1HD-T into a truck, but I got a lot more than just the engine. I have full HDJ81 VX LTD functionality, and as some of you guys know, these trucks are pretty trick, even by todays standards. I'm pretty stoked to have my 80 back. Nothing like an engine that catches as quickly as you can twist and release the key.

I'm going to give'r hard this weekend, hope to 'finish'.

 

[Enigma]

. I have full HDJ81 VX LTD functionality, .

Ahhh, but did you swap the fridge over?

Nice job by the way, looking forward to wheeling with you again sometime.