72 FJ55 Buildup thread

[cruiserbrett]

Sorry for being lazy about posting up what I have been doing. Lotsa little projects, anything to keep me from having to start the dreaded bodywork. I like painting, but dread doing sheetmetal work, so I have been keeping busy with other stuff.

This FJ55 isnt complete without a PTO winch, so I dug around in my pile of parts to find a disassembled, but 90% complete PTO winch I had gotten in trade from Rick D years ago... basically a box of parts. It needs the drain plug area repaired, so the gear case housing is off at the machine shop getting re-tapped for a larger plug. In the mean time I cleaned the rest of it up, set aside some parts that needed sand blasting and painted those that were clean. I swear most of what a PTO winch rebuild consists of is simply cleaning out clay like ancient grease.

NAPA carries the correct seals for the main shaft and the worm shaft, so I got those.

Main shaft seal: NAPA 14753 58mm x 38mm x 11mm

Worm shaft seal: NAPA 11136 43mm x 28mm x 7mm

Gear case side cover gasket: 38121-60010 (dont know if its still avail. if not I will make it out of gasket
paper)

I also cut up the winch driveshaft since I knew I would be lengthening it, and certainly removing the horrible splicing jobs someone did in the past. Tubing measures 25mm OD, 20.35mm ID. So, you can use 1.00" OD, 0.95 wall DOM tube. You will need to turn the tube ID larger, to make an interference fit on the end pieces of the winch, which measure 21.05mm... so I would turn the ID to measure 21.00mm and you should be able to tap in the end pieces, true them up and weld it up.

The U-joints weren't in horrible shape, mostly covered in age old grease and dirt. They use a simple O-ring as a seal. The cross diameter measures 10.8 mm, and the ID of the O-ring seat in the cap measures 14.9mm, so I am going to try to order 10mm ID, 15mm OD O-rings to see if they fit with enough squish to create a good seal.

 

[cruiserbrett]

Pics of the winch project

 

[cruiserbrett]

Rear axle time!

I have had this FF rear sitting around since dragging it back from Australia in 2001(I was on a Navy deployment and my first stop was to find a land cruiser parts place once we arrived in Oz. They happened to have an early FF for sale, and shipping was free-dragged it onboard the ship for the ride home. The Commanding Officer saw it and wasn't happy, but I explained that everyone else gets to buy rugs and other trinket crap from around the globe, what was wrong with a rear axle? He lightened up and told me "dont buy other large car parts")

Well, its been collecting dust, and I was going to stick it under the FJ45, but I sold that truck.

I wanted to convert it to discs, and tinkered with it years ago, and cut up mini-truck knuckles to act as caliper brackets, sourced some dust shield and hubs from a mini-truck and then ran into the issue regarding the fact that the hubs were shorter... got some custom 300m axleshafts made that are 30 spline on both ends and will use a drive flange as the attachment to the studs.

Got it all cleaned up, and started getting things ready to assemble. Put new out hub seals on, ordered new rotors, wheel bearings were good, and will flare new brake hard lines to run from the junction to the calipers. Still havent decided if I am going to use a short hose on the outboard end to allow for easy removal of the calipers for maintenance but I am leaning that way.

 

[Eric Ellis]

Just WOW!

 

[cruiserbrett]

more pics of winch progress...

Took a little patience today. Got the main gear casing back, cleaned it up and painted in with the Hammerite smooth black, which I really am growing to like!

After paint dried, I set the worm gear pre load, and marked shims and removed the worm gear. Installed the main shaft seal, and greased the shaft and seal lightly for assembly. Slid the gear/shaft into the housing, and got the worm gear in place. then put the indian head sealant on the marked shims, and installed the worm gear end plates and torqued down. Dont get ahead of yourself and install the mainshaft end cover just yet.

Now it was time to spatula as much grease as I could into the drum reservior, which took a surprising amount. Slide the drum on the shaft, and put a rag over the open end of the bore, to keep as much grease in the drum as possible while sliding on. Once its seated, and extra grease that inevitably gets squeezed out is cleaned up, its time to slide the woodruff key spacer ring on and install the woodruff keys. Now you may need to tap the main shaft away from the gear casing to get the woodruff keys into the slots, which is why you dont why want to install the end plate yet. Once the keys are in(make sure there is not any grease in the key grooves or it wont fully seat). Time to test slide the dog clutch. Once its sliding easily, install the outer woodruff key spacer.

I had to do some serious work on the outer frame and shift lever since it was completely frozen in the frame... Heat and force worked, and I sandblasted the parts and got them freed up. WARNING: if you use heat to break free the grips of rust on the engagement shift handle shaft, be sure not to heat the spring up!!! IT WILL LOOSE TENSION... I happened to have a spare spring and end frame so I had to pirate the spring... OOPS.

Part of getting the engagement lever apart required drilling out the damn pin that holds the lower shaft on the upper detent handle. that was a pain, and impossible to get the drill centered. Thanks to the local machine shop in helping out and letting me drill and taper it for a new tapered pin!!! Still need to assemble that tomorrow.

Up next: Cleaning, painting and assembling the roller fairlead and making a new front frame for the winch out of 1/4" angle iron... since the old one was not present in the box of parts I got, or maybe I just lost it?

 

[cruiserbrett]

End casing seal installed that I mentioned above

 

[ChuckB]

Wow! Great write-up. You're making me feel like I'm neglecting my 55.

I'm planning on moving back to SD in late August, we'll have to meet up!

 

[cruiserbrett]

Let me know when you are back in SD! I only see a very few piggies around.

Got more work on the winch done. Made the new front frame mount out of 2.5" x 1/4" angle iron. Required cutting one side down with a cut off wheel in the grinder, to a height of 1-7/8"... Actually came out pretty straight, and I decided I wasnt going to head down the Kenyon Machine and machine it straight. this is going to be a working winch, not a restoration, so it was good enough.

I also got some 3/16" wall rect. tube to make the missing engagement lever detent hole mount thing? Wasnt too bad, used the grinder and cut it out of the tube. Will drill the holes once I get the winch assembled...

Also, decided to make some case supports for the winch, since the mounting ear on the front had repaired stripped threads. Copied "island45"'s mounting idea, and used more of the tube to cut out pieces. Used the corners of the tube for the 90 degrees. extended them to the angle iron supports, and got some good welds on them. So, hopefully it will prevent any catasrophic winching casualties.

Still need to machine some Delrin rollers, since I am going to run synthetic winch line on the winch. McMaster.com has Delrin stock in the 1.25" OD, so time to order some up and machine them up.

 

[cruiserbrett]

Last pic of the gearcase supports

 

[cruiserbrett]

Waiting on paint to dry for the PTO winch so I rebuilt a 78 distributor in stock form(will go to JimC) for recurve, and also rebuilt and modified another 78 distributor for a future 3FE/GM ECM conversion I am planning on doing. Going to get it running and drive it for a while with the carb'ed motor, but planning on building a 2FE/GM computer engine for it in the future, so I got way ahead of myself and built the TBI conversion distributor...

I started with a trashed 78 distributor, that was rusty and the shaft barley turned. This particular distributor had slop where the pin holds the drive gear to the shaft, and it was probably 4-5 degrees at the distributor, which would 8-10 degrees at the crank. Not Good.

since this was a problem, I chose to drill out the pin, and replace it, to remove the slack it had. Once I got the pin drilled, I pulled apart the distributor, and pulled the shaft, cleaned up the distributor, and got ready for the TBI conversion...

I removed the centrifugal advance weights, and tried to figure a way to secure the reluctor(star wheel) shaft to the main shaft. I did not want to tack weld it, as I try not to permanently modify parts, so I came up with the idea of safety wiring the pins that have the weights and springs. I had some .040" stainless safety wire I used on my boat, and it worked great. bend the wire in a U, pull tight against the pin to shape the wire to the pin, put a few twists in it before the second pin, wrap around the second pin and twist until the slack is gone. Did this twice on the main pins, and a simplified version on the small stopper pin.

There is no play whatsoever in the two shafts, so i feel it will be fine. you could bend the pins over before the wire breaks if you tightened it up too much so I doubt it will break all three. Also since stainless, its not going to rust and fall off either. I still need to get a 6mm dowel pin to pin the gear back on the shaft, but they arent to hard to find at a good hardware place, although they are discontinued from toyota.

Moved on to the breaker plate and the pickup unit. Since this distributor had a bad pickup, I needed to get another. A trip to the parts store shocked me that the pickups were $145!!! Not going to pay that. With some help from the parts guy at the counter, I discovered that the pickup from a 81 cressida was exactly the same with the exception of the rubber grommet, and only cost $32 at kragen. You will need to trim the grommet(to fit the round hole), and pull off the plastic connector housing to get it installed but is easy. Even the plug is the same. Fitment on the breaker plate is identical.

Next, I needed to figure a way to lock the breaker plate down since I wasnt going to be using the vacuum advance canister. Came up with a sorta "L shaped piece of sheetmetal and drilled the holes to hold it to the breaker plate retainer screw, and the two screws that hole the pickup to the breaker plate.

Lastly, and I dont have a pic of it now, but there is now a leftover hole to fill where the vacuum advance canister once resided. A simple brass freeze plug solved that problem... Tap it into place with a little sealant on it, and youre done.

Hope this helps!

Kragen part number for Niehoff pickup is: WA936C

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Very cool Brett, somehow I missed this thread... I wear this thread is the most written words I've seen written from you in last few years in any one place Nice to meet you the other day and I *love* that you and Martinin (affectionately known as "Tizity") are hanging out! DRE

 

[n2666s]

Brett; the PTO is looking great, BTW, you have disks in front; and you are going to install a 2F; do you have the single circuit unboosted brake master?......

Lou

 

[cruiserbrett]

Brett; the PTO is looking great, BTW, you have disks in front; and you are going to install a 2F; do you have the single circuit unboosted brake master?......

Lou

Lou, thank for the compliments, its a slow process on the winch, since it was missing parts here and there. I still have to make the delrin rollers, but once thats done I can do final assembly.

As for the discs, it is drum now, but going to get mini truck knuckles, spindles, hubs, FJ60 rotors, and about 95 T100 front calipers(larger pistons all around-better balance with the rear calipers being stock land cruiser fronts-so I wanted to ensure I had more braking effort fwd, so that the proportioning valve would be more for fine tuning.)

For the firewall, my truck is late enough that it has a booster already.

Noah's (1973Guppie) 70 doesnt have a booster, and I think he is going to end up swapping part of the firewall to make room for a booster. I cut up a 75 and saved the LH firewall area for that reason.

On my FJ45, I did not run a booster, but I did run discs, with an adapter plate(I made it from two pieces of 3/8" plate steel) which allowed a 4 bolt dual circuit master to bolt to the 3 bolt firewall. It wasnt boosted, but with careful planning, and picking the correct bore and calipers(piston diameters) it worked great. More pedal effort than a boosted rig, but no where near what a boosted rig feels like with an entirely non functioning booster.

 

[n2666s]

Brett.........love the look of an original PTO...it inspires me to keep on looking for onehaving to figure out how to go with disks on a 69 with 2F engine with minimal /no clearance for a booster.......again thanks for all the pointers and pix;

Lou

 

[Trollhole]

Brett.........love the look of an original PTO...it inspires me to keep on looking for one
Lou

Lou I know this feeling. If your looking for some PTO part I have the t-case box and the lever.

Brett I wish I had your skill. ALways leaning new tricks when doing a resto.

 

[cruiserbrett]

Brett I wish I had your skill. ALways leaning new tricks when doing a resto.

Skill? or retarded, often OCD, desire to make things work and look as close to new as possible. Sometimes I will spend way too much time doing something that wont matter to anyone else. Its a sickness, that's for sure. I spent probably two full weekends on the winch alone...and I still need to machine the new delrin rollers for the synthetic winchline I am going to use.

Anyway, got the winch to the point it needs only rollers and final assembly, and the brake pad for the clutch lever. PS: DONT loose the screws that hold the brake lining on the spring loaded brake lever! (at least on the early PTO's-I think this one is 64-65 vintage) They are 5mm x .9mm thread pitch which is no where to be found. I suppose you could run a lock nut behind a opened up hole...

Case supports are done, made the plate that the clutch lever dent knob rides on, and finished the painting and rough assembly. Its amazing how easily the drum turns, the worm gear turns the drum, and the clutch lever slides when all the clay like grease is gone and new high quality wheel bearing grease is lubing everything.

 

[n2666s]

aha!, looks like you used the "red" Lucas grease......expensive but soo nice.......makes me drool about putting a PTO winch on "rusty" congrats Brett;

Lou

 

[1973Guppie]

looks sweet dude......

 

[cruiserbrett]

More stuff, tedious stuff.

I wanted to tear the PTO driveshaft down to sand blast it, and put new o-rings in the u-joints and prep for re-assembly(not in the near future, since I have to build and measure the drive train first.)

Getting the u-joints out was a complete pain in the ass. the snap rings were rusted in the grooves, and almost all of them broke... tried prying, tapping etc, with no luck. got out the dremel with a carbide bit, and notched the center of the remaining "C" and then tapped one side with a flat blade screw driver. All of them bent down and allowed me to pull out the remains.

After that, it was time to get the remaining stubborn u-joint caps out. I was able to pound the caps out enough to have the cross out of one of the caps, so I found a handful of small washers that I piled carefully in the cap. Then compress the cross against the cap and hold the washers and flip the yoke over. Placed it on my makeshift u-joint removal tool, and used a socket that is larger than the OD of the cap. Tapped the caps out. Used a punch to remove the last cap after the cross is out.

Pillow block was not in bad shape, but the bearing was less than not good. Used my big OTC puller to disassemble the pillow block and short shaft. Removed the bolt holding the yoke on, and pulled the yoke.
Grabbed my seal remover and pulled the felt seal and retainer. There is a snap ring holding the bearing in, so remove that, and tap the out housing off the bearing. Used the puller and removed the bearing easily.

Last up was the damn slip yoke that mounts to the PTO gearbox flange. Its splined and *supposed* to account for frame flex, but there was NO way this thing was moving. I had to put an incredible amount of preload on it in the puller, and heat it up for 15 minutes to even get it budge. Finally it started moving, finally yeilded to the power of the OTC puller.

 

[cruiserbrett]

Last few pics...