Builds Gen. Waverly (13 Viewers)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

where did you get the new dash pad? looks great
From the dealer. Culver City Toyota ran a Black Friday sale and it's been sitting in my garage for the last 4 months. (BTW - not my favorite parts counter, their staff leaves a lot to be desired, but they do have good pricing at times.) However I think the only one that's available is the gray one for the FJ62, not sure about the brown or either color for the 60.
 
Ham antenna mounted and rolling. Had a couple of short QSOs on a few local repeaters on the drive in, but this still needs some tweaking.

IMG_0180.jpeg
 
Tech for dummies this am - my sun visors were very difficult to swivel down away from the roof, and was in the process of almost bending the visor coming in to work yesterday trying to keep the sun out of my eyes. Thinking these were frozen in place, I started researching replacements, and noted that using the 70 series replacement visors requires you to reuse the arms from the original ones (assuming the brittle plastic isn't busted) by removing the set screw and pulling out the arm. However, the set screw also controls the resistance on the arm as you swivel it up and down. Literally 10 seconds of adjusting later and mine were in great shape, no issues twisting them up and down, saved me $100.

In case needed down the road, p/n's for the 70 series replacements, you need to reuse the arm from your existing visors:
74310-90K10-08
74320-60290-A0

Have also been chasing down this vibration that keeps cropping up around 55 mph. Was just about to order the transfer rebuild kit from Georg @orangefj45 yesterday, but was able to chat with him before placing the order. His thought is that it may be the torque converter and glazing on the lockout clutch. I bought some Shudder Fixx on his recommendation, running this for about 100 mi before ordering a kit. It cleaned up some of the vibration and the truck is definitely quieter and shifts better, but the low level hum is still there and sticks around regardless of road surface (thinking it was maybe tires, still might be) and whether the truck is in neutral or 3rd at about 55. Still have another 50 miles or so, we'll see how it goes. Big thanks to Georg for the advice and suggestions!

10436769_lbg_19689_pri_larg.jpg
 
Tech for dummies this am - my sun visors were very difficult to swivel down away from the roof, and was in the process of almost bending the visor coming in to work yesterday trying to keep the sun out of my eyes. Thinking these were frozen in place, I started researching replacements, and noted that using the 70 series replacement visors requires you to reuse the arms from the original ones (assuming the brittle plastic isn't busted) by removing the set screw and pulling out the arm. However, the set screw also controls the resistance on the arm as you swivel it up and down. Literally 10 seconds of adjusting later and mine were in great shape, no issues twisting them up and down, saved me $100.

In case needed down the road, p/n's for the 70 series replacements, you need to reuse the arm from your existing visors:
74310-90K10-08
74320-60290-A0

Have also been chasing down this vibration that keeps cropping up around 55 mph. Was just about to order the transfer rebuild kit from Georg @orangefj45 yesterday, but was able to chat with him before placing the order. His thought is that it may be the torque converter and glazing on the lockout clutch. I bought some Shudder Fixx on his recommendation, running this for about 100 mi before ordering a kit. It cleaned up some of the vibration and the truck is definitely quieter and shifts better, but the low level hum is still there and sticks around regardless of road surface (thinking it was maybe tires, still might be) and whether the truck is in neutral or 3rd at about 55. Still have another 50 miles or so, we'll see how it goes. Big thanks to Georg for the advice and suggestions!

View attachment 3586140
Thanks for the call, glad that helped!

We see a lot of 60 & 62s with a mild to moderate “hum” and resonance/vibration.
If the shudder fix doesn’t take care of it completely ( obviously this only applies to FJ62s ), then have a good look at the rear drive shaft. First check the slip joint for up-and-down play, then REMOVE ( don’t just check in place ) the drive shaft and feel the u-joints.
We have Japanese made joints in stock.

Typically, we recommend that you change your oil every 3000-3500 miles. At that time, you should also check your front wheel bearings AND grease the drive shafts.

Happy to help.

Georg @ Valley Hybrids @ Cruiser Brothers
Sales@valleyhybrids.com
Shop 209-475-8808
 
New shoes to help with the vibration issues. Didn’t quite eliminate it but pushed it up to a higher speed and they are WAY quieter on the freeway. Defender LTX M/S, based on lots of reviews on Mud.

IMG_0186.jpeg


New FJ40 project inbound. Burn the boats, the 62 is the daily for a while :)
 
Last edited:
Transfer case rebuild time. Not hard but when dealing with East coast rigs, you end up with a few busted bolts as steel loves to fuse with aluminum when you leave it for 37 years. Ugh. Anyway it's mostly torn down as of tonight, only suffered 2 busted bolts and was able to retrieve both studs from the case with a pair of vise-grips, luckily. One snapped bolt and it was directly to fire for me today, saved my bacon at least 3 times.

Some photos of the teardown. The idler shaft was also practically fused to the rear half of the case, took some BFH persuasion to get it to come out.

IMG_0208.jpeg


Just before removing the front half.
Note that I did need to drop the trans a little to get clearance for the rear half of the case. The input gear was on there pretty good, I bought the long-necked idler gear from Cruiser Bros @orangefj45, but it's not likely that I'll need it. Going to install it anyway just because it's here.

IMG_0210.jpeg


And here's what I'm hoping is the culprit of my vibration... this is the rear spacer, the front spacer looks worse. Needle bearings looked ok but had some wear, input shaft bearing moved nice and smooth.

IMG_0211.jpeg


Front spacer. This is probably 0.5mm or so.

IMG_0213.jpeg


Nuts and bolts graveyard. That busted bolt in the middle cost me 2 hours, but thankfully I didn't need to drill it out of the case like I'd feared.

IMG_0209.jpeg


More cleaning off gasket surfaces tonight, then hopefully back together tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
 
Last edited:
Transfer case rebuild complete. Didn't get any photos on the reassembly, as I was concentrating on following the FSM (give it a solid B+ - some better procedures in there, but a few confusing parts that put items out of order if you are doing a full rebuild). But, it's back together and it works! As with all of these chases for the vibration, this took away even more of it, but it's still there at speed ever so slightly. However, I think this has diminished it more than the other steps I've taken, so that's positive. My coffee mug doesn't rattle like crazy on the drive in to work.

I've ordered some new rear brake drums, time to get after the rear brakes. The drums look original to the truck, and are likely out of round plus they have a nasty lip on them that indicates they are due for replacement. I've had replacement shoes in the garage since at least last summer, so time to get those installed. (Plus it could also be contributing to some vibration, but who knows.)

I really also want to dig into the new FJ40 project, but this weekend it's going to rain in LA (again - why do I deal with alllll the Kalifornia bs if not the weather??), so that will likely have to wait another week while I do brakes and an oil change on the :princess:'s Highlander.
 
Afternoon of short projects, pulled the instrument cluster (again) to try and fix the oil pressure gauge after the wire shorted out to the body. This seemed to work, have a new blade connector from O'Reilly to hook up tomorrow. Cleaned the ground plate on the gas gauge properly this time, and then refilled the tank. Gauge is slow but looks like it works well, we'll see if it goes nutty in tandem with the temp gauge. Also replaced the radio, pulled the one that I'd installed with the Crux bluetooth adapter and installed one that is much more stock and period-correct.

Other than that, truck is running fine. Next big-ish project is valve stem seals.
 
Been quiet with the General the last few weeks. Finally was able to get after a few small projects on it this weekend - replacing the front brake calipers and rebuilding the starter. First project was the brake calipers, that was an hour job that turned into a whole day. Bought a rebuild kit for both sides, thinking that I would test my luck on rebuilding calipers one more time, since the last 2 times I did this it didn't work out all that great. Anyway, pulled the passenger side off first, was able to pop 3 of the 4 pistons, but the last small piston was rusted into the body solid. Since this is a daily and Napa didn't have the parts in stock until next week, was able to get a pair from O'Reilly on short notice.

However, once I received them, the passenger side wouldn't fit over the rotor. Whoever rebuilt it made the gap too small, probably by milling the two halves too much and then putting it back together and chucking it in a box. This was not the issue caliper, but this is the gap I'm talking about:

IMG_0054.jpeg


This was actually the one I took over to the 'Zone (ugh) to check against the new Duralast ones that I bought. Those were fine, but I had to make a 30 min drive one way just to get them, after searching for an hour online and needing to get back and done in time for an event we were attending last night. I was pleasantly surprised by the Duralast ones - nicely finished and had OEM markings on them, so that was great. Slapped those on the rig, bled the system and voila - no more pulling to the left when braking!

And since I'm a glutton for punishment, decided to get after the starter rebuild this morning using the parts I'd ordered from Partsouq a few weeks back. I followed the procedure and used part numbers on this tech article, which was awesome and super straightforward. The only thing I would have added is to make sure that both contacts are at the same level - the positive input side can be adjusted but is a press-fit onto the bolt, which makes it a little bit tough to adjust using the plunger to make sure all is level before smacking the bolt home. Ended up eyeballing it and pressing it in very lightly, so I could still move it up and down while using the plunger to level it out while in the starter. This worked out great, put it all back in the rig and it spins with a little more pep than it did before.

Some photos of old parts, this was a Hecho en Mexico rebuild, so looking at the corrosion here it's not surprising it required some BFH persuasion every once in a while. We'll see how my "rebuild" does.

IMG_0057.jpeg


I was also supposed to get a set of valve seals, but apparently the guys in Dubai didn't have them. Will have to keep looking for those.
 
Still chasing that low rumble vibration, decided to check if my rear wheels were in true and if the axle bearings were good. Wheels seemed fine, but here's what I found pulling the axle on the driver's side...

IMG_0083.jpeg


This chunk literally fell off in my hand. This created a bunch of swarfy grossness in the rear end. For what it's worth, these were replaced by the PO, but whoever did the work installed them with the KOYO label facing in, which seems backwards - the side with the label facing out has a sharper edge and the opposite side has a bit more room for oil to get into the bearings between the outer race and cage. I replaced the bearings on both sides along with the seals.

Anyway, the driver's side inner race on the shaft is all borked up from this, I had to reinstall the shaft because I need to drive the truck. Hopefully it doesn't screw up the new bearing. I cleaned it up best I could, it's still a bit rough and the vibration is still there, but a little less and there's no play in the wheel when shaking at 12/6 and 9/3.
 
Last edited:
How did you remove those rear Bearings/Races ? Not easy.
 
How did you remove those rear Bearings/Races ? Not easy.
Slide hammer and axle bearing pullers rented from the 'Zone. My main difficulty was that the medium size puller was too small, large was too big. Just needed to kind of set the medium size off-center and give it an equal number of whacks on the left and right sides of the race. Wrecked the cage on the first one, second one came out intact.

I found it harder to install the new ones than to remove the old, kept wanting to go in crooked.
 
Been a frustrating day... ordered a new long driver's side rear axle shaft from Cruiserparts.net, tore the rear end apart and found that they sent me a rear shaft for a 40, not a 62... had to run over to $OR to pick one up, and bought another axle bearing just in case the one on the driver's side was shot. Got home found that the driver's side bearing - new, had 50 miles on it - was totally bork'd, so ran over to the 'Zone to pick up tools to replace. Replaced both seals because idiot user error, drove them all the way in the bores instead of just to the edge. Fixed all of that, put it back together and...

Vibration is still there.

Dumped in more Shudder Fixx and...

Vibration is still there.

Tore into the front end to check torque on the front bearings, which was way low. No play, but preload was around 2lbs instead of 6-12lbs. Busted off a bolt on the hub cover just for extra good measure.

Vibration is still there.

I don't know what else to check. The rear driveshaft is new, both rear axle bearings are new, transfer case is rebuilt, new axle shaft, replaced the rear third, new trans fluid, new tires, new stock wheels. None of it seems to make this f*cking vibration die. The only things left is stuff like spring hanger bushings (need to replace), engine and trans mounts (never been replaced), and then all that's left is pretty much the transmission and torque converter.
 
Last edited:
Drive shafts are in phase?

Bent rim?
 
Drive shafts are in phase?

Bent rim?
Thanks for suggestions. Rear driveshaft is a new Tom Wood, front is original. Have not pulled the front d/s to make sure it's not rotating / creating issues at speed, this may be something I try over the weekend. One of the wheels was bent, but I replaced that one a while back and provided the tire shop with an extra wheel when balancing the new tires, just in case another was bent.

Think it's caused by something rotational, though, since it only shows up around 55 mph and doesn't go away at higher speeds, and putting the truck in neutral does nothing to eliminate it while at that speed.
 
Driveshaft Phase

Look in the FSM. Not sure if the FJ62 is the same orientation.

1718384800291.png


1718384867283.png
 
It’s the same.
Mine was wrong when I got it which confused the matter a bit.
Made mine “correct” and things cleared up.

@majdomo have you removed the rear driveshaft and driven in “front wheel” drive to eliminate the rear driveshaft as a culprit?
I haven't. This may be first order of business tomorrow am. Also ordered new front wheel bearings, just for fun.

EDIT - how fast can you go in 4-HI, just so I don't overdo it? Seem to remember it's about 55 but to confirm.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom