Chopped Cruiser from Sweden (1 Viewer)

[Sparkind]

Hi Guys!

I have been lurking around here for a while now. I was a regular visitor even when I still owned my Jeep XJ. I always dreamt about owning a real car one day

I thought I was going to present what me and a couple of friends who have helped me alot has done to this Toyota so far.

It is a HJ60 from 87 with 40k km on the dash. It has the 2H diesel engine which has been turbo converted.

This is how it looked when it arrived to me. She was in pretty bad shape. A lot of rust and nothing towards maintenance had been done for some time.
The guy who owns the garage actually did the chop a couple of years ago and the cars has had 3 owners since then. Now it is back in his care and there was a bunch of things to dive into

This is a my place where we tried the SS-Boggers 38,5x14.5x16.

I found a colour I liked a lot on another Cruiser.

At first we noticed the spring perches on the rear axle where far to weak and the axle was moving a bit to much

Hopefully 12mm steel plate will do the trick

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/1214/20120528151244.jpg

Did some patching on the frame as well but in all the frame looked ok

We formed a plan to get rid of most of the rear overhang and that meant getting a new fuel tank. This is what I bought. 60L Alu fuel tank.

The cutting starts...

We also did som rust-fixing on the frame. I do not have the patience or skill to do this so I had a friend fixing it and it turned out great.

These are my Friends Frank (left) and Daniel. Frank has done almost all the work that you will see in this post with help from me and Daniel. I can not express how much I appreciate the help with this car they gave me just when me and my fiancée went through a very tough period with pregnancy and stuff.

Next Post

 

[Sparkind]

A new rear end is taking shape

The chop is mostly done. Now on to paint.

Paint goes on!
The paint is a Polyurethane 2 component top coat for boats. I works great and protects very good against salt and everything else. We also painted the whole underside with this colour and where you want a thicker coat you just use a brush.

 

[Sparkind]

Fuel cell mounted and then some poser pics with big tires.

Next to Franks LJ70

Finished up the installation of the fuel cell. Had to make an adaptor and som stuff. Also installed new indicators with LED inserts. Then a poser shot in the fields.

All the wiring to the rear lights stopped working after we disconnected them. We have no clue why. Frank was a trooper and rewired everything
We also removed a lot of stuff we did not need.

Next step is doing a High Steer setup and I am looking at the one from Marlin Crawler with the 25mm upgrade. Anyone with experience with this setup?
I am also going to re-gear to 5.29 I think. The best deal I found was on IPOR with a complete package. Any tips on where to find more alternatives?
After that I will look at lockers. I am not sure about my setup just yet but ARB in front and spool in back to begin with. Then maybe upgrade to ARB in the rear if it feels necessary.
This car will probably be competing in the Swedish Challenge Cup in the future so a approved cage will be fitted as well. Snorkel is going on there as well. The goal is also to keep it road legal at all times.
This car has actually been equipped with Volvo Portal axels at one time. I will see if I can find the youtube clips from that period.

Thats all for now Greetings from Horred, Sweden

//Joakim

 

[TEXASYETI]

Welcome to MUD and nice rig! Looks like it is a lot of fun and sounds like you have some big plans for it. I won't be much help with your questions but I'm sure someone else will chime in.

Keep us posted!

 

[TS888]

I don't know what it is about Sweden, but the country has some serious car nuts!

I do know, from a trip to Malmö for a wedding a couple years ago, that Sweden must have more speed cameras than any other country in the world...

Nice build, welcome to 'Mud!

 

[kling-on]

Sweet that is sick

 

[pyrotech]

thats a cool looking rig, is day when the oof of my bobbed cruiser rusts out, it will be getting a ute chop like yours love the fab work on the rear end, the only thing i would have done different is re fitted the rear tail lights so that the corners looked factory

 

[Sparkind]

the only thing i would have done different is re fitted the rear tail lights so that the corners looked factory

That was the plan from the beginning but we kind of forgot to measure and ended up making the corners to narrow :whoops:

/Joakim

 

[scrapdaddy]

Good Job! you're going to have alot of fun with that. If you're thinking about the ARB, in the rear, do it the first time around. Don't spend more money and time setting up everything, then change. Good Luck.

 

[Spike Strip]

Hey, nice truck! Can you take Lisbeth Salander for a ride in it ?

 

[pyrotech]

That was the plan from the beginning but we kind of forgot to measure and ended up making the corners to narrow :whoops:

/Joakim

haha thats always the way, similar thing happened with my rear quarter chop..

 

[Sparkind]

Update!

In June I ordered a gear set from IPOR and High Steer from Marlin Crawler. It took almost 2 months for the parts to arrive at my door. Mostly because a friend was helping me with the shipping and got swamped in work just as the parts arrived at his place. But everything ended up great and I finally got the parts

The gearing I ended up with was 5.29 and I got help from a couple of friends installing the gears. I managed to bust my leg pretty bad when tightening the pinion nut with a 3/4 ratchet and the third member broke loose from the vice and I ran the ratchet right on my thigh . Could not walk for three days but now 2 weeks later I'm ok.
The only problem we had with the Sierra gear set was that we sheared the threads on both the pinion nuts when compressing the crush sleeve. The nut was also smaller than stock and we where very lucky to find two old nuts from a 8" third member that we could use. We also had to grind out a bit in the housing.
We ended up moving the LSD to the front and welding the back. I really thought that turning was going to be a thing of the past .
I was very surprised how little I felt of the disadvantages of this setup on the trail. Everything worked smooth as butter and the LSD in the front did work alot better than expected.
The High Steer from Marlin did wonders for road handling and now its possible to actually drive the car on the road without getting a heart attack every time. I also feel as if the power steering works much better and I will probably set the hydro assist-plans on hold for a while. I have aftermarket springs from Milner Offroad in GB and they are a little bit thicker than others I guess and the tie-rod is scraping on the top of the springs. I did not feel any binding on the trail and I am not sure what I can do to address it more than removing one leaf from the spring. I saw that maybe a mm of material has scraped away so maybe it could be ok now
The picture above is from trail day yesterday in the rainy town of Borås in the south of Sweden. The place is a old training ground for the military where they used to practise driving in terrain with different wheeled vehicles. We have been wheeling there for years and its a wonderful and though place made up of bogs, big rocks, forest, sand hills, mountains and everything you can think of.
I drove down in that bog not knowing the status of my batteries and had never tested the winch , but my two friends with winches where on the other side.
I took us about 45 min to drag the beast through that bog and my batteries died about half way:whoops:. Bear in mind that I have 38.5" x 15 boggers, SOA and springs that ad about an inch . It was deep!
But as usual it only takes time and we got through eventually.
Below are some more pictures from the day.
Next on the todo-list are:

Changing front wind shield (to get DMV approved)
New winch rope front and back
New batteries (maybe relocate to the back)
exo-cage

Hope you enjoy!

Best regards
Joakim

 

[The Phoenician]

I love this build. great pics.

 

[rlrajanant]

Looks cool and mean at the same time, would say a build with PURPOSE congrats. loved and always wanted a dual winch setup front n back as most of the time if stuck it is easier to move backward.
with this kind of setup feel like i can F*** both direction.

 

[baxter650]

Seeing your build makes me want to do a 60 series pickup all the more.
Sharp lookin truck.

 

[Sparkind]

Hi,

I have been doing some small fixes like painted the inside of the cab, fitted a snorkel painted the front axle, raised the seets about 40mm.

Here is a short cold startup clip. Its about 35F here so it is not that cold yet. (if you are wondering about the shorts )

Dont mind the strange sounds I am making, it´s just Swedish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfw9e_XNQgw&feature=g-upl

/J

 

[Sparkind]

Hi!

I have worked my ass off preparing the car for the MOT-inspection. I was all just small stuff but it still took quite an effort.
I talked to the guy who was going to do the inspection the day before and got a god feeling about him. He had inspected alot of offroad cars ment for Challenge competitions.
I pulled up at about 0700 in the morning and he said he could do it right away. 15 min later i was done with flying colors .

Later today I am going to test my new plasma cutter and tig-welder to see if me and a friend can build us an approved roll cage. Wish me luck!
See if I can get some pics of the cage build tomorrow.

Best regards from Sweden
/Joakim

 

[Sparkind]

Outing in the woods

Hi guys!

Well the cage build did not happen due to unforeseen circumstances.

Here is a short clip from our latest Club meeting in the forests of Borås in the South of Sweden.

I drive with a bunch of Suzukis and I seem to be very popular as a winch-anchor. The large weight has its uses sometimes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITVZYwHiUhg

 

[Sparkind]

Hi Guys!

Sorry for the lack of updates here. It has been a busy time for me with starting my own business and taking care of the family and everything else.
We decided that we were gonna participate in the Swedish Challenge Cup so with that decission came a bit of a time schedule.
We became forced to build a regulatory cage, not a complete cage but only what we call a Hockey-goal. We tried to get as much protection on the car as possible and managed ok I guess. Below a a couple fo pics of the cage build and then a couple of pics from the event.
Me and my co-driver where both hung up at work and the event was about a 4h drive from us and we did not manage to work out all the logistics quite right before we had to leave.
We sent the car on a friends trailer on friday and drove on saturday to a town called Eskilstuna. The event started at 10am and we had to be there at 9am so we left at about 0430 in the morning.
The event was almost 24h long with a required rest time of 5h so we were not planning on driving the whole event. This was also my first time driving in a competition with this car and my friends first time co-driving so our hopes for a place high in the ranks were not good.
The first couple of ours we broke both our winsches
Then we had some food and got back in the game after mending the winches and now everything worked much smoother between me and the co-driver.
We drove for about 10h then decided to call it. We had had enough for a first try. The car held up great and worked better than expected in the rocks and in the forrest between the trees.
I also included a link to a film from the first "special passage". It was tight, rocky, steep and crowded. We were still at this time a bit nervous and shaky and had not sorted out the kinks in our comunication and stuff. Hence the two close tip overs...
But first some pics of the cage build.

http://youtu.be/AsWAoXv9QLU

 

[Sparkind]

Hi guys!,

A few things have happened here. I am now a proud father to a 5 month old little princess and the Cruiser has been given some tlc

I have finally finished alot of things thanks to my brother in law who helped a lot.

I have moved the batteries to the back
Finished the disc brake swap
Removed a leaf in the back springs
Installed new rear lights
Installed LED-work lights
Converted the front winch to use a Warm XP 12V motor.

The biggest difference (except having working brakes) was the flex I got from removing one leaf in the back springs and moving the batteries to the back. It flexes great now and I will put my plans for the coil-conversion on hold for a while.

I broke my winch when i used my new 12mm Marlow winch rope. The "ears" for the tubes that go over the drum popped of when the rope was wound in on one side of the drum. I got that tigged and fixed and i made new tubes and moved them up to accommodate a lot more winch line. I also mounted a 12v Warn XP motor on the winch to get some extra performance. We will see how long it lasts . The motor was free because it did not work but i managed to fix it pretty easily.

I will attach some unsorted pictures and a video clip from our last outing outside the small town of Borås in the south of Sweden. First one is a short one only including my car and the second video is the complete clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4K7C88G46I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y63T5T4OpIg