Build Build: Rusty Pumpkin Project 74' FJ40

[pb4ugo]

A lot of folks will go to an internally regulated alternator and bypass the ammeter or not. Running the charge wire to the batt makes the ammeter ineffective. You might checkout Mad Electricals website. I've never bought anything from them, but they have good tutorials on the subject along with the trials and tribulations of ammeter wiring.

 

[bdawg23]

A lot of folks will go to an internally regulated alternator and bypass the ammeter or not. Running the charge wire to the batt makes the ammeter ineffective. You might checkou Mad Electricals website. I've never bought anything from them, but they have good tutorials on the subject along with the trials and tribulations of ammeter wiring.

I already have an internally regulated alternator and looking back at the wiring the charge wire from the alternator was going back to the battery. Guess I was already destined to not get the ammeter working without realizing it.

I’ve been traveling this week for work so I’ll be glad to be home tomorrow. No more work travel this year so I’m hoping to make some good progress before January rolls around.

 

[bdawg23]

This is actually a good opportunity to improve the safety of your electrical system but would require additional work and if your not comfortable doing electrical it might not be for you.......

The wire that runs to your ammeter carries a lot of current and a short here can cause big issues. Rerouting the wires that go to and from the ammeter so they don't run through the cab is a good way to reduce the chance of cooking your harness. You can eliminating the ammeter entirely and eventually convert to a voltmeter if you like, this is a common upgrade for this portion of the wiring and I believe there's several threads on how to do it here on Mud if your up to the challenge.

I pulled the white wire out from behind the dash and it now runs across the top of the engine bay over the white/blue wire that runs into the firewall and down to the fuse block. Still needs cleaned up but it's a start! thanks!

 

[bdawg23]

Well I had some issues getting this to start.
- no fuel in the float bowl
- pulled the line from fuel pump and no fuel flowing while I crank

I followed the fuel line back to the tank and it got me looking up which line goes where. Well guess what? I'm not the brightest crayon in the box...
- I had the fuel pickup line from the fuel pump plugged into the RETURN line on the fuel tank
- swapped the lines and pressured the tank (shop vac for the win) and I had a fuel filter full of fuel

Hooked up the fuel line from the fuel pump to the carb and cranked it over a few times.
- checked the sight glass and I saw FUEL
- cranked it a big more and now more FUEL

Next crank it fired up!

I had it running with the choke on but as soon as I killed the choke it would sputter, backfire through the carb with some black sooty looking stuff. I tried again thinking the motor was just cold but then it backfired with a fireball and I thought maybe this isn't right at all and my timing is off or something else is going on because it shouldn't be sending that much unburnt fuel back through the carb.

I'm going to check the plug wires to make sure they are on the correct plugs, check for any visual indications of a vacuum leak, and also loosen up the dizzy and see if swinging it one way or the other helps to get it to at least idle so I can get a timing light on it.

Also noticed this wire from the carb is unplugged, I think this is the idle solenoid but since I'm working on a non-USA I don't think this is relevant to me.

As always...more to come and what will come ya never know with this project

 

[60 40]

The wire to the carb goes to the fuel cut solenoid, it should be connected to a positive that is switched on with the ignition. You should hear a click when you turn the key on and off without this hooked up properly you are likely to have "dieseling" and backfiring like you are describing when you turn off the motor.

 

[bdawg23]

The wire to the carb goes to the fuel cut solenoid, it should be connected to a positive that is switched on with the ignition. You should hear a click when you turn the key on and off without this hooked up properly you are likely to have "dieseling" and backfiring like you are describing when you turn off the motor.

I hooked up the solenoid to battery + and I heard a click.

Ran a jumper from coil + to solenoid and turned the key to on and heard a click.

pulled the choke on and it fired right up and idled! Granted not a great idle but it didn't cough and sputter when I took the choke off. I loosened the dizzy slowly turned it forward towards the radiator and it shut off. Put the dizzy back a half turn and then started the truck again. This time went towards the firewall and the idle got better and better until it fairly smooth. Let the truck sit there an idle for about 5 mins and just kept scanning for any leaks or other things that could be an issue but nothing major.

I wish I could post a video here of it running!

Lots more to do but wow, so freakin excited right now!!

 

[knuckle47]

You’ve got to be smiling like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland…so nice to hear these results

 

[60 40]

Love it, I just got mine running but still not on the road and know the feeling. So surprising when it starts and works and doesn't leak everywhere or catch on fire!

Congratulations on this milestone.

 

[bdawg23]

Love it, I just got mine running but still not on the road and know the feeling. So surprising when it starts and works and doesn't leak everywhere or catch on fire!

Congratulations on this milestone.

Thank you!! Great description! lol

Appreciate you and everyone’s support here.

 

[bdawg23]

Did some more work last night to keep the momentum going.

Something I forgot to do was re-torque the head bolts after installing the air cleaner mount. Figured if was going to re-torque these bolts I might as well re-torque all of them to make sure they are set the same. I dug up page in the FSM and hit the bolts and pulled the valve cover.

I also wanted to fire up the engine with the valve cover off just to inspect things as it was running. I was imagining a lot more oil flowing around so I was kinda surprised to just see the small puddles. The top of the valve cover was also clean and again, I was imaging it would be more covered with oil. I'm about a half quart low on the dipstick.

Here is a YouTube short of the engine running:

 

[bdawg23]

Well turns out the top end is not getting oil. Looking at the oil ports on the rocker arm over the valve spring and there zero oil coming out.

As you could imagine I went into an immediate nose dive. I started searching around only to find things like maybe the head gasket is installed backwards and flipped around...pull up...pull up.

Once I recovered and leveled off I chatted with a friend of mine and we came up with a plan to tackle this. He actually called me when he saw the video and was like...hey that looks kinda dry. Super grateful, thank you @Cruiser Jimmy.

I set off to figure out where the oil was going and not going.

I played around with the drill and trying use it on the oil pump to get oil to flow to the top but I'm not 100% sure oil would pump to the top end without it running. When I removed the oil filter oil came out from here so the pump was working.

I tried removing the rocker assembly and pumping oil to the top by nothing came out.

I then pulled the head bolt where the oil runs to see if it was covered in oil and it was. So it seemed oil was making it this far.

Next up I saw folks commenting on other posts with this issue that the rockershaft could be installed 180 degrees off. This would put the oil receiver hole in the wrong spot and oil wouldn't be able to flow up into it. So I figured why not dissemble the rocker assembly and see what's going on. It turns out the rocker shaft was installed in the correct orientation. HOWEVER if you look at the picture below you can something was not installed properly...

The support tower with the oil port was not installed to line up with the oil port on the rockershaft. It was installed one position off so oil flowing up to top end was hitting a wall. I'm super hopeful this is the issue and I'll finish assembling it tomorrow.

You can see I did get some light scouring marks on the rockershaft. The picture makes them look pretty bad they they didn't catch my finger nail so I'm going to say they are ok for now.

Below is how it was re-installed and hopefully this fixes the issue.

Almost had a new top end in the works and who knows what other kind of damage if I had driven this around without oil getting to the top end.

Added the YT video link related to this:

 

[RevISK]

Man, good catch and really good lesson.

 

[bdawg23]

Alright, next steps are on order:
- new water pump assembly, the current one is leaking most likely because I reused the inner pump gasket. I'm going to put a new assembly in and then fix the old pump so I have a backup
- new plastic fan to replace the 4 blade metal fan that is apparently prone to failing
- new mirrors, current ones are missing the mirror and the PO used a bunch of wood screws to get them to stay in place so we're just going to start fresh
- choke cable, currently it's a bit like what I think hand propping a plane might be like, one hand on key the other under the hood on the choke lol

First oil change is complete. Oil had some metallic in it but I think most of it was from all the anti seize compound that was on head bolt #4 which is where the oil flows up to the head.

I'll also be starting work on installing the outer window weather stripping on both driver and passenger doors. Currently there is none and the windows rattle in the door frame.

 

[bdawg23]

Finally got a timing light and set the timing. I used 650 rpm (edit: saw the 2F calls for 950 rpm so I’ll need to redo this) which is what the FSM calls for USA models and went for a quick drive and it was running fine, especially to where it was before setting timing.

Took a few minutes to install window track in the doors. The glass was rattling around pretty bad so this was on my list especially with no heat.

The old stuff, whatever was left of it was an absolute bear to get out.

If you’re wondering where I got a piece of Toyota cardboard that big it was from my gas tank.

Also installed some new mirrors. Nothing that exciting but little things like this are nice easy wins and look great.

I also installed a vibration hour meter to help keep track of maintenance intervals rather than use miles. Plus my speedo still isn’t working so this will help.

Also got a choke cable installed but it seems like the clamp on the carb and the cable end should line up better. When clamping the cable it feels like the brass end of the cable should lad between the clamps on the carb otherwise I’m just squashing the cable. Thoughts?

 

[bdawg23]

Well that was fun….

New water pump and fan installed. Rerouted the alternator cable across the front of truck. Reset timing at 950 rpm.

I picked up a new 2F water pump but after installing it I realized the pump shaft is too long and it was causing the belt to be at bad angle so I took it off and then cleaned up the old pump, installed a new inner pump gasket and put all back together. I waited a full day before adding coolant to hep let the RTV set. Also used all new bolts

Here it is with the new fan installed.

I have an apt at a local muffler shop to have them install a new exhaust on Monday the 29.

In the meantime I snuck out and woke up the neighbors with this straight piped fire breathing straight six

Hope everyone is gearing up for some nice holiday time!

 

[TwelveGravity]

Also got a choke cable installed but it seems like the clamp on the carb and the cable end should line up better. When clamping the cable it feels like the brass end of the cable should lad between the clamps on the carb otherwise I’m just squashing the cable. Thoughts?
View attachment 4052775

I have a different universal choke cable but it is set up similar and doesn't feel like it is in a pinch. Also the two clamps on mine appear to be aligned, I'll see if I can get a picture later. I also want to do my doors like you did and the weather stripping.

 

[TwelveGravity]

I have a different universal choke cable but it is set up similar and doesn't feel like it is in a pinch. Also the two clamps on mine appear to be aligned, I'll see if I can get a picture later. I also want to do my doors like you did and the weather stripping.

 

[bdawg23]

View attachment 4054181

View attachment 4054182

Thx for sharing. Helpful to see another install example. Guess I’ll leave mine as is.

 

[bdawg23]

View attachment 4054181

View attachment 4054182

Thx for sharing. Helpful to see another install example. Guess I’ll leave mine as is.

 

[bdawg23]

Happy holidays! Super grateful for all the help on this build. More to do but for now…