Builds Gen IV LS/NV4500 Swap (3 Viewers)

[cornboy]

Not sure what's more disappointing the "coated" manifolds or Hookers response.

 

[Well Sorted]

I slacked on updating this thread these past few months, been sorta busy buying a house, moving, and starting a shop so it slipped through the cracks. I noticed another thread in this forum questioning swap costs so I figured I'd finally post up my tally of what this little project set me back. Note that I've screened out any secondary upgrades I made along the way and tried to keep this to the bare minimum to put in the Gen4 LC9 engine and NV4500 trans. You could save a few bucks by making different choices (older engine, less expensive fuel system, cheaper radiator, etc) but this should give those of you out there thinking about this a pretty good starting point. Pay close attention to how all the little s*** adds up fast...

 

[gregnash]

Nicely done Doug! Really that isn't all that bad considering you did the majority of the work yourself (only little things here and there that you left to others) and "splurged" on a few items like the OEM harness kit instead of trying to reprogram one from the vehicle you got the engine from, etc.
And you are right, the little $h1t adds up real quickly.

Here's a question for you, do you think you would have saved a bit of money and/or been happier with going to the auto (4L6X/4L80)? Reason for my asking, and maybe some will find interesting, is that for those of us that dont have a local shop to build the NV4500 up for us (plus add the Marks Adapter to mate the splitcase) you are looking at AT LEAST what you spent on the NV. Whereas, whenever I looked at tranny prices it always seemed that an equivalent mileage 4L6X was a good couple hundred dollars cheaper than the NV, plus add to that the lack of having to worry about the slave cylinder mounting, getting the right year/version for your gearing, etc. I am like you and enjoy rowing my gears (like how you put that) but at the same time I am a cheap-ass so that extra few hundred saved could quickly drop the price of the swap coupled with other cost savings (like not going for a top of the line Griffin radiator or not getting the OEM harness package you did).

 

[Well Sorted]

I could have potentially saved a few bucks with an auto trans, as you point out they are readily available and you can bolt them direct to the engine so all the clutch/bellhousing stuff gets eliminated. However for me it was never a consideration, I definitely wanted a manual so it was NV4500 or H55F. As noted earlier in the thread, I might do the H55F next time if I do another one with a manual for a customer. If you're careful with the spending and hunting down good deals I'm pretty sure you can get the parts cost below $10k using an auto.

Another argument could be made that with an auto I could have also lived without the 4:1 low range gearset in the T-case. That's not in my figures shown here but there's another big chunk of coin that could be saved. With the manual it's been the best upgrade I've made for offroading, Moab and our local rocky trails would be a lot less fun with stock gearing.

For my next build I thought about doing another LS but with the auto but that path is well worn so there's probably not much I can add to the general knowledge-base other than maybe some supporting products for the install (and it seems Cam is jumping on that now). The 2UZ-FE intrigues me but it's certainly under powered compared to the LS engines. Pure Toyota powertrain does have a nice appeal though. Personally I want that to be another manual truck but the reality is the wife would probably drive it more so maybe I should do that one as an auto. Much like above, it would make the swap easier and cheaper too...

 

[megolfer]

I am doing a 5.3 and 4l60 swap and I am not savimg any money. By the time I built the tranny strong, boughy a good torque converter, good cooler and shofter I dont think you eould save much. There is a lot of tittle things that go along with a auto tranny swap.

 

[Well Sorted]

It's been a good few months with the 60, just got back from the Solid Axle Summit crisscrossing the San Juans and overall the truck has been performing flawlessly. I decided to take on a challenge this week and after finishing up work one night went out to run Chinaman Gulch with a friend. This is pretty much in my backyard and a good test of a lightly modified truck. The whole run took us 3:20 and though I made it through it wasn't without some consequences. I think I've found the limits of this rig as it's currently built.

The biggest problem - Inverted the driver's side front shackle. I tossed the truck up on the lift afterwards and the spring popped back into position but there's a difference in shackle angles now. I'm hoping it settles out, going to give it a little time and see what happens. I've generally been happy with the Tough Dog suspension but anti-inversion shackles sure seem like a good idea now. I've got a set on my other 60 that I may have to swap over to prevent this in the future.

In addition to the spring, the end links on the sway bars took a beating. These are the MAF extended links. I probably should have ditched the bar before I headed out...

The trail features a lot of sections of extreme flex and I found afterward that the axle had hit the oil pan. I think I can cut off this boss to get a little extra room, but frankly don't expect this much flex to happen very often.

And the sliders took a real beating. Here's the kick out on the passenger side, I used it multiple times to bump around some big boulders. These are the ones from White Knuckle Off Road and still just bolted on with the supplied U-bolts. I've been really pleased with how they've held up and saved the rockers.

Nothing irreparable here and I was able to finish the trail and avoid body damage so I call that a pretty good day. If I want to keep running anything like this I definitely need a u-bolt flip. Been planning a cut-n-turn job for the front and an FZJ80 for the rear so makes sense to do it all at once. On the other hand, I just picked up this sweet piece as a frame/suspension donor for some future build. Maybe it's time to accelerate the plan...

 

[Well Sorted]

A small update on the durability evaluation. I'm close to 20k miles on the truck this year so I'm watching for signs of wear and degradation of the components. I noticed my clutch master cylinder was a bit low the other day which made me suspicious of the Wilwood slave cylinder. I put her on the hoist yesterday next to the Goat to swap out shackles (taking the OME parts from the Goat since it's coming apart) and take a look at everything.

Looks like the slave has developed a bit of seepage. This slave is one of the areas I was most concerned about in this build, they get mixed reviews for durability on the various forums. The alternative solution is a concentric slave in the bellhousing. That's got the advantage of being an OEM setup but is of course much harder to change if it does fail. I carry a spare slave in the truck so for now I'm going to let it go and keep monitoring the fluid level.

And now I've got the OME shackles on with the Tough Dog springs. No more inverted springs for me. I did a quick run on the Chinaman Gulch trail (pretty gnarly rocks) after swapping in the shackles all performed well. I put my GoPro under the truck and got some video of the front axle, need to edit that up and I'll post a link.

 

[Borrego]

I really enjoyed reading through this. One of the best write ups I've read! So do you offer this conversion in your shop?

 

[Well Sorted]

I really enjoyed reading through this. One of the best write ups I've read! So do you offer this conversion in your shop?

Thanks! There's a lot of great info in this community so I try to give back with my writeups, nothing is ever perfect in these builds and hopefully my experiences can help someone else out along the way. This type of job is certainly an offering in my shop, there might be a couple changes I'd do on the next one but it would be straightforward to build the same combo for a customer. The truck is available for test drives if you're ever in the area!

 

[Borrego]

Now that you've had it on the road for a little while, what kind of MPG's are you seeing?

 

[gregnash]

And the sliders took a real beating. Here's the kick out on the passenger side, I used it multiple times to bump around some big boulders. These are the ones from White Knuckle Off Road and still just bolted on with the supplied U-bolts. I've been really pleased with how they've held up and saved the rockers.
View attachment 1770613

Nothing irreparable here and I was able to finish the trail and avoid body damage so I call that a pretty good day. If I want to keep running anything like this I definitely need a u-bolt flip. Been planning a cut-n-turn job for the front and an FZJ80 for the rear so makes sense to do it all at once. On the other hand, I just picked up this sweet piece as a frame/suspension donor for some future build. Maybe it's time to accelerate the plan...

@ddelong6767 Doug, meant to ask you but which version of the WKOR sliders did you get? I have been looking at them, original plan was to build my own but for these running around $250-$300 it would be hard to beat.

 

[Borrego]

@gregnash Where are you seeing $250-$300 for WKOR sliders? When I go on their website, I see them for $590... If they're $250-300, consider a pair sold!

 

[gregnash]

Sorry I was thinking of Trail Gear not WKOR... my bad

 

[Well Sorted]

Now that you've had it on the road for a little while, what kind of MPG's are you seeing?

I don't keep track of it much, my commute consists of 1 mile to the shop so the fuel expense is pretty darn low overall. I did check it on the way home from Moab last weekend though. We left Utah in decent weather and took the backroads to try and avoid the worst of the snow storm in CO. The first couple hours we averaged 55-65 through mixed hills and flat lands, all at altitudes of 5000' or so with some 8000' passes. After that we hit the snow and things slowed down considerably. What's normally a 5 hour drive took about 8.5 to give you an idea. We crossed three major mountain passes, all at probably 15 mph in blowing snow. In the flat sections of Central CO we were able to get up to 45 in portions, but that wasn't a huge amount of time.

The truck knocked down 16 mpg on that trip as of tonight's fill up. I find it will pull these kind of numbers and occasionally higher as long as you keep the speeds down. You're still fighting fundamental first principles of physics pushing a box through the air, drag is the square of velocity so the slower you go the better.

Iced up front end in Montrose before the sun went down. Even the heated LED's couldn't keep the ice off the lights, ended up having to chip the buildup off to get them clear...

 

[Borrego]

Thanks for the detailed response! I think for that type of power, and considering the weight and aerodynamics (or lack thereof) of a 60, 16mpg is great!

 

[Well Sorted]

Time for an update on the 60... Some of you may have seen in the Goat thread that the 60 had an unfortunate mishap a couple months ago. My wife slid off the road and backed it into a dirt embankment which caused the spare tire carrier to smash into the rear hatch and then to break free. As the truck bounced off the carrier swung around and did a number on the LR quarter panel.

Smashed hatch:

LR Quarter caved in:

So I rolled her into the shop on Saturday afternoon and started the process to strip it down for paint. Before:

This one is not going all the way - body is staying on the frame and powertrain is staying in. I've decided to do what I call a stage two - doors, jambs, glass out, etc as a reasonable compromise for a quality job without totally having to disassemble the truck. After a few hours of work Saturday afternoon and Sunday it looked like this...

I've done a lot of builds and restoration and it still amazes me how many parts there are when you really start to tear these things down. I should own stock in Ziploc and Sharpie to offset all the bagging and tagging I do to keep things straight.

Plans for this job include refreshing seals and trim as needed, scraping out the rain gutters and resealing them, new windshield, new headliner, and addressing whatever other little challenges we find lurking behind the trim.

 

[Well Sorted]

On the subject of lurking demons... we found a few but not too bad. The windshield gasket was hiding some rust in the lower corner on the passenger side and along the bottom edge. This shot shows the corner section. After uncovering all this I treated it with a neutralizer, then hit it with a sanding disc which did a good job taking a lot out. I welded up the small hole (after it blew out and got larger, of course) then sand and ground the other sections. My painter will do final prep in these areas to neutralize the rust and seal it all with epoxy primer. The most thorough approach would have been to cut it all out but we just don't have time for that on this project.

One of the reasons for the stage 2 paint approach is that this truck was resprayed about 5 years ago. It was a quick and dirty Maaco job and the paint match is not good. I though it was somewhat amusing to see how far the original and respray are off, this was easily visible when I popped out the rear quarter windows...

I actually like the exterior color it is now, but we're going to go back with the darker factory blue. The firewall and underhood are still original paint so changing to a lighter shade would entail a lot more work.

If you're following the Goat build you also saw the dangers of cowl drains getting clogged. I didn't want to risk anything so I pulled the drain housings off on this truck and sure enough there was enough leaves, dirt, and mud in there to host a small ecosystem. WARNING TO EVERYONE - CHECK AND CLEAN YOUR COWL DRAINS! It doesn't take long for this sort of accumulation to turn into pretty nasty rust and it's a very difficult area to repair.

Passenger side was chock full, took a lot of work to clean and I ended up pulling the wiper motor and hood hinge to get everything clean and dry:

Driver's side had some accumulation too, but not nearly as bad:

 

[89wrangler450]

On with the progress... With the trans and tcase done the next step was mounting it up to the engine. The AA kit had all the needed parts including clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, and dowel bolts to hold it all together. Installing and torquing that stuff isn't very interesting so I didn't snap photos. Once the engine and transmission were together, the next step was to deal with the slave cylinder.

As noted in earlier posts, the AA bracket doesn't play nice with the Hooker manifolds I'm using. The only space is really rearward, which means I need a pull-style slave cylinder to actuate the clutch arm. You can find these under a few different brand names, I chose the Wilwood one (p/n 260-1333). They are universal and have heim joint mounts so you'll need to fab up a bracket of some sort. I chose to make a bent steel bracket that mounts to two of the top bolts on the NV4500 and comes down the side. There are two 45 degree bends to make the corner then a flat plate with an outboard support to put the joint in double shear. I went pretty heavy on this to make sure it's nice and stiff, it's made from 3/16" steel. I didn't get shots of the bracket in process, but in the one below you can see it and the whole system mocked up. Based on some prior photos and measurements I was pretty confident this would fit in the tunnel, and after installing the powertrain that turned out to be true.

View attachment 1587658

With the slave in place, I then worked on the hard line to supply this slave. The factory Toyota line comes down on the passenger side so I just scrapped it and made one from scratch using parts store hard line. The routing is shown below, I used both the factory mount on the firewall and my own points down lower. At the termination point in the transmission tunnel I flared the end for AN3 fittings to connect with a braided flex line.

View attachment 1587663

View attachment 1587662

Also, a little lesson learned later when bleeding this system - I found that I had a leak at the master after filling everything up with fluid. The fitting on the parts store line is too short by about 1mm to put adequate pressure on the flare, it's enough to just get snug and contact but not create a good seal. Toyota's inverted flare fittings are longer than standard and should be re-used on any replacement hard line so that means you need to cut off the end and reflare the tube. This also cropped up on a replacement axle line I had to make. If anyone knows of a source to buy those Toyota tube nuts I'd be interested to know.

One last step before installing the powertrain was to put a little insulation on the brake line running down the passenger frame rail to protect it from the exhaust pipe radiated heat. For this type of scenario I usually use something like this product from DEI - Cool-Tube Heat Sleeve. It comes in a number of diameters and varying lengths, it's pretty stiff and can be formed to follow bends and curves. It has worked well for me on my racecar to protect brake lines in a pretty extreme heat environment so it should be good for the Cruiser. Later in the build I added more of this around the junction block that is on the framerail and not yet installed in this pic.

View attachment 1587670

On with the progress... With the trans and tcase done the next step was mounting it up to the engine. The AA kit had all the needed parts including clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, and dowel bolts to hold it all together. Installing and torquing that stuff isn't very interesting so I didn't snap photos. Once the engine and transmission were together, the next step was to deal with the slave cylinder.

As noted in earlier posts, the AA bracket doesn't play nice with the Hooker manifolds I'm using. The only space is really rearward, which means I need a pull-style slave cylinder to actuate the clutch arm. You can find these under a few different brand names, I chose the Wilwood one (p/n 260-1333). They are universal and have heim joint mounts so you'll need to fab up a bracket of some sort. I chose to make a bent steel bracket that mounts to two of the top bolts on the NV4500 and comes down the side. There are two 45 degree bends to make the corner then a flat plate with an outboard support to put the joint in double shear. I went pretty heavy on this to make sure it's nice and stiff, it's made from 3/16" steel. I didn't get shots of the bracket in process, but in the one below you can see it and the whole system mocked up. Based on some prior photos and measurements I was pretty confident this would fit in the tunnel, and after installing the powertrain that turned out to be true.

View attachment 1587658

With the slave in place, I then worked on the hard line to supply this slave. The factory Toyota line comes down on the passenger side so I just scrapped it and made one from scratch using parts store hard line. The routing is shown below, I used both the factory mount on the firewall and my own points down lower. At the termination point in the transmission tunnel I flared the end for AN3 fittings to connect with a braided flex line.

View attachment 1587663

View attachment 1587662

Also, a little lesson learned later when bleeding this system - I found that I had a leak at the master after filling everything up with fluid. The fitting on the parts store line is too short by about 1mm to put adequate pressure on the flare, it's enough to just get snug and contact but not create a good seal. Toyota's inverted flare fittings are longer than standard and should be re-used on any replacement hard line so that means you need to cut off the end and reflare the tube. This also cropped up on a replacement axle line I had to make. If anyone knows of a source to buy those Toyota tube nuts I'd be interested to know.

One last step before installing the powertrain was to put a little insulation on the brake line running down the passenger frame rail to protect it from the exhaust pipe radiated heat. For this type of scenario I usually use something like this product from DEI - Cool-Tube Heat Sleeve. It comes in a number of diameters and varying lengths, it's pretty stiff and can be formed to follow bends and curves. It has worked well for me on my racecar to protect brake lines in a pretty extreme heat environment so it should be good for the Cruiser. Later in the build I added more of this around the junction block that is on the framerail and not yet installed in this pic.

View attachment 1587670

I think I PMed you also. But I landed in the same boat as you with the slave cylinder. Do you still have the design for that bracket or could you make another one for me. I'm desperate, and don't want to run an internal slave.

 

[Well Sorted]

@NookShneer politely reminded me I've been totally slacking on this thread. In the interest of brevity I'm going to shortcut the process a bit and jump ahead. The truck went out for paint and has returned. The body shop I work with did a great job repairing the rear quarter and getting everything looking fresh and clean again.

This is where the real work begins though. Restoration (even a mild version) just takes a ton of time. Every parts is cleaned and inspected before reinstallation. A lot of bits get replaced in the process (weatherstrips, window runs, etc). Then we move on to the improvements, like sound deadeners...

I added Kilmat to the roof and doors to help cut down on the radiated noise from these panels. The roof is a real pain as some of you know, cleaning off the jute is no fun at all. I left some of the original adhesive there, it was so dry and hard there's no way it's coming down without a sander. After the jute was gone and the Kilmat was installed I used butyl rope between the OEM roof supports and the roof panel itself to create a tie between the two. The unscientific fist-thump test indicated a marked improvement in roof resonance. The last noise abatement treatment was hydrophobic melamine foam lining the roof panel itself. This product is known for sound absorption and it's adhesive backed so easy to install in place of the jute.

From there, the real fun began. Time to install the headliner. Got clamps?

Headliner installation is an exercise in patience. I worked on it off and on over the course of a week, I probably took 10-12 hours to do the whole thing. I worked from the C-pillars forward, then back to the rear hatch. The section above the hatch is the hardest in my opinion so it makes sense to save that one for last if you're learning as you go. There's no rocket science here, just patience and attention to detail as you pull, stretch, and work the material to get it to lay smooth.

 

[Well Sorted]

Almost forgot... before the headliner I added anchors for rear seat shoulder belts. This is an 86 model year truck, so the holes were there but the weld nuts were not. I welded up a few grade 8 nuts onto plates, made some simple holders and went fishing...

The plates are in the C-pillar where the factory hole is and the rivets will hold them from turning when the seat belt anchors are put in. This isn't too difficult of a job, but the wire and fishing bit takes a little practice.

Here's a shot of the finished headliner. It's a lot of work to do this job, but it sure does look nice when you've got a fresh clean headliner in the truck...