4.5LV build

[Gumby]

It came with the truck. First edition 'mud sticker.

Found the wiper linkage today. Somewhere in its life it got a GM wiper motor. I put a later 40 series motor on it so I had to put in a later model switch with two speeds. Something is wrong in the motor. I think the park contact is bent. When it goes to off power to the park wire shuts off, but the motor keeps running. After a few seconds the power wire gets hot and it pops the fuse. I'll have to take the assembly back out to find out whats going on.

I wired up the turn single switch, installed the throttle pedal and hand throttle cable and installed the trans hump too.

 

[Gumby]

Busy day.

Redrew the gauge backing plate and sent it to the printer. I'm sitting here now waiting for it to be done. should be any second. This one only took 8 hours of print time.

Cut a new template for the front windshield. Called the place that did both windshields last time and got a machine. No call back all day. Guess I'll look for another place tomorrow. I made this template out of hardboard and fit it into the gasket in the frame so it will fit.

soldered up all the connections for the ws wiper motor and switch. Installed it.
soldered up all the connections for the tail lights. Installed them with new bulbs and lenses.
Put the tailgate back together.
welded up the rear driveshaft.
buttoned up some little stuff. Lots of that left to go.
Installed the horn.
Installed the front seats.

DROVE IT!

about 10 feet with no brakes, or even a brake pedal. But it ran, went in gear, transferred power through the driveshafts to the axles and rolled.

Went to the dealer to pick up the correct torque converter bolts and the driveshaft flange nuts. They had 8 driveshaft flange pinion nuts waiting there. The correct nuts will be in tomorrow morning. Yes, I did drive it without any nuts on the output flanges.

Underside of the hood is supposed to be black I think, but it looks good in white.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

It must have felt soooooo good to drive this thing!

 

[Gumby]

It did. It felt really good. I really want to get the brakes working so I can take it for a real spin around the lot.

 

[Gumby]

This could probably go in it's own thread, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of people putting 1FZs in 4x vehicles yet. IPOR and Gary Wagoneer, of course and I don't know what they did for gauges.

Hopefully, if someone is doing this conversion they check out this thread or hopefully it comes up in a search.

I'm really happy about how this came out. 80 series gauges are all driven by the ECM. 40/5 series, of course, are all run off of sending units. The 80 speedo is pulse driven. It would be great to put the 80 dash right up to the plugs in the harness, but it would never fit without cutting the hell out of the dash.

The circuit board on the back of the 80 cluster sends power from the four plugs to the gauges through the screws that hold the gauges to the circuit board. I figured I could put eyelets on the wires and just run the directly to the screws. The circuit board tells you which screws are for what.

The gauges happen to be in the same order as the 40/5 cluster, but are sideways. Fuel is to the left of volts and oil to the left of temp. The gauges are deeper than the stock ones so I needed to make something to move the gauges back and mount them solid. It needed to be plastic so the screws could go through and stay insulated. If you spent more time you could probably get them straighter, but they only fit so well in the stock metal part. If you built a whole new part to replace the metal part you could make them fit better.

Fortunately, the school I work for just bought a 3D printer that prints in ABS. I teach CAD as well as Auto, so I needed to be able to use the machine so I can incorporate it into the curriculum next year. I drew the spacer in Google Sketchup because its easier to use than AutoCAD for solid modeling and I don't have Inventor on my laptop yet. The part took about 8 hours to print.

I drilled though the holes in the metal gauge cluster that once held the gauge mounts into the spacer and secured it with small screws. I had to cut a bit of the metal away to fit the speedo circuit board. I choose not to drill a hole in the cluster face for the tripometer reset knob so that just wont work. I also took the plastic off the speedo behind the face and replaced it with the original backing plate so it would not have gaps around the edges.

To find where the holes needed to go I borrowed some enamel paint from the wife. She had some nail polish that worked great. Dabbed it on the studs and pressed it into the plastic. When I took the gauge away it left dots for me to drill. The bolts were too short so I used some 4mm screws from my RC car stash.

The light bulbs and high beam indicator will still be useable.

I have more pics, but they are taking forever to get downloaded from my phone.

 

[tornadoalleycruiser]

Amazing work. Just asking but could you not drill a small hole in the glass for the trip odometer?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using IH8MUD

 

[Bear]

Very inventive.

And...guys with the need for speed, can now bypass installing a hot engine, and just install that new speedo to go 130 mph !

 

[Gumby]

Amazing work. Just asking but could you not drill a small hole in the glass for the trip odometer?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using IH8MUD

I might have been able to. I might have cracked the 50 year old glass. I don't have another glass. A bunch of work and a bunch of risk and I didn't care about the trip reset. I could still put the reset button back on, but I don't think I would try it unless I had another gauge cluster. I guess I could put a piece of lexan in there.

It's something I could tweak later if it bugs me.

Maybe I'll take it with when I go to get the ws glass today and see what they say.

edit - they are drilling the hole for me. They say if they break it a new one will be a couple of bucks.

 

[Gumby]

At some point I will paint the faces black and re-letter them in vinyl so they are straight and look correct.

I'm working hard on getting it on the road in the next couple of weeks.

 

[Gumby]

Today I wanted to get the wiring done under the dash so I could get the brake pedal back in .

Soldered and heat shrink tubed the turn signal wires. Fronts and dash lights blink, but no power to the rear lights. Power to the plug at the cowl. I'll get it back in the air tomorrow. I had it off the hoist today so I could get under the dash easily.

Big jumbly mess of a wiring harness taped up.

WS wipers all wired. Found the arms. Glass should be here next week.

Installed the brake pedal.

Drove the SWB up to the dealer to get the driveshaft nuts and actually had a sales manager get all excited. He took some pictures. Every other time they have no idea what it is.

Installed the 65 Mustang mirrors.

 

[Gumby]

I sure can see why Mr. T made the exhaust on the 80 cross back and forth under the frame. There is no room with the drive shafts in. It now drops straight down from the manifolds into the Y and then back and over the crossmember to the right of the transfer and then under the tube crossmember. The muffler had to be ordered. I don't even know what it's supposed to be for. It has the in and out on the same end so the muffler can go crossways above and in front of the axle and still exit from the right side.

The correct torque converter bolts are in and the scary knock is gone. I was pretty sure that's what it was but it was very disconcerting.

Temp driveshafts are bolted in tight.

Rear brakes are bled. Not getting fluid out of the fronts yet. Gotta enlist some help or break out the power bleeder.

Finished a couple little buttoning up jobs underneath while it was up in the air too. Still got a giant list of those that seems to grow faster as I do things.

Time to take a couple of days off and go wheel the SWB.

 

[kulangot]

Nice work Gumby

 

[c2dfj45]

Great build Gumby....inspiration to get on my LV. Not to hijack your thread but I love that gauge cluster and know a whole lot about them. We just merged our 1fz 80's gauges with a 24 volt diesel 79 series cluster. Talk about some intense work. Fortunately we had a whole lot more room than you did....

Thinking that 1FZ setup might go in my 45LV...really liking that motor and the auto...not sure I could talk my technician into another gauge cluster job though....

 

[Gumby]

That looks sweet. Definately more professional than my hack job. I need to grab some LED bulbs.

Sanded out all the runs and flaws in the grey and retaped the parting line that didn't pull as clean as I wanted.

Shot it yesterday and it fish eyed horribly. Waited another 8 hours and sanded it all back down again.

Reshot it again today and it turned out good.

Joe E hooked me up with a brand new spare. Gotta powdercoat a rim to match.

Picked up the new windshield and gauge glass with the reset hole drilled in it. I broke the tab that holds the reset button to the tripometer so I think I'll have to print a new one.

Painted the armor in epoxy primer and Pyrite Mica. I like how the tubing on the pig matches the body color and I think it'll be close enough to black that it will look good.

Bought a new bag of countersunk 3/8 bolts so I can find the original bag. hasn't happened yet, but it will before I bolt the armor back on.

The new muffler showed up too so I can bend up the rest of the exhaust.

 

[Gumby]

It's getting that time of year. Pretty constant interruptions from people who figure I'm their free mechanic. Got some stuff done though.

Finished the exhaust. Looks like it will work. Still needs a tail pipe.

Ended up cutting out a c-channel that was welded in for the SOA that I undid. Made a ton more room for the exhaust. I had to move the brake line and the fuel lines and the fuel pump. They came out maybe better, although its tough to rebend lines and have them nice as straight again.

Put the manifold o-ring gaskets in. The exhaust is nice and quiet. No rattles or leaks.

Put the windshield in. Struggled with the key for a bit, then went and looked for the tool. $16 and will be here in the morning. I may never use the tool again and it will still be worth it.

Mounted the spare and stuck it in the truck.

Anybody know where the jack mounts?

 

[Gumby]

Also got some sweet parts from Onur today.

Thanks, man!

 

[Gumby]

Its tough to see both pipes coming out of the same side, but they do. The rear pipe comes out, bends just clear of the bump stop, then out to clear the sway bar link and fuel tank, then back to exit straight out of the back outside the shackle.

 

[merbesfield]

Anybody know where the jack mounts?

Mounts under front seat in a little metal cup with rubber band strap with hook. If you don't have one it must have rusted away.

 

[Gumby]

I'll have to look. Seems weird when the handle is back by the spare.

 

[Gumby]

Big, big day today. I didn't think I was going to get to work on it much today. I had two folks with car emergencies.

Put Beno's parts on.

The windshield key tool came it. Man, that made it so incredibly easy. The key just went right into place.

I spent a bunch of time on why the brakes wouldnt bleed. It was a bad master. Put a used one I had laying around on it and I got fluid to the calipers and got a bit of a pedal.

Put gaskets on either side of the bulkhead in the upper radiator tank and got it to seal under pressure.

Put the armor all back on. I'll have to pull the rear piece back off, but i wanted to see how it fit.

Took it for a drive around the parking lot. It's missing a hub I stole when the pig blew one up so the AWD is not up for any speed. The brakes really werent either, but it drove around up to about 20 mph. First time it's done that in a few years.

Pics in the sun for the first time since post number 1.