Not much happening on the Prado over the past couple of weeks, between hot weather and being out of town I haven't gotten the chance to work on it until the last couple of days. Started in on the mounts for the intercooler heat exchanger last night, I found some heavy nylon clips that are just the right size to hold the top and bottom tanks of the Smart Car radiator. It fits nicely between the AC condenser and radiator, but the core support will need to be trimmed back just a bit to clear the top tank.
The lower outlet just clears the frame:
Finished up installing the 3D printed intake adapter, used a bit of sealant to assist the o-ring as suggested by the guy that made it, then clamped it lightly to cure overnight.
This evening I finally added some stiffening to my bead roller, it worked ok before but I had to clamp some heavy angle across the throat when beading intake tubing. The additional material has made it a lot heavier but worked a treat.
There was just enough clearance over the bench to clear the bead roller handle and swing the entire intake tube off the other end.
Both coolant pipes are installed on the engine, the bleed port on the upper radiator pipe just barely clears the intake tube but should work.
The radiator outlet points the wrong way, so I'll probably cut it off and and reorient it.
Not quite Prado related but we had record breaking heat across much of Montana last weekend, so my brother and I decided to head for the mountains to gain some elevation and hopefully escape the heat wave. Since my Prado is still very much under the knife we took his HDJ81. The road to our chosen campsite turned out to be a lot rougher than expected, but the 81 pulled through with flying colors. One hill required all three diff locks but otherwise it walked up every obstacle.
We camped next to a little alpine lake at nearly 9000', the bugs were pretty nasty but it was a lot cooler than the 95º-105ºF back in town. We climbed a mountain, explored a few abandoned mines, and hung out around the campfire.
Hot and muggy today, I didn't feel like welding the heat exchanger support or coolant pipes so I focused mostly on wiring. Spent most of the afternoon digging through diagrams and tearing the dash apart trying to find a couple of wires that used to go to the original ECU. In doing so I discovered the jumper that was added for daytime running lights, presumably so the Prado would pass muster in Canada.
I deleted the jumper, was never a fan of the DRL's since it was just the headlights on low beam whenever the ignition was on. Unfortunately whoever installed it butchered the job, I'll probably have to cut and splice the wires to get it fixed.
The engine harness is almost entirely integrated into the vehicle at this point, I need to hook up one ignition wire and one ground and it should be good to go. Just some tidying up of the harness behind the glovebox left.
Small progress over the past couple of evenings. I got an aluminum 1/8"NPT plug, ground the anodizing off it and welded it to the top half of the air filter housing.
With a hole drilled through the middle it made the perfect threaded bung for the Donaldson Informer.
Next up was modifying the upper coolant pipe. It originally had a sharp 90º bend at the end and it needed to be straight. The bend started back behind the beginning of the mounting bracket, so I cut it off as close as possible and gas welded a few inches of 1.25" tubing on. The weld isn't the prettiest but there was no way I could have fit the TIG torch in behind the bracket.
The thermostat housing interferes with the lower coolant manifold, so it needed to be shortened. I cut about 1/2" out of it but it still needs a little trimming before I weld it back together.
A set of EGR delete plates arrived in the mail, when I went to install them I realized I had misplaced the o-ring and gasket. A thorough cleaning of the box truck seems to be in order. I had to check fitment regardless, of course.
I was able to finish up the harness connector for the OBD port and throttle pedal. The extra wires hanging out are a couple of grounds, the CAN-Bus loom, and the coolant temp sensor wires.
Heat exchanger mount tabs and lower bracket welded on to the radiator. The plastic clips are meant for storing oars or something similar on boats, they turned out to be the perfect size for the Smart Car radiator and hold it nice and snug.
Got the radiator assembly bolted in place for a test fitting, looks like there is ample clearance to the AC condenser. Just need to trim the core support a bit and it should be good to go.
Got the core support trimmed to clear the heat exchanger.
There was quite a bit of rust underneath where it bolts on, so I wire brushed it and gave it a couple of coats of rust converter. It will get a couple of coats of paint tomorrow.
The mounting points on the vehicle got the same treatment.
With the radiator assembly pretty much wrapped up the next logical task to tackle was the fan shroud. It just needs new mounting tabs and probably some new paint. Bent up a couple of sheet metal angles that will get spot welded to the shroud.
This evening's progress: the fan shroud is ready for paint. Rather than do continuous brackets down each side for mounting I decided to cut them down into four individual brackets. The rusty spots got a couple of coats of rust converter, I'll paint the shroud tomorrow evening weather permitting.
A thunderstorm passed through this evening and left quite a breeze, so I wasn't comfortable painting the portion of the core support in the engine bay, but I did manage to get a few coats on the center part. Not thrilled about it being black but I knew I wouldn't be able to match the factory brown color.
Made some progress on the engine bay wiring, need to add in the harnesses for the lift pump and intercooler pump, otherwise the engine harness is done. Battery cables, alternator cable and grounds are all that are left after that.
Mounted the radiator assembly and fan shroud, dug through my box of random radiator hoses and found one that looks just right to connect the coolant pipe to the radiator inlet. I'll need to alter the angle of the coolant pipe, but that should be pretty easy. Pretty sure that hose is the original upper rad hose from the 2L-TE.
Ordered some 304 stainless exhaust tubing to build a downpipe, but I failed to measure the turbo outlet v-band and ended up with the wrong size. This is a 3.5" tight radius 90º, a 3.5" to 3" reducer, and 3" flex coupling. Turns out I only needed 3" parts, so another order is on the way. I'll probably start fabbing up the downpipe this weekend.
Pretty much all of the tubing I welded on to the upper coolant pipe had to be cut off again to get an upward angle that would mate up with the upper radiator hose. I chopped up some of the old coolant pipes to get the barbed end and the bend.
I slapped a coat of paint on the welded end before realizing it still needed a bung for the coolant temp sensor for the fan controller. That will be added tomorrow once the paint is cured so it doesn't make as much of a mess when I grind it off.
Finally started on the lift pump install. The pump is for an old Chevy 6.2 diesel, it uses M16x1.5 o-ring fittings. In order to adapt those to a 5/16" (8mm) barb it required an o-ring to -6AN adapter, followed by a -6AN to 5/16" barb.
To mount the pump I just drilled and tapped two M5x0.8 holes in the frame crossmember just in front of the fuel tank.
So much messing about to get it right but you're getting closer!
I remember when I did my exhaust - it took me four weeks of waiting/measuring/ ordering, and then sending some pieces back before I got it where I wanted... I came to realize that those flex pieces are a metallurgical miracle.
So much messing about to get it right but you're getting closer!
I remember when I did my exhaust - it took me four weeks of waiting/measuring/ ordering, and then sending some pieces back before I got it where I wanted... I came to realize that those flex pieces are a metallurgical miracle.
Isn't that the truth! Sometimes I think I'm being too picky about getting things just right but it will be worth it in the end. Will be interesting to see how the exhaust goes, I've never TIG welded stainless before. I'm contemplating just building the downpipe and then getting an exhaust shop to do the rest, which would be quick and easy for now but I wouldn't have a full stainless exhaust then.
More progress on the lift pump install; installed the pump and plumbed it in to the fuel lines. By the time I had finished hooking up the fuel lines it had gotten dark so I'll wait to run the power harness.
Finished modifying the aluminum thermostat housing, as expected the cheap Chinese casting welded quite poorly but I think it will work out.
It is a tight squeeze to get it installed, I ended up removing the alternator to get better access with a torque wrench.
Got the coolant temp sensor bung welded on to the upper coolant pipe and gave it another coat of paint.
The upper hose is a tight fit over the charge pipe coming out of the intercooler, but it just clears.
More tidbits of progress to report. Ran wiring back to the lift pump, integrated it with the harness going to the Webasto coolant heater, just waiting on some split loom to arrive to wrap that up. Further tidying of the harnesses under the fuse panel and coolant reservoir, rerouted the engine harness a bit to keep things neat. Built cables for the alternator to fuse panel and battery to fuse panel, the original Toyota alternator charge cable was around 10AWG for a 55A alternator, the VW used 4AWG for a 120A alternator, I opted to upgrade to 2AWG. The alternator will backfeed into the fuse panel through a 150A MIDI slow blow fuse.
I found some 90º cable lugs that worked perfectly on the fuse panel when bent to about 60º. Still need to swap around the MIDI fuses to the correct locations.
Welded a support tab on to the long charge pipe. This interfaces with one of the original VW engine cover supports on the small coolant pipe.
Started plumbing the intercooler coolant system. I was concerned that the inline fill cap would be far too tall and interfere with the hood, but just in case I stuck my borescope in through the grille and slowly closed the hood on it. The edge of the cap just touches the hood insulation when fully closed; I can definitely work with that.
The fill port and intercooler core both have 1/2"NPT female threads, so rather than use a short section of hose like shown here I'm just going to get a 1/2"NPT male elbow and hard mount the fill port to the intercooler core.
The 90º NPT elbow worked great to attach the coolant fill port to the intercooler, it even saved a little overall height. Still haven't decided if I'll go with a straight or 90º hose adapter on the fill port.
Started in on the lower radiator hoses, I eyeballed the bend angles and ended up having to make a second hard line since the first one wasn't quite right.
I ended up putting an additional angle on the radiator end of the hard line and using a straight hose coupling instead of the angled one. The barbed fitting adapts up from the 1.25" hard line to the 1.5" hose for the radiator. Just needs a support tab to attach the pipe to the frame or inner fender somewhere.
I picked up a vintage Parker No.12 hand tubing bender, meant for 3/4" hydraulic tubing. Works great on thin walled aluminum tubing.
Used it to make a hard line for the intercooler coolant system. Much neater than trying to piece together various pre-formed coolant hoses to get the complicated angles necessary.
That side of the coolant loop is the cold side, the pump is mounted on the hot side so that it will produce suction on the fill port, making it easier to fill and bleed the system. At this point the only items left for the intercooler are to terminate the pump wiring from the relay and put a bead on each end of the coolant pipe.
After finishing the hose routing for the intercooler I had a bout of perfectionism and cut up the coolant reservoir mount. I've decided the reservoir needs to rotate 90º so the hose connections point in the right direction. I only got as far as cutting everything up before calling it a night, I'll deal with the fallout tomorrow.
Got the coolant reservoir mount rebuilt, I was able to salvage the plate with the mounting studs and the lower support tab which made things go a lot quicker.
The whole thing got a few more coats of paint, I should be able to install it tomorrow after work.
I also built the harness for the intercooler pump, the pump is a Bosch 0 392 022 002 and takes a Tyco/AMP Junior Power Timer series plug. Once the coolant reservoir/electrical panel bracket is reinstalled I'll be able to terminate the other end at the fuse panel.
