Dan's 1979 BJ40 (1 Viewer)

[Falco80]

Great rig! I wish mine was a diesel.

I feel ya on the 80 as I know it would be hard to let go of mine and even harder for my wife who loves it dearly. But, I agree with you that the 40 has enduring character and appeal that pushes aside modern practicality. I think you made the right choice .

Keep us posted.


-Ed

Thanks Ed. Selling the 80 was a little easier because of necessity. I wouldn't have let her go unless i really had to.

Refurbed battery mount. Damn, i was impressed when i saw the beefy construction of this battery mount! They don't make them solid like this anymore.

New water pump, hoses, thermostat and upper thermostat housing. THis area is not going to leak coolant anymore! Thank god for unicoils.

New washer bottle fitted great in it's new home...

 

[lostmarbles]

Wow! Is that blue sticker on your valve cover original Dan?

It looks so new and I'm envious!



PS. I don't know what you're raving about that other cruiser for. Nothing comes close to a 40 series IMO.

 

[toms42]

lookin good mate great to see another bj staying diesel slow but reliable I love my 3b cheap on fuel and even cheaper to service.

 

[Falco80]

Wow! Is that blue sticker on your valve cover original Dan?

It looks so new and I'm envious!



PS. I don't know what you're raving about that other cruiser for. Nothing comes close to a 40 series IMO.

G'day Tom, yep that is the original valve cover decal. It cleaned up real good. Your exactly right mate, nothing does come close to a 40.

lookin good mate great to see another bj staying diesel slow but reliable I love my 3b cheap on fuel and even cheaper to service.

Thanks man. Yep slowness, reliabilty and fuel efficency are it's strong points! But mainly slowness...

 

[Falco80]

Getting there....
Cleaned up the air inlet hosing and put on some new clamps. Renewed all the heater hoses at the rear of the engine bay. Since i was pressed for time and needed to be back on the road as soon as possible i'm going to take the air filter housing off at a later date to sand it back and paint it then. I installed my digital temperature monitor probe on one of the thermostat housing bolts also.

Refurbed radiator mounting bracket. I had to cut a new hole to allow access to the radiator drain bung...

All back together ready to fire up. It was good feeling to find no coolant leaks whatsoever.

 

[lostmarbles]

Hi Dan.

I notice your right-angled section of heater-line tubing (that runs alongside your alloy valve cover) is black.

I believe originals were made of brass (up to 1977?) but later ones like mine (and probably your original one too) were just zinc plated steel.

Have you replaced it or just painted it?

I ask because it is no longer available from Toyota and the steel version commonly gets badly corroded.

(If you have a source for a new one or bent a new one up yourself I'd be keen to learn about it.)



BTW... I hope you realise you're in possession of one of the best BJ40s in the world! In a number of ways (not just that sticker) it even looks better than mine!!!

PS. What is mileage has it done?

 

[Falco80]

Hi Dan.

I notice your right-angled section of heater-line tubing (that runs alongside your alloy valve cover) is black.

I believe originals were made of brass (up to 1977?) but later ones like mine (and probably your original one too) were just zinc plated steel.

Have you replaced it or just painted it?

I ask because it is no longer available from Toyota and the steel version commonly gets badly corroded.

(If you have a source for a new one or bent a new one up yourself I'd be keen to learn about it.)



BTW... I hope you realise you're in possession of one of the best BJ40s in the world! In a number of ways (not just that sticker) it even looks better than mine!!!

PS. What is mileage has it done?

Hiya Tom, yep that heater line is the original one. It was zinc-plated steel too. Both ends were a bit corroded and i couldn't really clean it up to my liking, so i just sprayed it black. I think it looks better black anyway, just like the heater hoses.

Cheers for the compliment too, but seriously your BJ40 is schmick. I'm aspiring to get my engine bay up to your level....one day.

As for mileage, the odometer has just gone past 90000km's and according to the hand-written book i got with the truck this is it's second time around. So 190000km's is where it's at. It certainly helps to buy an old rig with a meticulous first owner who likes to write everything down and keep a history of whats been done!

 

[camcruiser13]

oh good you took that hidious roof rak off

 

[Falco80]

oh good you took that hidious roof rak off

Sure did, it wouldn't fit in the garage with it on. The cruiser looks so much better without it.

....and it did not help the aerodynamic 40 series shape at all!

 

[lostmarbles]

...As for mileage, the odometer has just gone past 90000km's and according to the hand-written book i got with the truck this is it's second time around. So 190000km's is where it's at. It certainly helps to buy an old rig with a meticulous first owner who likes to write everything down and keep a history of whats been done!

Wow! That's 50,000kms less than mine and mine is still low for a 30 year-old vehicle Dan. (So yours is superlow!)

oh good you took that hidious roof rak off

Sure did, it wouldn't fit in the garage with it on. The cruiser looks so much better without it.

....and it did not help the aerodynamic 40 series shape at all!

Mine originally sported a similar roofrack. Best thing I ever did was to dump both it and my bullbar. The weight-saving and lowering of the centre-of-gravity both made a tremendous difference to handling and performance (not that either of those terms sit well when you're discussing a BJ40 ).



(Ignore the date on the photo ... That little fella is really my 25 year-old-son!)

 

[Falco80]

Mine originally sported a similar roofrack. Best thing I ever did was to dump both it and my bullbar. The weight-saving and lowering of the centre-of-gravity both made a tremendous difference to handling and performance (not that either of those terms sit well when you're discussing a BJ40 ).

Awesome Tom, i love seeing old photos of peoples rigs. You certainly have a lot of history tied up with yours.

I've still got the rack and was thinking of hanging on to it and maybe giving it a lick of paint, just in case i needed it in the future. I was surprised at the weight of it when we removed it. You really don't want all that weight up high, especially with a shorty 40. Low C of G is what we want.
Your right though, performance and handling don't really associate with a BJ40, haha!

Oh, i also hope you were nowhere near that earthquake which happened "across the ditch" this morning. Looked like a fair bit of destruction on the news...

 

[lostmarbles]

..Oh, i also hope you were nowhere near that earthquake which happened "across the ditch" this morning. Looked like a fair bit of destruction on the news...

The whole country is unstable in my opinion.

Lake Taupo (our biggest lake) was formed in a massive explosion that affected the climate (temperatures and light) of the whole damned world! (Some scientists say that it even caused various species to become extinct through the temperature drop.)

Mt Tarawera (near Rotorua) simply split in two and erupted in fire in quite recent times (the early days of european colonisation)obliterating Maori villages and collapsing buildings with volcanic ash and flying bolders. (Exciting to have been a spectator eh?)

Auckland (our biggest city) has volcanos dotted around its suburbs that we classify as dormant but that could really erupt at any time.

And I live in the capital that is supposed to be the most earthquake-prone part of the country. All the land that is now our international airport wasn't even there until the last major earthquake not much more than 100 years ago lifted it out of the sea.

Our weather here is the capital is often violent so the risk of upheaval from earthquakes is just another added attraction to me.

Only one in our household felt that quake (I didn't) so it was far enough away as not to be a direct/immediate concern.

Cheers
Tom

PS.
Our scientists are no better than our weather forecasters at predicting what will happen next.

 

[Falco80]

Well i recently had some issues after i replaced the injector pump diaphragm on the B diesel. I decided to change my fuel filters at the same time and then afterwards when it wouldn't run normally i had two possible causes to check out. Note-to-self, do one job at a time to make troubleshooting easier!!

Anyway i got it sorted out and the 40 is back to it's underpowered self.

I picked up this 7.50 R16 Dunlop Super-Gripper off ebay recently and had it mounted up for the spare tyre. I sanded back and and painted the rim with a handbrush. Sure, i would have liked to be fancy and maybe powdercoat it or something, but meh, i'm enjoying doing things myself. I know it's rough painting wheels with brand-new tyres already mounted on them, but i don't care if they don't look perfect anymore. I'm picking up four new tyres tomorrow and i'll paint those other wheels later. I could not get the Super-Grippers like i wanted as apparently they don't make them anymore, in Australia anyway. I'm getting the Dunlop Road-Grippers instead...

I cleaned up the hood latches and mounted them up. I was thinking of painting the brackets that mount to the hood the same colour as the hood, but maybe further down the road i'll do that...

Fitted some new hood latches and new replacement side mirrors too. The mirrors work well and have convex mirrors in them, but compared to the 31 year-old OEM ones i removed the quality and ruggedness leave a bit to be desired.

 

[primer7]

Very sweet rig, hope the 80 went to a good home.

 

[Falco80]

Very sweet rig, hope the 80 went to a good home.

Cheers mate, yeah the 80 went home with a very happy and enthusiastic guy!

Here are some before and after engine bay pics.

The day i bought her....

And after my quick tidy-up...

 

[Falco80]

The cruiser has new shoes!

I had 4 new tyres fitted today. They are 7.50 R16 Dunlop Road Grippers. I love tall, skinny tyres on 40's, haha.

 

[Falco80]

The next thing on my "to-do-list" is get the suspension sorted out. I'm either going to fit some smaller shackles to get the shackle angles away from vertical, or have some longer main leaves made up to get the extended shackles that are now fitted away from vertical. Something needs to be done because with the extended shackles on it now at vertical and the heavy-duty leaf packs, it rides like crap and is too stiff.



I have to paint the wheels now, but that will give me something to do on a day off in the near future.


Here is where i mounted the TM2 Engine Watchdog digital temp gauge under the dash. Didn't need to drill any holes so it's all good. I've had this same unit in my last two 80 series' and it works well.

 

[lostmarbles]

I can never get enough pics of your BJ40 Dan.

If you buy new springs/shackles I reckon you should find someone who has makes them to OEM dimensions ......That's including the spring-eye diameters which many manufacturers standardise to the larger 35mm size. (Yours should be 25mm unless your production date was late in 1980.)

Terrain Tamer make nice greaseable shackles to stock dimensions.

Dunno who does the same with springs though. I bought Old Man Emu springs and dumped them (ie. onsold them at a massive loss) when I learnt of their "fit difficiencies".

Toyota designed my suspension to have 24 of these bushes (and that's what I still have):



PS. I bought these black poly ones from SOR because I'm one of those people that thinks stuff under the vehicle shouldn't "attract the eye" and because of the greasable pins allow me to use moly grease on my suspension.

By keeping it all "to OEM dimensions" I can easily fit and remove suspension components as Toyota intended. And there will be no confusion in store for any future owner (as would otherwise be the case for instance if the top of a shackle required a different bush to the bottom).

 

[Beast II]

I really like your rig. I'm about to soda blast and then paint my BJ42. Would you happen to know what your paint color is called?

 

[Pauciflora]

G'day Dan

G'day Dan,

It's great to another Australian truck on MUD. I reckon you have up-graded by moving from the 80 series to the current truck. Couple of quick questions:

I'm curious about the 'burning dinosaur bones' comment? And what method did you use to clean the aluminium timing case cover? It looks really good.

Cheers,

Ben

P.S. Good choice with the tall skinnys. Very classy.