Builds Family haulin' (1 Viewer)

[boots4]

I do have a dedicated fan on the tranny coolers. A decent one as big as the cooler surface itself. The coolers were double stacked and the fan pulled through both of them. I ran the fluid lines in parallel so there would be less restriction. Originally I ran it off a thermoswitch that would come on at 180F and off at 165F or 170F. But once the fluid warmed up it would never turn off. I bypassed that thermoswitch and just ran a manual switch into the cab. I wanted to see if I turned the fan on sooner if it would keep the temps down; that maybe the thermoswitch was coming on too late. The temps would take longer to rise but ultimately they still rose to temps higher than I was used too.

 

[Hojack]

Dang Mike. Your posts are like novels. No wonder your in the hardcore corner. Just dropped in to see how Dora is doing.

 

[boots4]

Yeah, I get wordy explaining stuff. But with age accumulating in my life and all the times I'm bumped my head I figure I can look back and read the stuff I've forgotten. It's basically my truck journal.

 

[cruisermatt]

I have gotten the same way in my build thread.
I have a sort-of unrelated question. What did you build before this? You’ve mentioned a prior build a few times. Just curious. I’m going to guess a Toyota pickup crawler.

 

[boots4]

This is probably more than you asked but... I've always tinkered with stuff as a kid taking apart my toys and putting them back together. Most of the time they even worked afterwards. As I got older it was a go-kart, a moped, an ATV, then a little Fiat convertible. After marriage and collage I wanted to get back into the dirt so I bought a Ford Ranger, lifted it and played in the dirt. I never had a 4wd before that and had never wheeled a full sized vehicle on the trails so it was a learning experience gaining new driving skills. With the family growing we needed more space but having a truck was very handy so I compromised by deciding to run a trailer and a more spacious rig for family capacities. I picked up a free travel trailer, demo'd it for the frame and practiced welding it up for experience since I planned on building a more capable rig with this time me doing the fabrication parts. I was looking for an SUV style rig since it rains a lot in this area and we'd need back space for packing. I focused on landcruisers and range rovers since throughout the world these two platforms are seen everywhere. I drove my landcruiser bought it and the rest is in this thread. I'm glad I chose a landcruiser; it's been a great platform and a great community.

 

[Hojack]

So glad you didn’t go the Range Rover direction. My dads neighbor did and it was nothing but a train wreck dealing with all the problems.

 

[cjmoon]

So glad you didn’t go the Range Rover direction. My dads neighbor did and it was nothing but a train wreck dealing with all the problems.

But if said person did a conversion to get rid of all the Land Rover stuff.... sorry never owned a rover but always dream of convereted rovers. Gas and diesel, I’m not bias....

It’s always in the back of my head. I have a lot of love to go around and want to share.

 

[boots4]

In my continued experiment with the transmission coolers I moved them back up front where they would get better airflow. I still didn't want to put one in the cooling row so I did a shuffle. I originally had my power steering cooler mounted underneath the radiator. I moved that to in front of the driver side battery tray and then figured out some way to mount a transmission cooler. I also decided to go back to my coolant heat exchanger coupled with a transmission cooler with it's own fan.

Here is the cooler with the fan and funky collar bone mount.

It goes under the radiator between the front frame gussets. I had to play with getting it to fit beneath the radiator but have enough clearance above the steering drag link. Once I got the height figured out I burned it in. If you look closely at the bottom left side of the photo you can see that's where I stuffed my heat exchanger. I cut an access hole out of the gusset and welded some bolts on the frame for mounts and it just fit. This radiator (nor my original FJ60 radiator) did not have an integrated transmission cooler so I set this heat exchanger/cooler up many years ago. So hot tranny fluid goes from the transmission, to the heat exchanger/cooler, to the transmission cooler with fan, and then back to the transmission. The fan pulls cooler air from down below and out underneath the radiator. Since I have those hood vents located in this area the thought was this would help the airflow exit those vents at lower speeds and then at highway speeds the negative pressure above the vents would help pull the heated air out of the engine bay.

I made some simple box mounts for the front of the cooler that I welded to the underside of the crossmember.

This was all done during the hot summer last year. I finished this all up at 10 pm at night and the next day after work we were headed down to California for a family visit and a trip on the Dusy Ershim trail. With everything filled I drove it down the street and thankfully nothing leaked. The next day my wife drove it down to discount tire and we swapped out the Gladiator Xcomps for a set of 40" Cooper STT Pro's while I was at work. Once I got home and with the rig packed we headed down to California with very little seat time on the new setup.

The new radiator kept the temps in check and we were able to run the AC this time with engine temps at 195-200F. On a couple of pulls I'd turn off the AC and on the serious ones we'd run the heater but we never had to pull over due to engine temps, those stayed below 230F on the hard pulls. Sadly, the transmission temp averaged 210F most of the trip so there was still something going on. Besides that we made it down to California, recovered for a day or two and splashed in the pool. The kids stayed with Gma and Gpa while my wife and I then met up with Andy and Tom to caravan down to the Dusy Ershim trail head. Rick, Dale, and new to me Chris were already on the trail with camp set up.

 

[Hojack]

I know you’ll put that bandsaw to good use Mike.

 

[boots4]

Thanks to some backyard ingenuity we got it off the trailer and into my shop without anything or anyone getting hurt. Now I just need to make room for that monster. Definitely going to put some wheels on it.

 

[Hojack]

Thanks to some backyard ingenuity we got it off the trailer and into my shop without anything or anyone getting hurt. Now I just need to make room for that monster. Definitely going to put some wheels on it.

I forgot to snap a picture of it when you pulled away with it. A lot of memories with that beast. It’s been in our shop since I can remember. You deserve it buddy.

 

[Kief]

40's..... I still think my 35's are big. My commuter car tires make them look big anyways.

 

[Kief]

I think balancing an engine is probably the first thing that should be addressed as any further upgrades are undermined by inefficiency. I've heard of 4bts being balanced but have never seen one.

 

[J Mack]

I think balancing an engine is probably the first thing that should be addressed as any further upgrades are undermined by inefficiency. I've heard of 4bts being balanced but have never seen one.

If you find yourself in the Boise area look me up and I’ll let you drive mine. Balancing and a fluid dampener do make a difference.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

That is an innovative place to put a cooler.

 

[cruisermatt]

The problem is you don’t get airflow straight onto the face of it.. I would redo the mount on the front frame craossmember to make the cooler more level and add a big scoop under it.
And yes, that is a very under utilized area on a 60.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Has a fan, doesn't need airflow.

 

[boots4]

True, but that's why I added a fan on it. It pulls from air that hasn't been influenced by heat of the engine or drivetrain like when I had them in the back. I am leading up to a solution to the tranny temp, just trying to keep my posts chronological.

 

[cruisermatt]

By bad, couldn’t tell there was a fan on there looking at pic on phone without glasses. Looking forward to next update, get typing

 

[Hojack]

Evening spent working on Snowball

While poor Dora sat out in the snow.

Thanks buddy