1992 Hiace 4wd RZH119 ex-Firetruck (2 Viewers)

[flx]

I was able to source the original stickers... except they got superseeded by the later version "fulltime 4WD" but once I cut the "fulltime" they are the same design.
Colors are correct for 1993+ model, for a 1989-1992 like mine they would have been dark outline and cream inside but I'll do with those silver outline transparent inside.

And with the right light angle I was able to spot the original location of the stickers!

Final result

 

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After a long wait I finally received some goodies from Australia, tailor made for the Hiace.
Mosquito nets for the front windows, that even fit under the weathershield.

Windshield sunscreen without suction cup

Rear mosquito net

And now back in south of France to prepare my FJ40 for its next trip.

 

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Some news on the Hiace battlefront

A few bit & pieces were missing and found them still available OEM.

Originally my vehicle had a plug installed on the passenger B pillar for the external projector.

Notice the indentation in the B pillar because someone let the cap hanging while closing the sliding door.
Also, no care were given for a a gasket or doing that cleanly back then

Anyway, it was in the way for the snorkel so I removed it and just tinkered a temporary cap.

I now have found some rubbers fitting the holes to properly plug them, and I'll use the cone one to run the wires for the roof lights all around. It fits with the snorkel, will probably be tight once wire comes out of it but should work.

Then started to remove all the temporary setup from last year to start the real work inside...

 

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I'll start with the wiring and doing a custom harness to distribute power from Electrical Panel (EP from now on) to all around the vehicle.

Battery and EP will be located in the rear left corner so starting from there.

Going up through the taillight cavity (taps are not from me, they are for the trailer socket installed back then).

Then the quarter ventilation

Across through the rear inside gutter

Then splitting for the right side, one part will go back down on the rear right and another will go toward the front following the inside gutter.

 

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Then I wanted to re-use the passage for the rear emergency light wire to pass my solar from the roof to the interior.
After removing the emergency light I had left it like that:

Drilled hole is 10mm which with a grommet let 7~8mm for a wire. Luckily I found a solar twin 4mm² wire round that is exact 8mm diameter, will be tight but should go through my new grommet and at least offer a good water protection.
Luckily I kept the original wire to lead my new wire

Because it was completely impossible for me to put my finger on the other side of this hole, not sure how they did some of those wire routing back then...

Then taking the same path than my previous harness to exit at my EP location.

The gray wire you can see is also a firetruck wire that goes to a light on the hatch through the original wire passage... I definitely kept it because even I was to use this one as guide I don't think I would be able to pull wires that way that cleanly...

Roof side

Ready for the solar panels

Also routed a twin 6mm² protected battery cable to the rear to be used as an outside plug. Main use will be to plug an outside/portable diesel heater but also my air compressor or to use to keep the battery top up with a 12V charger.

Gets in through the same grommet already used for the trailer plug.

And arrive at the EP.

 

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Then I wanted to run wires for the DC-DC charging between the engine battery and my EP. This one will need to go under the chassis to be hidden, too big to go through the internal gutters. Also used the twin protected battery cables but in 16mm².
Started from the EP as you would have guessed...

Getting out by a grommet in front of the rear wheel.

And then did my best to route toward the front while keeping the wire tucked as high as possible and away from anything hot or moving.

Then going up directly in the battery compartment.

And once plugged and fused to the main battery.

 

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I then did floor insulation. At first I was planning to only have my 18mm plywood on the floor for insulation (to avoid losing too much height) but finally decided to put 5mm high density cork to decouple the wood from the aluminium floor.

Contrary to Armacell it doesn't need any support, I can put my floor directly on top of the cork. I also don't need to glue it so I will keep a floor entirely removable if ever I was to need it (for example in case of a water incident that would pool under the floor...).

It's holding in place with the 4 original cargo loop/bolts.

If you remember correctly I only had the 2 rear most cargo bolts left accessible by the firefighter floor. I had managed to locate the 2 center ones and drill them by under the chassis.
I now have located the 2 front ones but they are completely inaccessible by under... hard lines are on the way and even they were not, they are so close to the chassis rail that I could not fit the smallest tool... So if I want them my only way would be to take measurement and drill from up top... but probability to miss them and just drill random holes is high... so not sure yet.

Then for the plywood I had managed to find one piece of 18mm Okoume CBTX in 3050*1550mm allowing me to do the floor in 1 piece!
Was a bit of a challenge to handle that large of a plywood piece but the result is nice.

A few tries were needed...

Sanded

Oiled

Nice result

 

[Admiral Snackbar]

Its looking great. I think you will really appreciate the cork under the flooring, it will help with noise and tempature isolation.

 

[flx]

Its looking great. I think you will really appreciate the cork under the flooring, it will help with noise and tempature isolation.

Yes I think so, I just hope it's not too thin to make a difference... will see with experience but anyway insulation on a small space like that will remain limited...

Let's continue with the build!

On my way home I went to drop my old oil at the disposal site (off course I waited to need to do the next oil change to do it), that's a big trunk for this cargo

And filled it with a more proper cargo... that was pilling-up in my living room for a while now.

What were the odds that a same generation Hilux (in nice condition) park just behind me in central Paris?

Then the real electrical work starts, trying to gauge how big of a panel I need and how to dispose everything.

Should fit nicely tucked in my furniture like that.

Electrical connections and crimping really create a lot of mess in the garage

In place and only connected to the battery for now... but at least it's burning down x)

 

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Installing a first PV panel (175W Ecoflow).
Those have an unusual length that makes them great for the actual width of vehicles roof, accounting for the curvature (most panel are either too small and wasting space, or too large and look like a wing on top).

And it's connected (through the yellow Anderson plug) and already charging even with the cloudy/rainy weather.

And then 2, connected in serie!

At some point a full tailored roofrack will come, into which the PV panels will hide. But for now I used the old load bars that came with the vehicle and it's working nicely (except that I can't use them for carrying anything else).

Then I connected the engine battery to the DC-DC.

Pulling around ~44A from high idle from an officially rated 55A alternator from Toyota, not too bad as long as not running anything electrically heavy like lights or full ventilation. But even if it's the case the Victron Orion-XS adapt quite nicely and very quickly to the load it can pull so it does not create any issue.
Anyway I'm planning to let it set on a max 20A most of the time (or even 0 in summer if solar is enough) and only boost it to the max when really needed (no sun and battery close to empty).

Was hesitating to upgrade the alternator... Keeping an OEM alternator, this same engine later got 70A and 80A alternator that can be found used or reconditioned for a correct price in the US (I think it's even available new but Toyota price for alternators is insane...).
In Japan they even got some special Hiaces with this engine that got a 100A alternator, but all sellers I can find of reconditioned alternator in Japan want a core to send one...
But I think will start by seeing how my current tiny 55A alternator is doing.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

Then I wanted to run wires for the DC-DC charging between the engine battery and my EP. This one will need to go under the chassis to be hidden, too big to go through the internal gutters. Also used the twin protected battery cables but in 16mm².
Started from the EP as you would have guessed...
View attachment 3891072

Getting out by a grommet in front of the rear wheel.
View attachment 3891073

And then did my best to route toward the front while keeping the wire tucked as high as possible and away from anything hot or moving.
View attachment 3891075
View attachment 3891076
View attachment 3891077
View attachment 3891080

Then going up directly in the battery compartment.
View attachment 3891081
View attachment 3891082

And once plugged and fused to the main battery.
View attachment 3891083

These blue connectors are not reliable. Toyota uses butt splices which are the metal crimp style. Do something similar and add heat shrink over it.

 

[flx]

These blue connectors are not reliable. Toyota uses butt splices which are the metal crimp style. Do something similar and add heat shrink over it.

View attachment 3891361

Yes I don't like those vampire taps either, but they have been there for 30+ years.
If I was to re-do it I would use either crimp or solder. But crimp would mean cutting the original wire which I really don't like. Solder I would need to remove the end connector to be able to heatshrink on top (and it's a pain to do in confined space like that). So I will probably forget them as long as they don't cause me any trouble on the taillights

 

[jgranthevagrant]

Assez bien fait votre travail! If you do a lot of crimping of larger wire/cable, I would upgrade the crimping tool from the yellow one pictured. Makes better crimps for battery and other larger lug crimps. I will try to post a photo of mine.

 

[jgranthevagrant]

I am also using an old 55 amp Toyota alternator for my power system, as I had 3 or 4 sitting around. I am about to upgrade my house battery to LiPo4, so that may test the alternator.

 

[flx]

Thanks!
Actually it's not really visible on the pictures but I have a hydraulic crimper for the larger sections! Painfully slow to operate but works well enough.

For the alternator, if it can really provide close to its 55A in continuous it would probably be enough (the vehicle doesn't use much if not using headlight/ventilation) but so often we read that you should not use more than half or even a third of the capacity in continuous.... but I think that tale comes from the aftermarket high capacity alternators that have high heat losses at low rpm (and probably low quality). OEM alternator is underrated enough and anyway makes low enough power that it can't produce that much heat, even if it had a lot of losses.
That being said, I wouldn't just combine the lithium battery directly to the alternator, I think using a good DC-DC to control how much amps are pulled is important with a small alternator.

 

[jgranthevagrant]

LCE (U.S. company) makes high output alternators for several Toyota motors. They look like they would work, but are fairly expensive. I am running 2 alternators. 1 for the normal vehicle circuits, and 1 for the house circuits. No DC-DC yet but it is on the list.

 

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You may have notice a big and long box in some previous pics, well here it is when I received it

Not close to a chance to fit in my Parisian mini-elevator...

The Volvo on the box may be confusing but inside is a Toyota complete exhaust for the Hiace! It's a very long and tortured piece, going all the way from after the cat to the end.

The euro spec exhaust for LWB petrol is NLA (but the SWB one seems available...) so I ordered the GCC one betting it would fit but not 100% sure.
Weirdly when I ordered it I was given a 2 months delay which could make sense if it has to come from UAE... but it ended showing-up to my door in a week.

As you can see all the interfaces (hangers and flange) are in the exact same spot but the muffler itself is shorter, for some reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To change it I also ordered the gasket (off course), the flange bolts, all 4 silentblocs, the chassis side of the rear hanger (way overkill, my original was still perfectly good), the bolts for the hanger... I mean you either go full OEM or not
Muffler hanger wasn't available anymore.

My original muffler pierced when I was coming back from the Bushtaxi last year, rusted from inside.
I tried to repair it multiple time with high temp epoxy, special exhaust epoxy, bands, etc. but they all failed when taking the same freeway in the Massif Central mountains that has multiple big climbs at 110-130kph where I need full gas in 4th to keep some speed, too much heat and pressure.
And each time it failed the hole got bigger...

Some details of evolution of the exhaust with the evolutions.

I was expecting this job to be a complete PITA (particularly after how difficult it was on my FJ40 with a much simplet exhaust).
Bolts came easily, didn't broke, I was able to remove hanger from the silentbloc by hand... Only difficulty was the Tetris with the exhaust to get it out (tried without removing anything but the mud flap had to go).
New exhaust was easy to hang and flange perfectly lined itself with the one from the cat.

@CrazyCrow2000

 

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It's now time to attack the rest of the insulation (in addition to the floor). Sides et roof will be covered in Armaflex AF, as for the floor it won't be very thick to preserve some headroom (and I'll use the same thickness on the side by simplicity and because there is no need to have a lot of insulation only on the side).

Starting by the right side to get use to the Armaflex with an easy part and hidden... just in case.

Not sure who said Toyota didn't care about rust back then but the side cavity are completely covered with a wax! (I had only removed a little bit to stick the butyl last year)

It's a huge pain to get rid of it, even with degreaser...

Wanted to stick Armaflex relatively low in the side cavity so I had to find solutions to scrub the wax

Final result

I decided to not glue Armaflex over the nuts holding the sliding door rail... Just in case this need to be undone one day. So I just made those kind of hanging covers to limit cold radiation from the bolts... not sure if it would make a difference.

 

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Now the roof... Plan is to use 1 piece of Armaflex between each roof support bar and hide the seam under the bar. And with Armaflex overlapping onto the internal gutter ont he side and the back.
And while I used all the best tricks... fitting the Armaflex into those side gutters revealed to be harder than expected, particularly for the rear piece with gutter on 3 side to handle... What a hell!
Messed up first try... and you don't have 2 tries with Armaflex...

Second try... that was painful to do and up close it really doesn't look good on the side...

2

Continuing on the front sections I decided to split each part in 2... It means I'll have a center seam but that makes the install less painful... I hope that when I carpet it succeeds to mask it enough...

Here it finally is done! Took me a while...

I haven't done the section above the driver... There is the only piece of OEM headliner over there that provides a little bit of insulation and don't have the motivation to do it for now. Maybe the day I carpet I'll put Armaflex over there too to keep consistent front and rear.

 

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To pause on Armaflex I decided to do homemade floormats with some anti-dirt mats with a heavy vinyl backing.

Passenger side

Driver side

It's not attached but driver side really can't move to no sliding.

For now I kept the overlap in center joint... not sure if I will trim so there is no overlap or keep them like that, driver side participating to stabilize the pass side.

Went well, I have other mats to do the side steps and also the accessible living floor, brings a little bit extra insulation (driving noise in the front, cold in the living space), works well to capture dirt, and for the front will also protect the OEM vinyl that was starting to tear appart at a seam.