Builds 1978 FJ-40 R2.8 Cummins Build - "Mater" (1 Viewer)

[rossl]

Yes, I have things partially built. Looks like I'm due for an update - I'll get that soon.

My air cleaner is under hood, I didn't bother with a snorkel. I'm assuming that you are talking about this air cleaner setup?

I think you can see the MAF sensor mount in the very left-hand edge of the photo above between the air cleaner (which I am assuming is the bulge in the middle) and the intake before the bend. Looks like a little stretch from the Cummins spec given distance requirements, and it looks like it is rotated 90 degrees from ideal. This is probably due to the hood height, since Proffitts runs the air intake over the top of the engine.

I've run my intake directly forward, so it sits on the front passenger fender immediately to the side of the radiator to pull extra air from the grill/headlight. I have re-used the Cummins MAF tube. I'll post pics when I can take a few.

 

[POPO AGIE]

Yes the is the seat up I am looking to do.
I did a set up on my 90 F250 before you could buy a cold air box kit and put in. I used a K&M and some thin square plate to sandwich the flange of the filter and got 45 degree elbow of 4" exhaust pipe and welded it to the air cleaner and was always worried about the rudder leaking and spraying the filter.

It is a lot duster down in here in WY then in NW Washington and this setup is really clean.

 

[POPO AGIE]

Years ago when I was still living in Green River, WY I use to ride around on a flood plane and if we had a lot of snow pack in the Windriver mountains the area would be flooded for months. As usual, I was out alone and met a couple if guys doing the same in a first gen Bronco. They were following me and I was driving in deep water that was deep enough to cover the top of my fenders with just the turn signals above the water like two periscopes and saw the mirror the guys in the Bronco decided to bail and not keep follow me so I found a place to get turned around and get back to them. If I had an exposed air filter on up by the radiator and at the top of the inner fender I would have had a hydro lock situation.

Snorkels are used more in the dry desert conditions than in wet conditions.

 

[rossl]

Catching up a little on progress. I have most of the air intake installed, pending one tweak to the intake to get a slightly different bend radius. I put the dry air filter with prescribed mesh particulate sleeve specified by Cummins almost immediately behind the headlight with an aluminum heat shield to prevent too much engine bay heat from re-entering. This should hopefully get a little bit of cool air comin gin the grill.

From there I think I'm just going to add a bend to the tube to give myself a softer radius for the air intake to make two 45's and extend around the alternator:

I figure this is up high and out of the way. If I need to run through water that causes my turn signals to be periscopes then I think I have other issues.

Also worked on plumbing and mounting the Vintage Air A/C (which I'm making way more complicated than it needs to be), and working on power steering reservoir, windshield washer tank (since the stock one fits where the air intake is), coolant deaeration tank, coolant overflow, and battery. All these need to be resolved before I'm able to make good progress. Also I have to figure out some way to secure the coolant stack.

 

[POPO AGIE]

at least it is not exposed an protected

 

[rossl]

Where has time gone? 2023, time to update the thread I guess. I've got a lot done since August, but my tendency to resolve open issues and then post is getting me a little behind.

First, steering. I've been down a long road with the old knuckle and steering arm setup. During disassembly I discovered the knuckles were damaged (see Builds - 1978 FJ-40 R2.8 Cummins Build - "Mater" - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/1978-fj-40-r2-8-cummins-build-mater.1170001/post-12711801). Repair is/was always an option, but I thought an "easy" upgrade might be in order. The Trail Gear Six Shooter knuckles seemed like a decent option, and with a 4" lift they claim they work for SUA. They don't. Between the high steering arms and the steering box is a whopping 1". And with very little effort, it's possible to have the pitman arm/nut and the tie rod occupy the same space at the same time. And that's never good.

So, options were to go back to stock knuckles or solve the steering arm problem to a low steer arm to match the SUA configuration. I had been working since March to obtain steering arms (originally the wrong orientation). One delay after another, and it was suddenly the end of September until I got the right setup. Seems like every little problem is a six month issue.

 

[rossl]

My next major hurdle is to figure out the heat and A/C. If I ever get to drive the 40 again, I wanted A/C. There are a couple of options, but Vintage Air seemed like the easiest system. Except, there is no fresh air intake on their system - they block the firewall completely and remove the stock air box. This was a deal breaker for me, since running the A/C all the time to defrost the windows wasn't going to work.

The Vintage Air setup has the blower motor in the cab, and then runs the A/C and heater lines through the block off plate in the firewall. So, all I need to do is move the blower motor back into the stock airbox location, relocate the heater and A/C lines around the blower, and connect the stock blower output to the Vintage Air intake.

Step one was to see about upgrading the stock blower motor (looking for a higher performance motor). For this, I found the Spal 001-A53-03S is a close match to the stock blower. Turns out I was able to build a quick adapter plate and the motor works pretty well:

Blower output works great.

Next, I need to redirect the heater lines. The Vintage Air setup is supposed to do this - you can see the black bracket below where it is supposed to mount on the firewall. The connector then pokes through the block off plate. To avoid this, I need to turn the heater core connections before the blower box.

So, to make that happen I cut the copper plumbing and put in a 90-degree fitting just prior to the bracket:

No going back now. The hardest part was locating the A/C fitting - this ended up being Ap Air part number #461-2031B. A little bit of copper work, and I now have A/C ports which exit the cab before the blower:

I then drilled new holes in the firewall for the heater lines and mounted up the A/C unit. Now I have enough room to cleanly mount the blower. Next, I need to re-route the A/C lines and connect the blower output to the vintage air input.

I was able to route the #10 A/C line on the outside of the blower (barely), and the other line I re-routed between the two heater lines. From the inside of the cab, I've run 135 degree hose lines. I've still got some work on the A/C lines and need to order some custom lines.

 

[rossl]

I also ran out of space to add a deaeration tank for the R2.8. Looking at other installs, it appears that in some cases this has been eliminated. Thinking about this a little longer, I decided that the collection tank in the radiator (since I have a horizontal flow radiator) serves the same purpose as a deaeration tank. I then drilled and welded a bung near the top of the tank.

 

[rossl]

I also finished the battery tray and radiator overflow location. I'll have to dig up a few pics when I'm next in the garage.

 

[rossl]

I've not done a great job about keeping this thread up to date. Here are a couple of updates:

First, relocated the shifter, since the new setup is slightly offset from the stock position:

Not the prettiest, but functional.

 

[rossl]

Also making progress on the locker ECU. I didn't really want to adapt a stock ECU from an 80 series, and many of the locker circuits out there simply leave power applied. So queue up some PCB development, and now I have this:

And with the relays installed:

I have an enclosure as well as connectors to go.

 

[rossl]

And then started to clean up the firewall. Turns out when you relocate the heater, no longer need the mechanical linkages for choke, speedometer, or throttle, you have a number of firewall holes to fill. Also mounted the ECU.

Not perfect, but much better:

Then I cleaned up what I think was a radio antenna mount from the glove box:

 

[rossl]

Still patching bodywork. Realizing that there is a rear sill replacement and passenger floor replacement in my future, so ordered some parts to get the ball rolling.

I then knocked out some rear tailgate latches, since when I run the top off I want to have a tailgate:

 

[rossl]

And focused some time on the cowl vent. I had three options with the cowl vent since I'm switching from the '78 body to a '76. The '78 didn't have the cowl vent, the '76 has the vent with a tack welded block off plate from the factory. My options were to keep the rust and leaf catcher on the '76, cut out and completely remove the vent and weld a smooth plate to match the '78, or the more complicated option of making it function. True to most of other components with this build, I opted for the functionality because it seems so cool (impractical, but cool).

So I removed the tack welds covering the vent and removed the plate. Since the stock mechanical linkage doesn't work with the Vintage Air system, I opted for an electric vent actuator. I found actuators that should work from Actuonix, picking up two of the L12-10-100-12-S actuators and their DPDT relay kit. I then built a bracket to weld to the underside of the vent, controlling the lift of the vent from two actuators.

I got it all mocked up and working, although failed to capture a good photo or video. I'll post one when I assemble after paint. But I discovered the entire system works better than I expected. I plan on using a fan switch to control the hood vent as well as the fresh air vent via another actuator.

Followed that up with new vent drains through the transmission cover, and mocked up everything to confirm alignment.

 

[rossl]

Made good progress on tweaks to the body this weekend. Stripped the rear door upper hatch to mock up with the tailgate.

Mixing the hatch with the side panels from a '78 with the vent windows means adding the strut and latch mounts to the side panels. A little bit of fabrication yielded some attachment points, which were cut and welded into the panels:

 

[POPO AGIE]

Where has time gone? 2023, time to update the thread I guess. I've got a lot done since August, but my tendency to resolve open issues and then post is getting me a little behind.

First, steering. I've been down a long road with the old knuckle and steering arm setup. During disassembly I discovered the knuckles were damaged (see Builds - 1978 FJ-40 R2.8 Cummins Build - "Mater" - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/1978-fj-40-r2-8-cummins-build-mater.1170001/post-12711801). Repair is/was always an option, but I thought an "easy" upgrade might be in order. The Trail Gear Six Shooter knuckles seemed like a decent option, and with a 4" lift they claim they work for SUA. They don't. Between the high steering arms and the steering box is a whopping 1". And with very little effort, it's possible to have the pitman arm/nut and the tie rod occupy the same space at the same time. And that's never good.

View attachment 3209403

So, options were to go back to stock knuckles or solve the steering arm problem to a low steer arm to match the SUA configuration. I had been working since March to obtain steering arms (originally the wrong orientation). One delay after another, and it was suddenly the end of September until I got the right setup. Seems like every little problem is a six month issue.

How did you resolve this issue?
I used steering arms from FROR but I staid with flat steering arms.

 

[rossl]

How did you resolve this issue?
I used steering arms from FROR but I staid with flat steering arms.

I ended up ordering a custom set of steering arms from 4x4 labs. It took them a while because they actually set up an axle to ensure the setup would clear everything after a set which didn’t work. To create clearance they moved to GM 1 ton tie rods/drag link.

Did you end up using a six shooter knuckle or a keyed knuckle?

 

[POPO AGIE]

I have keyed steering arms.

I am about to order the suspension and a FJ80 steering box. So I am a ways from finding out if I will have clearance.

 

[POPO AGIE]

I got my tie rod installed and it looks like it is farther back toward the axle then yours was. I don't think I am going to have clearance issues like you did.

 

[rossl]

I've been slow to update again. We had a large fir tree fall and hit the roof over my shop, necessitating removal of everything to get repairs underway. I tried to coincide with the next major step - paint and body work. And since I no longer have a workspace and needed to move parts out of the way to make building repairs, the body panels are off to a body shop for additional rust repair and paint. I kind of feel like a I've unlocked a cheat code.

Loaded everything into a uhaul:

And into a blasting booth:

And then dropped all the blasted parts off at the shop: