Builds HJ45 Cab On HZJ80 Chassis (3 Viewers)

[RocketIron45]

Cheers for the encouragement and praise people, yeah that's all made from 5086 aluminium! Yeah, I have found the only problem with polishing aluminium is that it doesn't stay polished without constant care. So that's why I'm leaning towards paint. The only polished things on this cruiser are to be made from stainless steel, because they keep their shine easier Anyway, thanks for watching, I will post more as it happens

 

[Delancy]

Off topic question, but thread relevant.



Who in Oz does the most complete 80 ute conversion that you'd say looked factory?

 

[RocketIron45]

Hey Delancy, I don't know to be honest I have seen some 80 ute conversions but none have really looked "factory" to me. I'm not really an expert on that subject, you might want to try google. I'm sure there is a couple of conversion places here in oz worth looking at. Sorry I cant help you further mate, cheers for the question anyway

 

[Delancy]

I have seen some 80 ute conversions but none have really looked "factory" to me.

Me, either, Google and all.

Figured you've a discriminating eye and when I was re-reading, noticed the donor body, reason for question.

Anyhow, apologies for the diversion.

 

[RocketIron45]

Another weekend passed, another couple of things done on the beast. I turned my attention today to the mount for the tacho. I went with my existing mooneyes tacho, because it works and I have it at hand. If in the future I choose to change it, I will probably just make a new mount I decided to keep it simple for the tacho, anyways, this is what I came up with. Bare in mind, the weld will be smoothed to create an almost cast, moulded look.



Yet again, I went with aluminium as its easy to work with and I have plenty of the stuff lying around, in particular 3mm and 1.6 flat, which is what I used. Anyway, my next task is to mark, thread-set and bolt on the gauge cluster and tacho mount to the dash's sheetmetal. I am also looking at forming a column cover to hide the mechanisms and wiring of the column. Not 100% certain on how I will accomplish that seeing it has to tilt, but I have a couple of ideas in my head and I am keen to try as always. I will post photos on how that goes, until then, stay tuned

 

[Crick60]

Rocket you are an absolutefarkenlegend!
You're workmanship and dedication to this project is some of the highest I've seen, you should send a few photos across to Toyota with the subject line: "how the FJ cruiser should have been done" then go on to detail how the only reason Toyota can't compete in Australia is because they don't promote Aussie ingenuity and all they wanted to do was churn out sausages for the boring city folk.

Stand proud mate as this is the best custom job I've seen in years.

 

[Superfj40]

great build, you workman ship is A+ cant wait to see it finished

 

[RocketIron45]

Cheers for the encouragements, always nice to hear other people take an interest in what I am doing!
Now, today I got stuck back into the cruiser, firstly, my previous plans to attack the steering column shroud have been shelved for the moment, need to think up a better way to tackle that challenge. For today, I decided to turn my attention to the spare wheel carrier. The state of this cruiser when I got it wasn't real nice on the rear end of the chassis. the original spare wheel holder was gone as were the mounts. So, like every other part of this build, I've decided to make one from scratch to look vaguely like the original Anyway, like always, I started with a piece of flat 3mm hot rolled and folded it into a 45 degree hat channel.

Then I positioned the tyre in the place I thought it should go.

Using the oxy torch, various dollies and my ball peen I heat bent the hat channel into shape. I then vaguely sat it on the tyre and chassis to see how it looked.
After a fair bit of hammer work, I flattened the ends of the hat channel and welded then ground some pieces on each end to be used as the mounting face for the cross member.

This is about 4 hours of oxy, hammer, welder and grinder work. Yippee!

 

[RocketIron45]

Here's a few more photos of it in the chassis, mostly completed just needs final cleanup and bolting to chassis.

Anyway, I am pleased with how it looks, I will most likely fold a little heat shield where the exhaust sits near the tyre, just for piece of mind really. The tyre does sit a bit lower than I would ideally have it but its not too bad. That's it for now, don't know when the next update will be, hopefully in the next week or two! As always, I will post as I make progress and cheers for watching!!

 

[2fpower]

Continually amazed by your work. Thanks for posting up pictures.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Nice!

 

[2fpower]

I wrote this once and realized I was not clear.....

First draft.
What is that riser part on the exhaust pipe at the back drivers side rear of the bed?

Second
What is that riser do-hicky on the exhaust pipe at the back passenger side of the tray?

 

[cult45]

I'm gonna go with a mount to bolt the tailpipe to the tray or another bracket Ole Rocket's gonna fab up.

 

[RocketIron45]

Yeah, Cult45 is bang on the money if you mean by that pressing welded to the exhaust pipe just before it ends. Its just a mount for the pipe which has a standard landcruiser rubber underneath it, with a stainless bracket that is bolted to the chassis. Bad photo but I'm sure you get the idea

I want to use as many stock Landcruiser parts as possible on this build, hence the odd shape of all the mounts really. Hope that answered your question 2fpower, Cheers for asking!

 

[2fpower]

Coming to the realization that your exhaust mounts -- a part that no-one except us here will see -- look better than most of my fab work.

Cheers,

 

[RocketIron45]

Time for an update! Well, despite a few weeks off the project, I found some time today to work on the beast! I turned my attention to the handbrake since I was staring at the diff whilst working on the spare wheel carrier. I figure at this point in the build I should really start mounting systems to the cab in its tacked-up state. For the Handbrake system, I had two options. Either use the under-dash unit and make a joining bracket between the 45 cable to the 80 one, or make a mount for the 80 series floor type handbrake and utilise mostly stock components. After a bit of thought, I decided that the latter was a better proposition. Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos whilst making the parts but they aren't anything special.

The position of the Handbrake inside the cab is logical, underneath however, it will bolt through one flange of a hat channel with two bolts (which are yet to be drilled) and another two that will need threadsets as they pass into the centre of the hat section (don't go all the way through the floor). The compensating plate I folded and bead rolled will be welded to the floor skin and both hat channels to help make it solid. I will scallop the hat section where the cable sits against as well as make a couple of mounts to secure the cable to. I will get to that when the cab is on the rotisserie. Anyway, will hopefully get some more done tomorrow, will update as I make progress. Cheers for watching and stay tuned!

 

[RocketIron45]

Now, with the handbrake sorted and in position, I have decided to turn my attention towards the fuel tank as that will determine the tray's height and mounting components. That and its a fairly important system to have figured out before the tray gets made. After a fair bit of thinking and numerous templates made and thrown out, I decided to make the tank square but with radius corners. In keeping with the "factory look" idea, the tank will have beads rolled into it and a flared part for the bung. I will also either bead roll or stamp the ends to make it look more stock. For these reasons, I am making the tank entirely out of aluminium because annealing it for shaping purposes is easier than steel or stainless. For strength and ease of welding, I am using 3mm flat. To start, I cut and pressed a rib into opposite sides of the top/welded edge of the tank where the top plate will sit. I am making it like I make any other tank really. Base and 2 sides are folded on a single piece while the ends and top are separate. Making the tank this way means I can effectively weld the ends on the inside not just the outside.

This is the first time I have ever tried forming a bung for a tank, I know you can buy flaring dies but at work we have never seen the need to flare sheetmetal so we don't have them. So, what I did was anneal the aluminium with an oxy torch, then I used a portable hydraulic sheetmetal punch with a 100mm I/d female die and a 45mm o/d male die. The end result was a proper win I reckon, seeing how I have never tried it before! Next part was to roll the radius corners....

Yet another success! For this tight radius of about 65mm I used the press brake to break the edges of the rolled area then a set of hand rollers to actually radius it. I could have used the Press brake entirely but I figured they look nicer with a roller. More of a gentle curve than a segmented one.

With it roughly shaped, I threw it into the chassis basically where it will sit and took some photos.

Its sitting on a single piece of timber but this is the rough place its going to be mounted. I made a rough calculation and it will hold around 70 litres, which is fine by me, if I need more ill just add another tank somewhere! I reckon I will make a frame that will go over the tank and mount straight to the chassis. Most likely have the tank cradled in two stainless straps that will hold it up to the mounting frame, probably made from folded steel hat sections. I really want the tank with each end in before I start making the mounting frame. Anyway, that's it for now, hopefully get more done next weekend. Cheers for viewing, stay tuned for more!

 

[BionicCruiser]

that looks sweet! great job on the drain hole too.

 

[RocketIron45]

Cheers BionicCruiser, this is mostly an experiment really, never tried forming a tank like this let alone making the mounts from scratch, I'm enjoying the experience really! Anyway, time for a bit of an update! So, this week I have been going to do little bits and pieces on the cruiser to help speed progress. In the past week I have made the baffles and ends for the tank and have welded the inside up with the Aluminium Spool gun we have at work. The inside of my tank is to be MIG welded on the inside and TIG welded on the outside. Since I am going for a bit of a retro look, I have set the ends for the tank in about 10mm from the edge and I plan to put a small TIG bead inside there to seal it up. I'll go into that later, not ready for that part yet. Anyhoo, here is the tank upside down with the ends in...

I haven't taken a pic of the inside but you get the idea. Now, mounting the tank in the position I chose has a few difficulties. 1st is the location of the lower trailing arm mount on the chassis and the tray mount doesn't leave much room for a bolted bracket. 2nd is how can I mount it without it being too agricultural. I had a few different ways to mount it in mind but in the end I believe I went with the most nicest looking.

I started with pressing a 45 degree top-hat section out of 3mm hot rolled. Then, using the oxy torch, my hammer and various dollies, I heat-bent the steel to the angle I desired. To mount this crossmember/bracket to the chassis, I folded some 5mm plate and drilled and tapped 5 M8 threads to each side of the chassis. 2 tapped holes on each mount go through the double thickness of chassis right next to the factory weld. The other 3 just go through the side wall of the chassis, but for how I have designed the mount, the bolts are really just locaters as they don't take any real load.

The mounting of the rear hat section bracket is threaded only through the 3mm of the crossmember but, like the main mounting frame, its really just for locating the bracket to the chassis. I plan to use 2 straps that run underneath the tank to secure it. The cab side of the tank is where the strap will attach to the top-hat mount section with the other end bolting directly to the rear chassis crossmember. Hopefully this will secure the tank nicely. The top hat sections that touch the tank will have 3mm rubber strips glued to them and the tanks straps will also have a rubber strip on them to reduce the risk of damage to the tank. I plan to make a stone/heat shield underneath and to the side of the tank to help protect the tank from sticks and stones and the heat from the exhaust pipe which runs about 25mm away from the tank. The top of the tank will incorporate the level sender, fuel pickup and breather line. More on this as I get to it. Stay tuned for more as it happens! Cheers for watching!

 

[cult45]

Rocket me ole [new] mate I gotta say, I'm mightily impressed. The tank looks the biz but that handbrake is the cat's pyjamas man! I concur! The under dash unit looks period for the round bezel mob, but I think with the square lads the floor mounted unit will fit seamlessly - and it's a more modern feel, let's face it.