1987 LJ70 frame swap + mods build thread

[Gubbtratt1]

Three years ago I bought a land cruiser from a relative. It has last passed inspection 2014 and has been standing in a dirt floor barn since then (dirt floor barns will be a reoccuring thing in this thread). It's a completely stock LJ70 with split rims, 2L-T engine, five seats and a stock rear LSD. Well, not completely stock. Road salt has helped with a lot of weight reduction as well as straight piped exhaust, and some previous owner has done some very questionable rust repairs.

I used it as a farm truck for a couple of years, doing some temporary repairs to keep it in mostly one piece until it started to fall apart in more hard to reach places.

Last summer I finally started the restoration process by buying a new frame, which unexpectedly included half a body, and a PTO winch off a HJ61.

The cruiser had been standing outside for the duration of my ownership, but to keep everything slightly more protected once I started the disassembly process I cleared out another dirt floor barn and put it in there, together with most of my tools.

To be continued...

 

[Gubbtratt1]

The tools include two old welders, one Kemppi Super Kempomat from the 80s, which despite its name is possibly the worlds worst MIG welder. Since I knew I would be doing a lot of welding that has to be good enough to both pass inspection and keep winches and stuff where they should be I bought another one, a Kemppi RA320 from 1972. It's the opposite of the Super Kempomat, it's the best welder that I've used, and it has a 100% duty cycle up to 250 ampere. The only downside is that it weighs 179kg, plus gas bottle and wire feed unit.

A few months ago an interesting ac compressor popped up on tori.fi for 60€. After doing some research I figured out it was a GM A6, which apparently makes a great OBA compressor. I promptly bought it and did some more research on converting it to pump air. Apparently it leaks oil into the air, so most people run it dry, or use a tool oiler. I opened it up to see in what condition it was, and to clean out the refrigerant oil and replace it with engine oil. There I found the culprit of the oil leak: the crankcase ventilates into the air supply. I plugged the hole and so far no oil has came out with the air when I've ran it with a cordless drill. To avoid pressure in the crankcase I'll make the mysterious bleed screw on the side of the oil sump into a breather.

Along with the compressor I have a 12l air tank I'll steal from a small and almost broken compressor my grandpa took from some shoemaker machinery.

Around christmas I finally got the weldproof garage extension done. A tarp roof outside the barn.

To be continued...

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Under the tarp roof I've been working on the new frame. It turned out to have a lot more rust problems than I expected. By now I've got it mostly fixed though, I believe I just have two spots of rust left, as well as some welded nuts and holes for winch mounts and air suspension parts (more about that later). When summer comes around I'll have it sandblasted, painted and the inside sprayed with oil.

I've also been working on the engine. I'm replacing all gaskets to avoid oil leaks. They're great for rust protection, but they won't pass inspection. Why am I not replacing the 2LT with something more reliable? Well, I don't have the budget or knowledge to do it now, but I'm planning to put a 3B, 11B or really any non-turbo B series in it once the 2LT gives up.

I've disassembled most of the body, but other than that I don't think I've done anything else. So now the plan:
I can only lift it 75mm (or 150mm, depends on if you read the law or ask the inspector). Toyota suspension parts are also ridiculously expensive. So, I got an idea: put air suspension under it. That way I can keep it close to stock height for inspections and on road driving, drop it down on the bump stops to get in low garages, and raise it up as high as necessary for off road driving. Depending on how close to stock height 33" tyres will allow I might also get away with stock bushings and panhard rods.
Air suspension still needs shock absorbers though, and to match the travel of the Land Rover Discovery 2 air bags I'm planning to use they would have to be of the +10cm variety, which are ridiculously expensive. Gues what has the same travel and costs 60€ a piece though? Mercedes 508D shocks. The ones I have are a bit softer, but that might just be because they've been under an overloaded 508 for 45 years.

As I mentioned I have a PTO winch for the front. I also have a 5 ton electric winch to put in the back. It should fit perfectly in the stock bumper if I move it back about 4cm. Originally I planned to run 95mm2 wires from the batteries, but now I'm leaning towards a 95ah battery in the trunk and 35 or 50mm2 wires connecting it to the front batteries via a main switch.

The bumpers will be reinforced and rock sliders will be installed so it can be lifted by a hi lift at any point.

I will probably replace the front passenger seat with a two person one from a HJ61 to make it a six seater.

That should be everything for now.

 

[Rigster]

Sounds like you have a lot of plans and doing it on a tight budget. I will watch with interest. Creativity will be necessary to adjust and make all this work.

What will you call this beast when you are done? FRANKENCRUISER comes to mind.... All the best with this project!

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Sounds like you have a lot of plans and doing it on a tight budget. I will watch with interest. Creativity will be necessary to adjust and make all this work.

What will you call this beast when you are done? FRANKENCRUISER comes to mind.... All the best with this project!

Everything is possible as long as you have a welder and a grinder. I have two of each, so I should be able to make everything work twice, or something like that.

Frankencruiser is a great name. As long as I just own one cruiser it will most likely just be called the Land Cruiser, but I'll probably get a 40, 60 or 75 sometime in the future, after I've bought the Moskvitch pickup and ZIL 157 currently in the vehicle aquiration queue.

 

[LDRF]

Nice rig! That welder looks crazy. The place where I am working has dirt floors too, and it’s a pain in the a$$. I found a pretty inexpensive solution by putting down 4’x8’ sheets of 5/8” osb, screwed down on top of 1”x3” spruce boards.

I used three sheets. If I had the space, I'd extend the length by another 4'. It's a game changer in keeping things clean when it's wet or snowy outside. It also allows me to roll/crawn under the rig. I have it up on jack stands right now. I put the stands on x1' square osb pad for support.

I've had this set up going for 1 1/2 years and it's working great.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Nice rig! That welder looks crazy. The place where I am working has dirt floors too, and it’s a pain in the a$$. I found a pretty inexpensive solution by putting down 4’x8’ sheets of 5/8” osb, screwed down on top of 1”x3” spruce boards.View attachment 3849543
View attachment 3849544
View attachment 3849545

I used three sheets. If I had the space, I'd extend the length by another 4'. It's a game changer in keeping things clean when it's wet or snowy outside. It also allows me to roll/crawn under the rig. I have it up on jack stands right now. I put the stands on x1' square osb pad for support.
View attachment 3849557
I've had this set up going for 1 1/2 years and it's working great.

The welder is pretty crazy. 100% duty cycle at 250A and 60% at 320A is nothing you see on modern machines. The cooling fan sounds like a jet engine though, you have to turn it off if you want to talk to someone inside the barn. I can't even run it at full power, that would require 23A three phase and I have just 16A in the barn. The best part is that I paid just 350€ for it, plus 50€ for a new roll of wire and maybe 15€ for some spare parts.

I also put down a small temporary floor to keep my workbench, tool locker, welders and compressor on, but apparently the ground moves too much when it freezes, so the big welder is almost leaning against the wall and the small welder will and has tipped over if it's not perfectly balanced between two boards. Luckily the ground doesn't seem move under the workbench or tool locker though, those are still pretty much level.

At some point the dirt floor will be replaced with a concrete or slab/wood floor, but the cruiser will hopefully be done long before that.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Today I got the turbo mounted. I had to replace the studs since two came out with the nuts and one got stripped. They were very stubborn. I first tried with heat and vice grips, which didn't do anything. Then I welded on some nuts and used a breaker bar. The weld was strong enough, but not the studs. Both of them got about a half centimeter shorter. So, I soaked them in wd40 for almost 24 hours and then welded on nuts close to the surface, cooled them down with wd40 and motor oil and then they finally broke loose.

The treads in the manifold didn't look or feel very healthy, but they didn't strip so that's good enough for me.

The local bolt store didn't have any studs, so I got bolts instead.

The short hose between the turbo and the pipe to the intake manifold didn't look very healthy, so I'll have to pop by the local rubber hose store on monday (yes, I have both a local bolt store that only sells nuts and bolts and a local rubber hose store that only sells rubber hoses and o-rings)

I also changed the oil filter.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

I found a suitable hose at biltema, so I didn't have to wait for the rubber hose store to open tomorrow.

Immediately after I had fitted the last hose clamp I realised I hadn't adjusted the valve clearances yet, so I had to disassemble it all to remove the rocker cover.

Then I broke the transmission. It was in gear in tension from torquing the camshaft pulley bolt I believe, and the clutch was disconnected, so I forced it out of gear, or so I thought. I started to turn the motor over, but got stuck, so I took a breaker bar and noticed that the car is moving. I turned it back a bit and went to investigate the gear stick. It felt like it was in neutral, but I couldn't get it into any gears. I put the transfer case in neutral for now, I'll have to investigate once I get the body off. It didn't feel like anything broke, so hopefully I just have to adjust something. If the gearbox is broken though I think I'll source the entire drivetrain from a BJ and do the engine swap now. If I get one from a BJ40 I believe it should solve two other problems too, 1. I get a two speed pto and 2. I get a transmission mounted handbrake.

Once I got the engine rotating I found the next concern: didn't feel like it had very much compression. Again, I'll have to investigate why. Hopefully I'm just much stronger than I think I am, but I'm afraid some dirt or grime got on the head gasket.

Anyways, I decided to leave all investigating for the future and get on with adjusting the valves. I set the engine to the right position and went looking for my feeler gauges. Of course I couldn't find them. I even cleaned the work bench in my attempt to find them. As nothing seemed to cooperate I decided to give up for today and spend the rest of the day sharpening some knives.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Quick update: I popped by the 'garage' as I went for a walk with the dog and managed to find the feeler gauges. I also took a closer look at the compression issue. Two cylinders feels fine, one feels like it has too low compression and one feels like no compression at all. You can hear a hissing sound from all cylinders. The head gasket had a plastic ish coating on the non-metal surfaces, could it have been a protective film I was supposed to remove?

Edit: I'm starting to suspect the valves. When I cleaned the head soot and grime got stuck around the valves, and I suspect they've found their way onto the valve seats. If that's the case it should fix itself once I start it up. If I can get the IDI diesel with no working glow plugs to start without compression, that is.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Today I finally got the valve clearances adjusted. Since I'm suspecting that the valves aren't seating properly I first decided to set them to the much looser 0.4 and 0.2mm of 2LTII, but it was already much tighter than that so I set them to the correct 0.2 and 0.15mm instead.

I then reassembled the most important parts of the electrical system so I can test both the engine, glow plugs and charging system once I get some m8 helicoils.

I even remembered to connect the oil hoses to the turbo and vacuum pump!

Now I just have to put a helicoil in the hole for the timing belt tensioner as well as connect all grounds and make a temporary fuel bottle and then I'm ready to do the first start in almost a year.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Today I finally started it up. Seems like compression is fine and I got the timing correct. Not because it ran smoothly, but because it ran like it usually does right after a cold start. I didn't dare to run it with no radiator and no air filter inside a small barn for long enough for it to run smoothly.

First start

I did some troubleshooting of the glow plugs and I have another thread on whether they work properly or not. At the very least they aren't as broken as I originally thought.

I didn't do any troubleshooting on the charging other than concluding that it doesn't work. Nothing on the dash lights up except the red turbo light, and it stays on when the engine is running. The battery is at 11.4 volts when the engine is running at just over 1000 rpm.

As I didn't have the fuel filter installed, nor enough diesel to fill the entire system, I just put some diesel in a 1.5l bottle and connected it directly to the pump. Worked great, probably didn't need any bleeding but I bled three of the injectors anyways. I didn't manage to open the fourth despite having the pipes removed less than a week ago, so I'll probably have to look into that.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Sounds like an old WWI biplane starting up. And I heard one of about 5 words of Finnish which I understand!

Will be a fun project getting that purring back as it should.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Sounds like an old WWI biplane starting up. And I heard one of about 5 words of Finnish which I understand!

Will be a fun project getting that purring back as it should.

It purrs nicely once it gets warm enough to fire on all cylinders. Hopefully it will do that from the start once I get the glow timer fixed. Still it starts better than both my tractors though, but that might be because one has no glow plugs and the other is some kind of low compression diesel.

The finnish word is actually a swedish word, I can't even speak finnish.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

It purrs nicely once it gets warm enough to fire on all cylinders. Hopefully it will do that from the start once I get the glow timer fixed. Still it starts better than both my tractors though, but that might be because one has no glow plugs and the other is some kind of low compression diesel.

The finnish word is actually a swedish word, I can't even speak finnish.

Ah sorry, I thought I heard a 'saatana' at the end of the video.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Ah sorry, I thought I heard a 'saatana' at the end of the video.

Pretty close, 'va satan'. Pronounced exactly the same except saatana has an extra a at the end.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

The charging problem is now found! All diodes in the alternator are broken. The problem is, the rectifier seems to be pretty rare. I have found exactly one that looks right, and it doesn't state my alternator model in the description. It's also in france, so I can't exactly send it back if it doesn't fit. I've got a separate thread on the subject.

I also did a little bit of grinding welds on the frame. I think I've got all my welds so far grinded enough that the inspector won't realise how much I've replaced, but I found some more rust holes that needs welding and I ground through a corner that was a bit too tall, so I'm not really done. Also the holes and welded nuts that I constantly forget. There's no hurry with the frame though, it'll be on standby until summer when the weather is dry enough to trailer it 20km from the sandblaster to the painter on an open trailer.

As I sat in the cab researching rectifiers (didn't find anything) I realised that the seating position is much better than in the other cars I drive. In both my land rover (technically my dads, but I use it until the cruiser is finished) and my moms renault you have to sit very far forward to get your knee to rest against an edge on the dash, otherwise your leg gets tired after just a few kilometers. The land cruiser though has a pto lever that is in a good leg resting position no matter how far back or forward I sit. It also has the throttle pedal in a more natural position, so not nearly as much support is needed.

 

[JuanJ]

As I sat in the cab researching rectifiers (didn't find anything) I realised that the seating position is much better than in the other cars I drive. In both my land rover (technically my dads, but I use it until the cruiser is finished) and my moms renault you have to sit very far forward to get your knee to rest against an edge on the dash, otherwise your leg gets tired after just a few kilometers. The land cruiser though has a pto lever that is in a good leg resting position no matter how far back or forward I sit. It also has the throttle pedal in a more natural position, so not nearly as much support is needed.

Hello,

In other cars, you sit far forward, far back or inclined. In a Land Cruiser you sit straight. It is a comfortable position, unless you are 188 cm (or 6 ft 2 in.) tall or more.

It is one nice thing about Land Cruisers.





Juan

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Today I got the frame finished (except for those pesky nuts and holes I constantly forget about). I made a jigsaw puzzle for me to weld together to avoid having to drill a new hole.

After examining the cuts I noticed I didn't have to replace the square piece, so I could've made it a bit easier for me.

Apparently wood catches fire if you weld on it.

Got it welded in place...

...and ground away the welds to make it look original.

After I got the frame done I started preparing the relocation of the cruiser by mounting the front wheels. I'll bring it out to the tent so I can weld it. First I need to empty and partially disassemble the tent though.

I also drilled and tapped holes for the compressor. As it is an AC compressor it originally had some weird kind of banjo fittings that I could probably use if I had them, but since I don't I made 3/8 BSP holes in the piece of steel that originally held the banjo fittings in place. I might get a shorter UNF bolt, forgot to do that last time I went to the bolt store, but a lug nut as a spacer works really well. I didn't get them perfectly centered with the holes in the compressor so only one can be screwed all the way in, but that shouldn't be a problem since only one will be under pressure.

The backside of the compressor will be very close to the exhaust, so I'll have to find some hoses that can take high temperatures. They don't have to be long though, both the tank and the air source is less than half a meter away.

 

[Gubbtratt1]

Today I got the car moved to the tent. I did get it out underneath the tent frame beams, but just barely. I had to empty the tyres to near zero pressure and stand on the hitch while my dad towed it with the Land Rover to get it low enough to not lift the tent frame too much.

Lots of room in the barn now! It will probably get filled with various scrap piles before the end of the week though.

I also took apart the glow plug timer and found some suspect resistors. I might get the glow issue fixed by replacing two parts that costs less than 50 cents! I have to solder them though, and I'm not very good at soldering.

As for the remaining holes and welded nuts on the frame: after forgetting about them for the umphillionth time I decided to go with regular non-welded nuts as they are possible to reach with a wrench even when everything is assembled, and the holes can be drilled at any point, even when it's painted.