..And so it begins.... my BJ40 frame off restoration

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

The now debinged filter fit nicely inside of the OEM head. BTW the head is designed so that the top of the head can be removed from the bottom by means of popping four sets of tabs. This allows you to service the filter without having to remove the entire head from the snorkle.
IMGP1805.webp
IMGP1806.webp
 
Volcano cruiser said:
One on saturday I was shown an email from Toyota central in Japan to the dealership telling them that they would no longer be manufacturing or sending over parts for the B engine. The dealership was instructed to return any deposits that it was holding for any special order item related to the B engine. As such I found out there was no OEM sir filtration system to be had here.
Click to expand...

Wtf? That smells fishy to me...
 
fitment:

By this time I was fully lulled into a false sense of this is a snap euphoria. I took my newly assembled/filtered head out to place onto the snorkel. First the opening at the base of the head is just a few millimeters wider than the 3" SS snorkle. This was great in that the head dropped right onto the snorkel. The bad news was that the head just sat there atop the SS snorkel loosely.

I tried to tighten the head down using the steel o ring but the plastic that the head is made out of is too tough to compress. I decided to fill the space around the bottom of the head opening with some weatherstrip that I have in the box full of replacement bolts etc for after the rig is broken down sanded and painted. The problem now is that the head/weatherstrip is now too tight to slide over the snorkel.

I decided to pull the snorkel head break it back down and cut two expansion joints in the base. My theory was that if I cut two slots in the base it could flex out a bit to slide down over the snorkel with the weatherstrip intact for a good seal and then be flexible enough to be tightend down with the 0 ring clamp.
IMGP1807.webp
IMGP1809.webp
IMGP1810.webp
 
After sanding and painting the cuts I put the head back together and slid in the weatherstrip. I proceeded over to the snorkel for the moment of truth...
IMGP1817.webp
 
hmmmm that looks verrry familiar :)

I would have driven one down :)
 
The head slid right down nice and snug over the snorkel and tightened down just as I had hoped. I couldn't be more pleased with the nice clean look of my new OEM SS snorkel. :D

A word about the mounting. I was very specific that I wanted to use the lower windshield hinge bolts as the upper mounting point/ along with the lower bracket this thing really is rock solid while retaining the ability to fold down the windshield.

Next up in the build, the LED light mod followed by the 60 series power steering install.
Thanks,
John

P.S. Here are some of the pre-snorkel pics that made me decide to go ahead with this mod now before the rainy season sets in and the water in the rivers gets REALLY high:grinpimp:
midwatercross1.webp
midwatercross2.webp
midwatercross4.webp
 
These were taken during a weekend round up of five clubs from Guatemala and our local club here in El Sal. camping and running routes over sand, rock and through water up near the Honduran border. Good times.
Citalaroundup.webp
 
It's looking great, two comments, not trying to be critical, just passing on some trial and error stuff that I found on my own...the lower bracket of the snorkel, I found that I had to have two, otherwise if you hit the elbow, the snorkel tends to twist, it will pull out the side panel...on mine I have 5 bolts, one in the windshield hinge, and two each on the two lower brackets...

You might also want to look at the height, I tried to stay just below the roof line, to protect the snorkle head, and it gives me a better sense of where it is when in close quarters, I can see the head from the driver's seat...

the finish looks really good, and I like the top :)
 
These fellas didn't make the last water crossing. The scary thing for me, the reecovery diver actually had swim goggles in his recovery bag! Never fear we never leave anybody behind. we goit these guys up and running again about 90 minutes later. Cheers
IMGP1766.webp
IMGP1767.webp
rescuediver.webp
 
Last edited:
Zekester said:
hmmmm that looks verrry familiar :)

I would have driven one down :)
Click to expand...

It should look familiar, it was your brainstorm hence I give you all the props "Zekster inspired SS snorkel". I gotta say this thing is solid as a rock and so simple in concept and execution if you have a guy with the right equipment . Thank you.
 
Zekester said:
It's looking great, two comments, not trying to be critical, just passing on some trial and error stuff that I found on my own...the lower bracket of the snorkel, I found that I had to have two, otherwise if you hit the elbow, the snorkel tends to twist, it will pull out the side panel...on mine I have 5 bolts, one in the windshield hinge, and two each on the two lower brackets...

You might also want to look at the height, I tried to stay just below the roof line, to protect the snorkle head, and it gives me a better sense of where it is when in close quarters, I can see the head from the driver's seat...

the finish looks really good, and I like the top :)
Click to expand...

Funny that you mentioned that about the height. When it was installed I did not have the head to get any sense of final height. I have been debating myself for the last week over whether or not to trim it down about 3-4 inches to get it closer to the roof line. My mechanic observed that now he thinks the engine is running better possibly because it is getting fed more dense cooler air from that height. I have hit a couple of tree branches already and everything remains snug but I'm still thinking about it. Point well taken.

As to the brackets after they were all welded they tried the setup on the rig for fit. The 5'3" helper mechanic was able to hang on the bottom below the elbow and nothing moved or twisted. However I can see your point if anything got in between the body and snorkel at the right angle. I had decided to redo the brackets to make them approx 1/2" longer, as in away from the body so to have full clearance to drop the windshield. I 'll have him lengthen both brackets then. Good points. Thanks.
 
As you can see the base of the bulbs are exactly the same as the stock bulbs. There is no need to modify or piddle with them in any way, just pop the old bulb out and the new bulb in.
HOWEVER, when I ordered the bulbs I followed the list exactly like a good dooby. The list however omits one critical piece of the puzzle, an upgraded electronic flasher. To be fair Marshall(Trollhole) mentioned the flasher but I didn't catch that he was referring to this:

Flasher Specifications

Just read the info on the site carefully regarding the conversion from incandescent to LED. One thing that you will note when you read carefully however is that they do not say exactly which flasher will replace the stock one in your cruiser and work. I asked at the Toyota dealership and they recommended a brand called Tridon. My mechanic suggested that I go with the Tridon EP 35 as that is what he uses in his 4runner and so it should be close. So that is what I went with.
IMGP1830.webp
3154ZPB89XL._SL500_AA235_.webp
 
The key difference between the round bimetallic flasher that was stock and the electronic flasher is the presence on the electronic flasher of a third foot/pin. Instead of just the load on one foot/pin and the 12v in on the other , the electronic flasher adds a third foot/pin which is a ground. (FYI the word in Spanish for those pins is the same as an animal's foot "pata". Again just an added dimension of doing this overseas in a different language) So if you still have stock wiring, the blue/green and orange/green wires drop onto their respective feet/pins. You will then need to make a ground wire up for the third foot/pin. The little bracket that comes with the flasher was perfect. I grabbed my trusty dremel tool and drilled a pilot hole into the skinny end of the bracket. Cut a 4 inch piece of wire and crimped a spade connector on the end that had to connect to the flasher and an eye connector on the other end. I then popped a self tapping screw though the eye connector and the bracket hole and into the sheet metal in the place where the stock fuse block used to be. I then connected the ground wire up to the third foot/pin and ran a test. all normal lights worked fine but with a noticeable flash rate change. Now it is really fast, not quite strobe like but much faster than the OEM flasher.
IMGP1834.webp
IMGP1835.webp
IMGP1836.webp
 
Last edited:
Now pop in the bulbs. I would suggest doing the pop in in groups and testing as you go before you button everything back up. So left tail light assembly, all three bulbs replaced and test then right side and so on. Depending on the peculiarities of your rigs electrics this where there may be some variance. This flasher did work for me and should work for you but no guarantees. Luckily they only cost $14.00 so if you need to take it back and swap it out for another no big deal. Once you have tested all the outside lights time to move inside. These have a different bases but trust the list they drop right into place.
IMGP1826.webp
IMGP1827.webp
 
John, reading on your snorkel install got me wondering about the availability of OEM snorkels for a '60 series? Any chance of checking that out when you're by the dealer?
 
followed the same bulb replacement protocol inside that I did outside and here it made a difference. The big backlights dropped in fine and tested fine, the high beam did as well but when I replaced the instrument cluster turn signal bulbs, no more flashy inside or out. I tried spinning around the bulbs to see if I had them in wrong but no dice. So I pulled just the turn signal bulbs and went back to the incandescent ones and everything was fine.

I want to also say I had extra bulbs at the end. I suspect that Marshall has all of his factory dash lights in place and some of mine just aren't there. So I have a few extra bulbs and now an entire set of spare bulbs for the car.

Over all I think the result is hard to see in pics with my c-r-a-ptastic photography but obvious in person. I think that this is a mod well worth doing.
John
 
cruiser_guy said:
John, reading on your snorkel install got me wondering about the availability of OEM snorkels for a '60 series? Any chance of checking that out when you're by the dealer?
Click to expand...

Charles,
It is the same part number for the 40, 60, 70 series and the Coaster busses. So they do still make them and they can be ordered under that part number. If I'm not mistaken the Toyota dealership chain in Guat is owned by the same family as here and the rest of Cent Am. As I understand it the one that I bought actually came from the inventory of their branch in Guat. So same p/n and should be available from the same dealer. Just the same as when you get better results buying car parts here if you bring in "una muestra" aka sample aka the old part being replaced I think that I had luck because I printed out the blown up diagram page from the toyodiy aka the EPC. I circled the precleaner assy air in red and then there was no denying that it was the right part number or that the part did not exist. According to the parts guy, they maybe out of stock now in Cent Am and you may have to special order it through them from Japan. He said it takes about 45 days to get to this side of the world.
John
John
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom