1994 HDJ81 - Call Her Bertha

[MonsterCruiser]

I thought I'd check a few things under the truck last night and found this:

Rear bushing for the radius arm. Both of them were like this, and both are aftermarket with maybe 50k kms on them. When I put the lift kit in the truck from Dobinsons I also picked up caster correction bushings. I thought the rear bushings looked ok, but the shop that installed them said the rear ones needed to be replaced as well, but they used an aftermarket part (Beck-Arnley). I'm not sure how long the Dobinsons ones are expected to last, but I'm wondering if I should just splurge for the Delta VS arms and then I can continue to use factory bushings and not have to think about it for a long time.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

She got a wash and tint installed on the rear windows yesterday (25%). We'll see how the tint looks as it cures over the next while and then I'll judge the application, but right now I'm just thinking it's not great, but ok.

A few observations from the tint installation. I haven't applied tint before and I bought a cheap tint since I didn't want to hack up expensive tint since I have zero experience. The tint I bought was also 3mil. Before starting I thought this would be good because thicker would be better, right? I think this may have made the job more difficult as it didn't want to sort of flex and move very easily when trying to do cuts. The rain guards made it pretty much impossible to cut the tint on the outside. I didn't want to remove them since they are old and likely brittle and I didn't have the double sided tape to reinstall. Making the cuts definitely takes a lot of practice. I watched lots of videos and stuff before starting, but most show the front window which I think is probably easier. Getting cuts into the four corners on the rear is a bit of a pain. Again, the thickness of the tint made this harder (I think).

Anyway, I'll see how it looks after it cures for a week or so. At least I don't have the faded, cracked ruined pinkish tint anymore!

 

[Dusten]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a try, but unless it literally slides right off, it won't work. The tint is so old and brittle that it doesn't hold any tension. As soon as you apply any force to try and pull on it, it just breaks. The tint looked old when I got the truck and that was 12 years ago! Tint replacement is definitely long overdue, but it's also pretty low on the priority list.

It may be worth it to pay a shop.

(For readers going through this. My tint is ass and I'm just having a local shop do it all)

 

[MonsterCruiser]

It may be worth it to pay a shop.

(For readers going through this. My tint is ass and I'm just having a local shop do it all)

I had read that when I was checking around before trying the install. However, to get a ceramic tint job up here in Canada land, it's probably going to cost me about $800 CAD on this vehicle. It's worth my time to try a cheap "ceramic" tint I bought for $60 to try the DIY way first.

Out of curiosity, @Dusten what is tint going to cost for you? It might be worth me taking a drip down there to get it done if the price is right. Or if I can find a good place in Bellingham even better because that is only about 30 minutes away from my place.

 

[Dusten]

I had read that when I was checking around before trying the install. However, to get a ceramic tint job up here in Canada land, it's probably going to cost me about $800 CAD on this vehicle. It's worth my time to try a cheap "ceramic" tint I bought for $60 to try the DIY way first.

Out of curiosity, @Dusten what is tint going to cost for you? It might be worth me taking a drip down there to get it done if the price is right. Or if I can find a good place in Bellingham even better because that is only about 30 minutes away from my place.

$475 was the quote I got from the shop I use for all my cars.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

Well, my DIY tint job has survived the summer, so I must have done an ok job Only have a few bubbles near a few outer edges where some debris was trapped under during the tint application.

Started work on the projector retrofit over the weekend. I only got as far as separating the lenses and removing the reflectors to adjust them "lower."

Need to see if I can get replacement metal clips for the housing. I got these used and half the clips are not in good shape.

I'm also not sure about painting the inside of the lights. Obviously, I can't paint the reflector for the fog light side. Looking at pictures of what others have done, I'm not really a fan of the full chrome or black painted. Maybe I should look at something like a darker grey just to reduce the chrome bling, but not have so much contrast between the chrome and black by painting black.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

Got some maintenance done on the weekend. Oil change, drain and fill on the transmission, greased all the U-joints, added grease to the knuckles, tire rotation, changed the heater valve and I changed out the washer pump for the rear window. Looking up the original part number for the rear washer pump it's NLA, but looking at part photos, I found that the similar year for the 4runner looked the same. I purchased an AC Delco unit, and got it installed and it's working!

It wasn't a straight plug and play. New one spliced into the original harness. Not perfect, but I'm getting better as soldering!

I had to detach the fuse box to get access to remove the old pump and install the new. I also cleaned up that washer bottle a bit before I replaced everything.

New one fully installed.

I couldn't slide the original sleeve over fully over the spliced location, so I put a bit of electrical tape to try and give some added protection.

Slowly working on the projector retrofit as well. I've gone the hard mount route that others have done. I'm currently looking into mounting the E46R projector shroud. It seems like it's not fitting like it should, so I'm looking into that. I probably also have to buy new clips to hold the housing and the glass together, so I'll be waiting on those for a bit. Now that I've spent some time on it and have a better understanding of the wiring etc. I'll start to look at how I'm going to route all the wiring.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

Tried working with the E46R shroud more last night. I trimmed the tabs off the inside and then this is what it looked like.

Much bigger gap at the bottom than the top and in the second photo you can see it's not fitting on the bottom and therefore not sitting "level" on the projector. I also noticed that all the extra handling of the shroud is making the chrome finish come off. I put gloves on to try and reduce it.

I took a Dremel and cut out a section of the bottom, but it looks like the projector is still hitting the flat part of the shroud.

It's definitely better, but I'm not sure if I'm happy enough with it that I'm willing to leave it. With the cost of this retrofit I want to be happy with the end result, not just "good enough." I might try the E46 R Extended shroud. I've contacted TRS for assistance on the install, but I haven't heard anything back yet.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

"Googley eye" headlights completed! I didn't take photos of the final install today except this one with everything taken apart.

And the finished product.

I ended up going with the E46R extended shroud which worked out just fine. The wiring install took a lot longer today than I thought it would. I had a rough idea of where I wanted to mount the ballasts, but the locations I intended to use didn't work out. I also tried to spend time to make sure the wiring was placed to look clean. I didn't want to slap it together and have a wiring mess.

I took a drive with it tonight and I'm definitely happy with the result!

I've also been working on very slowly removing the rear tint. I've been scraping off the tint between each of the defroster lines trying not to ruin the defrost function. Still doing to take a while to finish, then I'll have to go back and remove it from the line locations and then do final clean up to get ready to reapply tint.

The tint is so old and faded it's a bit hard to tell in the photos where the tine has been removed and where it's still in place.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

I had to remove the headlights to tweak them a bit. The projector beams were out of rotation a bit, and I think either due to my Depo lights being older or originating from the JDM market the lock ring didn't line up nicely. I had to take a dremmel to the back of the housing and shave it down to be able to rotate the projectors more. For some reason the original orientation of the H4 bulb was clocked a bit in these housings. It didn't end up being a big deal, but it was driving me nuts not having the beams level or correctly aligning from one projector to the other.

In the end, I'd say the project took more time than I expected, but I'm definitely satisfied with the result!

Pic taken with my cell, so it's not 100% clear, but you get the idea

Next is to finish up the tint on the rear glass, and I'm also looking for some radius arms. Fingers crossed for a Black Friday deal! Measuring my lift at the front sway bar bolts, I'm actually sitting bit higher than I thought at 3.5". I thought I was just under 3". I think it came up a bit when I added spacers to eliminate the lean to the right side I had before.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

Finally finished the tint application on the rear hatch glass.

I spent a lot of time to make sure I had every little spec of the old tint removed, so hopefully it turns out as well as the other windows I did because those are still looking good so far. I have some concern about the colder temperatures, but after doing some research it should only make the cure time slower which isn't a problem.

Did a more careful measurement on the lift on my truck and I had an error when I checked before and I am at about 2.75" at the front which is where I thought it was. Did splurge and bought Blackhawk radius arms. Hopefully, they are here before Christmas. Install will be sometime in the New Year.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

Blackhawk radius arms installed yesterday. The install actually went quicker than I thought it might. I think I was about 2.5 hours including cleanup and everything. The bushings at the frame mount location were definitely toast, but the Dobinsons 2.5 degree correction bushings still look like they are in good shape.

Blackhawk vs original. I didn't try and line them up or anything, just sort of a side by side shot.

And installed

I need to go back under and mark with a paint pen though. I forgot to do that.

Initial impressions...The truck drives sooooo much better! The steering is definitely heavier, and I don't mind that, but it also makes driving on the highway much nicer. I was starting to wonder if my shocks were blown because it seemed like the truck was sort of crashing around when going over larger bumps, but apparently that was just because that bushing at the frame was so trashed. No more wandering on the highway or after going over bumps or dips in the road and no more crashing around on bumps either. It was an expensive "upgrade", but at least I'm happy with the result!

 

[MonsterCruiser]

Wow, long time with no update. We moved about a year ago and now going through major renovations on the new house, so pretty tough to get any time for anything else. However, I did ditch the adjustable rear panhard bar and went with a factory one with the DVS bracket. I decided to go this route because the bushings on the aftermarket one needed to be replaced. No idea what the bracket is, and even if I could find bushings it would probably cost the same to buy replacement and have a shop press them in as it would to just buy a new bar.

Before:

After:

I've also been wanting to change out the factory dump pipe off the turbo. Unfortunately, shipping prices seem to keep going up and have gotten even more cost prohibitive to import a nice system from one of the Australian fabricators, so I decided to get a local guy to make a new dump pipe for me. I considered the PPD route, but decided to just keep my Fujitsubo system and modify it to fit the dump pipe.

I'm happy with the result EGTs are down about 40 C and are slower to climb than before.

Current annoying issue I'm trying to track down is a bit of steering wheel vibration. First I found a bad relay rod end. The steering wheel shake was worse and happened pretty regularly before I found this. I decided to just replace all relay rod and tie rod components since it was all at least 10 years old. At the same time I replaced the front panhard bar as I also had an adjustable one at the front, and with my mild lift it didn't really seem necessary, and I've never had the bushings changed in 14 years of ownership. The vibration now only occurs a little bit right at 85 km/hr.

Both front wheel bearings are overdue for service. I've dealt with the front right which was a bit loose, but I still have the same vibration. I need to check the left now and repack with new grease. I also noticed it looks like clear fluid on the bottom of the Dobinsons steering damper. Maybe the damper got blown when I had worse vibrations? My front shocks also don't seem great. If I remove the top nut I can compress them by pushing hard with just my thumb. It's not easy, but I can do it. The shocks to rebound, but seems like they should have more resistance than that.

 

[John Young]

That is some nice looking fabrication on the exhaust! Congratulations!

What kind of EGT temperatures are you seeing on the highway at speed? I'm seeing somewhere between 450 and 550 C, maybe peaking at 600 occasionally, on the Omani diesel with the HDJ81 engine transplanted into it.

 

[MonsterCruiser]

One part of my drive where I was paying attention for comparison is travelling at 100km/hr, slight incline I'm now at about 420 C. I used to be about 460 C. Ambient temperature about 25 C. I'm also running an aftermarket turbo and it's only about 6 psi at 100km/hr on flat-ish ground. Still have a GTurbo grunter sitting here waiting to go on when I get time. I think that runs more like 12psi at 100km/hr.

 

[John Young]

One part of my drive where I was paying attention for comparison is travelling at 100km/hr, slight incline I'm now at about 420 C. I used to be about 460 C. Ambient temperature about 25 C. I'm also running an aftermarket turbo and it's only about 6 psi at 100km/hr on flat-ish ground. Still have a GTurbo grunter sitting here waiting to go on when I get time. I think that runs more like 12psi at 100km/hr.

Thank you. That sounds really great. The guys at the garage juiced up the diesel pump on mine a little so on this factory turbo I am maxing out at about .65 bar or 9 PSI under hard acceleration. Steady state level at 100khp seems to be 450 C or so. I think the thing could use an intercooler but I am not going to make a change like that here for fear of inspection issues.

I've also noticed that the truck performs better with a light touch on the throttle. I think we still have some fine tuning to do. I think I want to 'un-juice' it a little, but right now it is my only daily driver, so I just keep my foot out of it for the most part.