Builds Mike's 1978 FJ40 Turbo Diesel Refit Project and Cross Country Road Trip! (1 Viewer)

[Godfather90]

I ended up skipping the Bakersfield swap meet in exchange for a car show and a little 4wheeling up in the mountains. It was really beautiful and green after all this rain. Only issue I ran into is that the Ford Taurus fan died on me (for the 4th time) so good thing I carry a trail spare now. I'm going to have to dig into why I am the only one I've read about who is having failures like this.

I didn't break the camera out until after we finished but here's a nice picture of the 40 airing back up:

I installed a new hood ornament as well:

During the fuel calibration for the new cluster I noticed a dead spot in my fuel sender around half a tank. I ordered a new sending unit, and hope to get the fuel gauge working when it arrives.

I've also ordered a 5v Hall effect vehicle speed sender which should greatly increase the accuracy at low vehicle speed for 4 wheel driving which (for me) is mostly around 10-15mph or less. A lot of 90s-newer GM trucks used a tooth reluctor wheel on the driveshaft output for the rear ABS and vehicle speed, which will produce a 40 pulse 12v waveform per drive shaft revolution. My current configuration is a 2 pulse per revolution magnetic pickup which is not powered so its voltage varies with speed (loses readings when velocity drops below a certain amount).

Mike

 

[76 PTO]

I heard the taurus fans like to be turn on low first then high. I killed mine, i think by switching it on high first.

 

[Godfather90]

I heard the taurus fans like to be turn on low first then high. I killed mine, i think by switching it on high first.

I was wondering if the start up amperage is too much going straight into high. I re wired it into low range only this time, but I’m planning to use a 3 way relay to have it so I can kick it up to high with the dash switch.

The original fan lasted a long time on the Mercedes engine, but with the VW it’s been killing them left and right. I’m wondering if the 140a alternator is able to send a ton more current into it than the puny 45amp or whatever the Mercedes came with. Could explain why the new engine is killing them and the old one didn’t have any issues....

 

[Godfather90]

I know this is a small update but I think its cool.
My buddy is always trying to incorporate his 3D printer in my truck here's what he came up with:

I stole some paint markers for it from work:

It's not my normal kinda style, but my buddies quadriplegic and anything he figures a way to make for me is pretty special:

-Mike

 

[Godfather90]

Here's a quick update:

I've been investigating my drive line angle situation on my truck for a little while. I have no vibrations and everything is working without binding, but the current engine angle is not ideal for the front Double Cardan shaft.

Here is a video with the truck idling up a pretty steep hill in the sand out in Joshua tree this weekend:


As you can see with the truck loaded up pretty heavy in the back on a steep incline the front suspension unloads and the front drive shaft angle starts to get a little extreme. I have been planning to make a 3 degree adjustment in the angle of the powertrain setup but wanted to get it back on the road with my new adapter plate first.

Before I made an adjustment I figured I would look into the engine mounts readily available one last time. I had a pretty hard time finding a straight answer on the web about the differences between the small block and big block engine mounts (besides the obvious bolt pattern differences) so I went ahead and ordered both to compare:

Contrary to what you can read online you can see there is a pretty obvious difference in the construction of the rubber portion of the mount (top mount small block, bottom big block). The big block mount has significant increases in cross sectional area in the bottom or compression portion of the mount. I cannot see the tension side changes as they are hidden behind the chassis of the mount. Hopefully this will help someone down the road.

Needless to say I will be using the Big Block Chevy mount moving forward.

There is ~1/4"-1/2" difference in the working/install height of the engine mounts with the big block being taller. Many of these changes could be due to the increase in weight of the larger engine.

I will be lowering the engine mounts 3/4" and raising the transmission mount 1 3/4" when I get a chance, which will in turn point the front transfer case output flange 3.5 degrees closer to the transfer case. This should make everything really nice taking advantage of the new transmission to engine angle of my new adapter.

Meanwhile I've been enjoyeing the truck quite a bit:

We just did a 600 mile trip towing my small trailer from one storage location to another while passing through Johnson valley to 29 palms and Joshua tree on the way. I put these soft doors on and a bikini top from a jeep for the trip.

It looks goofy but really cut down on the wind in our faces on the freeway at night when it got pretty cold:

-Mike

 

[Pacer]

I don't see anything extreme in the vid posted above, driveline angles look good.

 

[Godfather90]

Maybe I’m just being anal about it! I read in the spec that I’m about 2 degrees too steep in the front and the opposite in the rear.

I don't see anything extreme in the vid posted above, driveline angles look good.

Maybe I'm just being anal!

My engine is between 7-8* leaning back so I've been looking to make it ~5* which I think is going to be the happiest place for it.

Here are my crude drawings (sorry made this while I was on my back under the truck):

And then here are the current angles:

After my proposed changes:

There's some wiggle room there, so well see how much I can move it before things start to get close. I'll be sure to post my measurements after the changes.

-Mike

 

[Godfather90]

I made a few last min changes before the trip towing the trailer last week:

The Coolant Overflow bottle I had made before was approximately 1L in size, which proved to be just a tad too small. When the engine was getting toasty up a steep grade out in the High desert it would just be small enough to push fluid through the breather. Once the engine would cool after a hard days work it would show just barely an inch of fluid above the floor of the overflow bottle. Too close for comfort. I should have know as my truck holds over 3 gallons of engine coolant and there must be appropriate expansion room.

Here I built one twice the size ~2.0 L (blue arrow is hard to see), along with a new cold side charge pipe with increased clearance all around:

The sight tube is easily seen from the driver side looking into the engine compartment, along with all the other fluids in the engine compartment:

Now it goes from~1/3 to ~2/3 which gives it a bit of extra room in the event of a higher than normal coolant temperature spike.

Also I made a video to show the transient response of the turbocharger setup:


The boost and EGT are in the digital display below the tachometer. This is a smoke-free setup, and would boost and make more low end torque if I threw more fuel at it at lower engine speeds. I figured I would go easy on everything and keep it like this without introducing too much torsional vibration into the powertrain at low crank speed on a 4 cylinder making so much torque.


-Mike

 

[Godfather90]

Ok, time for an update!

It's been a while but I've still been working on the old girl. Here's what happened:

Finished inststalling and wiring the washer fluid system:

Got a little soft Bimini top:

My friend came to visit from Malaysia, so I wanted him to see Baja Mexico. We loaded the truck up with a week worth of party/camping gear my girlfriend, and our dog for a down south adventure:

Flying across the Laguna Salada:

 

[Godfather90]

What I failed to mention above was the night before we arrived at camp after driving pretty late we reached the Laguna Salada around 10 pm. It was around a 40-50 mile ride down the dry lake bed to our camp up at the Guadalupe Canyon Oasis. Once We got the the lake be I aired the truck down to soak the washboards up, and put it in the 1st of my low ranges (2.28:1). We were drinking adult beverages at this point so i was cruising pretty fast in 5th gear in this low range. We got to camp and partied pretty hard that night. The next morning when I went to leave camp to go 4 wheeling for the day I noticed a wine coming from the gear train. I narrowed it down to coming from the 2.28 reduction box, so i pulled the fill plug to see if it had run low on fluid. The fluid level was low enough that i couldn't feel it with my pinky. I pulled the shifter out and looked inside with a flashlight. The fluid was clearly burnt smelling. I started the engine over and ran the rear case in neutral to spin the 2.28 case over. The fluid was like glitter so clearly a bearing had failed. Bummer!

Ok so I didn't break the news to my comrads and totally kill the trip (which was otherwise a great time for everyone else). I decided to try and limp the old girl through the rest of our trip. I poured a quart of AFT in the box and headed to the nearest auto parts store. I bought a ton of gear oil and flushed the fluid out in the lot. It was horrible with lots of metal and a few gear tooth corners. I kept flushing it every 100 miles it and drove the remainder of the trip an additional 600 miles like this to limp it home. We had a great time otherwise and dud the Guadalupe wine tour and all that fun stuff. there was one point on the trip where i was going down a dirt road and the back tires locked up from something jamming up the in between two gear wheels. I thought hat was the end, but i backed it up a few feet and she kept going. Meanwhile in my head while I was driving I was thinking back to what it could be that went bad. I narrowed it down in my brain to this one roller bearing on the counter shaft.

I got the truck home after a few days and parked it in the garage. The following weekend I tore into it and here's the carnage:

Unfortunately as expected it took the counter shaft with it:

My hypothesis was correct.

Now I have a confession to make; when I put this thing together after the last bearing failure I could not find a way to pull this bearing out cleanly so I cleaned it up and gave it a quick look over and assumed it was OK to reuse. All the rest of the bearings were good to go.

Now besides that prior oversight I had several contentions about this portion for the adapter plate. The first is that the bearing is sunk into a blind hole. Here is the original application of the bearing used by the kit:

As you can see it is a though hole. this allows the bearing to have a lot more oil flow and run much cooler. I should have done something about this in the first place, but Oh well.

Now there are other ways to lubricate this type of bearing in a blind hole. For instance here's another application that sees an even higher shaft speed:

Notice the oil feed hole and the recess behind the shaft the bearing will ride on to allow an oil volume.

Once again with the bearing removed:

Oil hole and recess shown with arrows.

OK so now we know why it overheated and finally so time to make it better.

 

[Godfather90]

Ok so this brings us to the modifications:

I sized up a larger rolling bearing with a safety factor several times higher than the original in both axial loading and shaft speed and did some machine work to accommodate it:

In addition to the machine work I added some oiling features. Here you can see the recess and two oil feed holes:

And finally the bearing pressed in with some retaining compound:

And ready to assemble this time with all new gears and bearings:

Oh yea!

 

[Godfather90]

Now on to some additional mods while I had the transfer cases apart:

Checked the preload on some bearings:

Split and resealed/inspected the Orion. The gear wheels are substantially larger than those in the mini truck boxes:

Resealed:

Re surfaced the parking brake drum:

The assembly came out of the parts washer like new!

 

[Godfather90]

Turned a new bolt:

For this location:

Added some spline oiling features to the Orion input shaft spacer:

Put the two boxes together:

Threw that puppy in there:

 

[Godfather90]

I learned it's a lot easier to maneuver the assembly with no parking drum. it clears the rear cross member much easier making the alignment a piece of cake!

Put the brake together:

Hope I got this right from memory:

Don't want these to loosen up:

Added sight glasses to the transmission transfer case and reduction box to monitor the fluid level and quality:

Also added temperature senders to all three but thats for a later update


Drove it for the first time in a few months:

I missed it a lot!


-Mike

 

[Godfather90]

Here's more pictures of the carnage:

I was also planning to run the Advaced Adapters heavy duty housing for the reduction box but the casting quality was so poor I had to send it back:

If you're interested in more details on that I can share more.


Thanks for reading,

Mike

 

[Godfather90]

Here are another few updates.

I went up to Big Bear mountain solo with the dog last weekend:

We had a blast and did the Dishpan& Holcomb creek trail and stayed in my favorite camping spot up there:

I was headed up the first waterfall when I realized my rear locker wasn't working. I thought about turning back, but with the front ARB the truck just kept on going without a hitch. When I got home I tore into the truck to see what happened:

Pulled the cover with the indicator detent:

Looks like it sheared the fastener between the engagement fork and the pneumatic actuator:

Easy fix but where did it go?

 

[Godfather90]

So I searched everywhere and couldn't find the head of the bolt. It must have found its way down into the diff housing...

Poped the cover off:

I got really lucky:

Found it and as far as i could tell all the remnants. I looked over the ring and pinion and didn't see any witness marks, so ill just assume its all good

As for the rear locker setup, I always hated how long it would take for the locker to disengage. It would take forever to disengage but would lock instantly.

Here's my solution.

Sized up a few springs:

Ended up with a triple spring setup (sorry only a picture of the two springs I forgot to take on with the final third outer spring is installed):

Low the actuator begins to move at 30 PSI and has full lock at 35. Before it was less than 10 psi.

I set the gap so there's no undue stress on the fork when locke

 

[Godfather90]

As for the bolt I was able to fit a M8 grade 12.9 bolt in place of the M6. Should be quite a bit stronger:

Safety wire to retain it in case of another failure:

Made a gasket for easy trail inspections:

Here's a video messing with he dash switch:


Buttoned it all up:

So the road test shows a huge improvement. It's an instant lock and unlock with the switch now. The moment the wheel straightens out the diff will unlock with the switch disengaged, just as I wanted.

 

[Godfather90]

Ok, one last update:

So I machined a few parts to accept temperature senders:

I didn't want to remove the transmission to drill and tap the case for the temperature sender, and I wanted to add a magnetic drain plug so this was my solution. I chucked up a 10.9 bolt and made this. The magnet is pressed in with retaining compound from behind into a lip at the end, and then staked so it wont move. The sender is a thermoresistor and will not be effected by the magnetism.

All three senders installed (See the spark plug boot for thermal protection on the transmission sender) along with a new Hall effect speed sender so now my speedometer can read down at lower vehicle speeds:

If you look closely you can see the 18mm sight glasses in the trans/transfer/crawlbox as well.

Chucked up and made a bezel:

And skipping all the wiring and circuitry here's the additional gauge added to the dash:

It communicates with the DD dash via CANbus signal, so I can put whatever I want in the additional gauge which is nice. Also I didn't have to drill any holes in the dash, just ran the wires through the Brake/Seatbelt warning bezel. These warnings are now plumbed into the cluster as well.

Mike

 

[Rooster47]

Dang, you do some amazing work Love seeing what you are up to.