Acquiring a 1995/96 Omani Model 75 Troopy - have I gone mad? (1 Viewer)

[John Young]

So it's been a minute since I provided an update on this pretty nice truck. I've kept it registered and one of the big things I've wanted to change is to add a heater. Took me a good bit of time to find a heater box and related items, which I finally did from a RJ77 in the scrap yard. I actually bought the dashboard and everything under it from that poor old truck.

I asked the guys to strip out the dash last fall so I could put in the heater, which I wanted to do myself. Then lots of stuff happened and I'm just now getting back to it, and hopefully we will have it back together before too long. I will be pulling the front bumper off the troopy and putting it on Iota the pickup truck, which over the holidays donated its bumper and associated stuff to the diesel pickup in Virginia. It has been kind of a game of musical cruiser parts over the past few months...

I've found a shop that I want to have do the fitout, and the registration is coming due soon so I really have to get on it. I also hesitated several times about cutting the holes for the heater pipes, starting and stopping several times--the firewall was so pristine. And I had trouble locating a 35mm hole saw that would fit my drill. (I contemplated buying a new drill just for this but managed to find a very nice carbide hole saw at Dragon Mart for the equivalent of 4 USD.) Last night I bit the bullet and drilled the holes. Very difficult to measure and locate the holes and there is only one chance to get it right.

And it looks like a pretty good fit.

The grommets I will be using are angled and are also from the 75 series but because the heater box I got was from a 77 the pipes were close together instead of far apart.

 

[John Young]

So I've been diligently working on the Troopy, trying to get it in shape to take to have the inside outfitted and an awning installed.

I managed to get all three aircon boxes back in and was starting to hook up cables when I could not find the AC Amplifier. ToyoDIY says it is a 88650-80181. I hunted and hunted everywhere in the garage but could not find it. Finally I concluded it must have been thrown away by accident. So I took a Sunday afternoon trip to Sharjah to hunt around. I found quite a lot of 100 series and a lot of 80140, 80141 and 80150 amplifiers but no 80181 amplifiers. Google said that the ones I did find were for earlier diesel, so I bought a 140, 141 and a 150 intending to try each of them. Same connector and apparently the same function; all for 75 series trucks. I had to go to Sharjah to look for a thermistor anyways.

So today I was looking at the old dash and thinking maybe I might powdercoat the dashboard, and I turned over the dashboard and saw....

Not one, but TWO AC 80181 amplifiers. And an emission control module of some sort, and a relay. Given that there are two, I suspect that this troopy must have had a rear AC at some point, now long gone.

My powder coater also sent his driver this evening to deliver a bull bar which is going on the troopy, and pick up a very sturdy roof rack, also going on the troopy.

Really nice work. Some of the parts do have some rust pitting, but the finish is really very nice. And besides, it is functional. I am going to change out the steel cable on the winch for synthetic given that I have powdercoated the rollers on the fair lead.

And I've also decided to powder coat the metal on the dash board on the troopy and the pickup. I'm going to go for white on the troopy and silver on the pickup.

 

[John Young]

It may not look much different but it is:

The valve in the evaporator has two possible connectors--probably because this truck left the factory with two evaporators. Not sure which one needs to be used but I will find out.

The AC system is ready to be hooked back up, vacuumed down and recharged.

And the main point of this exercise, a heater installation turned out looking pretty good, I think.

 

[JuanJ]

Hello,

Repair Manual RM183E is your friend to check the rear AC setup.





Juan

 

[c2dfj45]

Where does the rear AC unit go in a Troopy.....an OEM one? In the roof or something or in a side? I've only seen the really weird aftermarket setups.

 

[John Young]

Repair Manual RM183E is your friend to check the rear AC setup.

I don't actually have any of the components for the rear AC other than the amplifier module. For the moment I am not going to worry about it.

 

[John Young]

I'm getting ready to put the dash back in. I decided to try powder coating the dash components. First we tried it without sandblasting. Part turned out really nice.

But where it had had multiple coatings of something, not so much.

So now we are sandblasting before powder coating.

No rippling that I can see....

I'm actually doing two at once. One for the pickup and one for the troopy. I decided to go with off white for the troopy for something a little different.

 

[John Young]

Today I went to Sharjah and found a couple of steel radiator grills

And when I dropped them off at the powder coater, I picked up the dash for the troopy

It will be interesting to see how it looks with all the bits installed. I thought it would be fun to try it in white.

 

[John Young]

It was a nice day here in the UAE. I took a drive to Hatta to take a look at an 80 series parts car. Condition was poor but the drive was nice. I got back and did a little prep work on the Troopy's daah.

I found that the Rockford Fosgate 4" speakers fit nicely and can use the factory mounting clip.

The factory speakers have a little ring that kind of acts like a seal to the metal

I think I can duplicate that with some of the HVAC foam tape I have been using.

Seems to seal pretty closely. Tomorrow I will put on the factory pigtail for the speaker.

I have to say it is a real pleasure to be working with a nice clean and newly coated dashboard.

 

[John Young]

I think the white dash is going to look very nice. I got a bunch of plastic bits from the scrap yard in Sharjah yesterday and I'm experimenting with painting them.

I think some grey semi-gloss will work better than the matte black for the back of the cluster housing.

I did find a serviceable but not perfect pad yesterday. Better than what was on it, And good enough for now, I think.

It is nice to finally see things going back together. And I do think the white dash will look good.

 

[John Young]

Lots of stuff have happened in the past couple of weeks. The dash is mostly in and I've started the truck for the first time in most of a year. It ran nicely. What I did not realize that the power steering pump was out of it (having been borrowed for Iota the pickup and the replacement not installed. I ran the truck for about a minute before seeing a giant puddle on the floor. I thought I might have run it dry but the oil level looks ok.

Anyhoo....

I took a break until the mechanics get the PS pump back in and the AC charged so I can see the results. I'm planning to have this truck kitted out with simple camping cabinetry, so I really want to get this truck out of the warehouse. But I have to wait.

So instead I worked on the roof rack which is back from the powder coaters, as are he clamps. After a lot of measuring I determined that I needed to put spacers in above the clamps so there would be no chance of the roof rack impacting the roof under load or bouncing conditions. Ended up using stainless steel pipe fittings of all things for the spacers.

Here are a few photos:

The blue pole shows approximately where the edge of the roof of the troopy goes. Height-wise, it would have just cleared the roof but under load? Maybe not.

It is interesting to compare this roof rack with the one in the background that came on Janyyc's 'Ali'. It is a whole lot lighter but it is all bolted and riveted together with a lot of aluminum extrusions, and honestly not all that stiff or confidence-inspiring. Could be cool to powder coat in multiple colors (e.g., black and white) after taking it apart. Whereas the troopy\s rack is welded steel and really stiff (and heavy). Janyyc ought to watch out or maybe those sweet sand/snow/mud treads may flop over and be mounted on the troopy's roof... Janyyc reused the clamps from his original roof rack for his current setup, so right now it is sort of orphaned.

 

[John Young]

Finally, after many months, the troopy is back on the road. I spent most of the weekend putting in and taking out the dashboard to get the routing of the cables right. The good news is that I am learning something each time, and it will come in handy on the pickups. Tonight, exhausted, I took the old boy for a spin, and between the new carb and the new and clean aircon I am pretty pleased.

There is still stuff to do, but I have the wiring done for the new head unit and some trim. There is one bracket I can't seem to figure out where to put, but the FSM should clear that up.

Unfortunately, I miscalculated and the roof rack brackets are too short. I did not realize how much the center of the roof rises. Probably just as well. When I was driving the troopy around the block several times it did feel top heavy. I will probably put the rack on an 80 instead. It is a very nice rack, but steel and heavy. If anyone can suggest brackets for a troopy, however, I would be interested. I will do a search of the forum when I'm a little less bushed.

 

[coldtaco]

I remember reading about rack feet length for a troopy but can’t remember, maybe 6 or 8in ?

 

[John Young]

Weird thing happened a couple of night ago. I put it in reverse and it went for a couple of feet and then stopped dead. Felt like the rear end had locked up. I asked the mechanic to look at it; not sure if he did. It was in a very akward position--just outside the door of the warehouse it normally lives in:

What to do? If it can't go in reverse there is no way to get it out of the warehouse once it goes in....

But today when I put it in neutral I was able to push it back.

I had a talk with Mud's own CruiserMatt about the weird experience of not being able to reverse. Matt suggested that it might be pinion gear in the rear differential that is somehow loose and able to move in a position that then locks the differential. That actually was what it felt like.

As I was able to drive the troopy today and I asked a friend to come and listen to the rear end while I drove. I had been listening carefully to the amount of noise that the rear differential was making and it really does make a lot more noise than any differential that I've ever dealt with--but I was not really sure. The back of the troopy is a little bit like the inside of a drum. The sound was not grindy exactly but definitely not a nice smooth running sort of sound. My friend immediately said that it did not sound right.

They may also have to go into the half shafts. It also is a full floating rear axle. I noticed that both hubs are leaking a little bit. Leaking what looks like gear oil. That suggests to me maybe the seals are bad too.

...the truck had been sitting for the better part of a year.

 

[Felde]

Mhmm. Old cars have a bit of their own miracles.
You are doing a great job on this rig. Although there is a bit of a set back right now: Keep the spirit up!
Grab your favorite drink and look at it a bit. It looks great . That should bring back some motivation to carry on...
Cheers Ralf

 

[AirheadNut]

If the pinion is that loose I would expect there to be gear oil leaking out around the pinion seal; that might be an indicator.

 

[John Young]

I've been pretty bad about updating things on the Omani here. Short answer is I have been consumed with some other projects, but in the last month or so I had to get busy on the Troopy because it failed inspection--the tires were too old. Which is a shame because they were in very good shape. I took the opportunity to change the rims on the truck--I am not a huge fan of the OEM steel rims with the D-shaped holes.

More than a year ago I had picked up a set of 5 alloy rims off of a prado or a pickup, I think. They had a nice smooth look and were silver.

They looked good but when closely examined....

They were not cleaning up easily and the factory coating was coming off. I made the decision to send them to the powdercoater
They first went for sand blasting

I was hoping for something a little more silver and less grey but they did turn out very nicely

 

[John Young]

Then it was time to pick some new rubber. I went with a narrower tire this time because I like the look on the 70 series. Some nice Yokohamas

I like that in this size with this width rim they are fairly 'square'

The old tire is on the front, the new tire is on the rear

 

[Greek Cruiserhead]

Nice Yokos, what size did you choose?

 

[John Young]

Nice Yokos, what size did you choose?

235/85R16

I paid 655 AED per tire which is 180 USD, installation, balancing and delivery included. 2022 date code too, which is important here because you fail inspection if your tires are more than 5 years old.