Builds Blender, My LX450/FZJ80 + FJ45esk + GM + Land Rover crazy concoction

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After a few more hours today, this is what I ended up with....



All the mockup work on the new grille re-shape is done. I was also able to get the passenger side trimming and flange done. I also narrowed down headlight bezel to fit the new grille.

The medal for the bezel is THIN. Oh boy that was a pain to weld. I had this wild thought about having a new one waterjet cut out of some aluminum plate. Then have all the edges shaped with a router. That would make a nice durable part that wasn't as fragile as the stock part.

Helpful shop tips....



If you need to make a template for a fill panel just coat the panel in two opposing layers of masking tape. Then cut the shape out with a razor knife. Stick the template on the metal you need. Cut out the panel. The trimming to fit will be pretty minimal generally.



If you need to hold a patch panel for test fitting, use a magnet to make a little handle. I love these strong little square magnets. They seem to have a ton of uses. I also used a handful of them to hold the panel in place once I got the fitment like I wanted.

The next project will be making the mounting tabs for grille shell. The grille will mount directly to the frame I believe. In order to do that, I need to remove the front frame crossmember. To keep things from moving around when that is removed, I should probably brace the front frame horns in the area that will be getting trimmed off. That should keep me busy next week.

I need to start thinking about getting all the misc stuff for the cooling system and front bumper rounded up also!
 
Sometimes to create something, first you need to destroy something....



It didn't go so well for the OEM crossmember....



Now I have all the space I need to mount a bunch of junk.....

Grille mounts
Radiator
Shroud
Fan/Clutch
Transmission cooler
Power steering cooler
Hydro assist ram
LED Headlights in adjustable buckets
Front bumper
Recovery points
Warn 8274 winch
winch mount

......it should probably all fit.....
 
Sometimes the littlest things make me happy...



The grille now holds itself in place! I don't know why that makes me so happy, but it does.



These are the lower grille mounts. I decided to mount the grille directly to the frame. As far as I can tell, the FJ40 was mounted like this from the factory. My flat fender has also been hard mounted for years.

There will be a companion upper mount that will mount to the top half of the grille ( using another 2 faster locations in the new grille edge ) and mount back at the coil bucket. This will provide some rearward support for the grill independent of the front fenders. I think the upper grill mount will also provide some structure for the radiator mounts.

The upper brackets will also give me a bit of space for mounting stuff NOT on the fenders. I would like to be able to remove the front fenders leaving everything else intact in the engine compartment....no wiring, plumbing, intake, etc mounted to the front fenders.

The fasteners for the grille mounts are counter sunk to provide a flush head. This will allow me to bolt the fenders over the top of the grill mounts using the other 3 mounting holes in the grill shell.

I will start on the upper mounts tomorrow I think. My cooling package stuff should start rolling in later this week....
 
Part two of the grille mounts on this installment of what did I cobble up in the garage tonight....



These are the upper grille mounts. They mount to the same structure in the side of the grill as the lower mounts do. They are 'in plane' to the side so that the fender assemblies will bolt over the top. There are three separate fasteners per side in the new mounting band just for the future fenders. The rear of this bracket is bolted to a tab that will be welded to the top of the coil tower. That should provide enough triangulation to the grille structure. I don't think this frame is going to flex much at all so frame mounting these parts isn't a huge concern.

I will likely be trimming out a significant portion of the tail of the bracket. You can just see some preliminary sharpie marks to that effect. I am not 100% sure what the radiator mount will look like just yet so I decided to leave these brackets hole till slightly later.

The mounting tab uses a clip nut so you don't have to have multiple tools.
I forgot to take a picture of that.

Edit: Nope. Wrong part. The 1st part of the cooling system showed up. This is a Hayden 2851 unit. This screws right onto the truck water pump also. My late gen 4 LS, even though it was electric fan from the factory, still had the threaded snout on the water pump. I believe I need a Hayden 2986. I must have gotten some number crossed somewhere. Replacement ordered.

I will be using a 17" reverse rotation metal fan on this clutch. The overall depth of the fan/clutch is very comparable with the Volvo and Taurus electric fans I have used on past builds. Since the nose in this car is pretty small with only room for a 24x19 radiator, I decided to go with the engine driven setup. This should provide very good cooling overall.

Hopefully more cooling parts will continue to roll in soon.

My biggest concern at this point is the fitment of the transmission cooler. I have a feeling that is going to be pretty tight at this point. It is hard to judge the overall scale of so many parts using just pictures sometimes....
 
Last edited:
Bigger parts are showing up!



I was able to finish the mockup on the upper grill mounts and get them tacked into place. Once that was done I decided to mock up the radiator into position since it showed up today.

Radiator specs.
Brand:Griffin Thermal Products
Manufacturer's Part Number:1-58202-XLS
Griffin Aluminum Circle Track Radiators
Radiator Style: Crossflow
Inlet Location: Upper passenger side
Outlet Location: Lower passenger side
Radiator Material: Aluminum
Radiator Finish: Natural
Overall Width (in): 24.000 in.
Overall Height (in): 19.000 in.
Overall Thickness (in): 3.000 in.
Core Width (in): 19.000 in.
Core Height (in): 19.000 in.
Core Thickness (in): 2.680 in.
Row Quantity: 2
Transmission Cooler: No
Inlet Size: 1 1/4 in.
Outlet Size: 1 1/2 in.
Tube Size: 1 1/4 in.

This is about the largest radiator I can fit in this chassis. The steering box is mounted on top of the frame rail on this chassis just behind the grille. The radiator is offset slightly to provide clearance on the steering box. I ended up trying to center the radiator top to bottom on the fan clutch centerline. That should make building the radiator shroud a bit easier.

I edited the above post. I have the wrong fan clutch. New one on the way. I must have got my numbers crossed somewhere. I think the proper clutch I had planned will give me even more clearance....and match up to the fan that showed up today too.



I stumbled on these little rubber radiator mounts from a Jeep XJ. The are a nice stud mount rubber isolation mounting system. They where SO close to fitting in the stock core u-channel. I ended up having to trim about 1/8" off one side of the mount. They have a 6mm stud on the top. They also clear the height of the u-channel by just enough. My hope is that I can use these to isolate the radiator from the frame mounting of the grill a bit. I am going to wait to do another mockup till I have the proper fan clutch. I think it is a bit shorter in length....
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
Such a tiny space for a radiator. Are you going to have to go with a custom unit?
Click to expand...

The radiator is going to be a 24x19 double pass unit with a dual 1.25" core. The inlet and outlet are specific to the LS engine and they also provide a steam port. A bigger radiator would be nice, it always is, but this should be more than adequate. I have a friend running the same basic 5.3 LS engine in a short nose Jeepster with a smaller radiator with 20K miles of success. He lived in Las Cruses, NM for a few years and that climate is a great test on a cooling system. He is the one that turned me onto the compact engine driven fan setup. He has yet to build a shroud also.

A good cooling system is one of my pet peeves.
 
looks good.... a lotta work to get this far.
 
After a slow snowy weekend I was finally able to make something new.











I decided to use a 2013ish GM Silverado 2500 transmission cooler from a Duramax/Allison application. That seemed to be one of the larger coolers from an easy to replace oem application I could find. The fittings are also pointing up instead of pointing forward ( or back? ) like previous generations. With a little bit of work I was able to trim down the factory mounting system to work in my sectioned/narrowed FJ40 grill shape.

Overall it went pretty easy. I was able to trim down the GM mount and even reuse their 6mm clip nuts for the upper mounting points. Those mounting points attach to a small 16 gauge L-bracket that I welded to the grille shell.

The bottom mounts are the factory GM rubber isolation mount. They basically slide into a 1/2" hole I drilled through the bottom ( double thick ) flange on the bottom of the grille shell. There is another hole in the GM bracket on the transmission cooler for another rubber mount. If I could find those in the aftermarket or OEM replacements I would love to add it into the system. I cannot find that bushing for sale anywhere yet however....

I wanted the cooler to be behind the lower holes in the grill to prioritize air flow a bit. This cooler will sit over the lower 1/3 of the radiator. The fan should pull air through the entire unit when the shroud and funnel system is finished. I think there is JUST enough room for the headlights when using a tight 90 degree JIC/AN swivel adapter fitting.....I think....

My plan to use VW headlight adjuster buckets didn't work with the LED headlights I had laying around. I found another style of adjuster/mount for the LED headlights that I am going to try. These JWspeaker LED lights are a bit deeper than I remember also. I may have to 'bugeye' the headlight ahead of the grill slightly to get the clearance I need.

I am going to move forward with making the new crossmember under the grill shell, but I need to get in the correct clutch fan before I can build out the final radiator position....
 
Testing tools!







I started on the front crossmember that will be under the grill. This will add some structure to help support the steering box along with provide a home for the power steering cooler. It will also provide somewhere to attach the lower radiator mounts.

This is the first time I have used the wide bottom die in my new press brake which I designed for bending thicker materials. This was 26" or so of 10 gauge cold roll material ( 0.135" ). It didn't even break a sweat. It only required light pressure on the jack handles. This press 'should' do a full 5 feet of this material with the 2" bottom die.

I am using a neat little Derale cooler for the power steering. It was a neat little unit that was the right size for what I had in mind. It also came with JIC/AN fittings from the factory. This should make the plumbing a little more robust in the end.

Next, I need to dimple die the vent holes. Then it can be trimmed to fit in the frame along with some frame pads. Hopefully my new clutch fan will be here soon do I can determine the final radiator position and built the lower mounts off this crossmember.
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
Which press brake is that?
Click to expand...

I designed and built it myself. It uses laser cut laminated tooling. It has a bed width of 60". It is powered by two 20 ton bottle jacks in a bottom up configuration. The truss on the top die breaks down so I can store it under my weld table.
 
I finished up most of the details on the grille crossmember.





I had a few people mention that they didn't think the power steering cooler was going to get enough air flow with only the 3 large holes. I let it eat on me for a bit and I finally relented and added some more ventilation. All the holes are dimpled also to make make the panel a little stiffer.

The crossmember was fitted into the frame with some 10 gauge frame plates to spread out the load onto the inside surface.

I have a few little details still, like adding a few holes for the winch power cable grommets. I also need to decide what I want to do about the lower radiator mounting pedestals. I need to figure that out before I final weld things....
 
Nothing amazing, but I did do something tonight. Even those small bites add up....





I finally got the right clutch and fan that will work together.

Clutch- Hayden 2986
Fan- Derale 17917

I did have to drill the mounting holes in the fan out to match the M10-1.5 hardware ( and I need to get some shorter hardware )

Overall the package fits very nice. It is only 3" thick total. That is more compact than most electric fans honestly. There needs to be a little space for things to move around as far as the shroud and clutch, but overall it is very compact.

My hope is that this mechanical fan will move more air than even the largest electric fan would with this size radiator. Running a clutch fan sure does make things simple it seems.

I was also able to pull the crossmember out for some more holes. I added two 7/8 holes for winch cable pass through ( with grommets ) on the passenger side. I also added the holes for the lower radiator mounts. I am going to have to make those a bolt in piece so I can R&R the power steering cooler.

Next....radiator mounts.
 
Only a few little brackets tonight....



The start of the lower radiator mounts. These will bolt into the new crossmember under the grille.

Folding a U-shape that fits inside another U-shape that you folded is harder than I thought it would be....
 
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