HDJ100 - Body off renovation, now with a hot dip galvanised frame *Picture Heavy*

[Moridinbg]

Curious to see if that inner tie rod replacement will help with the steering pull / drifting

Nope. Still pulled. Even after switching to 16" 30.5" winter tires - still the same pull to the right. Maybe a little bit smaller, probably due to the smaller tires. I should go for an alignment to a place that would be interested to dig deeper into the problem.

Dang, some serious blood sweat and tears going into this build. The final product is looking really good.

How do you feel about the awning, worth it once setup?

I LOVE the awning! If you are considering it - do not hesitate. It's expensive and heavy, but it's so damn good. It opens and closes in no time and is impressively strong.

I plan to build a wall kit, as theirs costs as much as the awning, which I can't justify and afford.

 

[YvesNL]

I kept reading how easy T-slot aluminium is to work with. **** that noise.

You're right, it is fine for prototyping but I like welded constructions more.

I use the stuff at work for test setups and I used to use the same stuff as you. I call that profile a "B" type and it has two flat edges where the "Nut" slides.
Now I mostly use "I" type. It is thicker on the edge of the lip like in the picture below. You can put in and remove nuts everywhere and its strong.

B type:

I type:

I-type nut:

Inserting from side, can be a bit fiddly:

One more side shot:

Now I really don't know how big the strength difference between the two is, but the stores tell me it should be just as strong.
I know how frustrating it is to take everything apart, for the third time... so maybe someone can use this information.

You've got a great build going, nice to see you using the rig!

 

[Moridinbg]

The tire carrier is finally complete. It took a while to get it painted and then to repair the plastic bumper that was broken when that car crashed in to me last autumn.
Rear license plates are legally required to be illuminated here, so I am using the plate from my bike rack until I install lights on the bumper.

I measured wrong when cutting the bumper and cut way too much. Will try to cover it with some rubber piece.

It's nice to just chill next to the rig, instead of wrenching, wrenching, wrenching... The awning walls are a must though. In the afternoon the sun is very low and the awning does next to nothing. Also it gets chilly when it's windy.

 

[akikan]

holy crap, after reading your thread, it just blowed my mind

 

[Moridinbg]

Next stop - drawers!
I want to make them out of metal. Everybody makes them out of wood, because it's easy to work with and tools are cheap, but wood sucks. It's super heavy and it's not durable. I like it in my living room, not in my car

Metal overlanding drawers aren't that many. Some people make them out of 8020, but this would be hella expensive and as I found out with the roof rack, I don't like it that much.

Sheet metal projects are even fewer, but I found this one here on mud It's still partially made out of 8020, but the kitchen extension is bent aluminum and it looks pretty slick

Dan Grec from the Road Chose Me showed his setup, made by Overland Kitchen – The Adventurous Kitchen - https://overlandkitchen.com I immediately loved that setup! It's stainless, which would be way too heavy for my liking, but the concept is solid. I especially liked the sideways drawer that exposes a cutting board.

So I went ahead and started drawing

 

[Moridinbg]

This is what I came up with. There is one missing extension underneath the cutting board, that will be the sink and the one gas burner. The square tower is still a WIP. Initially I thought that it could be a bottles storage, but it's way too big for that. It would probably be a few shelves or something like that. The frame is steel, the drawers aluminium. Solidworks tells me that the entire thing would be about 85kg - frame, drawers and slides. Considering that most wooden systems with just two drawers are ~100kg, that sounds pretty good.
You might ask where would the fridge go? I plan to remove the single rear seat behind the passenger and put the fridge there.

This is the general schematic and sizes in cm. Go ahead and practice your Bulgarian cursive reading

Bird's eye view

I had some concerns about aluminium maybe flexing too much, but then I went to see a friend who is currently building a two drawers system for his Land Rover Discovery. I hope mine will fit better with less gaps and sharp edges. But the drawers are really sturdy, which gives me confidence.
In the picture they are put on top of their enclosure which will bolt through the Disco floor.

 

[Moridinbg]

And finally the result so far. I hadn't welded frames so far, but turns out it's way easier than sheet metal.

Test fit

The lower hatch is in the way of accessing most of the drawers. They are also pretty high, especially with the 33" tires. At least I can lower the AHC slightly. I wish I could afford 125% or 150% extension drawers, but they would easily triple the budget.

Next week I will be welding the horizontal beams for the sliders and hope to receive the aluminium sheets and start bending.

 

[Moridinbg]

A bunch of things got done.

I added horizontal support for the sliders.

Aluminium cut and bent. The workshop did a pretty poor job of bending it. 1-3mm mistakes all around and one bending in the wrong direction.

Nevertheless the drawers turned out ok. I especially like the 90 degree bend on the edges, instead of the usual 180 degree. It is definitely stiffer that way and is incredibly convenient for moving the drawers around

The poor bending job is more visible in the more complex shapes

 

[Moridinbg]

Painted the frame and added sides and top from transparent acrylic glass. It's a poor material choice - heavy, fragile and scratch prone, but I had it for free, so there it goes.

Lined the inside with cork and some red silicone. The corners are open through the bending relief cuts, so that we would be able to drain them in case of spilling stuff. Unlike I expected, the cork did absolutely nothing to dampen the sound of the entire thing, but it will stop stuff from banging around.

Added some butyl sheets that I had left over from sound deadening the cabin. They helped a lot with resonances and clanking. THe noisiest thing that is left are the sliders. Nothing I can do about them. Hopefully, as I fill the drawers and they get heavier, this will quiet them down somewhat.

The kitchen part, expanded. It looks crooked, but it's the perspective and camera lens. It's straight. I will add some bungee cords across the openings to prevent stuff from falling out.

I put the fridge in the place of the single rear seat. I think it wastes a ton of useful volume in the rear, while I am yet to need all 3 rear seats together with the fridge.

 

[renago]

Nice job, I have a similar thing ,but in a 78.
If this can confort you , once the boxes are full of stuff , the sliders stop making noise and rattle, and the stuff in the boxes reduces the noise a lot.
I think You will happy

 

[Moridinbg]

I had a set of walls made for the awning. Shamelessly copied the original wall kit from the Bush company, almost to the letter -
They are not perfect, but pretty good overall.

Reluctantly I drilled the hood and put the solar there. That way I can easily detach it and park in the shade. It's held with wing nuts underneath. I decided against putting it on the RTT, because it will be super high and inconvenient to move around.

Also finished the electrical installation. I wanted to make some cable porn, but didn't quite make it, mostly due to the cable brackets. The battery connection is flexible, via 175A Anderson plugs. The plan is to attach the appliances to the plugs on the battery itself, while the chargers and inverter are on the board.

 

[kikitherealone]

Hi MoridinBG, just discovered your post and congratulations: well done restoration of your 100.
Sorry to have seen a such badly engine rebuid by the previous owner, you've done it right to preserve this fabulous engine.
Bent conrods are the sign of aspired water by the engine, I've done my first diesel engine restoration about that.
There's tow or three small and relatively cheap upgrades you could install on your FTE to have all the agrement of driving and matching the good begining of the 3" exhaust and Alisport intercooler you have installed.
First a small DTE-chiptuning "correction" of the gasolinflow
Second Safari Armax snorkel in 4" that create a better airflow to the airbox and your VNT turbo will start 200rpm lower with better maximum boost pressure.
Third an adaptation part install directly on the upper part of the airbox cover to have a 100mm to 78 hose with dumper.
This have a huge effect on the amount of fresh air which diesel engine needed, and results are plenty of torque in low rev's and real "cruising" pleasure in long offroad travels.
Nice to meet you!

 

[Moridinbg]

I finished the aux diesel & water tanks. They are far from perfect, but I was on a very tight deadline, as I had to have the car in the port of Marseilles in France by 9am on the 12th and that is 2000km/1250miles away.

Diesel tank. I made it from aluminium I had left from the drawers. Used the fuel pump from a scrapyard car. It's 30x35x60cm, which comes up to 63l/16.6 gallons. I hope to be able to use 90% of that.
I have been practising TIG welding for the past couple of weeks, but turns out welding the big thing is much much more difficult than welding together small scrap pieces. Finally I had to resort to a local welder, who did it in like an hour...

The water tank is premade plastic and is longer, but narrower. 68l/18gal.

I welded some steel cradles for them from 3mm steel. Used stainless strips for a harness to stop them from bouncing around.

I aimed for them to be at about the level of the original spare tire. They are above the rear control arm mounting points and above the differential housing. Tiny bit lower than the tubes of the axle housing.
They are certainly hanging lower in the back than I would have liked, but I didn't have the time to design the diesel tank to be wedge shaped and to also make a custom water tank. Definitely at some point in the future I would consider redoing it into a single dual tank that better utilises the volume between the frame rails in order to fit a similar amount of liquid, but to hang higher up and to be wedge shaped in the rear.

The bigger problem though is that the filler neck corner is at a lower position than the corner going into the diesel reservoir. So I can't really pump fuel in - it goes super slow, fighting gravity and pressure When building it it looked ok, when I started filling it in - not so much...
The workaround is to put something under the tank side wheels and lift the car to the side. This is certainly going to make fuelling up interesting...



In other news, I left the car at the port the other day and now I am waiting on the logistics company to tell me that they have sealed it in the container and is putting it on the ship to Uruguay. This are my container buddies, that I will be sharing a 40ft container with to South America.
A French couple that will be going from Ushuaia to Alaska over the next year with their 3 daughters, aged 9, 11 & 13 in a camper converted Land Rover Defender 130

 

[zimcruza]

Colour me impressed . What an amazing build. I’ll deliver my hundy to you next month for the same

If you need help sourcing stuff in the UK let me know …. I spotted a RoughTrax box in one of your pics, and I also use Amayama and Partsouq a lot. Watching your work, and learning, has been inspirational - thanks for sharing your journey!

 

[Moridinbg]

This thread might seem dead a bit, but we have been travelling through Patagonia for the past two months as part of a 8-9 month trip around South America! Here are couple of photos.
If you are interested, we post semi-regularly in our Facebook Group - ½ Panamericana | Facebook - https://web.facebook.com/groups/603065688158778 (in Bulgarian, but Facebook does a semi-decent job of translating) and very infrequently in our blog - https://tukaetaka.com/ (Google does a lot more decent job of translating that).

 

[Moridinbg]

Long time, no post. We did it - 49007km in South America in exactly 10 months. During this time the only major issue was... AHC failure, written at length about it here - RTH needed - seemingly air in AHC, car in Low, stuck in Patagonia - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/rth-needed-seemingly-air-in-ahc-car-in-low-stuck-in-patagonia.1300130/ Gonna fix it and keep it.

Other than that:

• The rear diff extended breather got blocked twice and the resulting overpressure made both rear hub seals leak in Argentina. I had spare seals with me, but decided against dealing with and paying for that until I get back home to my trusted mechanic and after I start getting salary again lol. Went through about 2 litres of diff oil over 30k km.
• The transfer case front seal was weeping when I left, replaced it in Sao Paulo with an original one that I carried, together with a Koyo bearing, 10k later the new one started leaking again
• Tore two CV axle outside boots on the passenger axle in Brazil. One I replaced from the boot kit that I carried, for the second one I swapped the spare CV that I carried.
• When replacing the second boot I kinked the passenger side front diff seal. Thankfully it is the easier one to replace on the road. I carried a spare one.
• One 555 upper ball joint became wildly loose in Brazil. It had about 70k km on it. The other one installed at the same time was solid. Replaced them with Prado 120/4 runner/200 ones that happen to be the same.
• One inner tire rod end got loose too. Got one in Bolivia via Amayama.
• The alternator diode block died in Bolivia. I had replaced the diodes before with aftermarket ones. I carried a spare Denso alternator, but turns out that the 80A alternator (spare) uses a different mounting bracket than the 130A (OEM) one, so had to swap the smaller diodes temporarily before buying some random 130A diode block.
• A wire broke from the AHC accumulator connector in Chile. Soldered that.
• I broke a wire from one of the engine vacuum valves in Argentina. Soldered that too.
• The windshield started leaking A LOT. When I reinstalled it couple of years ago I only did epoxy primer + polyurethane primer for the glue on the frame with no paint. Guess that was a mistake. Applied liberal amounts of silicone to mitigate that until I get back home.
• I had reinstalled the front hub caps a few times and they were loose. I started sealing them with silicone, but apparently not enough on the passenger side, eventually in Peru water entered through the cap and completely destroyed the needle bearing on the back of the hub. Wheel bearings were well packed with grease and fine. Managed to source a Koyo bearing, but did about 350km with no needle bearing before that and seemed fine.
• AC radiator bolts came loose at some point. I expected that to happen a lot, due to all the washboards and vibrations but other than that was not really an issue.

• The Chinese front bumper needed a couple of weldings on the chassis mounting brackets in Argentina and then Ecuador.
• The winch solenoid box cables corroded. Replaced them with 25mm copper cable in Brazil.
• The solar panel flew away on the road and broke into million pieces because I did not use washers when mounting it and the bolts ripped through the aluminium frame. Bought a cheap Chinese one in Chile that worked better than the previous Renogy

I am extremely happy to say that other than the solar panel, none of the rest of my modifications and fabrications had any issues! That includes the roof rack, tire carrier, drawer system, side steps, solar/lithium battery system, extra water and diesel tanks. I was nervous about the drawer sliders disintegrating or the tire carrier breaking due to weight and vibrations, but all was well.

 

[merbesfield]

Wow, you are a very good mechanic. I am sure any one of those items would have rendered me dead. Nice job! Looks like you had lots of fun. Lifetime memory for sure. Congrats.

 

[Moridinbg]

Somewhat controversial, I guess, but after we got back from SA last summer, I got an EV (Hyundai Ioniq 5) and now that the LC is not my daily it has seen a lot less use and care (less than 2000km in about a year), but here are the highlights.

I replaced the counterfeit Morimoto H1 lens with original Morimoto D2S straight from the website and added the DLR halos. The counterfeits (which were sold by a local shop as the real deal) had very poor reflector coating that burned out, light output fell drastically and they started heating up a lot. Also H1 HID choice is extremely poor, unlike D2S.

Winter came aaand I had to be rescued from my own driveway after slipping sideways

Did some light winter camping

Then spring came, went on a biking trip and completely blew the minds of some dudes who have never ever been offroading and were openly questioning what's so cool about that.

 

[Moridinbg]

AHC had failed twice during the trip - first pump could not build pressure - replaced the pump, 10k later same thing happened. With some weird workarounds could get it to N, but it was unreliable. Almost immediately after that the AHC computer stopped seeing any of the solenoids, only the height sensors. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as this happened with the truck in normal height, perfectly levelled. With no control to the solenoids it couldn't drop the height and we did the rest 20-25k km o f the trip that way.
Long story short, it was a broken wire in Bl1 or Bl2 - the hardest to reach connectors between the body and chassis, right next to the rear tire.

Had to drop the tank and still barely was able to squeeze my fingers. A whole box of bananas job just from the effort it took to solder 1 wire in 8 hours...

With the AHC now able to control the solenoids it was time to investigate why the old pump and then the brand new pump could not build pressure. Kind of got an idea of the reason. That ain't Coke, but the AHC fluid from the passenger side globes.

Dark, slightly burnt and very airy. Flushed it with fresh fluid. Drove for about 150k and started not being able to build pressure again.
The bleeder on the accumulator has been broken since forever, so I can only bleed from the globes. Did a series of bleed - drive 100km - bleed and air kept coming out. I thought it might be leaking globe, as it was mostly on the passenger side globes and very little on drivers side. So I replaced the globes with a set of good ones from a friend who took the sensible approach and just replaced everything with Dobinson.
I also took his accumulator, but as documented many times, removing it from the car is an absolute pig of a job. I rate it 1 banana plantation and admitted defeat - could not remove mine.

Still, with the changed globes it kept acting up. And then the big act came. The front passenger strut broke I don't think I have ever seen anybody mention this happening before. They are known to leak from the connection on top of the shock, but this one looks crooked to the side and leaked heavily down the shaft. So I took the completely unsensible approach and am waiting on an order for a new shock, set of globes, pump and some o-rings from Impex. I will be damned if this does not work.

This though was not the end of the bad luck. After a multi day offroad trip I had to do a 400km highway drive in a hurry with lots of driveline vibrations due to mud getting the tires out of balance, even though I had washed it as much as I could. Next day I had to drive back, but before that I went and pressure washed the rims. Still had vibrations. Even stopped next to the highway, crawled under and removed any bits of mud left on the backside of the rims. Noticed some balance weight missing, but didn't check the lug nuts. Started driving again and within 20 meters the rear of the truck dropped to the ground and the rear right tire rolled ahead of me. It had been the lug nuts all along

Zero damage to the strut, disc, axle or anything else, but the rear quarter panel is badly banged by the tire. Suuuper bummed by this. So far had been able to keep body damage to absolute minimum with just a couple of small dents.

Was lucky that two of the bolts were unaffected and one opposite of them was only marginally bent, so I was able to put the spare on and crawl back home. I was able to push the very bent one inside the disc.

Rim is gone, which sucks as 18" are extremely rare in my part of Europe.

I am glad that this happened while practically stationary. Moments before that I was doing 130km/hr and would have rolled a lot, had the tire had fallen then. Will try to buff the wheel arch at least a little bit. I have been thinking about cutting the body behind the driver seats for a long time and that might just be the trigger. Have been frothing over a lot of these conversions.

 

[wildsmith]

I think most would have given up on the AHC a long time ago so it's good to read the information you share about your problems for the rest of us that want to keep it too. The fact you did your SA trip and kept the AHC alive is good inspiration not to give up on it. Looking forward to the next instalment and hopefully the resolution of your AHC problems.

Bad luck about the lug nuts, but I guess you won't forget to keep an eye on those again in a hurry.