1974 FJ40 through the Sahara and sand dunes!
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- Thread starter
- #283
Not sure, it's an Instagram suggestion searching for Land Cruiser.
- Thread starter
- #284
Loaded in the Ferry!
Didn't get much free time in between all the long queues so no group picture but I met with my friends a little bit before the port.
In the group we have:
- HZJ78
- KDJ150
- KDJ120 (not in my pictures)
- FJ40
Too bad I didn't got time to go explore the waiting parking outside, so many 4x4 of all kinds, lifted vans, expedition trucks, etc.
Didn't get much free time in between all the long queues so no group picture but I met with my friends a little bit before the port.
In the group we have:
- HZJ78
- KDJ150
- KDJ120 (not in my pictures)
- FJ40
Too bad I didn't got time to go explore the waiting parking outside, so many 4x4 of all kinds, lifted vans, expedition trucks, etc.
- Thread starter
- #287
We arrived in Douz today, the door of the desert. A last night in a camping and tomorrow we will start the sand.
And our guide GRJ79
We arrived early which let us some time to enjoy the city, a mint tea, do some fruits&vegetables shopping and fix/prepare a few things on the vehicles.
The KDJ120 removed the plastic front bumper, we all installed the flags to be visible in the duned, ans for my part I spent quite some time trying to improve my electrical system.
For the VHF and the fridge (and its small house battery) I made a line from the radio wire that was hanging unused behind the dash for 50 years. Didn't check how good the connection was... 1st sign of issue was the VHF that got too low of a voltage to transmit... Which I could solve by plugging it in the original cig lighter (and thinking to turn it off at night). But the real probable is the fridge battery that charges extremely slowly because the line lose 2V compared to the main voltage when trying to pull amps...
I tried to clean all contacts but not easy to do behind the dash... It seems the voltage loss is better now but will see tomorrow if the battery charges better. Hopefully for now night were fresh and the fridge didn't need a lot of power.
1st camping night of the trip!
This will probably be the last post for a while.
Not sure when I will do the rest of the story, I may want to wait for the film pictures to be back from the lab as I won't be live anyway.
pbgbottle
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Graham Rodger - The Old Landcruiser
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- Thread starter
- #290
Hi everyone!
I'm out of the desert and back to Tunis, waiting for the boat to depart.
Everything went fine and it was an epic adventure. The FJ40 reached the famous Sif Essouane, probably the oldest stock vehicle to reach it.
440km over 9 days Douz to Douz, including 316km of pure and continious sand dune driving.
If you want you can try to guess the average fuel consumption on the trip, I can already tell you it's more than you could imagine possible for a FJ40
I'll try to post a quick selection of pics and clips but for the complete adventure day by day it will probably need to wait a little bit (particularly if I wait for film pics to be developed).
I'm out of the desert and back to Tunis, waiting for the boat to depart.
Everything went fine and it was an epic adventure. The FJ40 reached the famous Sif Essouane, probably the oldest stock vehicle to reach it.
440km over 9 days Douz to Douz, including 316km of pure and continious sand dune driving.
If you want you can try to guess the average fuel consumption on the trip, I can already tell you it's more than you could imagine possible for a FJ40
I'll try to post a quick selection of pics and clips but for the complete adventure day by day it will probably need to wait a little bit (particularly if I wait for film pics to be developed).
RevISK
SILVER Star
Epic as always.
Looking forward to the play by play.
Looking forward to the play by play.
- Thread starter
- #295
In the mean time I want to submit to your opinion an issue I got with the suspension. It's not related to this trip but I discovered the issue during this trip while parked in cross axle. And this issue happened a lot during this trip because of the nature of the terrain and how hard it is on suspension.
The rear leaves bushing eyes are contacting the frame before the axle reaches the bump stop.
This leads to not using the extra charge leaves and when loaded I'm very often hitting in the rear... And as you can see not hitting the bump stop but the chassis...
Front does not have this issue and cnz reach the bump stops.
By the end of the trip my rear hangers took quite a hit... And I can tell you hearing that many bang in the rear wasn't pleasant.
The suspension is OME, as far as I know the shackles are original.
My theory is that OME has only 1 model of leaves for pre and post 1980 40series with the big eye of the post 1980 (and compensating with a bigger bushing for pre 1980), so this bigger eye than original is the reason it's contacting the hanger before the bump stop.
But it's only a theory, maybe I'm missing something here?
I tried to search but didn't find any mention of this issue previously? Is it a known issue? How could it be fixed?
If this is really the issue this is a big oversight from ARB/OME on this one...
The rear leaves bushing eyes are contacting the frame before the axle reaches the bump stop.
This leads to not using the extra charge leaves and when loaded I'm very often hitting in the rear... And as you can see not hitting the bump stop but the chassis...
Front does not have this issue and cnz reach the bump stops.
By the end of the trip my rear hangers took quite a hit... And I can tell you hearing that many bang in the rear wasn't pleasant.
The suspension is OME, as far as I know the shackles are original.
My theory is that OME has only 1 model of leaves for pre and post 1980 40series with the big eye of the post 1980 (and compensating with a bigger bushing for pre 1980), so this bigger eye than original is the reason it's contacting the hanger before the bump stop.
But it's only a theory, maybe I'm missing something here?
I tried to search but didn't find any mention of this issue previously? Is it a known issue? How could it be fixed?
If this is really the issue this is a big oversight from ARB/OME on this one...
pbgbottle
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What you are experiencing is normal, given that any spring which offers lift consists of blades that are longer than standard ones. When fully compressed, what you experienced is the effect.
Emu, like others, does address this with its weld-in anti-inversion plate kit (FK08) and greasable shackles (OMEGS1) but many choose not to go this route when going the original look route. Even new production 76 series Cruisers have built-in rubber bump stops as part of the blade spring.
Your least intrusive option is to space down the bump stops by the amount of lift that you have. Longer shackles will work but you do run the risk of inverting the shackles on flex situations.
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- #300
Thanks for all the answers!
Definitively not willing to cut my hangers!
For the anti inversion shackle I'm missing them but I can't see how they would prevent what is happening here? My rear springs in compression are far from bringing the shackle over the horizontal position, could still move quite a lot.
Spacing the bump stop could be a solution to avoid the hard stop and bang but that would mean losing even more travel in the rear.
I think the rear should be able to move more, it's clearly not flexing as much as the front and when driving over bumps (off-road but also speed bumps) I have to go very slowly if I don't want to hit...
The rear springs have an extra support leaf that should activate when loaded or compressing and in the current situation it's not able to activate.
There is no reason for that rear wheel to not compress more inside the wheel well, there is space. In comparison front has no issue getting in the arch.
And at equal setup the front is able to fully compress to the original bump stop so I see no reason for it not being possible in the rear except for the hanger shape...
(see how clean is where the bump stop contact the front axle, nicely working)
I'm not sure if it would be enough but the original bushing only being 25mm vs the OME 35mm means a smaller leaf eye that would have a little bit more clearance to the hanger.
Are all aftermarket leaves with big eye or does some use the original size for pre-1980 40s?
Longer shackle would probably be the easiest/cheaper fix here but I was not really looking to lift it more and I'm always a little bit afraid of messing the axle geometry :/
Definitively not willing to cut my hangers!
For the anti inversion shackle I'm missing them but I can't see how they would prevent what is happening here? My rear springs in compression are far from bringing the shackle over the horizontal position, could still move quite a lot.
Spacing the bump stop could be a solution to avoid the hard stop and bang but that would mean losing even more travel in the rear.
I think the rear should be able to move more, it's clearly not flexing as much as the front and when driving over bumps (off-road but also speed bumps) I have to go very slowly if I don't want to hit...
The rear springs have an extra support leaf that should activate when loaded or compressing and in the current situation it's not able to activate.
There is no reason for that rear wheel to not compress more inside the wheel well, there is space. In comparison front has no issue getting in the arch.
And at equal setup the front is able to fully compress to the original bump stop so I see no reason for it not being possible in the rear except for the hanger shape...
(see how clean is where the bump stop contact the front axle, nicely working)
I'm not sure if it would be enough but the original bushing only being 25mm vs the OME 35mm means a smaller leaf eye that would have a little bit more clearance to the hanger.
Are all aftermarket leaves with big eye or does some use the original size for pre-1980 40s?
Longer shackle would probably be the easiest/cheaper fix here but I was not really looking to lift it more and I'm always a little bit afraid of messing the axle geometry :/
