Builds Family haulin'

[boots4]

weekly update

I went to the store to find new gasket material for the antenna base because the one I made was just too thick. I found a tire repair kit with a circular patch that looked promising and then found an outside wall outlet cover with a gasket and opted for that (it was cheaper). Turns out the gasket has stamped precuts that you remove to get which hole size you need so I wasn't able to use this as it interfered with cutting a circle out of it. Back to the drawing board. As I was telling the that my rubber gasket for the antenna base was too thick she went downstairs and pulled out some "fun foam" she got from somewhere. It was just what I was looking for so I traced it and cut out a new gasket piece.

As I was doing that UPS showed up and delivered my antenna and coax cable. I got a top-loaded 3' K40 SuperFlex in white with the tunable tip and a 9' coax with one end a P259 connector and the other end spades. I found them for a good price off of amazon.com.

I pulled the coax through the passenger side wiring gasket.

I decided to tag off of my radio to get the constant 12v and the switched 12v and then grounded the CB to a dash brace.

I put the antenna together and wired it up. Using a SWR meter from a friend I started out with 2.8 - 1 which is close to 3 -1 meaning don't operate your radio because it can ruin it. Using the tunable tip I got channel 1 and 40 down to 1.5 - 1. I originally had the coax cable grounded to a bolt holding the ball mount to the fender but that wasn't good enough so I ended up grounding to the battery and performance improved. I found a channel with clear activity and got a location from a local truckstop that is 9 miles away from my house. Pretty good considering I live in a city with hills and buildings and I was able to reach that far. I'll have to see what it does on the open road.

I did some reshaping of the skid plate and cleared a rub point. Unfortunately I missed two more and will need to pull it off and clearance those parts before the event this weekend.

I got the front tires siped hitting the alternating small blocks of the center lugs. That leaves the larger lugs for now in case I want to groove them; if not I'll just sipe those too. Not sure I'll get the rears done before the event but I'll get them soon.

I also replaced all my heater hose with gates green stripe. I found another one leaking so I just got 10' of hose and hit them all.

 

[Dirtgypsy]

9 miles? man that is awesome. I am lucky to get mine to do 1/4 or line of sight. The skid looks really good as well.

Have fun and be safe this weekend! And of course (not that I have to ask) but pics are always welcome.

Clint

 

[mrqtipp]

looks good

keep the good work up

 

[boots4]

Thanks.

I pulled off the skid last night after work and will nibble on it in a couple places for clearance and slap it back on before I leave for the event on friday. I also cleaned up and patched the cut-out in the hood mat I had from the previous intake and made a battery quick-connect for my power inverter so I can blow up my matress for camping. I found little metal spring clamps for $.50 that worked out great. Eventually I'll run some wire inside the cab so I can hook up the inverter there. I think I'll trickle the batteries tonight to top them off. Since the family is staying home I'm just going to sleep inside Dora.

 

[brokenparts]

quick one for you Mike... Did you simply swap the mounting plates between the Hydroboost setup and the toyota stuff or was it more involved? I looked on page 9 and that's what it looks like? Hope Cruisin the Woods was fun!!!! Let's see some pics!

 

[boots4]

Zach,
Check out page 2 of my thread. I made a plate and inserted the hole piece from the stepvan plate into this one. I actually like the way 1974FJ40 did it and it can been seen on page 5 of his thread.

Got some pics and vids from CTW. I'm still working on that Linux box and still haven't gotten Kdenlive to render in h.264 format (the format I'd prefer). I did try out rendering in mpeg4 and it worked so I might just output them to that so I can a least get the Rubicon vids up. The CTW vids I can put together on my Mac machine.

 

[brokenparts]

thanks dude!!!! We'll have to get together soon and finish up that bumper.

 

[boots4]

Cruise the woods '09

I was a tail gunner for the Friday toyota run for the semi-hard group. We had 7 rigs total and no one had any real problems. This was my first wheeling on the new tires/rim combo so when I hit camp and got settled I dropped the pressure down to 9psi. At this pressure the tires bulged and I could always let out more if needed.

This is at the Rockpile after the others had gone through.

I just spun in this spot since I wasn't getting any sidewall traction from my passenger side.

I backed up a little to repostion.

Then I just crawled up.

We hit another trail called Waterfall and when this was wet and I had no rear locker I was denied this line. I wanted to make it up this time and really had no trouble this time.

I think this is my full extension on the front driver side. If you look close you can see how much my main leaf is separated from the rest of the pack.

The next day I helped direct traffic at a checkpoint at a trail called Can Opener. The lower filter and top obstacle are new and the lower filter was where I was at. It proved challenging for most rigs and there was one rock in particular that was diff hanger. That rock must have lost a 1/2" of material that day with all the diffs that drug on it and the sound was equvilent of somebody dragging fingernails on a chalkboard. My hair stands up just remembering it.

Esh was on top for winch duty but before he headed up I got to check out all the electronic goodies he has. It was some really neat expedition stuff. He did a toyota diesel conversion on his and that thing is way quiet! If it wasn't for the signature injection pump ticking at idle it'd be hard to tell it was a diesel. We joked though because he can hear all the other sounds his truck makes while I don't hear mine cause my diesel is louder.

Aside from the dusty gravel roads the event was great and we had a great turn out. The military GYs did great so it looks like I'll just stick to siping for now.

I put together a vid from the footage.

YouTube - Cruise the Woods 9-09

 

[boots4]

weekly update

I spent a solid day on the Rubicon videos and got the cutting and editing finished. Just want to add some music and try out some compression settings. Here's the first trial with footage from our still camera before we fired up the camcorder (better quality).

YouTube - Rubicon 06-09 Part 1


We are getting rain again and I wanted to do something about my floppy windshield wipers. I pulled the motor and studied the connection some more. I tried out clipping it which didn't work and then just used some wire to secure the plastic piece to the wiper arm. I put in some relief cuts where the wire wraps around the inside of the plastic piece so the bushing on the wiper motor would still snap in.

The bushing snapped in and I tried out the wipers and they are solid again. We'll see if this holds up and if it doesn't it's back to the drawing board.

I washed and cleaned Dora after the trip and pulled the air cleaner to tap out the dust. I found some breaks in the element so I sealed them up with some clear cement after I cleaned it up.

I pulled the skidplate and will modify a new rubbing spot. I really tucked it tight so now I'm relieving all the spots that show up. Once I fix one the next one shows up because the drivetrain can wiggle a little more and touch where it didn't touch before.

 

[Tapage]

put together a vid from the footage.

YouTube - Cruise the Woods 9-09

few sections looks like a dry Tellico ..

 

[brokenparts]

Wish I could have made CTW... looks like it was dry for once!

 

[boots4]

... looks like it was dry for once!

Funny, I was wishing it was a little more wet. I PM'd you about a date for tube action.

 

[brokenparts]

PM'd ya back... sounds like a plan.

 

[Dirtgypsy]

Cool pics! That is some serious drop! Sorry I couldn't make it CTW as well. I am stoked to see those vids from Rubithon.

Hey pm me as well on the work days. I don't think the funds are in place to finish my bumper but I can come and help!!

Clint

 

[esh]

I found a dual battery setup I like. Writeup on Rising Sun- Dual Battery Install W/ Voltage Sensing Relay - Rising Sun Member Forums

Found a source for the VSR on ebay (BEP Marine #722). 300Amp Voltage Sensitive Relay (VSR) - Voltage Sensitive Relays - BEP Marine The VSR is pretty high amp and has a switch to combine batteries if needed.

Instead of the Luna dual battery display, I am going to get this aussie round dual display for digits. RGB Electronics (Australia) >> LCD volt meter >> Model No : PMV+V also found on ebay.

 

[boots4]

Funny, I was reading that same article today and liked his set up. I also like the simple volt meters too, thanks for adding.

 

[BosBok]

National Luna

Try this one....It's the most common we use in South Africa and it's robust like the Cruiser it's mounted in

 

[boots4]

National Luna

Try this one....It's the most common we use in South Africa and it's robust like the Cruiser it's mounted in

I actually already have one of these, I just haven't hooked it up. Well, I did have it hooked up but wired incorrectly however I've got that figured out now, just have to see if I popped the inner fuse or not. It's got a great track record and that's why I choose it. I wanted something that could stand up to the extra vibs I get from my diesel and these have proven to be tough.

 

[boots4]

biweekly update

I have been doing random stuff on Dora and preparing the house/yard for winter. Also been preparing for our third to arrive in 2 1/2 more weeks!

For Dora stuff I dove into the dash again to fix the leaking heater core connection. I've been putting this off because I haven't needed my heater until lately so this leak was isolated by having the temp selector set on cold. This still isn't a fun job the second time around.

Not wanting to do this again I wanted to make it a permanent fix. The first core lasted 20+ years so that was a bet I was willing to make. Why I didn't just sweat the joint with solder, I don't know but I used JBWeld and it doesn't leak so same bird killed with a stick instead of a stone. I was generous and put on two layers.

While the JBWeld was curing I inspected the flaps because the controls on the dash weren't very smooth. The weather stripping I used wasn't faring too well.

So I pulled the box apart, yanked all that stuff off and used that "fun foam" that I used on the CB mount to line the flaps. All the levers/flaps were hooked up right but there were clearance issues with the previous foam that was causing restrictions. Once I fix those spots the flaps opened and closed without much force on the dash controls. You can see the fun foam on the flaps and the heater core re-installed in this pic.

I've had two pieces of aluminum roughly cut out for the interior rear quarters. The aluminum is from two sections I saved from the stepvan chop. I shaped the passenger side and put it on. I'm not sure if I'll polish it, brush finish it, or paint it. I really don't store anything in this side since it's the fuel side and I've never really sealed up the filler neck hole in the bottom of the quarter panel. For the driver side I'll cut in an access panel in so I can continue to store stuff on that side.

I had the front tires balanced. I didn't do the rears because I wasn't sure if the o-rings were leaking (I was losing pressure somewhere) in which case I'd have to separate the H1 rims to replace them. The leak ended up being the valve core not tight enough and that probably happened with the air down tool that removes the core for faster air down. I must not have tightened them enough after reinserting. Anyways the rears can be balanced now but at the time I only got the fronts done. I was surprised to see the difference in weight it took!

Here's what it took on the driver side.

And this is all it took on the passenger side!

Results on the hwy are night and day. It's been a long time since Dora has been this smooth and that's with only two tires balanced. It has also reduced most of the minor DW I have.


I've never been completely satisfied with the steering. It just seems too loose and recently felt worse. Last week I was slowing (using brakes) to turn onto another street and the wheel went heavy, meaning loss of assist. It hasn't done that before and hasn't done that since but that obviously drew my attention to the whole system.

The setup goes: steering pump to hydroboost to steering box which feeds the ram and then low pressure back to the steering pump. After thinking about it I've isolated it to the steering gear box. The brakes didn't lose assist, just the steering so I may have a seal inside leaking pressure. I'm sure it's the original box and it has over 230K on it. So the plan is to reseal the gear box. As good measure I'll be resealing the steering pump (saginaw) too at which time I'll mod the valve for a little more pressure and flow.

Dora's been wandering a bit more lately so I continued my attention to the system and checked out the linkage. I've got two TRE's that have play; the driver side Tie Rod which I recently replaced and the drag link passenger. Since I've recently replaced the driver side Tie Rod and this TRE is going out I believe I've found the weaklink in my linkage. I believe the order from weakest to strongest is in this order: driver Tie Rod TRE, passenger drag link TRE, passenger Tie Rod TRE, pitman arm drag link TRE. I don't want to replace the FJ80 joint with another one, I want to get something stronger. There is plenty of clearance on the driver steering arm for a bigger joint whether a bigger TRE or possibly a stout Heim joint. The passenger side arm is pretty tight on clearance so to take the easy route I think I'm going to try out fixing the driver side first and replacing the passenger drag link TRE with the one I pulled from the passenger tie rod that is still nice and tight (I replaced it when I replaced the driver side recently).

To finish up my random projects I completed the clearancing of the skidplate and will check it this week to see if I have any other rubbing spots. Don't really care for how it turned out but this is more a function over form thing.

 

[Dirtgypsy]

Dude, I don't know how you do it. I ask for one day or even part of one day on the cruiser and I get the stink eye. You need to tell us all your secrets!

The cruiser is looking great! I need to get a copy of your side panel. I don't know if you managed to pick up the steering box seal kit but I ordered mine from "Jon V" PM me if you want his e-mail. It was $58 shipped for just the seals. I got his info from Mace here on the board.

Clint