Builds BJ42 Restoration

[Bambi Girl]

Hi Crescent Wrench
I read your post on Chevy power then followed you across to your post.
OME springs.
On studying your photos I find the markings on your springs my not be the same as the marking on my OME springs.
This could be chevypower problem.
I fitted front and rear OME springs to my FJ40 1983 and the front springs did not look right . The bumper stops did not look like they would hit the axle under maximum compression .
When all else failed I phoned ARB the makers of OME.
I notice on your photo that the arrow on the spring points forward and one would think that this goes to the front.
ARB told me this is not right with the arrow pointing to the fixed pivot . To check this I am told to measure the distance from the spring centre bolt to the shackle pin. The shorter of the 2 goes to the fixed pivot and in my case so does the arrow.
Both front and rear springs in my case have the arrows pointing to the fixed shackle.
Can you check if this is the case in your installation. If your springs are fitted correctly one of us has there OME marking back to front.
Confusing .



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[Crescent Wrench]

Holy Crap! Are you serious? I was told by Radd Cruisers out of Duncan to put the arrow to the front. I won't have sheet metal or a tub on my frame for many moons so I can't even see how they line up in the wheel wells but they look proper how they are installed now. I will definitely follow up on this for you. It makes no sense that they would paint a directional marker to point to something else but the front.
I will make some calls and get back to you BG, I would rather deal with this now then when I'm trying to line up the sheet metal.


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[Bambi Girl]

Hi crescent wrench
My first indication that something was a miss was when I was measuring up the brake hose. Diff to body.
It was way too short.
The more I looked at it the worse it became.
I have a photo of the finished result but sadly can not post it from this IPad .
I'm back in the land of Australia Wednesday and will post a photo for you.
Cheers


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[Crescent Wrench]

I already mounted my soft lines to the diff and they fit perfectly, I tried to place a call to OME/ARB but they won't be open till Monday. I am pretty confident that mine are the right way but then again I did put the hangers on upside down because I haven't seen that style before. Please send me a pic when you get a chance, and I will recheck mine again when I get home next week


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[Crescent Wrench]

On another note I am going to install factory tail lights into the new rear cross sill, the PO had installed a set of cheesy farmer lights that I immediately threw away. Sadly he cut into the rear wiring harness and wired them direct. My question is, is there a way to buy the factory round plug that plugs into the taillight assembly or do I have to replace both ends with a water tight connector?


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[Crescent Wrench]

Has any one had any experience with pacolonline.com for buying sheet metal, tubs , doors, etc? They sell steel tubs with cowls for $6800+ and they look pretty nice. I just wonder if anyone has used their product before?


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[Bambi Girl]

Hi Mr Crescent Wrench
Some photos of OME springs
Look at the line up of the Diff Bumper to the Diff housing.
If I turn my springs around the diff bumper and diff housing do not meet.
May be its got something to do with the Northern hemisphere verse the Southern Hemisphere . lol
I have no idea as arrows pointing to the front sounds ok to me.
The rear arrows point forward and the Front arrows point to the rear?
Does not sound right but it lines up.
Or centre bolt to spring eye . The shortest end to the fixed shackle.
Cheers

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[Crescent Wrench]

Bambi girl, first off your cruiser looks very well done, how far along with it are you? Are those recent pics?
I will but a call into arb tomorrow and talk to their tech dept. and I'll talk to Radd Cruisers again as well. I might as well phone Steve at EBI while I'm at it and put this to rest. I don't have the diff bumpers they were all missing but my brake hoses line up so yea I'll be in touch.


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[Bambi Girl]

Hi Crescent Wrench.
Thank you for the kind words.
I have just about finished the chassis build with only 1 or 2 days to go.
My tub is 99 % rust free and speaking with the painter come restorer we are both hope full of putting the tub back on to the chassis early June . I'm hoping it's all down hill from there with a completion date around Christmas .
Some photos

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[Crescent Wrench]

BG: you are bang on, I talked to ARB tech support and they said the military wrap always goes to the fixed end pin. Further research got me a tech page which I will post. Well this is an easy fix now and will take me only 30 minutes instead of having the whole thing assembled and being much more involved. Thank you so much for having a keen eye. Kudos!

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[Crescent Wrench]

And then this comes in...

I will have to visually check the leafs when I am home to verify


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[Bambi Girl]

Hi Crescent Wrench
Yes good work on clearing this up.
Yes same for me it would have been a pain to change the spring direction after having tail shafts made and the whole car ready for assembly only to find out that the foward arrow really means back on the front.
I like that sentence.
To sum it up the Chinese have a word for this.
Timber Dong
Meaning I don't understand .
Back on home soil this means it will be a Toyota day tomorrow .
Cheers


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[jvanhove]

Ralf,

As a relative newcomer to the Mud world, I should also tell you that you can't put one over on anyone here. "They" will notice every subtlety and nuance related to your truck. A quick example. If one has an older front bib and bezel, and the bezel is installed upside down, it won't take more than 2.5 seconds for the 'bezel police' to see this and write a comment. I don't think you need to worry too much because you have the late model square bezel, just like me.

In any case, posting pictures gets most people here excited and there are some keen eyes to spot the really critical problems. Bambi Girl did!

As your reassembly progresses, I'll chime in if I happen to notice anything amiss. Also, an FYI. Steve at EBI is a good friend and our club president. As you probably know already (but just in case you don't) he is a hell of a resource and he'll take the time to talk to you on the phone, despite his busy schedule. I have a recurring thought every now and then, that I wouldn't even bother to own a cruiser if Steve wasn't around for parts, tech and support.

-Justin

 

[Crescent Wrench]

Ha! Justin I hear ya, I have witnessed this on other sights where a mud member is showing us something and someone picks out a mistake on an item totally unrelated and impossible to see. Makes me laugh every time, I just go with the advice given because there is so much knowledge here it's crazy. I will only dig in if I'm positive.
Chime in at will, I won't mind and it at all and actually appreciate the input.




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[Crescent Wrench]

So if you read the post I downloaded from cruiser outfitters it states that the arrow points to the fixed pin, if you read the email I got from ARB tech support it says the arrow points to the front of the vehicle. However they both say to put the military wrap to the fixed pin and that's what I need to check. Jeepers you'd think an directional arrow would make it easier .


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[Bambi Girl]

Hi crescent wrench
Home and now looking at my rig.
Just put the short part of the spring to the fixed pin and all is ok.
If all is good the diff third member should point up that is towards the sump slightly .

Another thing for you to think about.
The spring center bolt and the diff housing plate.
The spring centre bolt fits into a hole on the diff housing plate. This is not a precision fit meaning you can move the diff around in this hole.
This means to the extreme one side of the diff can be 5 mm forward and the other side of the diff can be 5 mm towards the rear.
Repeat this to the max when fitting the rear springs and the 40 will want to drive around in circles.
Hope you are with me on this.
So before you tighten your U bolts measure from the grease nipple at the fixed shackle to the center of the diff housing.
Do this on both sides.
I was able to get my axels tracking with in 0.5 mm of each other.
On my build the center bolt ended up that close to being center of diff housing it was worth breaking open a beer.
I needed to put a strap between both springs to keep them parallel when doing up the U bolts.
Hint keep the U bolts at an even length when tightening.

It is the small eye to detail such as this that makes a good rebuild great.
Good luck
Cheers


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[Crescent Wrench]

Ok it's been a little while since I wrote an update. I have been very busy if late, I had a couple of long days in the garage dealing with the cross sill and rear suspension hanger mount I bought from Vic the cross sill is good quality and look pretty close to original the issue was with the spring mounting plate holes, they did not line up at all, they where out by at least half a hole and yes I could have drilled them out leaving one hole oblong but eventually I would have issues with the suspension pounding the holes bigger. So I welded them shut and and re drilled them. I finally attached the rear sill and spring mounts using all stainless hardware. Looks good I think.

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[Crescent Wrench]

One the cross sill was finished I picked up the rear springs that had arrived and mounted the rear differential, I had an issue with the front fixed pin mount, the large diameter hole was damaged when I removed the old springs. I had to heat the hanger up and reshape the hole to fit all the way around the fixed pin so that it didn't have any play to start pounding out the pin mount. If it doesn't hold I'll buck it off and replace the mount, but I think it should be fine

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[Crescent Wrench]

Then yesterday I moved on to the front diff again, Bambi Girl has the same suspension and she noticed that I had installed the front springs backwards. I thought the arrow should point to the front of the vehicle because that would make sense, apparently they should point to the front, but sometimes they point to the fixed end. Confused? Me too! Then I learned that the short end of the spring always goes to the fixed end. So for these springs the arrows point to the fixed pins. Thanks Bambi Girl!!
So while I had the diff out I looked at the crappy paint job I put on it, it had fisheyes from handling the diff with greasy hands and not cleaning it properly. So I took a scraper and tested the Por15 and it didn't adhere very well in some places so I spent 6 hours scraping and wire wheeling the Por 15 off and giving the whole thing two coats of Zinga galvanizing paint. Then I decided to top coat it with Por15 because I can't spray Urethane paint...yet.

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[Crescent Wrench]

Before I go to bed tonight I will give it a second coat and one more in the AM and then reinstall it tomorrow afternoon.


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