Biscuit is (still) Keeping The FJ40 - Customization/Improvement Thread

[Biscuit]

I've started to look at what it will take to shorten the Koito H4 headlight harness similar to what others have done.

Initially I wanted to avoid simply cutting and splicing and instead remove the terminals from the connectors, shorten the wires, and then install new terminals.

After taking a close look at the connectors and terminals I realized several things.

First, my crimping tool die that I ordered for flag connectors is too small for the 7.8mm female flag terminals used on the connectors for the headlights. Not a problem, I can leave those and shorten the harness at the relays.

Second, took at look at the relay connections. There are three pieces: the relay, the relay holder with mounting tab, and the connector. The relay holder has clips that hold both the relay and the connector. The connector on the harness is where the problems begin. The yellow piece in the connector seems to be there to retain the terminals, but once removed it is obvious that the connector has plastic tabs also holding the terminals in place. Unlike the locking feature on the terminals, this plastic doesn't want to easily be depressed to allow the terminals to be removed. My guess is these connectors are not designed to be serviced.

So it looks like I'm back to simply cutting the harness, removing excess length, and splicing it back together to shorten it. Less than perfect, but hopefully will work well enough.

 

[Jim S.]

Haven't got around to doing mine yet, but think I will be going down the same path. With planing the finished product can be pretty descent.

 

[EWheeler]

I've started to look at what it will take to shorten the Koito H4 headlight harness similar to what others have done.

Initially I wanted to avoid simply cutting and splicing and instead remove the terminals from the connectors, shorten the wires, and then install new terminals.

After taking a close look at the connectors and terminals I realized several things.

First, my crimping tool die that I ordered for flag connectors is too small for the 7.8mm female flag terminals used on the connectors for the headlights. Not a problem, I can leave those and shorten the harness at the relays.

Second, took at look at the relay connections. There are three pieces: the relay, the relay holder with mounting tab, and the connector. The relay holder has clips that hold both the relay and the connector. The connector on the harness is where the problems begin. The yellow piece in the connector seems to be there to retain the terminals, but once removed it is obvious that the connector has plastic tabs also holding the terminals in place. Unlike the locking feature on the terminals, this plastic doesn't want to easily be depressed to allow the terminals to be removed. My guess is these connectors are not designed to be serviced.

View attachment 4095452

So it looks like I'm back to simply cutting the harness, removing excess length, and splicing it back together to shorten it. Less than perfect, but hopefully will work well enough.

My solution on both my 40's with the Kioto H4 harness was to mount the relays down low on the passenger side radiator support. I believe I hid the extra wire in that harness behind the bib:

I then routed the wiring for each headlight through the headlight bucket and I trimmed the excess and butt connected each wire with a heat shrink connector. I wasn't able to find new right angle pins like are used in the connectors to the headlights, although I didn't look hard. I did disassemble the connector to get the

 

[Biscuit]

@EWheeler, thanks for posting what you did. I like the approach you took to laying things out before trimming. And showing the routing at the bottom of the bib helps with my next decision, where to route the harness over to the left side head lamp.

Now to see how far forward I can tilt my front bib with the ARB catchers mask.

 

[pb4ugo]

I shortened the headlight leads with new terminals and butt connected the relay wires. I didn't feel like taking the relay plugs apart. I ordered new headlight terminals from Coolerman. I ran the drivers side headlight wire thru the bottom of radiator support bracket and below the rad. I mounted my relays and fuse holders on the radiator support on the pass side. I altered a CB microphone holder for the fuse holders so they are easily removable to gain access.

 

[Biscuit]

I have a 4plus rear bumper on order. (More on that in a future post once it's here)

But before I install it, I need to fix the barn door stopper. When I originally did the body on repaint of my FJ40 in 2002 I ran with a painted MDF insert instead of the barn doors since the original barn doors were rusted out. Around 2004 I replaced that with a set of barn doors off of a 1969 FJ40 I was able to get locally. Those doors were in better shape but someone had removed the OEM barrel pin stopper and replaced with a hardware store special. The pin from that was missing when I got the barn doors, and I never bothered to figure out a pin since the barrel doesn't line up with the hole in striker plate for the OEM stopper pin.

I have been running them like this for 20 years because the OEM spare tire carrier's upper pad was enough to hold the passenger side barn door closed (enough). But with the soon to arrive 4plus carrier, I won't have anything holding the barn doors to the tub at the center other than the hatch. Not great in with the hard top on, really not great if I take the top off.

So I can either try to:

• track down a stopper pin assembly (part number 68950-90300 found here) either new or used, remove the hardware store barrel, install the correct stopper pin, and of course paint.
• find a good barn door with the stopper pin
• make a new striker plate and pin for the hardware store barrel. The rear still metal under the striker plate seems ok, maybe.

If my rear sill wasn't shot, my mind would be going down the road of figuring out a tail gate. But there is nothing to mount those hinges to that would support any sort of load. So that will be a future dream.

 

[Biscuit]

Meanwhile since it was 72F today continuing the winter that wasn't, I finally installed the headlight harness.

I shortened the harness in three spots. Between the relays and the right headlamp. At the left headlamp. And between the relays and the fuses.

For routing I ran the harness along the bottom front of the radiator support. I debated running it along the inner bottom of the bib using zip ties to hold it to the radiator screen, but I decided that I didn't want to need to cut the zip ties in the even I need to pull the bib in the future.

Headlamps were checked to be functional. I'll take it for a drive tonight to see the improvement and check the aim.

 

[Biscuit]

I aligned the headlights on Monday following the procedure here: Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply - https://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/aim/aim.html

Finally was able to go for a short drive at night. (The irony of waiting until the change to daylight time to do the headlight harness) It is so much better. Not quite the life changing better of the front disc brakes, but still noticeably better than before.

 

[Biscuit]

So I can either try to:

• track down a stopper pin assembly (part number 68950-90300 found here) either new or used, remove the hardware store barrel, install the correct stopper pin, and of course paint.

There is something magical about Mud. I posted this when thinking through options and it very quickly yielded solutions.

Shortly afterward @EWheeler PMed me with an offer for the barrel part of the stopper, which I promptly took him up on. It arrived today. My 40 was originally white, so once cleaned up installed and painted the off color version of Dune Beige I have (something got mixed not quite right when I resprayed the tub in 2002) it will match the rest of the white under beige.

Now I'm keeping an eye out for @kevos37's next batch of reproduction pins and handles. Vendor - NorCal FJ40 Barn door lock pin and handle. - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/norcal-fj40-barn-door-lock-pin-and-handle.1353399/#post-15772960

 

[Biscuit]

This week I have been slowly removing items from the back of the 40 for the 4plus carrier install. A healthy dose of PB Blaster on both sides of the bolts on Sunday, then waited until Wednesday to even try to remove anything. The last time I touched any of those bolts was probably 2002, maybe 2003.

The bumperettes and hitch came off without issue. The threads that extended past the nuts on the inside of the cross member were a bit rough, but slow and stead got all of them out without breaking off any of them. The bumperette bolts were 13mm heads so of course had to try three sockets (14 then 12 then 13) to get the right socket on them. Turns out one of my hitch bolts didn't have a nut on the back and was a much longer shoulder bolt. Good think I never tried to tow anything with it.

I am going to remove the tire carrier this weekend. Of all the bolts the ones on the rear sil for the catch are the ones I am most worried about causing damage with. Not that damaging the sil is a problem, just more or an annoyance. Those may get some heat to help.

But once all of that is off, I'm going to pull the taillights, clean off the rear cross member, and hit it with some paint. The 24 year old paint is holding up well, but I know if I don't do this now, it won't happen. And I'm really hoping for another 25ish years before I need to futz with the rear crossmember again.


In parallel with all of this I'm preparing for the knock-on project of getting the stopper pin assembly installed on the right rear barn door. I ordered one of @kevos37's pin and handle sets. So all I need now is to figure out the spring for it, I found some info on the spring via search earlier and will need to try and locate it again. Hopefully there is some McMaster or similar part number floating around in a thread.

Since the barn door will need to come off for the old gate latch barrel to be removed and stopper barrel to be welded on, I ordered a set of hinge pins from @SMG. I figure no sense in stopping the rattling of the door with a new stopper only to have the hinges still rattle.

I did get some color match spray cans made. Since they are the single stage cans with the activator, once activated there is about 3 days to use the can. So this means other painting projects will get queued up as the rear door won't use a full can.

 

[Biscuit]

Last night after work I removed the tire carrier without any broken bolts or further sil damage. Even found that for the bolts on the hinges to the carrier plate I had put anti-seize on way back.

As much as I would want to get into the rear sil project, I am lacking the space to do so, the time, skills, and tools. Must resist more scope creep on the project.

 

[Biscuit]

Decided to tackle some semi-related work on the FJ40 before installing the 4Plus tire carrier. Paint the rear cross member, install new OEM tail lights, and do an interim fix on the rear sill.

Painting the rear cross member was easy. POR15 chassis black rattle can did the trick. Didn't need to be perfect, but a fresh coat did help.

For the tail lights I ordered as set of late model ('79-'84) tail lights from CityRacer. While the connectors wouldn't match what is on a 1974, that didn't matter since my rear harness was modified by either the PO or my dad when he put in a 4pin trailer connection. Almost all the connections were flat four pin trailer connectors.

Not wanting to repeat that, I opted to update the connections to Deutsch connectors.

I cleaned up the rear harness (which will still need to be rebuilt in its entirety at some point) and put the other side of the Deutsch connectors on. I did also run a dedicated ground to the frame since the late model tail lights have a ground wire.


In parallel I worked on an interim fix for the rear sill rust. The idea is to have this buy me some time before a better repair. (Long term, would like a Gozzard tub. Short term, probably will go with 2" square tube once I practice some welding.) I cut out the rear sil carefully leaving as much floor as I could using a recip saw between the sil cover and the floor to get through the spot welds. I made sure to leave the body mounts. Over what was left I put a 1/8" thick 2.5" aluminum angle. To secure it I used two screws and some backing plates to pull it in to the tub fore/aft and then riveted it down on to the remaining body mount areas from the old sil and to the floor.

Picture from before putting the angle in:

With that done, it was time to install the 4Plus carrier. That install went easily. Longest/hardest part is drilling the holes in the rear cross member for the outer mounts. Easiest upgrade I've done.

So with all of that done, the FJ40 is much quieter with out the factory spare tire carrier rattling around. The rear sill was probably also contributing to the noise based on driving for a few weeks without the factory tire carrier on.

This weekend I got to take the 40 out on some mild trails. Everything held up well and the 4Plus carrier is rock solid as expected.

Now on to some projects that are going to require some CAD work: seat adapters for the D90 seats I have and a removable basket setup for the bare arm on the tire carrier.