Dan's 1979 BJ40 (1 Viewer)

[Falco80]

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):

View attachment 450282

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).

Cheers for the info Tom, i love your attention to detail. I've decided to just replace the shackles first and i might have to check the Terrain-Tamer ones out now.

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?

Thanks man. When i bought the 40 the PO gave me the drum of paint he used as it still had some paint left in it. I'm away at work for a while, but when i'm home i'll see if it has a code on it. All i really know is that it is grey, very grey!

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.

Cheers Ben. Keeping the 40 instead of the 80 was an upgrade in coolness, but a definate downgrade in comfort!

I used elbow grease and a wire brush to clean up the timing gear case. It had 30 years of crud baked onto it.

"....I'm burning diesel burning dinosaur bones..." Thats just a line from 'Rusty Cage' written by the band Soundgarden. I prefer Johnny Cash's version though...

 

[Falco80]

Well, i finally got my new shackles fitted a few days ago. Just standard sized ones, but damn they made a huge difference. The springs now actually flex and don't feel restricted like they used to. I much prefer the stock look anyway and wasn't a fan of the huge shackles. It could still be "flexier" i think, but that might mean removing a leaf or two from each spring pack? And maybe the shocks are too stiff, not too sure yet. For now I'm happy with it and this morning i drove it for four hours straight , just to test it out . It feels like it has suspension now, haha!

Couple of poser shots...


...And with the recent strong aussie dollar i couldn't resist buying a few Landcruiser porn items. It spins me out that you can still buy brand-new emblems for a vehicle over 30 years old!

If and when i decide to strip it back and have it resprayed the original colour then i'll add these. For now i just like to look at them....all shiny mmmm...

 

[whats the deal]

Looking back I bet your glad you kept the truck! Everything looks great!

 

[Falco80]

Looking back I bet your glad you kept the truck! Everything looks great!

Thanks,bud, yep i'm glad to have kept her for sure.

 

[Falco80]

PTO winch = score!

Well i scored a complete 8000lb Thomas PTO winch this weekend. A good friend of the family has an 82 HJ47, with a seized 2H in it, that has been sitting in his paddock for around 4 years. I remember getting driven around in it 15 years ago and while it was a bit rough, it was a reliable old work ute that had a hard life. We visited his farm a year ago and i spotted it sitting out in the grass, rusting away. I had just bought the BJ and i remember this ute had a winch so i checked it out and saw it was a Thomas winch. He promised me it was mine, i just had to remove it.
We went up there yesterday, pumped some air in the old tyres and dragged her up onto some hard ground so i could get underneath. It came out easy enough and everything slides and spins like it should. The steel cable is broken, but thats no hassle. I'm going to clean it up, grease it all and make up a cradle to mount it up. I'm pretty happy. Not a bad swap for a carton of bundy rum & coke cans!


The old HJ47 rotting away....

 

[herbs]

Nice shorty, for the wheels, I had a set of split rims sandblasted and I attacked them with grey KBS rustseal paint, here's the result.



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Edit: Where'd you get the emblems from? And I want that rustbucket 47.

 

[Falco80]

Nice shorty, for the wheels, I had a set of split rims sandblasted and I attacked them with grey KBS rustseal paint, here's the result.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Edit: Where'd you get the emblems from? And I want that rustbucket 47.

Cheers Herbs, your splitties came up good. I want to concentrate on mounting this new winch at the moment, so the wheels will probably have to wait a while for paint now.
I got the emblems from a couple of stores listed on ebay in the USA. I found it easier to justify now that the aussie dollar is just about equal to the USD.

 

[Gorilla]

Love your RIG man! I really want one, but scared to drive it daily...I recently sold my 80 series too. When you say slow, how slow?? lol, and I doubt it will tow a car either right?

 

[Falco80]

Love your RIG man! I really want one, but scared to drive it daily...I recently sold my 80 series too. When you say slow, how slow?? lol, and I doubt it will tow a car either right?

Cheers man, she's a great old truck. But you can't be afraid to drive something like this because a Landcruiser is meant to be driven! When i say slow i mean i have to have my foot buried in the firewall through 2nd, 3rd and 4th gears regularly just to try to keep up with traffic. Any slight incline or hill and she struggles. I would not be towing a car with a BJ40.

 

[Falco80]

Righto, so i haven't really done anything to the BJ over the last few months, except drive it. I've cleaned the PTO winch up, greased all the uni's and got it ready to mount, but it's still sitting on my garage floor waiting.

I started a new job early this year and the cruiser was my only vehicle. That meant it got called into action to take me 200km's a day round-trip to and from work. She did it reliably, but damn it is not a highway cruiser! My spine was not happy with me! She also leaks in numerous areas during heavy rain, so that was not cool either with all the rain we have had here in Queensland this month. So i drove her for two weeks and put a good few miles on her, but i think it might have been slowly killing it. I noticed a few days ago my brakes felt abnormal and i saw fluid leaking on the inner side of the rear passenger wheel. I suspect a leaking wheel cylinder. Good time to put the cruiser on axle stands, fix the brakes and finally fit the lockright into the rear diff centre.

While all this was happening i was organising a new lease vehicle through work, to take make my long commute to work faster and safer.

Of course it had to be diesel....

A Subaru Forester with the new Boxer Diesel. What can i say, this engine is fantastic. It's mated to a 6-speed manual and they claim you can get 6.4L per 100Km's on the highway, or around 1000km's to a tank. Peak torque of 350nm between 1800-2400rpm is a good place to play around in. It's got a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) straight after the turbo, which is the only thing i wasn't keen on. Hopefully i won't have any hassles with it clogging up anyway, due to amount of highway driving i do. Because it's a horizontally-opposed engine it has basically no vibration and sits down really low in the engine bay.


I'm going to have it for a few years now, so we will see how reliable this hi-tech diesel turns out to be. So far i'm loving it.

 

[Falco80]

Got the lockright fitted to the cruiser today. Damn, it was an easy install! I thought i had a leaking wheel cylinder before i started, but turns out it was an axle seal. I fitted two new Toyota axle seals, repacked the wheel bearings and it's all good so far. Now that i know how simple a Lockright installation is, i want to put one in the front diff! Took her for a test drive and everything is good. Driving style has to change a bit and you definately know it is there, but i'm not driving the 40 everyday now so it's not such a big deal. Can't wait to get offroad now and test it out.



I found my new favourite shop too. It's a Toyota parts only centre about 10 mins from work. I picked up a whole heap of new OEM nuts and bolts before starting the job.

 

[Falco80]

Here's some pics of the PTO winch cleaned up and greased ready for fitting. I might repaint it in the future, but for now i just want to get it fitted and working.

 

[baas]

Nice Dan! It would be good to get some feedback on how your driving style changes and how the lockers go off-road (weighing up on putting in lockers when I redo the diffs in a few years).

And feel free to share the name/address of the toyota parts supplier, I'm starting to spend more time looking for new parts than I ever did at Bunnings!

Thanks for the updates!

 

[kling-on]

lookin good ... I guess I need to get to work on MY BJ these pic make me want to take it for a drive

 

[dancar]

Mate,

It looks as though that HJ47 has the Nippon Denso A/C in it - grab that too!.

Looks good - I picked up the 12V Thomas recently, just waiting to find the time to mount it all up.

Dan

 

[lostmarbles]

I reckon the more you drive the BJ .... the better Dan. (Not the other way around.)

I'm not driving mine enough. (Probably only once or twice every 2 weeks at the moment.)

BTW - I can't wait to get my lockers fitted. They've sat in my garage for about a decade now.

But I'm working on the house at the moment because otherwise a divorce would be imminent.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Falco80]

Cheers guys.
Baas, the parts place I've been using is Downtown Toyota in Lytton. They are parts only, and open on saturdays, which is a bonus for me. I ordered quite a few nuts, bolts and gaskets recently and got it all at trade price so i was happy with that.

I've only got a locker in the rear, and you can really feel it trying to straighten the truck up if you apply power while your in a corner. Roundabouts in the rain are going to be interesting. Because the 40 is so slow i'm quite often burying the accelerator pedal, so the lockright is locked a lot of the time. I'll test it out this weekend maybe down the Glasshouse mountains.

Ah Tom, "Happy wife = happy life" i hear people say this all the time. Get your house sorted and then put an afternoon aside to fit a locker or two. A decade is far too long for them to be sitting on the shelf!

 

[Falco80]

Nice Dan! It would be good to get some feedback on how your driving style changes and how the lockers go off-road (weighing up on putting in lockers when I redo the diffs in a few years).

And feel free to share the name/address of the toyota parts supplier, I'm starting to spend more time looking for new parts than I ever did at Bunnings!

Thanks for the updates!

Hey Gary, it's funny you mention Bunnings. I never walk out of there empty-handed.
My clutch slave cylinder return spring broke not long ago over christmas. I needed the 40 to get to work and the clutch was slipping heaps without that spring. All the wreckers were closed so I ordered two new ones from Toyota but they were a few days away coming from Melbourne. Looking for a quick-fix I walked into bunnings and went to the section that has springs, found one of similair size and fitted it up in the carpark. Good as gold!

 

[lostmarbles]

.... bunnings .....

I hate Bunnings!

They're taking over our hardware stores here with their simple policy of "cheapest prices".

So out goes all the quality stock and in comes all the trash. (For instance the range of stainless fasteners in our central-city Bunnings store is limited to about a dozen blister-packs whereas under Mitre10 management it was at least worth looking at.)

And they concentrate only on "high-sales-volume items" so all the specialist stock has disappeared too.

The only things I use them for now are rat poison and iron sulphate (for the garden) .... but no doubt the quality of those items will soon diminish to the point where I'll go elsewhere for them too.

 

[baas]

So out goes all the quality stock and in comes all the trash. (For instance the range of stainless fasteners in our central-city Bunnings store is limited to about a dozen blister-packs whereas under Mitre10 management it was at least worth looking at.)

Hey Tom, and their stainless fasteners are not really stainless - ask me how I know!

Thanks for the info Dan, a good vendor is always worth supporting. And thanks for the info on the lockers - I've never had a truck with lockers (that's why I get bogged so often :whoops.

Your truck is looking really neat mate