Builds Bean! The Adventure Continues (1987 FJ60) (1 Viewer)

[Bullzi]

Updates on the Bean -

I'm still looking for a couple of good condition front fenders. I put a 'Wanted' add in the classifieds, so we'll see if anyone on MUD has anything to offer...all my other leads came up dry.

This week I finally took my bumpers in for powder-coating at the local outfit. I've gone back and fourth for the last few months on whether I wanted to paint them myself or have them powder-coated. It seems like everything I have ever owned that has been powder-coated has failed in less than a few years. I had actually decided I was going to have the bumpers sandblasted so I could paint them, but the local powder-coater convinced me to powder them. The do a really nice job by sandblasting and cleaning everything really well, then they prime and bake, then they go back and put the powder over the primer. I had a few test pieces done and they came out really well! They said it should easily last 10+ years. I think that's a bit of an over-promise, but I'm taking the gamble...
As for the sliders, they are going to sandblast them so I can give them a good rattle-can job with some industrial paint. There is no doubt that they will get chewed up, so being able to touch them up with the rattle can is key.

Here are the light rings I had sandblasted and coated to test the quality of their work.

Before:

After:

I also have my winch torn apart right now because the drum was super rusty from the synthetic rope sitting on it for the past few years. I was going to clean it up and reuse it, but I found that the outer flanges of the drum are no longer square to the drum itself. I read online that this can happen during angled pulls with the synthetic line if the line isn't spooled well and it gets bound up.
I ordered a new drum a few months ago from Summit and it is still backordered... The shipping date was supposed to be April 10th, but now the new shipping date is early May. I'm taking the time to clean everything up and re-grease it all. I'll do a separate post about the process another time, but I got a little into the weeds on this one!

Hard to tell in this photo, but the flanges are not square to the drum.

Probably didn't need to tear it down this far, but everything seems to be in really good shape!

This was my first time taking a winch apart and I didn't realize that the brake inside the drum is factory wound to a certain spec. Well...it unwound on me. It's not exactly rocket science and I was able to rewind it to what I thought was correct, but I read online that if the tension is off even a little, your winch spooling can have issues. I called Warn and they said they would re-wind it if I sent it in. Since I had the time, I sent it in and they re-wound it for me. It was back in a week and all I had to pay was the shipping to them ($8). Well worth the peace of mind that it was done correctly. What great customer service!!

 

[Bullzi]

I was finally able to procure a decent passenger side fender, but I still need a driver's side fender. The passenger fender is coming from Classic Cruisers in Colorado. These guys were super helpful and spent a lot of time trying to find me the best fender for my needs. Unfortunately, they only had a passenger fender...their driver fender was too rusty.
The passenger fender isn't perfect, so Kelly will still have some work to do on it.

In other news, I got my bumpers and sliders back from the powdercoat company! The color came out really nice...I kept going back and forth between all the different colors of black and the sheen, but I like what I chose. We will have to see how they hold up over time as there are already a few very small chips on a couple of the edges. The nice thing is that they primed them beforehand, so it likely wont start to rust (at least not right away)...
The sliders got a coat of primer and I am going to spray them with John Deere Blitz Black so I can easily touch them up in the future.

Put the lights and fairlead back on the front bumper - (I had never noticed before that the fairlead is off-center on the bumper...

Sliders in primer -

Lastly, @red66toy hooked me up and found an FJ60 antenna switch for my transmission tap shift feature! I am so excited to have a factory switch in that spot! The switch was found and bought on a Japanese auction site. Its in great shape, but two of the tangs that hold it into the dash are broken so I have to figure out a good way to get it to stay in the dash. This shouldn't be too hard.

Thanks again Chase!! I am super grateful for your help with getting this!

 

[Bullzi]

My wife and I had the pleasure of getting out this weekend with one of the local cruiser groups - kind of an offshoot meeting of the Seattle Cruiserheads. It was a great event hosted by Jim (@Maddog72) at his community beach. It was an amazing space right on the water with a great pavilion and a nice dock. He even reserved some sunshine for us. It was nice seeing old friends and making new ones! Thanks again Jim!

(I've already posted a few of these pictures on the meetup thread)

We were slumming it in the Subaru since the Bean is in Az and it really made us excited to get it back! A bunch of us camped at Twanoh State Park after the meeting. It was the first time we had been without the Roof Top Tent in a while. There was a nice creek near the site that put us right to sleep.

In the site next to us was Sam (@samatulich) and his FJ40. This is a really neat 40 with a cool backstory - You'll have to hit him up for the details, but the short of it is that he got it from his parents who bought it new. The FJ40 has completed most (if not all) of the Pan-American highway with Sam driving the stretch from Wa up to to top of Alaska and back...Yes, in an FJ40! Super great to meet you Sam!

Sam's FJ40 looking so iconic in this photo with the canoe strapped to the top!

We also spent some time around the fire with Joe (@staggrlee) and Daria. They were pulling their awesome off-road trailer with their round-eyed FJ62. This is a very cleanly built truck with an R2.8 install by Torfab and beautiful paint job by Kelly Saad. Its always a pleasure to spend time with Joe and Daria and to snoop around their rig!

Here are a few more cruisers at the campsite -

It was a great weekend event! Can't wait for another.

So as we were leaving, we passed 3 sheriff SUVs heading towards the camping area on the main road. We didn't think much of it, but I did say to Lauren "I wonder whats going on with all the cops?"....well about 10minutes later I get a call from Sam saying "Did you know the police are looking for you and your wife?" We totally thought he was playing a prank on us! But, apparently the police had come to the campgrounds to find the couple in site18 (my wife and I) because we matched the description of a couple who had stolen a Subaru either the night before or a few days ago! Sam told them that he didn't think we were the car thief type, but he only sounded about 90% sure on the phone hahaha!
Anyways, I think they were looking for a black Forester and we have a tan Outback - so we kept driving and never got stopped.

We weren't the thief's and as we told Sam if we wanted to steal something we would have stolen something cool - like his FJ40 which had the keys sitting on the dash as we were leaving!

 

[samatulich]

Great meeting you and your wife this weekend. I really didn’t believe it when the officer talked to me, no way did Bonnie and Clyde help setup my camp, haha.

 

[staggrlee]

@Bullzi & @samatulich

Now I'm not saying either of you had anything to do with it, but today I walked out my front door and found a broadpoint arrow slightly embedded in the sidewall of the RR tire on my 100 Series.

I know you're both pretty avid archers judging by the conversations this weekend but feel the need to point out that, while it may be open season on Subaru Foresters in Mason County, bow season for land yachts in King County doesn't start until September.

 

[Bullzi]

@Bullzi & @samatulich

Now I'm not saying either of you had anything to do with it, but today I walked out my front door and found a broadpoint arrow slightly embedded in the sidewall of the RR tire on my 100 Series.

I know you're both pretty avid archers judging by the conversations this weekend but feel the need to point out that, while it may be open season on Subaru Foresters in Mason County, bow season for land yachts in King County doesn't start until September.

Yea...I need to work on my aim - I was actually going for your FJ62's driver's side front fender so you would have a reason to part with it

In all seriousness, that's really messed up! Do any of your neighbors shoot archery? I would be pretty ticked if I were you!

 

[staggrlee]

Yea...I need to work on my aim - I was actually going for your FJ62's driver's side front fender so you would have a reason to part with it

In all seriousness, that's really messed up! Do any of your neighbors shoot archery? I would be pretty ticked if I were you!

Yes, kids of the neighbor across the street. I returned it to their father and told him it better not ever happen again, because the next call won't be to them but the King County Sheriff's dept. I was plenty PO'd.

 

[Bullzi]

Yes, kids of the neighbor across the street. I returned it to their father and told him it better not ever happen again, because the next call won't be to them but the King County Sheriff's dept. I was plenty PO'd.

Dang - that’s the kind of behavior that makes people dislike archers! Sorry that happened.

 

[Bullzi]

I've been slowly working on rehabbing my AC bezel for a few months now and I'm finally just about done. The last piece of the puzzle was that FJ60 antenna switch. Both tabs on one side had been broken off, so I needed to find a good way to secure it into the switch opening. This was pretty easy - I took an old switch blank, cut off the tabs and epoxied them onto the antenna switch. It worked like a charm and the switch fits nice and snug in the opening!

The Bean's AC Bezel was a bit of a mess...I'm assuming at some point the original bezel had cracked and a previous owner had replaced with a brown one that was painted grey. The current bezel was grey in the front and brown in the back. It had also developed a slight crack down in the left-hand corner like a lot of them do...

The grey on the front was fading/chipping off and the black inner section was showing brown underneath.

I decided to give it a repaint...but the hard part was finding the correct color. Thanks to a tip from @torfab, I found myself at a NAPA getting a custom color-matched rattle-can mixed up. Not all NAPA's do this, so I had to drive to Poulsbo, Wa (45min away) to have this done. I took them my glovebox and they were able to scan it for the closest color code in their database. The closest color code was from Hyundai called "Charming Grey". It's not an exact match, but it's pretty darn close.

Its a little hard to tell from the picture/lighting, but the color match looks really close in real life.

I hit the backside of the lower corners with some plastic epoxy before painting to stiffen them up a bit and prevent any further cracking.
Next, I lightly sanded the bezel and gave it a few coats of plastic adhesion promoter before spraying the grey.
Lastly, I used some SEM Trim Black to paint the inner black part of the bezel. This is my new favorite paint! This stuff lays on smooth and sticks really well. The color/finish is nice too!

Here it is all finished up with the switches installed.

You can see in the picture below where I added just a little bit of epoxy to give some rigidity to the corners. I'm hoping this prevents any future cracking.

Happy to have another small project knocked off the list.

 

[TheNeek]

SEM Trim Black is THE BEST satin trim ever.

 

[red66toy]

That looks fantastic!

 

[Bullzi]

SEM Trim Black is THE BEST satin trim ever.

I’ve used it on a good number of things now - it’s about time to pick up another can!

 

[Bullzi]

Anyone ready to get into the weeds on door-panel clips?

I needed a few new door panel clips so I looked up the part number on Megazip and realized there were a couple different part numbers between the front door panels, rear door panels and the rear cargo panels - (67771-12010, 67771-30040 and 67771-30060).

Front Door Panels: 67771-30060

Rear Door Panels: 67771-30060 OR 67771-12010

Rear Cargo Panels: 67771-12010 OR 67771-30040

I had always thought all the clips in the door/cargo panels were the same throughout the vehicle...and I'm actually still not sure about this!
I also found another clip (67771-22010) in a diagram that appeared to work as well.
I went to ToyotaPartsDeal with these four part numbers and each one said they would work for the FJ60. They were all categorized as "Retainer (Front Door Trim Board)"
Even more interestingly, they were all different prices:

67771-12010 - $1.81
67771-22010 - $1.07
67771-30040 - $2.38
67771-30060 - $1.86

In my opinion this is pretty steep pricing for some tiny plastic clips, but I just really wanted to know what the differences were so I ordered one of each to see.

Here they are:

67771-12010

67771-22010

67771-30040

67771-30060 - This one looks a little fatter at the top, but its just the picture.

The best I can figure is that the only difference is the color of the plastic. I really don't see any other discernible difference. I guess there could be a difference in the amount of force it takes to pull the male end from the female end, but they all felt the same to me.
It's strange there is such a large price gap between these and I'm still not sure which is the correct one.

I could never justify spending that kind of money on door panel clips, so I went to Clipsandfasteners.com and picked up their version of 67771-22010. This appeared to be the only one of these part numbers that they had replicated...maybe because they are all basically the same? 25 clips for $11.69 - That's much more justifiable!

The clipsandfasteners part looks identical to the other Toyota clips.

If anyone has any more info on these clips and the differences, please satisfy my curiosity!

 

[Bullzi]

I FINALLY got my new winch drum in the mail on Friday and had some time to put the winch back together. I ordered the drum on 03/10/21 from Summit and it was to be shipped directly from Warn around the end of March. It was back-ordered everywhere, but I didn't mind waiting a few weeks...
Well, it ended up that Warn's supplier was behind so it took especially long for them to fabricate. This was for a less popular winch - the Warn 9.5 CTI-S. Its a great winch with a synthetic rope (hence the rusty drum), but I haven't seen a ton of people running it.
Anyways, while waiting for the drum I fully disassembled the winch, cleaned all the components and re-greased. A bit of a chore, but not hard. I also had one of the drum supports re-powder coated because it was flaking and corroding underneath the factory coating. Unfortunately, the powder-coater used a mat-black textured powder instead of a gloss powder...no big deal though - function over form!

I ended up painting the new drum with some high temp black paint. Hopefully this aids in reducing the future rust!

Cleaning all the gears, spacers and seals - I re-greased the gears with AeroShell 64, which is an extreme pressure airframe grease used for lubricating heavy loaded sliding steel surfaces (among other things). When I talked with Warn they actually recommended AeroShell 17...but AeroShell 17 was replaced by AeroShell 33ms which was renamed to AeroShell 64 because there was already an AeroShell 33. So - AeroShell 64 is the modern replacement for AeroShell 17.

From what I've read, you want enough grease to cover everything but you don't want to pack it in there. This will lead to heat buildup and will make it harder to switch the drum in and out of free-spool.

There were a few paper gaskets and I ended up reusing them because they were still in good shape and are hard to source.
I probably should have replaced them...My winch usually lives under a little neoprene cover, so that helps reduce the water intrusion.

For the seal between the drum and the side supports, Warn uses a different grease. Here they have a green waterproof synthetic grease. I went to the local NAPA and found a tube of waterproof synthetic grease (it just happened to be green!).

And finally it was time for the drum -

All put back together and ready for testing - you can see the difference in the powder-coat finishes.

I tested it with a set of jumper cables and a battery, and it worked well but was making a strange grinding noise intermittently. Winches make a lot of noise and some of them are odd...but I decided to take it all apart just to make sure nothing was grenading inside. I ended up taking it apart three times to try to find where the noise was coming from. I never found anything wrong. I didn't see any trace of scaring or metal dust/chips - it must just be the straight-cut planetary gears. I also noticed that the noise went away if I added even a little load to the drum
My dad's CJ has an M8000 and I ran that a little bit to compare and it made similar noises, so I think its normal...I hope!

 

[Bullzi]

BMW Heated Seats!

Okay, I know there are a ton of threads on this topic already...but I figured I would do my own write-up since there seems to be some variation on how to hook these things up. This is how I went about it, but there are other ways to do this as well.

First off, here are a couple great threads for getting your BMW seat heaters operational:

Heating BMW seats (using BMW parts)

Hello everyone! So after reading way too many BMW forum posts, I figured out how to use the factory installed seat heat mats. I have not fully completed this install, however I have tested the wiring setup listed below and my seats heated up very nicely. Supplies I used: -2000 328ci...

forum.ih8mud.com

My BMW E90 seat install

Well, enough on all the E46 seat threads - here's how it works with the slightly newer seats from '06-'13 3 series BMWs. A few points: seems like E46 seats are quite pricey and in short supply in the Denver area - $600/pr from resellers, typically only in black. eBay pricing not much different...

forum.ih8mud.com

My seats are E90 seats circa 2008 (I believe). They are optioned with power adjustment and seat heaters. All the pictures and info will be for the passenger seat, since the drivers seat is with the Bean in AZ right now. I am bypassing all the seat computers/modules, so the hookup between the passenger side and drivers side will be similar.

When we bought the Bean, the seat motors were hooked up, but the lumbar didn't work and the driver's seat timed out after about 10 seconds. The fancy yellow connectors and a few of the modules had been removed and the seats had been hooked up by tying into the power/ground wires with single terminals.

In the picture below, you can see the power and ground for the seat motor and lumbar.

So about a year ago I realized that it would be really simple to hook the lumbar for the seats up. It was just another power and ground. At this time I also added a switch to the driver's seat to bypass the dreaded timeout. I decided not to go down the CANbus route because it seemed overly complex and I didn't mind using the switch when I wanted to adjust the seat...
Anyways, when I hooked up the lumbar, I realized that the seats had seat-heaters and I've been wanting to get them running ever since!

See the pictures below for the wiring on my E90 seats:
NOTE: Driver's side and Passenger side are slightly different - this is passenger side.

I was able to find a couple 80-series seat heater switches on Ebay all the way from Japan. I had been looking for a while and I finally found a set for a price I could live with! People want all sorts of crazy money for these little switches!

I ended up using a relay to switch between the high and low settings. For the high setting, the relay is normally open through pin 87a and the bottom and back heater elements are in parallel. For the low setting, the relay opens to pin 87 and the bottom and back heater elements are in series. This was the easiest and most straight forward way to hook these up. See the diagrams I created below:

Here is the seat heater relay installed under the seat. You can also see the new connector that I added. It houses the wires for the seat heaters and motors/lumbar. It's a lot cleaner this way.

I will be bringing in the main power for the seat motors/lumbar and seat heaters from a relay box. The seat motors/lumbar will be on a circuit and is constant hot and the seat heaters will be on a relay that is triggered on whenever the ignition is on. This will insure that the seat heaters stay off when the car is off.



Continued in next post ------->

 

[Bullzi]

Continued from last post...

I decided to put the seat heater switches (along with a few USBs) in the Tuffy center console. I hate cutting square openings for switches, but luckily they turned out nice. I removed the Toyota connector from the switch dongle and added a different connector so I could create my own wire harness. I would have loved to use the factory connector, but finding the opposite end would have been really tricky!

Here's the switch with the new connector:

Here's a few pictures of the wire harnesses for the seat heaters and motors. I had to estimate lengths since the truck is not here...I hope they fit!!

And finally, here are a few pictures of the switches mounted in the Tuffy console:

----- And now its time to nerd out a little with some data -----

Here are the amperage measurements that I took for the passenger seat motors, lumbar and seat heaters:

Seat Motors with 155lb person sitting in the seat (current was much lower with empty seat). Voltage = 12.8V

Seat Forward	4.5A
Seat Backwards	3.3A
Seat Bottom Up	6.9A
Seat Bottom Down	3.2A
Seat Bottom Tilt Up	3.8A
Seat Bottom Tilt Down	4.0A
Seat Back Forward	4.2A
Seat Back Backwards	2.4A

NOTE: When motors are at the end of their range and the switch is kept on, amperage spikes beyond 15A. Once the motor has stopped moving, it is important to let go of the switch.

Seat Lumbar with 155lb person sitting in the seat. Voltage = 12.8V

Upper Bladder Fill	1.1A
Middle Bladder Fill	1.1A
Lower Bladder Fill	1.1A
Bladder Empty	0.8A
Side Bolster Fill	1.2A
Side Bolster Empty	1.2A

Seat Heaters Voltage = 12.8V

Low (back and bottom elements in series)	~1.8A
High (back and bottom elements in parallel)	~7A

Seat Heater Temperatures - taken with cheap infrared thermometer

LOW

0 Minutes - Bottom	58.5F
0 Minutes - Back	58.5F
2 Minutes - Bottom	62F
2 Minutes - Back	60F
5 Minutes - Bottom	64F
5 Minutes - Back	62F
10 Minutes - Bottom	66F
10 Minutes - Back	63F

HIGH - I started this test after the low test, so at the 0-minute mark the temperature is 66F and 63F.

0 Minutes - Bottom	66F
0 Minutes - Back	63F
2 Minutes - Bottom	70F
2 Minutes - Back	72F
5 Minutes - Bottom	77F
5 Minutes - Back	79F
5 Minutes - Bottom	85F
5 Minutes - Back	86F

I'm sure that the heaters would have gotten hotter on the high setting. I didn't have time to wait any longer, but maybe I'll run them for a half hour or so and report back.

 

[Bullzi]

@kelly saad has been getting busy on the Bean! Check out the thread he started! I'm so excited (and a bit nervous) to see this truck transformed!

#7 Freeborn Red bodywork and paint (Bean)

The project: 1. Disassemble vehicle, remove doors, tailgate and hatch. 2. Strip paint to bare metal. 3. Replace both fenders. 4. Close all holes in rocker panels from trim. 5. Remove seam sealer in roof gutters, and windshield area, repair any rust, seal again. 6. New lower door skin replacement...

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Lots of tech, awesome references like the door rod clips, great execution.

Ordered a few sets of the door rod clips. Man, what a great find that is. I've stolen them from other doors I have, but finding them new is amazing.

 

[Bullzi]

Lots of tech, awesome references like the door rod clips, great execution.

Ordered a few sets of the door rod clips. Man, what a great find that is. I've stolen them from other doors I have, but finding them new is amazing.

Really glad people found this info useful!
It’s nice to be able to contribute to the wealth of knowledge that IH8MUD provides.

 

[staggrlee]

The downside to having new paint from Kelly is you're going to be far more reluctant to say to yourself "hey, let's see where this overgrown trail used to go"

Before you put your winch back in best to have a look at your solenoid pack. All the signal leads on my Warn M12k on the 100 had basically dissolved and I only discovered it when the winch was needed. I replaced it with a solid state contactor pack a couple years ago.