De-evolution of my 45- "The Excellent" v3 (15 Viewers)

[Vossie]

Hwzt all. This will be a build thread, but like most, it's starts with a story....

Around 2022, I got my hands on a Lexus LS400. I loved that car, that absurdly heavy, beautifully comfortable, quietly powerful and deeply impractical, rust riddled, beige car.

So like all men with more ability in a workshop than common sense, I started down the road of "rally spec'ing" my Lexus. My wife was thrilled!
Not long afterwards I came into possession of a 2nd gen Hilux Surf (4runner to my friends in the Americas). It was in pretty poor shape to be honest, but the frame was good and so was the running gear and suspension.

Cue the next diabolical thought.... 'the Lexus body looks like it would just about fit pretty well on the surf chassis....'
It was around this time that my wife coined the name for this build, "The Excellent". Fans of the Grand tour should get this reference.

Thankfully, before I got around to shoe horning a Lexus LS400 body onto a surf chassis, I acquired another peice of the puzzle, a 1966 FJ45 body.

So, math's question for y'all...
Lexus + surf + FJ45 body = .........?

This

Yup, an IFS, coiled rear, 1uz v8 powered, 5 speed auto'd FJ45 looking Frankenstein. And I have absolutely adored driving it for the past 2 years, albeit, with a few caveats.

The pros?
Powerful, comfy, smooth, hilarious fun to drive and relatively reliable, all things considered.

The cons.
A little thirsty (although not bad at all. The same as a 4runner with a 5vz actually).
Since going to stand alone ECUs on the engine and gearbox, I just can't get the gearbox 100%. I've got it to 95% but that last 5% is really a problem, because it leads to the biggest con....
This thing breaks diffs. 4 diffs and a transfer case to be exact.

And that's been the only reliability issues I've faced, but to be fair, losing a diff is bit of problem no matter which way you look at it.
Basically, I'm right on the limit in terms of power, size of tyre, grip and a few other factors which the diff can handle. And when you throw in that 5% of the gearbox tune, when it decides to shift down randomly when under load, or something silly like that, bad things happen.

So now, what do I do? Simple. Put a 5 speed manual in it. An H151 to be exact, because it can handle the power easily, and I can get parts easily too.
That also gets me a transfer case back as well.
While I'm at it, why not change to a bigger rear diff, like one from an 80 series?
Might as well do the front too.
Rear disc's would be nice.

See where is this all headed?
...
Its time to get some landcruiser DNA back in this chassis!

 

[MOTOV8R]

Impatiently waiting for more…

 

[centerlineseal]

You Sir, ... are a gluten for punishment. Carry on, Kingfish!

 

[Vossie]

Carrying on the story.

Backtracking a couple of months. A friend contacted me and after seeing my 45 build, he asks me to do his build for him, a BJ40 body on an 80 chassis with a 1HDT.

At the time I didn't have much work on so was only too happy to say yes. Unfortunately, life got in the way a bit for him and then for me, but a month ago we started kicking the project back to life.

The 80 chassis he had was already with me, sitting just outside my workshop, mocking me for the better part of a year. Then he finally delivered the body and engine to me.
We started going over the build, one of the things concerning him is that he wants to keep it looking as close to stock as possible. The hard part there is of course the extra track width of the 80 chassis.
Hmmm... something we will have to figure out.

Just resting the tub on the chassis with the firewall in the right position, you can see how far out it all is.

Whilst all this is going on, another friend asks if I can help him out with some engine mounts for his 45. Hes dropping a 2H and H55 in and can't find genuine mounts anywhere, so I said I would fab some up for him.

And it was while walking around this friends workshop, (his father is into earth moving) that i found an old 80 series chassis, with 1hz and h150, half buried in the ground round back.

A friendly conversation and a bit of concerted digging later, I have the chassis engine and gearbox, and he has me finishing out his build for him.

A truck borrowed from another friend and a days worth of work and it's all home.

When i made the deal, my primary focus was on the gearbox. An h150 is just what I wanted to go behind my 1uz. The chassis itself has a ton of rust, but all of the suspension parts and axles are in decent nick. The 1hz was missing it's injector pump and injectors as well as all accessories. Not worth much to me, but worth something to an engine builder, so I dropped it off with another friend of mine as a favour to him, knowing goodwill with him is worth it's weight in gold.

So now I have 2x 80 chassis in my yard, 1 shorty 40 body and my head starts turning... again.

I ask my first friend with the shorty, "you still have the 40 series chassis and axles, right?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because i think I figured out how to give it 80 series suspension and keep it looking stock"

So here's the plan. We are going to cut all the 80 series suspension parts, the coil hats, the radius arms, etc, out of my rusted chassis, graft them into his 40 chassis and axles. Then I will take his 80 series chassis, and build out my 45 onto that.

So now, my mate is happy that he is getting a stock looking 40 with modern suspension. My other friend is happy that I'm helping out to rebuild his 45 and all it cost him was an old chassis he never had plans for, and I'm happy because I now can finally get a lamdcruiser chassis back under my 45.

The best part of all is that this chassis, coupled with my new to me h150 gear box, will solve basically all the issues my 45 has. And with it being only 65mm shorter in wheel base than my existing chassis, I don't have to do any cutting either!

Its a win win win all round.

To be continued...

 

[Chungas Revenge]

 

[Vossie]

Time to start work.

The plan is basically as follows:

1. Strip 45
2. Transfer tub to 80 series chassis
Fab new body mounts
3. Transfer engine/trans to 80 chassis
Mount h150 to the 1uz
Fab custom bell housing
Fab new engine and box mounts
4. New wiring loom
5. Troubleshoot


So the first step is to strip down my 45 as it stands now.

tray off

Started to strip interior

Hood off

And then seats out and windshield off too

Is it just me or is there something cool about just a tub on a rolling chassis? Brings out the inner made max

Tomorrow I will pull the wiring loom, carpet and insulation out the tub.

 

[Vossie]

Finally got my loom out. Boy what a mess. When I first built the rig, I paid alot of attention to keeping the loom neat and tidy. But I guess 2 years worth of adding, taking out some stuff, adding more, changing this and splicing that makes for a real mess now.

Going to be simplifying this down a lot

Only a few things left in the tub now like the AC and the carpets.

Going to be cleaning up the dash as well. All the facial plates will get powder coated this time around.

And also changing out the ECUs. Don't need the 2nd one anymore for the auto trans, and taking the opportunity to upgrade to a newer unit while I'm at it.

So don't need these anymore

 

[Vossie]

One thing I paid a lot of attention to when I first did the IFS build was getting the front wheels correctly placed in the front arches. Nothing ruins a build more than messing that up in my opinion.

And I think I nailed it. So, going to transfer those same measurements across to the new 80 chassis.

In my case, it's 850mm from the front tun mount to the center of the wheel.

Then we ripped the tub off and set it on the new chassis.

Have a few things to take care of before we get the engine moved across. Plus, I'm still waiting for the new flywheel to mount the H150 to the 1uz .

 

[Vossie]

Still waiting for the flywheel to get here, so busying myself with small things.

Guess I need a third pedal again.

Im keeping the surf steering column as it's already in place and does everything I need it to do, but it does get in the way a bit of where the clutch pedal wants to go. So I had to adjust the way the pedal routes.

Then i noticed there was a huge amount of side to side play on the pedal, so turned up some bushings.

Adjustments to pedal and bushings in

Just a little more clean up, some paint and then to get and attach a master cylinder to the other end

Will also move the brake pedal more to the right as well. May even move the clutch more right as well to allow my boot to fit between it and the trans hump when I'm not shifting.

Always the small things that get you

 

[Vossie]

STILL waiting for my new flywheel. Might as well start tearing down the gearbox.

This box stood out in the rain for who knows how long with no rubber boot, so I'm expecting there to be some rust. Let's see how bad it is...

Transfer shifter off and this isn't promising...

Transfer case off. Output shaft looks ok....

Shifter assembly off next.

First view into the box itself... pleasantly surprised

Looks like there's some rust down there, but I honestly was expecting way worse.

 

[Vossie]

Input shaft cover off next. Bearings look good.

Next is to split the transfer case adapter.
I guess this is where being a knife maker comes in handy!

Looking alright here too

And finally, the whole thing apart

There's the rust.

Im honestly not sure what to think. I thought it would be a lot worse. This is pretty much just surface rust as far as I can tell.
Part of me wants to slap it all back together, put fresh oil, send it for a couple hundred kms and then refresh the oil.

But the other side of me wants to make it all new.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[ferg]

Don't stop now. Keep going.

 

[Vossie]

Well, finally have all the bits to get this done, barring the custom bell housing i need to make.

Its a weird combination, flywheel from a 2uz, clutch plate from a dyna, pressure plate from a 1hdt 100 series and throw out ans pilot bearings from a 1hz 80 series.

So now it's finally time to pull the engine from my old chassis. Wheeled it up to the workshop to start getting it done.

Say what you want to about IFS vehicles, but they have great ground clearance.

And this is on 31s, not even the 33s I ran on it normally.

 

[Vossie]

Engine and gearbox out of the chassis

And chassis back down the hill

Still a few things to pull from it like the fuel tank, but otherwise, that's pretty much it done on the good old hilux surf chassis. It did good. It did really good.


Gearbox off and it's now apparent that yes, in fact, we are going to need to make new exhaust headers, or at least modify these ones to give clearance around the gearbox and bell housing.

All of the exhaust manifold bolts came off real easy, EXCEPT ONE.

Took making my own SST to get at it and finally get it off.

Who else has a whole box of one off SSTs just for that one specific bolt and nut?

 

[Vossie]

Time to start getting this gearbox onto the back of the engine.

New flywheel on. Isn't it pretty

Then the clutch went on so we could see what sort of gap we are looking at for the bell housing.

Measured out at various points around it, and we have it sitting nice and straight at 204mm between gearbox and engine faces. This measurement was taken with the throwout bearing resting against the clutch fingers and about 5mm of space behind it. Ideally we want some extra room for the throwout bearing to move into as the clutch disc wears and the pressure fingers push back.

The great thing is that the 1HZ bell housing comes in at 198mm tall. And what that means is all I need to do is make an adapter plate that bolts to the back of the engine, which the 1hz bell housing then bolts to, out of say 12mm steel for rigidity and to give me that extra bit of room I need for the throwout bearing to occupy.

So now all I have to do is find the centers of both bellhousings, mark up the bolts holes, and then make a plate. Cue the CAD. Both the old and new school versions...

First I made a tool to fit into the input shafts of the gear box to mark the centers.

Then a cardboard template that bolts on and i can press onto the center finder bit.

 

[Vossie]

Do this for both gear boxes.
Then cross measure all the bolt holes, throw it on the computer into CAD, print templates, check, adjust, print, check, adjust... you get the idea.

This is how many revisions I went through.

And here's all the paper work to back it up.

To finally arrive at this design

All things being equal, this will do the job. There may need to be a slight massaging on a few holes, but the top and bottom 2 on both sides are 100% perfect, and as far as I'm able to measure and verify, the centers are running true as well.

Now to get it laser cut

 

[Vossie]

Got my adaptor plate cut, as well as new body mounts.

Went to bolt the adaptor on, and, although it fits, I need bolts to do it. And it's a public holiday, so no dice today.

So let's do something else constructive. Body mount time.

Bending up and taking the mounts.

Decided to go with a cross member to pick up the rear mounts. Will add a bunch of strength, and also give me options to mount to for future plans.

Then it's just a case of burning them in.
Front passenger mount.

Then the rest

Now I just need to cut the old body mounts off. But at least that's another big job done.

 

[Vossie]

Well now that the body is in its place, all we need to do to move it workshop is sort the steering shaft out.

On the previous version of the build, I had to lengthen the shaft, so it had 2 welded joints in it. Now, I did these properly, and there is zero evidence of wear and tear.

But you know when your driving, and a thought pops into your head, like, "i wonder how well those welds on my steering shaft are doing?"

Ja, I've had that thought a few times. And I've given a lot of thought as to how I would make it stronger. So nows my chance.

First things first, let's trim the shaft to the length that's needed and chamber the ends.

Now let's get it all trued up in the lathe

Time to weld. Maximum penetration and multiple passes to ensure no porosity. Did this while turning the shaft very slowly in the lathe.

Then turn it all back to nice and even.

Now it's time for my plan to strengthen it...

 

[Vossie]

I cut a sleeve out of 2mm tubing, and slit down the middle of that.

Now to weld it all back again.

Ain't no way on earth that's ever moving!
And in the vehicle.

Very happy with that now. Now other errant thoughts can distract me whilst driving!

And finally, the rig on the slab by the workshop. All ready for the next phase in the build.