Builds 1991 FJ75 moving to America (5 Viewers)

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Roof Rack
So one of the obvious things to stow on my roof rack are my Maxtrax. I'm not convinced I'm going to find them as useful here as I did in the desert of the UAE. They are so freakin' practical over there when you get mired in sand and there's no good approach for someone to pull you out with a strap. I was skeptical until a buddy bought them... and we led a group of newbies and ended up using them all weekend. I bought 4 of my own the next chance I had. So yeah... I'm a believer in Maxtrax and a frequent user in the past.

I'm not a fan of Eezi-Awn's brand mount as it elevates them quite a ways off the surface of the roof rack. So I grabbed some 3/16" steel and made some mounts of my own.

The Maxtrax brand pins inserted through some 10mm holes drilled at the appropriate spacing.
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Testing things out up on the rack...
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The pins barely fit between the material of the rack. But they fit.
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So I painted up the brackets, cleaned up my pins (from former use on my 80-series rack in the UAE), and got stainless hardware out...
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And everything fits and clears perfectly.
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Nice work. Great to see your kids in on this. Great memories they will keep for a lifetime.
 
I've thought about buying at least a pair of those but we always go in a group and haven't had any issues thus far retrieving with a snatch strap. I did buy a nice Southern Overland, 30' snatch rope which has performed very well over here. In fact, I probably could have sold a few of them already.

Nice work on the rack Joel.
 
So on Saturday I pulled the old clutch master and replaced it with a new Aisin unit.
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So the old unit has some sort of round attachment to the linkage end. The new one did not come with that. What does that do? Anyone know?
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I also tore out the old roof liner. Not sure what made me think to try this...
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Found some bloody rivets in the roof the body guys missed in Abu Dhabi... :mad:
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Installed some trim-to-fit Weathertech mats from Costco. Something had to replace the old, manky, custom Mideast upholstered ones.
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And brought home some fresh cut plywood for a project I've got cooking.
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That was mostly all done by noon on Saturday. Then I worked on my other project...
 
We need to coordinate a play date. I think our kids will hit it off well!

I bet. Your kids are former expats too aren't they? My kids can be a bit odd having been born and raised their whole lives overseas until last April. But odd in a good way I'm usually proud of. Where you located?

I've thought about buying at least a pair of those but we always go in a group and haven't had any issues thus far retrieving with a snatch strap. I did buy a nice Southern Overland, 30' snatch rope which has performed very well over here. In fact, I probably could have sold a few of them already.

Nice work on the rack Joel.

Maxtrax are great in the dunes out there when you just can't get into a good strapping position. The playing we did in the Empty Quarter often found newbies sliding down into bowls... and it's hard to strap someone "up" out of a bowl sometimes. That's where Maxtrax shine. They also shovel sand VERY well... way better at digging in the sand than a conventional shovel.

But here, I'm not sure I'll use them much... we shall see.
 
Seatbelts
@svsisu asked me if I'd done my seatbelts for the rear bench yet. I actually knocked this out back in October... kids weren't allowed to ride in the back until this was done.

I'd really appreciate any/all input and criticism and advice on how I've done this. Did I make obvious mistakes that undermine the integrity of these belts?

I used belts from seatbeltplanet.com. They are DOT rated and all the belts in my FJ40 came from them and I've been very happy with the quality. I ordered a lap belt for the middle seat and two 3-point shoulder belts for each of the side seats. They ship their stuff with 7/16"-20 hardware... but I'm trying to keep everything metric on my Toyotas as much as possible. So I also ordered 12mm hardware from McMasterCarr.
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In the C-pillar at the back of the bench seat I drilled out holes and put in 12mm rivnuts for the shoulder belt loop. I tested one of them on a scrap piece of metal first to see just how much they spread out and how wide the flange is on the backside. It made a flange a bit bigger than a standard M12 washer and that satisfied me. I'd like to go in at some point, cut out a section of the pillar, and weld in a reinforcement plate and captured M12 nut. But I've yanked on this arrangement pretty hard to test it and have been satisfied... anecdotally.
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The belt reel and side anchor are both attached to a support piece that sits below the C panel. This is, to me, the potential weakest link in my belt arrangement. Two places pulling on the same member. Both items are bolted in with M12 hardware with an extra-wide washer on the backside.
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And here's the shoulder loop bolted in.
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The entire belt.
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The receivers are anchored into the floor with some seatbeltplanet 7/16"-20 hardware that I need to go replace with 12mm. These were done along with the seat install. Under the body at each anchor point are 65mm support plates acting as a washer of sorts.
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And finally, the belts laid out on the rear bench.
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Again, I'd love any input. Seatbelts are very important, especially for my youngsters. The 3-point belts do work pretty well with the carseats. Although I think the shoulder loops are mounted a bit high. I can fix that relatively easy I suppose.

Hope this is helpful.
 
I also tore out the old roof liner. Not sure what made me think to try this...
I've got the same situation with the liner in my 1995 troopy, Honger. What are your plans? How are you going to tackle this?
 
lol. I said pickup.
Sorry; mixed you and Honger up.

I did see what might be a liner for a troopy up at one of the yards a few weeks ago. Gonna go have another look, but the troopy is not mobile right now so I can't take it up there and see if it actually would fit unfortunately.
 
I've got the same situation with the liner in my 1995 troopy, Honger. What are your plans? How are you going to tackle this?

I'm going to figure out some way to clean all the gunk and adhesive off the roof... and then paint it with SecondSkin Spectrum roll-on sound proofing. No intention to put in an OEM headliner at this point. I want to make an overhead console up front at some point... and possible a shelf up top for extra storage in the back.
 
So I was topping off my transfer case last night... it has a nice slow, consistent leak. I top it off about once a month or so. Is there a definitive thread on rebuilding these? I see lots of Q&A threads with various questions about rebuilding these, but not one of the normal "use this guy's threads for this job" type of threads. I've got a split case on the back of my H55F transmission, so a pretty common case for MUD folks. I know it's also leaking into my transmission... pulling the fill plug resulted in oil coming out.

Figure I'd pick up a kit from @cruiseroutfit but I want to know just how involved this will be. Also curious if it's easier to just pop it open and replace a given seal/gasket.

Apparently there was a leak/issue around the idler shaft because someone coated it with some sort of epoxy...

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Did the same thing to the 40 I had as a kid in college. Seemed to hold up but eventually got fixed by a 4 speed swap :)
 
I'm going to figure out some way to clean all the gunk and adhesive off the roof... and then paint it with SecondSkin Spectrum roll-on sound proofing. No intention to put in an OEM headliner at this point. I want to make an overhead console up front at some point... and possible a shelf up top for extra storage in the back.

I have pictures of my front console in my build thread if you want to look at that for ideas. I’d like to remove the carpet and go vinyl.
 
I don’t know if there are any definitive t-case rebuild threads, but I’ve had mine apart a couple of times and it’s really straightforward. Just follow the manual closely and you won’t have any trouble. I would recommend picking up a small in-lb torque meter to set the rear output bearing preload if you done have one already. Here’s the one I got:
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I don’t know if there are any definitive t-case rebuild threads, but I’ve had mine apart a couple of times and it’s really straightforward. Just follow the manual closely and you won’t have any trouble. I would recommend picking up a small in-lb torque meter to set the rear output bearing preload if you done have one already. Here’s the one I got:
View attachment 2235634

Is it fairly straightforward to remove from the transmission?
 

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