Builds 1991 FJ75 moving to America

[Honger]

Exciting package came today...

My power steering gearbox has been getting awful leaky. @John Young and my shop in Dubai helped me source a core unit to get rebuilt. Finally making moves on that. Incidentally, the one I'm about to take off the truck is up for sale in the classifieds.

Here's the new one.

I love the Toyoda with a "d" cast into the housing. Same as my FJ40.

 

[John Young]

Im very anxious to hear what the steering play is like post redhead. My HZJ75 could use some improvement there...

 

[Honger]

It hasn't been all tech... did some camping last weekend. Me and two buddies from church and our 7 boys.

Somewhere in this picture are all 7 boys I believe... though a few are behind rocks I think.

Clouds rolled in, then thunder and lightning, then hard driving rain and hail... it was like a 20-minute hurricane. Me and two boys holding down the legs of the Manta awning and my two buddies holding down their tent. My tent remained resolute... and it's the only pic I snagged.

Cool canyon sides after the rain and a little waterfall/stream.

And then we got a killer rainbow.

The next morning was clear and beautiful.

The nearby nuclear power plan cooling towers created a neat effect.

The boys, while out exploring, spotted some sort of metal framed structure up in one of the ravines...

My boys came back from exploring and said they'd scouted a path to go see it up close. We had them lead us and sure enough they got us in place right above it. They were quite proud of having figured this out and lead us all up there. It was some sort of dam and shade structure... perhaps to promote water retention for wildlife.

My buddy blew a tire on the way out of the area and while changing the tire my boy set about building a cairn. I thought it was photo worthy.

 

[Honger]

My father, @KSDaddio, made a trek to the Saddle Mountain area with a couple folks from his community 4WD club (retired guys). His FJ55, Wilbur, was waiting on parts for a valve spring issue so he borrowed my Troopy...

But he didn't make it through unscathed... I spotted the issue a few days after he got back while fussing with the doors.

You can see a bit more from underneath...

Brackets were obviously tweaked...

All of the parts removed were tweaked or damaged and needed replacement.

This gave me the chance to get the correct outer right bracket. The only one available from my parts guys in the UAE was actually a later model and the holes didn't align with the bumper bar. I had to drill/modify the bracket.

All the parts finally came together with the main bar thanks to @Japan4X4.

Got it all installed.

And it didn't quite all align from one side to the other; but checking some older photos that's how the truck was before.

Not a cheap fix... but not too expensive either. Fun little mini-project.

 

[2fpower]

You should know that people from Kansas can't drive on hills!

 

[Honger]

Im very anxious to hear what the steering play is like post redhead. My HZJ75 could use some improvement there...

Thinking through this some more... my issues with the old box were purely leak-related. Power steering worked just fine and upon removal of the old box there was no play in the input or output shafts. But it was to the point where if I drove regularly I was going through a quart of ATF every two months.

My steering play went away when I replaced all the TRE's.

 

[Honger]

Finally got around to replacing the power steering gearbox.

Redhead found two problems with the core steering box I sent them.
1. The output shaft had a lot of scoring on it at the old oil seal location. They called me and explained that given the lack of OEM replacements for that specific shaft they could do a spray weld onto the shaft and then machine it back to tolerance. They called before doing that and got my green light. They were highly communicative and it was clear that they immediately got back to work when I gave the green light.
2. A few days later I got another phone call and they'd wrapped up the rebuild but upon bench testing they found the valving in the old box was highly biased... ie. it offered much more power assist in one direction than the other. They said it was like 90%/10%, so pretty bad. They had already gone through their stock of cores looking for a matching valve body and found that 1st gen 4Runners had the same part in them. They offered to replace my old valve assembly with one from their core, explained the cost, and then did the work. It shipped the next day. And they sent me my old valve assembly fwiw.

Overall can't recommend Redhead enough. I actually ended up selling them my old gearbox as no one on MUD bit on the classified listing. They even paid shipping.

They have a strict warning tag on the rebuilt box... and they relayed this to me by phone as well.

What I was working with...

The old gearbox out...

So I grabbed some styrene stock from my model-building scrap box and used it to start scraping.

Then I scrubbed it with a stiff brush and dishsoapy water. I was pretty impressed how well it cleaned up.

 

[prwillard2]

How many bananas on the install? I need to do this to mine I think, I've got 2 or 3 inches of play each direction in my steering wheel.

I have new TREs and it didn't remove it.

 

[Honger]

Then I caught a bad case of "While I'm in here..."

The power steering pump was leaking a bit all over the place... and I figured it'd get worse with the gearbox sealed up.

Parts for a re-sealing:

The pump had actually been sealed up at leak points with some sort of silicone/rtv. The reservoir had also been poorly painted black. So I stripped everything down and cleaned and repainted the body (left the reservoir its OEM olive color since it looked pretty good after removing the bad paint). It cleaned up really nice.

And again, while I'm in here...

And all buttoned up.

And back in business. It's been about a week and a half and I've been driving it pretty regularly. Not a drop of leak from the gearbox or pump. So nice. Steering feels pretty much the same, but I wasn't fishing for any performance increase. The pump is quieter with good seals in it.

 

[Honger]

How many bananas on the install? I need to do this to mine I think, I've got 2 or 3 inches of play each direction in my steering wheel.

I have new TREs and it didn't remove it.

There's 5 bananas on the scale right? I'd call this a 2 banana job on that scale. You're gonna need to unbolt/rebolt stuff. You'll need pullers for the TRE and the Pitman Arm connections (between my brother-in-law and I we have everything, but O'Reilly has them for rental). It's a really messy job. I drained things as I went, from top to bottom, still a mess.

Redhead was really quick. From mailing my core to receiving the rebuilt unit was maybe 3 weeks. I was super impressed.

 

[Honger]

How many bananas on the install? I need to do this to mine I think, I've got 2 or 3 inches of play each direction in my steering wheel.

I have new TREs and it didn't remove it.

Thinking through this a bit... I'm unsure of how you can get 2 to 3 inches of play from the gearbox. Having rebuilt the one on my 40 (mechanically identical to our Troopy's) there's just no way you'd have that much play from the steering gearbox. The amount of wear to translate to that much play would be insane... and I think mechanically impossible.

Have you checked all the joints in your steering column? It could a combination of that with some play in your gearbox. What about your trunnion bearings on the front axle? Those were replaced with a front end rebuild right?

 

[prwillard2]

Thinking through this a bit... I'm unsure of how you can get 2 to 3 inches of play from the gearbox. Having rebuilt the one on my 40 (mechanically identical to our Troopy's) there's just no way you'd have that much play from the steering gearbox. The amount of wear to translate to that much play would be insane... and I think mechanically impossible.

Have you checked all the joints in your steering column? It could a combination of that with some play in your gearbox. What about your trunnion bearings on the front axle? Those were replaced with a front end rebuild right?

Have not checked all the joints on my steering column, but something I will do ASAP. My front end was completely rebuilt when I redid the knuckles.

 

[Honger]

Following up on my door project I took a page out of @GA Architect's playbook on putting plastic sheeting back in the door. In his FJ40 thread he came up with a great solution that's a bit more serviceable and more robust. I cleaned up the large masses of butyl and then used narrow 3M double-sided tape to secure the new plastic. Used the 6 mil plastic sheet that he recommended as well.

Taped.

Plastic sheet I used.

And installed.

 

[Honger]

And the pièce de résistance of this door rebuild, the @orikawa door cards.

These things are legit. Laser-cut aluminum with countersunk fastener points. The holes for all the door hardware are pre-cut in the perfect location for OEM. He provides hardware in the form or rubber barrel nuts and blackened bolts with captured washers. There's a weatherstrip piece on the backside as well. This solution cinches up tight with no rattling whatsoever.

I know Spenser can put in cutouts for speakers if need be. I don't have speakers in the door and don't want them there so I opted for some extra molle cutouts. He usually powder coats but in my case I wanted a match to my dash so had him spray the SEM Medium Prairie Tan on there for me.

So first some shots of the product.

And here they are installed in my truck... with a quick mount of a molle pouch on the passenger door. I installed new handles, window cranks, and pulls... all in the oak color which matches the SEM Medium Prairie Tan very well.

That missing door handle plug has since been sourced and installed.

 

[orikawa]

Ahhhhhh get some! Thanks!

 

[JK FW]

Following up on my door project I took a page out of @GA Architect's playbook on putting plastic sheeting back in the door. In his FJ40 thread he came up with a great solution that's a bit more serviceable and more robust. I cleaned up the large masses of butyl and then used narrow 3M double-sided tape to secure the new plastic. Used the 6 mil plastic sheet that he recommended as well.

Taped.

Plastic sheet I used.

And installed.

 

[saltycoconuts]

And the pièce de résistance of this door rebuild, the @orikawa door cards.

These things are legit. Laser-cut aluminum with countersunk fastener points. The holes for all the door hardware are pre-cut in the perfect location for OEM. He provides hardware in the form or rubber barrel nuts and blackened bolts with captured washers. There's a weatherstrip piece on the backside as well. This solution cinches up tight with no rattling whatsoever.

I know Spenser can put in cutouts for speakers if need be. I don't have speakers in the door and don't want them there so I opted for some extra molle cutouts. He usually powder coats but in my case I wanted a match to my dash so had him spray the SEM Medium Prairie Tan on there for me.

So first some shots of the product.

And here they are installed in my truck... with a quick mount of a molle pouch on the passenger door. I installed new handles, window cranks, and pulls... all in the oak color which matches the SEM Medium Prairie Tan very well.

That missing door handle plug has since been sourced and installed.

@orikawa where can I find these

 

[orikawa]

Orikawa.net

Haven't added them to the site yet because I need to sort out the options and colors but won't be much to get them over the finish line.

DM me with what you guys want in the drop-downs like speakers, colors, pouch mounting etc so we don't hijack the thread but I appreciate the love!

 

[Honger]

It’s worth noting that @orikawa can do all the Troopy panels… I just went doors on this order because I’m not settled on a final solution for the panels/cavities in my Troopy; my mdf temp panels let me cut/modify/recut as I work things out. But at some point I’ll be ordering most of the rest.

 

[Honger]

Made our yearly post-Thanksgiving run up to the woods for our Christmas tree... always a great family time and the family photo is a tradition at this point. A bit somber this year... our dog died about a week before the trip. She always loved romping with us through the woods.

Actually had friends join us this year. We've always invited folks but this is the first time we've had some take us up on the offer.

Chased a pretty cool 70-series camper out of the woods... they didn't stop at the end of the trail so they either didn't see me or couldn't be bothered with an old shark-nosed Troopy.