Builds 67 R2.8 Restomod Build

[Borrego]

Struggling to keep up with this post, build trucks, run a business, etc. This entrepreneurship thing is tough! Anyway, back to the story...

It may be tough to keep up with the detailed posts, but I'm sure it helps others out, and I'm sure it will help your business. As for me, when I'm ready to do this R2.8 in my 40, or do a swap in my 60 such as the LC9 you put in your 60, or if you figure out the wiring on the 2UZ to 5spd manual on your "Mountain Goat" project (which would be the ideal v8 in my opinion)... You are the guy i'm bringing it to because of your posts. It shows your attention to detail, quality and your willingness to go the extra step to do it right the first time so your builds last. That goes a long way in my book, and that's who I would want to do business with!

Keep up the amazing work! Can't wait to see this one finished!

 

[76RUSTY40]

Awesome work!!

 

[Well Sorted]

It may be tough to keep up with the detailed posts, but I'm sure it helps others out, and I'm sure it will help your business...

Thanks man, really appreciate the kind words. I'm working hard and trying to share the knowledge and experience with the community, whether it's good ideas or bad ones hopefully someone can learn from my experiences and use it for their own build.

 

[Well Sorted]

The next big challenge underhood was air filtration. There is a lot of dust in our area and this truck may spend some time down in Mexico so we wanted to package a large air filter for the engine. The owner also prefers the look of an OEM type filter rather than an open cone element (and I'm not a big fan of oiled filters in turbo applications), so the challenge was to find a good housing that we could adapt to the build. I wanted to stay with the Toyota look if possible (round cans) but did look at the Donaldson filters for a while. The Donaldson would be challenging because it would tend to want to go forward towards the radiator and then would interfere with the intercooler pipes. You could invert the intercooler and get the pipes lower, but then they interfere with the headlights... and on it goes.

So in the end I decided to go with an FZJ80 housing and see if I could make it work. The FZJ housings hold a nice size filter and have a round exit, so they are easy to connect to. On the other hand, it's really big and therefore the only place it can fit is back near the firewall. The pic below is the finished product so you can see how it sits. Mocking this up took a lot of fiddling with various clamps, tape, supports, etc to try and find the perfect spot. It needs to be as far back and outboard as possible to give the turbo compressor discharge room but you have to watch hood clearance on the side and top.

The lid is free to rotate and I've still got to finalize exactly what clocking is going to work best for the intake duct connections. I've got a bunch of silicone elbows on order that will hopefully make all this connect up and look fairly clean. With the hood closed, we've got about 1" of clearance at this outlet location.

The air intake reworked and oriented rearward on the housing. This shot shows the intake with a silicone elbow on it to turn it downward and draw air through the side louvers.

Hopefully this will draw in mostly ambient outside air and not some of the hotter underhood air on this side of the engine. I could make some sort of duct to connect the inlet directly to the louvers but that would add a lot more fab time and this little project already took way more than expected.

The upside of this setup is having a large filter that's easy to source and replace, as well as the OEM styling. The downside is that there's no way to run a snorkel (owner doesn't want one on this truck) and there's nowhere left to put the battery. We debated the battery location and pros/cons for a while because I would like to have put the battery here. However, we've got a nice open space under the passenger bench seat now that the fuel tank is going under the floor so we're going to put the battery there instead. I'll figure out a way to hide it so it's not obvious and ugly when you open the door and maybe incorporate it into a small storage box. The benefits of the under seat location is you're putting the battery low in the chassis (good for CG) and in a nice protected environment away from the engine heat, which should help it's lifespan.

 

[Scheefdog]

Just wanted to say that I am enjoying following your build threads. Thank you for taking the time to post in detail - please keep it up. Your work is top notch!

 

[Well Sorted]

Figured I'd also show some of the details on the air box mods. As I said above, it's based off the FZJ80 parts, but I had to change a lot about it. The inlet on the stock unit comes off at a tangential angle. I could have potentially made that work if I wanted it to point forward but I thought it wouldn't look all that great and also would be drawing from the general underhood area. I decided instead to clock the main body so that the inlet would be at the rear and make a radial inlet. First step, cut off the existing inlet.

The teardrop shaped hole was covered with a simple rectangular patch and a 3" inlet added on to it. As seen in the earlier post, the idea was to then put a silicone elbow on it and pull air in from the louvers.

Next step was figuring out how to mount it. My first thought was to attach to the fender and the firewall but I quickly realized that wouldn't be a good idea. There's a lot of play in the FJ40 fender mounting, and tying those two together could be a bad idea. What might work in mockup could very easily change the next time the fender was removed and aligned slightly differently. The air box needed to be solely mounted to the fender, and due to the clocking of the housing it was clear that none of the exisiting "feet" locations would work so I cut them all off and started fresh. I was able to relocate one of the simple 90 degree angled ones and it sits on the flat part of the fender. I added two more legs that I custom made using the factory isolator bushings and a fairly simple plate/tube design. They looked like this before welding onto the housing.

The size/position of these was not arbitrarily chose of course. I first set up the housing where I wanted it with clamps and temporary supports. Then I added the simple 90 degree foot on the flat surface of the inner fender. From there I picked locations for other two which drop down and hit the angled faces of the inner fender. Mockups, measurements, etc followed to get angles and lengths dialed in. Each one was made individually, bolted to the fender and then tacked onto the air filter housing. Here's a view of it mostly complete.

After this it was finish welded and ground in a few places. When we get closer to final assembly the whole thing will be blasted and powdercoated with a fresh layer of satin black.

All in all, I'd say this project is probably not one I'll do again soon. I am happy with the finished product and the mounting and location seem like they are going to work out great but I put a lot of hours into it and while I'm happy with the result its a tough sell for a customer who's paying shop rate. For the next R2.8 build I'm going to custom design a filter housing that is easier to fabricate and works in the various body configurations. It may not look as OEM-Toyota but I think it will be the best approach in the long run.

 

[FJBen]

I know you aren't running a snorkel on this, but I had this snorkel on my old FJ40. It was actually for a Jeep TJ I believe, ARB safari snorkel. If people were looking for options to run in the Louvre vents and run the cleaner setup like you have.

 

[amico]

Great job on documenting the detail of your build and GREAT workmanship. I am watching all the builds that are being posted with the intent of doing this same conversion. I have noticed everyone seems to be using the electric fans rather than the mechanical. Is it because of clearance?
I have had really bad experiences with electric fans dying at the worst possible time, but that was 40 years ago hopefully things have improved.

 

[Well Sorted]

Great job on documenting the detail of your build and GREAT workmanship. I am watching all the builds that are being posted with the intent of doing this same conversion. I have noticed everyone seems to be using the electric fans rather than the mechanical. Is it because of clearance?
I have had really bad experiences with electric fans dying at the worst possible time, but that was 40 years ago hopefully things have improved.

Clearance is a factor but its probably also the fact that it comes pretty much ready to go for an electric fan install. The ECU has controls built in and the harness is setup to control and electric fan and relay. This engine doesn't make an enormous amount of power so it's reasonable to cool it with an electric fan.

As for their reliability - I do think things have improved in recent decades. I try to use a high quality aftermarket (Spal) or an OEM fan. There's always a risk of it dying at an inopportune time but if you've got a warning light it's a reasonable risk to take, in my opinion.

Counterpoint - on my FJ60 with an LS swap I run a mechanical fan. It's twice the horsepower and I spend a fair bit of time at high altitude and out in the desert so it needs all the cooling air it can get. You gotta know the build and intended usage, then choose the right solution...

 

[Casey E]

Looking good keep up the great work.

 

[Well Sorted]

Slowly by slowly we're working our way towards getting the tub off and out to the painter. I've been waiting on some silicone hose parts for the air ducting that will finalize the underhood layout so in the meantime picking away at a few other areas...

As I mentioned earlier, we're running an aftermarket steering column in this build, it is a Flaming River unit with a 1.75" tube diameter. This has the nice benefit of fitting in the factory column bracket on the dash. Down at the firewall though we need a new solution for mounting and support.

There are some universal column mounts that can be made to work, but I decided to do a bit of a custom piece and machine a column support bracket that will work with the factory mounting holes. First concept in CAD:

Unfortunately my budget doesn't allow for a CNC mill, but it's good to have friends...

I'll be test fitting this piece later this week. Assuming all goes to plan the column passes through the large center hole and is retained by two set screws on the side. If anyone is interested in these PM me, I could put together a small production run for anyone transplanting aftermarket columns into early trucks.

 

[Well Sorted]

I know I keep telling this story but life and running the buisness really seem to get in the way of keeping this post updated. We got really busy in April getting ready for Cruise Moab and didn't put much time in on the truck that month. My major focus was getting the shop FJ60 ready which involved a full 80-series front end conversion and also installing the full floater rear in the truck. Mission accomplished - the show went well, the truck ran great out on the trails with the new coil spring setup and fun was had by all.

After we got back and caught our breath a bit, there were some long conversations with the owner on this build. He really liked what I did with my 60 and after some back and forth we hatched a plan to do the same on his 40. A bunch of emails to @beno, a couple big checks, and things just got interesting...

We haven't actually started the install yet, this is just a quick test fit. The new parts are all 70-series, the plan is to use as much factory hardware as possible. The front axle will be 70-series with 80-series parts from the knuckle balls outwards. The radius arms are the same between 70 and 80-series, and the rear mounts will modified from these 70 parts or full custom.

The rear suspension is going to stay leaf spring, we'll be doing a simple OME lift with a 60-series axle housing and pushing it back a bit to center the wheels in the opening.

 

[Well Sorted]

In the meantime, when I did get some time in on the truck it was mostly focused on interior prep. Being a 67 truck, there were a lot of holes in the dash for the 4WD and front axle controls.

Many of these are unnecessary now and we'll be doing custom switch gear to go with the Vintage Air system, new radio, lights, lockers, etc. We'll also be running the Dakota Digital dash so the indicators are unnecessary. To give us a clean slate I filled in all the holes...

I really like the look of this early dash with the stamped lines. I'm still deciding how best to arrange all the switch gear to compliment this design element and not make things look too cluttered. A few weeks after doing this work the owner made another strategic decision which will give me some extra options here - rather than keep the split bench he's opted to go with bucket seats and a center console. I'll use the console to house some of the switch gear so we can keep this dash looking as good as possible and highlight the original styling. Another couple orders went out to get seats and a console coming and we moved on to other areas.

 

[4x4veteran]

THE BEZEL!.. IS.. uh..missing. Other than that you are building a rig that instills envy in the rest of us...or maybe it's just me.
Very nice indeed!

 

[Well Sorted]

While waiting on suspension parts another few bits came in. We had previously designed two CNC brackets, one for the steering column mount as shown earlier in this thread. The second is to mount a hydroboost unit into an early truck with the straight firewall rib. The owner had decided he wanted power brakes and with the EGR pipe routing plus the stock rib design there's really no way to get a vacuum booster in the truck so this was the best solution. Here's the two adapters in raw form:

I called up the folks at Hyrdratech to discuss their FJ40 setup. Their system was developed for later model trucks so the firewall mount is a direct bolt in for those applications. The adapter on the right will bolt to the firewall and then the hydroboost unit will bolt to it. I ordered one up (and waited 8 weeks)...

Once the parts arrived it was time for a test fit. I chose the Wilwood master cylinder to go with the unit, I like the looks of it and there's a nice integrated prop valve bracket that will go with it. With it installed you can see everything is a tight fit but worked out as planned.

The R2.8 throttle is close but not too bad, kinda hard to see it all in the pictures. The tightest clearance is to the clutch master but there's still 1/4" or so of gap. If anyone is interested in this setup let me know, we can make a few more at any time.

 

[amico]

I am looking at the Hydro Tech Brake setup as well my tub is a 1964. I am assuming it will work on mine. How much for the Adapter Plate???
You can PM me if you like.
Also can you pull a dimension from the front of your frame to the center line of the motor mounts??? I am waiting on my engine to get here and I would like to prep my frame. Do you know how much distance you have from the front of engine to the backside of the Front Bib (radiator clearance)???

 

[Well Sorted]

I am looking at the Hydro Tech Brake setup as well my tub is a 1964. I am assuming it will work on mine. How much for the Adapter Plate???
You can PM me if you like.
Also can you pull a dimension from the front of your frame to the center line of the motor mounts??? I am waiting on my engine to get here and I would like to prep my frame. Do you know how much distance you have from the front of engine to the backside of the Front Bib (radiator clearance)???

Sorry for the delayed response, was on vacation. PM sent regarding hydroboost and frame dimensions...

 

[Will Van]

I've been thinking about an R2.8 install kit for FJ40's and I have an idea how I'll do this differently next time which would allow for simpler manufacturing and also for home builders to fairly easily install a whole cooling system including radiator, condenser and intercooler. I think this will be fine for this truck though.

Fantastic work!

I'd be interested in a kit. My main interests would be: Toyota H55F trans, Quick Draw Bellhousing, Weld-In Engine Mounts, Weld-In Trans Cross-member, Radiator/Condenser/Intercooler Assembly, Trans/T-Case in stock location (no driveshaft mods).

 

[Salem747]

Why did you go with the Hydraboost vs vacuum booster? size? Does it run off the PS pump?

 

[firestopper]

He would have to run a vacuum pump if he used a vacuum booster as diesels don't create vacuum.
Yes, the hydraboost uses power steering pressure to operate.