Builds Ethan’s hdt bj74 (1 Viewer)

[Nzbruiser]

So a few years back I found a fella silly enough to swap my road legal Daihatsu rugger for his reg on hold 198813bt bj74 and it kind of snowballed from there, first I give it a bit of a spruce up and took her through for her first wof, the wof man was happy as and give her a clean sheet wof! I found a set of 33s cheap and slapped them on then she looked the part, looked pretty rude on the 31” ats when I bought it

Then I got sick of the auto and found a h55f for a reasonable price and converted the old girl to manual, what a treat that was! Much more fun to drive manual
Then my mate give me a ring to say he’d just bought some 60 series cable lockers for a steal and he didn’t know what he was going to do with them and asked if id like to buy them, I didn’t think that opportunity would come around again so I snapped them up, and upon picking them up I realised the housings had been modified to suit a spring over axle setup and later found out they were under an fj40 club truck about ten years ago and sat in old mates garage collecting dust ever since, I had a measure up and figured it was near enough so I’ll try chuck them under the 70 and see what happens, i started with the rear dropped the back of the cruiser down into my shed (the floor was lower than the driveway) jacked it up whipped the semi float 70 axle out from under her and rolled the new rear axle under, chucked the u bolts on and went to roll her out of the shed, she made it out but it scraped like buggery and pushed the garage door up on the way out, faaark she was tall!

That photo was taken after I got the front diff underbelly the truck aswell obviously but it scared the s*** out of me and the next weekend me old mate dan come round and we whipped a few leaves out of every pack to try make them sit flat and drop the ride height as much as possible, unfortunately I have lost a lot of photos from around that time and can’t seem to find them grr.
I keep in touch with Tom at toms offroad and ended up taking the truck to him to tidy up the soa and do a shackle reversal and ended up going rears up front at same time with his custom shock towers in front and a custom rear crossmember for the shocks, it was a totally different truck to drive with the shackle reversal and I’d highly recommend it to anyone going down this track it flexed really well and behaved great offroad!

I’m having trouble adding photos so I’ll cut it for now and see if I can maybe write a reply and add more photos there?? I’m new here just learning the ropes , long time follower first time posting anything thought it was well overdue I have been reading the posts on here for over 5years but only just thought of doing a write up now I’m nearing the end of my build, much more to come and hopefully I can sort this photo issue out

 

[Nzbruiser]

Here we go this is when I got it back and she was finally ready to go for cert! But not without one cheeky maiden voyage down to the twizel canals for a few days fishing before my wof runs out!

The first day I spent lazing around in the sun and making the most of the 30deg summer day! The next day the weather turned southerly and I had a miagrane but I didn’t come all this way not to have crack at catching one of these monster trout I’d heard all the stories about! I went for a drive to try and sus out a good spot to go for a fish and come across a bloody nice example of a bj74 with factory suspension and I had a yarn to the fella that owned it he was fly fishing and had his own YouTube Chanel and was catching no fish after fish! It was unreal I’ve never seen anything like it! I commented on his awesome choice of vehicle and he went in to tell me he had just hotness it back from the mechanics he had them fit a 1hdtinto it which I thought was blood fantastic!

Had a really good trip caught up with a family friend in twizel and caught two of the biggest brown trout I’ve ever caught! 17lb and 25lb both within half an hour of each other and both personal bests however I didn’t manage to get a photo with either of them because just after i caught the second one I thought I’d better head up to the truck and grab my camera, old mate was gutting my fish for me and said I’d taken a while so he called out to me with no response he was a bit worried and come up to check if everything was okay and I was face down in a puddle having a seizure... I had recently broken my ribs and was taking tramadol for the pain and I ended up having an ambulance ride from twizel to timaru hospital where I was put on dialysis because my kidneys had packed up, not ideal considering I was 23 years old and reasonably fit and healthy. I then had to resign from my job as assistant manager on a 750cow dairy farm and move back into town to sort my health out, with no income I soon run short of money and had to sell a few bits off the cruiser and out of the shed to keep my head above water if you will, I sold the cable lockers the 35 maxxis trepadors and ended up getting offered 3k for the 13bt so I parted with that also, I had been told I wasn’t aloud to drive for another 12 months and had people trying to buy the whole truck but I couldn’t part with my baby! I know it seemed like a stupid idea at the time but I hadn’t big plans for the truck and I hadn’t 12 months to make them into a reality! Most people I told about my plans thought I was crazy which probably isn’t far from the truth but I little bit of faith and s*** load of research and I started collecting the parts necessary to make my dreams come true! First I bought some amada 12” coilovers because they were on special! Then I bought some 60series diffs off a mate pretty cheap and ground all the mounts off the front axle rob fet ready for coilover and link mounts, then some Nissan safari axles popped up for a steal so I thought why not go a bit wider and stronger! More cutting and grinding on yet another front housing and we were well under way, I chucked a post up on Facebook to find a doner vehicle along the lines of a 60 series and ended up getting one delivered from the other end of the country for 1700$ what a bargain! When it arrived I soo needed realised it was far too good to wreck but I couldn’t be bothered getting her road legal so I Putnam her back up for sale

My mate give me a rig and wanted to come have a looks, so he did and he was just as impressed with her as I was and offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse a 1hdt and some cash, I never thought I’d find a 1hdt for cheap enough but it was always my dream engine for the bj74, although the 13bt had plenty of balls I wanted the best I could get for this build and luckily enough this 12valve hdt was just that!
and with only 240000 kms she was barely run in! I done the bottom end bearings and timing belt, water pump etc while it was put and found an hzj73 h55f which would fit perfect! Cost me a fortune to buy the flywheel to suit they are bloody hens teeth to find hz parts in nz! Went in to clutch systems and picked up a heavy duty exedy clutch kit and dropped my flywheel off to be machined! My friend in ashburton has an hzj73 wreck in his yard so I popped in to see him and sure enough the engine mounts were still there so I cut mine off my chassis and bought them off him, perfect!
A mate was selling his 37” maxxis creepycrawlers aswell so I just had to buy them... kinda wish I just bought trepadors but there was none available at the time so they’ll have to do for now, bugger I’ve run out of room for more photos, scroll down

 

[Nzbruiser]

Here’s some flex photos and less blabbering from after I had the shackle reversal done

Will carry on with this mission another day, a lot to catch up on, any questions fire away always happy to help, if you’ve made it this far cheers for reading my blabber hopefully by there’s something of interest there for you, keep in mind this was a couple years ago and the build has evolved into something a little bit more than I would of been happy with I’ll post some more stuff tommorow and just chop away and try fill you guys in as best I can cheers fellas huru for now

 

[FJBen]

Nice build!

How do you like the 1HD compared to the 13bt?

 

[Nzbruiser]

Nice build!

How do you like the 1HD compared to the 13bt?

I’m just waiting on custom drag link to arrive as I have gone 3link front with safari axle, so I haven’t been able to put it through it’s paces just yet but I fed it the jandle when I was moving it out into the backyard and she’s got some get up n go! I will keep ya posted but I think it’s going to be pretty mental! Considering it’s probably half the weight of an 80 series!

 

[Nzbruiser]

So this is how she sat for a few months while I kept on collecting the bits I wanted

ended up buying an 80 series lsd for the rear I finally had enough parts to start trying to throw her back together so I went to steel and tube and picked up some sch80 like pipe and rolled her around on to the pavers and started making pink mounts for the chassis and the front axley plan was to keep it similar to an 80 rear link setup with factory lower arms as uppers and lowers made out of sch80 cut tolength to make the uppers 70% of the lowers

I can go into a bit more detail for anyone if they want but it’s pretty self explanatory I took the old towbar off as I didn’t plan on towing any trailers any time soon and the mid section was made out of 70mm box section so my chassis mounts were made out of that and taken to my engineer mates around the corner to get drilled out to suit the 80series control arm bolts.

I chopped the factory upper links in half and notched the sch80 to mate up to that nicely so I could fizz them together

The bushes set on fire and started to melt when they were being welded which I thought would happen and already had bought some replacement bushes I need to press in

 

[Nzbruiser]

I have gone with a fourlink rear setup and I used a rear half of a ln130 surf chassis to chop the rear panhard mount out and used the spring seats and bumpstops allso, the rest is all custom made in the backyard out of box section and 6mm plate 80 series springs in the rear and 2inch lift gq safari rear shocks which I made new mounts for and welded to the inside of the chassis rail as the custom crossmember I had put in the rear wasn’t goin going to work with the new setup, ahwell that’s all a part of evolution I

I cut out a bit off 6mm plate and drilled it out so I could plug weld it and tie everything together which I think has served it’s purpose

I also cut some bits of 6mm plate to tie the chassis lower link mounts to the chassis

I hope these have given it a bit more strength, I also used the rear upper link crossmember out of the chassis cut I had but I’m not sure I’m happy with how strong it’s going to be as I didn’t plug the holes and there’s patches where I couldn’t get any weld into the gap but a bit of box section and grinding I’m sure I could whip up another crossmember easy enough, I’m kinda regretting not just doin get that in the first place but we’ll see what the cert man says

 

[Nzbruiser]

Here’s a couple of pics of the rear panhard crossmember

I’ve gone with a 3 Link with panhard in front advance that’s the best way I could think of doing it radius arms would of been a lot easier but I learnt a lot and I’ll get a lot more flex out of the 3 link than I would with any radius arm setup and it was a great way to learn about geometry

I made a panhard mount out of 6mm plate and tied it to the opposite side chassis rail with a born of 2inch box and mounted the cross brace as close as I could to the panhard end of the chassis mount to prevent the force trying to rip the mount off the chassis rail as I’ve seen chassis ripped by the force of the panhard, even though my chassis is fish plated I thought I’d be better off safe than sorry

 

[Nzbruiser]

My phone had a spaz and wouldn’t let me put any more photos up so here’s a couple pics of panhard and front link setup

I bought a swivel hub rebuild kit off trademe new rotors and callipers to give the front axle a good freshen up so now I know where I’m at I also got some force4 manual hubs as I’ve seen them on a few comp trucks and they seem pretty bloody reliable, definitely a pretty solid peice of kit!

 

[Nzbruiser]

Once I got the welding all finnished off I could finally lift a wheel up and check everything over on full flex... well I couldn’t get the engine crane to go high enough but I measured to the bottom of the tire and it was 1100mm off the ground with a fair bit of droop and a little more uptravel to get through I don’t think I’ll be able to use all the flex in most situations but I’d rather have too much than not enough

Everything seems to flex up okay and the rear shocks didn’t top out and try to pick the wheel up which I was a bit worried about, now I just have little things to do like brake lines body bolts air intake, barwork, I’m hesitant to do an exo cage but I have bought enough pipe to do it so maybe I’ll make it removable we will see I think they’re farkin ugly but then again better safe than sorry

 

[Nzbruiser]

Well I’ve had some 4” food grade stainless pipe in the back of the truck for a while now I found a pretty sharp deal on it and couldn’t help myself...I went to my engineer friend and got about a metre square of 3mm mild steel and started measuring it out, I found a peice of inch angle iron and cut it to length with 45s on each end, and it ended up looking like this nothing flash but it will be water tight and that’s all I’m worried aboutI’m not going for crazy power out of the 1hdt I’m sure she will do just fine with a bit more fuel and some boost wound into her as long as she can breathe it should be a bit of fun

I have since drilled and tapped a few bolts in and made a lid so I’ll just run the steel lid for now and weld a tap into the bottom of it, if I’m worried about water getting in there I’ll just open the tap and see if anything comes out, I can’t see the benefit of paying 50+ for some Perspex when I’ll check the uni filter and give it a blow out after every trip anyway, I then started chopping my 4” pipe into pies with the drop saw and tidied them up with a flap disc,

I only got one 90 with my order so I used that coming out the gaurd and made the rest up as I went...

Now for the fun part! I wanted to keep the snorkel as much out of my vision when driving as possible and I had to get it bang on because I literally had 100mm to play with,

I think out of everything I’ve done to the truck this was the most satisfying, I glued it together with my mig and I will flap it back to get a nice enough finnish and either order some raptor liner or take it to my friend from school who’s a powdercoater we will see, I don’t mint the shiny look but I think I’d like it to be a little bit more subtle it sticks out like dogs balls and the welds will rust if I don’t paint it

Excuse my welds I’ve only done a wee bit I’m still learning the ropes!

 

[Nzbruiser]

A few more pics of the snorkel just needs a good tidy up with the flap disc and she’ll be off to the powdercoaters

I’m pretty happy with how it ended up will be a lot better when it’s not so shiny I think

 

[Nzbruiser]

So just last week I bought a cheap Chinese pipe bender and some 32nb pipe 6 lengths so plenty to get around the truck I’m hoping, it wasn’t too badly priced so I got enough to do an exo or keep a bit forbthe next oroject if need be, I’ve only made the rock sliders so far and bent a few bits for the rear bar but it’s bloody slow going with the s***ty bender and I’ve exploded two dies already so I’m about to go and buy a bramley die to suit as the Chinese quality is absolute s***! Here’s a bit of what I’ve acheived so far I’m going to go two wide around my wheel arches so I’ve made these doofreys to space them apart as the end of my axle sits 150mm outside the gaurd and I’m planning on running 15x10 beadlocks very soon and don’t want just your standard garden edging flares a lot of people seem to use

Here are the rocksliders

I’m making mounts for them out of 6mm plate welded in a u shape with two holes up top so I can bolt them to chassis then weld my outriggers to that so they can be removed if necessary, I made some mounts for the rear bar out of 12mm plate and bolted them to back of chassis ready to start the rear bar

That’s about all the photos I have I think, I filmed a bit of the barwork I have bent the rear bar up I’m just waiting on some good weather as I do everything outside in the backyard but I’ll keep yas updated

 

[Nzbruiser]

Here’s some more random pics as I like to read a good pic heavy thread myself

I took my springs in to chamberlains to get reset as it was a bit high in the front, and the buggers painted them red! Pretty flash, hope they make it go faster!

 

[FJBen]

nice work. That thing will crawl and flex all over things.

 

[Nzbruiser]

nice work. That thing will crawl and flex all over things.

Thanks mate! Yeah should be a bit of fun eh!

 

[Nzbruiser]

I kept exploding dies on the Chinese pipe bender so the bar works been put on hold for now, the exhaust warped a wee bit when I finnish welded it and viabrated on the sill sometimes on idle so I redone the second half of it now it’s perfect and hopefully quiet enough for cert man with one res in it but I don’t think so she’s pretty angry!

My throttle cable and tacho got delivered on Saturday so Ive put the throttle cable in and swapped the tacho out of the hz cluster into mine, wow I thought the truck went well with the 13bt throttle cable which was a bit long and would of been lucky to be getting quarter thottle, well holy fark does she rattle along now! I’ve never driven a truck that fast in my life I really underestimated the power of this engine and being half the weight of an 80series she fair flys! Can’t wait to get new turbo tweak pump and do the injectors but I’ll just focus on getting it certified for now, I’m looking at going for a similar sway bar setup as they use in speedway cars, it’s similar to the antirock but I’m sick of trying to get in touch with people on the other side of the world it just makes things difficult and they’re expensive enough without shipping and taxes by the time it lands wouldn’t be the best option so I’ll see what I can do, I’m having some problems engaging 4wd with the vacuum diaphragm on the transfer I’ve taken that off and the shaft is a bit sticky I’m not sure what’s going on there I’m hoping I don’t have to take transfer apart, I can get it in manually but the diaphragm just isn’t strong enough to engage it, hopefully a bit of driving will free it up but we will see after the weekend I plan to take it out for it’s maiden voyage this weekend not sure where but I’ll chuck it on trailer and find somewhere to go for a play! the wood pile will suffice until then

 

[Nzbruiser]

Nice build!

How do you like the 1HD compared to the 13bt?

Fair to say she’s an absolute weapon the 1hdt is heaps more powerful I don’t know the factory hp but easily the fastest truck I’ve ever driven the power to weight is awesome! The truck squats when I put my foot up it, haven’t got out of third gear yet but very impressed!

 

[Nzbruiser]

Have been told I won’t be getting my licence back until next year at the earliest so I’ve decided to drop the ride height and the front panhard is clashing with the diff head so i have to move it back 40mm and extending the towers for coilovers by 150mm and put 2” surf springs in the rear which has dropped my ride height by 90mm we low n wide now which is what I ideally wanted when I started the build

Still have plenty of flex

Again that’s not full flex that’s just the engine crane maxed out but I don’t think I’ll need to use much more than that on the trail