HJ47 welcome here?

[Henry James the 47th]

another three

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I discover, as I piece this truck together from a jumble of bits, that I'm missing a few things, like the upper windshield frame roof sealing weatherstrip and various little items like that.

Also, now that both seats are fitted, I discover a consequence of changing from bucket/bench seats to bucket/bucket is that one of the seat slider rails is not correct, so I'll need to locate one. The 60 seats seam to fit pretty nicely, and there is very little room for adjustment - the cab is not especially capacious.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

next set

 

[DanS HJ-45]

Your truck is now officially overloaded with teh aw3s0mE!!!!1!

Marvelous! Simply marvelous!

Dan

 

[Radd Cruisers]

X2

I gotta get out to your place and see this thing.

Rob

Your truck is now officially overloaded with teh aw3s0mE!!!!1!

Marvelous! Simply marvelous!

Dan

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Got only a little bit accomplished on Mr. James the 47th tonight, but it was a good day at the Post Office - save for the $71 in duties and taxes I had to pony up.

The OEM floor mat came today, as did the package from 4x4Labs. All the duties were slapped on the 4x4Labs package, while the $250 floor mat went without penalty. I'll take what i can get in this case.

At first the tie rod looked like it might be short, but a few minutes later, after I had pulled off my 60 knuckle arms and popped on the new ones, everything fit up really nicely. It was dark, but I snapped a few pics anyway. I psyched that the steering is nearly there now. I'm still working on getting the drag link end from Brazil - in fact, I have to get a new drag link assembly. Maybe the Bandeirante drag link end, though sized larger for the ball arm on the pitman of the Bandeirante steering box, fits the stock drag link rod? It might. I think the Brazilian part, made by Della Rosa, has a 17mm thread. Anyone out there know what the thread size is on the stock Toyota Drag link?

What can I say? I'm well and truly in the poor house now, and the truck is getting close. A couple thousand dollars to go, or 'thereabouts'.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I apologize for the crummy pictures - I'll take some more in the daylight tomorrow if I get a chance.

The driver's side knuckle arm was installed without the cone washers - I need to play around with the shim stack a bit yet.

I'm curious to see what sort of clearance for the tie rod I get around the oil pan...

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Last 2.

I am wondering about throwing a coat of epoxy primer on these new steering parts. They look like they'll rust otherwise.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

X2

I gotta get out to your place and see this thing.

Rob

Anytime my friend. I'm there on the weekends.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I took advantage of a strong Canadian dollar (=US$1.08 roughly) and picked up a few items from SOR, so those should get here in a couple of weeks. New OEM door handle, weatherstrip for the windshield top, and a bunch of minor bits and pieces. I balked for the moment at picking up a Tuffy Console Box at $310. I think I'll see if I can snag one on Ebay first before ponying up those sort of numbers. I'm sure they're good, but that's a lotta dough.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

It's been a while. Some of the last few days have been spent in getting the truck temporarily onto 4 wheels, engine back in, so i could roll the truck to the room where all the welding took place. With temperatures at night getting ever closer to freezing, I didn't want to suffer condensation problems in the metal seams.

Getting the engine back in place, even if only temporarily, has allowed me to learn a few exciting new facts. One of these is that the exhaust pipe and the large power head on the Bandeirante steering gear box are somewhat close together. I figure I can remedy that by adding some high tech heat shielding material around the exhaust pipe, something like this:

www.heatshieldproducts.com/hp_shield.php

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Now that the engine is in, I have a much better idea about where the exhaust pipe needs to route, and it isn't along the inner chasis rail as i might have hoped. Instead it pops out and under the forward cab support, and runs smack dab into the vacuum reservoir tank

Well, practice must make perfect then. I restored the original one on the right side, then decided that the left side would make for much shorter vacuum piping runs, so I got a hold of a BJ42 vacuum tank, and restored it. Now I head back to the original one - at least I don't need to to do anything other than bolt it in.

I'm glad to be doing this trial fitting work with the truck in primer so I don't need to worry about scratching the paint, case in point being the vacuum lines. Now, a LHD HJ47 is not exactly what you might call a common truck, so any though of actually obtaining the factory bent vacuum lines was quickly abandoned. Like a lot of things in the project, the switch from RHD to LHD has a lot of implications, and here's the latest: the vacuum lines. Not symmetrical.

So, I chose to custom bend and chop some lines that I did have to see if that might work. I used one original line from the RHD firewall (the one in picture 2 that jogs out in front of the clutch master), and one BJ40 vacuum line (which, to my satisfaction, fit perfectly several of the captive nuts I have in my firewall). They are a lot harder to bend than the brake piping, but it can be done carefully and with the aid of a vise. In the third picture, the lower vacuum pipe will take the vacuum hose from the back of the alternator and connect it to the vacuum tank. The other line is the return, and will connect to both the brake booster and the vsv-controlled butterfly valve on the intake manifold.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

three more

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I also took the opportunity to test fit the near-completed steering column back in. The metal shear pins are 1/4" at the top and 3/16" at the lower end. At the moment they are a light interference fit. My plan is to tack weld one end of each pin into place on the machined collar, which will allow for fairly simple future disassembly/re-working if need be. With so many 'prototype' sort of adventures with this truck, I am learning to tread cautiously. When I first had the column back in it seemed misaligned and the wheel did not turn as smoothly as I was wanting. I loosened all of the bolts in the system off, down to the steering box pedestal, turned the steering wheel back and forth to work the kinks out, and then snugged it all back up again, which seemed to solve the problem nicely. The wheel turns smoothly and the pitman arm goes back and forth with no complaints.

Speaking of the pitman arm, I have given up on trying to get a drag link end out of Brazil While I located the part, and found a company that would sell it to me, there is no way to pay with a visa card without being there in person. Visa refuses any charges coming out of S. America to a N. American card holder as a matter of course. My girlfriend tried 4 times with her card, and repeated phone calls to visa, and all to no avail.

So, I am considering what other options i might have. It would be to much to hope for that a 40 series pitman would swap in - the Bandeirante ZF box appears to have a much larger shaft than the stock gearbox. Next idea is to pull the pitman off (not looking forward to that task!), cut the drag link mounting stub off, and then drill and taper a hole to accept the 60/80 series TRE. Then I need to get 4x4labs to make up a custom drag link for me, using TRE's at each end. Anyone out there know if there would be any problem to using a TRE instead of the normal sort of drag link end?

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Of course, once the steering column was in place and everything was looking shiny and wonderful, i decided to pop the driver's seat into place and check it out.

Now, this is the first time to sit in the driver's seat with both the steering column and pedals in place at the same time...


...wish I'd thought of that factor before

While the steering wheel position was fine for getting in and out and basic driving position, I hadn't factored in the position of the pedals and how far up my knee had to travel just to put my foot on the pedal. The steering wheel was jamming me a bit from smoothly operating the brake pedal. Both the clutch and gas pedal were no problem, as my knee had room to slide at the sides of the steering wheel, but the high brake pedal position was another story.


I was starting to dread the implications of the poor pedal position - if I couldn't come up with a solution, then the last resort would be re-cutting the dash to return it to stock configuration with the old column, which would mean a lot of wasted time and money as well as a bunch of switches looking for a dash to call home.

I had a Mark the painter look at it, hoping another perspective might be helpful, and it was. Mark suggested I modify the brake pedal arm.

I realized that I had several brake pedals to choose from, and I was free to experiment on them as I pleased. I took one - both of the spares I have are the older design - and realized that going to the more rectangular pedal shape netted me a bit of space. I then sectioned out a piece at the end of the pedal support arm so I could move the pedal metal pad closer in, and then welded it in place - this gained me another 0.5".

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I mounted the brake pedal back into place, and had gained about an inch of added room (easy to see in the second pic below). I then adjusted the clutch pedal distance to come into line with the brake (3rd pic). I'll swap the clutch pedal arm out tomorrow so that the pedals are the same style. Both will need media blasting, priming and painting, as well as different pedal rubbers. Nothing like another chance to do it right, huh

 

[Henry James the 47th]

A final factor in this pedal 'crisis' was that the 60 series seat was about 2" longer than the 40 seat, and this increased the sensation of my legs feeling crowded in. Let's face it, there isn't a lot of room in the stock set-up of the 45/47 series cab, and my seat is already fully back, and minus the headrest to get some semblance of legroom. I'm 5-11", so I really see that tall people need not apply for 45 ownership, unless they happen to have proportionately short legs.

I'm thinking I could swap the 40's seat cushion for the 60 seat cushion, and draw the 60 upholstery in tighter. That would ease things a little more. Also, a slightly smaller steering wheel, with a little more projection into my chest would help. At present, though, with the pedal mods already done, it seems like there is adequate room to operate all the pedals. Hopefully the people who inspect my truck when I go to get it licensed for road use will see things my way too.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Other discoveries with the engine in place:

-the parking brake cable I have looks to be the right length.
-the accel. cable, which is for an early FJ40, is more than long enough to reach the injector pump actuator arm, and the mounting bracket needs only some minor filing to accept the cable's threaded ferrule. The end of the cable had the wrong cast end fitting, so I'm looking at ways to splice/crimp/clamp the correct cable end, which I have on hand, on the cable. Maybe there is some sort of tandem bicycle cable connector that might serve? Maybe it's time for 'micro-wire splicing' - good grief!
-I need to chop a hole in the floor for the pto lever, and I will sit on this a while as it seems wise to consider the situation before chopping holes into the floor again. It gets crowded in lever land with the pto lever added in - it pops out just in front of and to the left of the emergency brake lever. I need to make sure that however the pto lever gets fitted though the floor, there is some good means of keeping road dust out.

I learned today that the HJ60 version of the 2H engine that I have will require some modifications to the lower end of the 47's radiator neck to clear the power steering pump. This is almost convenient since i have to take the radiator for a re-coring anyhow. Also, the rad shroud will need to be trimmed a bit to clear the triple harmonic balancer, which is part and parcel of the power steering pump set up. The factory never produced the 47 (or 45 diesels) with PS. Only the FJ45 had the PS option at all, and I imagine that particular factoid revolves around the 2F vane pump mounting location being more workable in terms of clearing the radiator (though this does not explain why the BJ45's had no PS, since the vane pump on B series engine mounts up high).

Further, I need to fabricate some power steering fluid lines and some sort of cooler, perhaps a small tranny cooler, needs to be fitted in for the steering system. I imagine I could bend these by hand from the stock 60 series pipes I have around, as they look to be the exact same size of pipe used in the vacuum lines.

When in doubt, modify it. That starts me dreaming about 'bolt-on' goodness again, though I get more satisfaction out of a mod that comes out well (jury still out on some of my mods of course).

 

[MoCoNative]

On the accel cable. Maybe post a pic of the two ends you are dealing with. But the old style, "barrel" end that you probably have will come off the accel cable. They are only soldered, or brazed on. I had to adjust the choke cable on my 60 one time, as they are not adjustable. I didn't have a torch at the time, so I catually used the gas stove in the house. But either way, I heated the barrel a little, till I could slide it, then I moved it up on the cable.

In the very least you can probably heat the end, till the barrel comes off, then attach your new end, if you have it. Perhaps it will go on the same way. Drop some solder on it while it is hot, and let cool, I bet it will work.

I've tried to splice cables on lawn mowers, and it rarely worked. Once you cut one and try to simply stick more cable on it. It is very difficult to get a good bond.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Thanks MoCoNative, I'm going to try that idea of heating the cast end to break the solder bond. I'll take a couple of pictures to show what the problem looks like.

I looked hard and long at my steering situation today. One piece of good news was that the visa payment for that Bandeirante part was finally, and unexpectedly put through, 4th try, so I am a lot closer to completing the linkage. I don't know the side of the threads on the drag link end, so I will have to wait and see if it will connect to a 40 series drag link rod.

Then there's that steering wheel position. After a long ponder, I have decided to re-do the steering column to move it a couple of inches closer to my chest. I still might need a little smaller steering wheel, maybe not.

So, I need to get a hold of another 60 column to raid bits from, and I am going to fabricate a mounting bracket, out of 0.125" plate, that will fit to the underside of the dash and hold the steering column breakaway tabs a couple of inches out. The plate will have a shroud on the leading edge to stiffen it and conceal the mounting tabs. The steering column shaft itself is partly compressed at the moment and can extend out another coulple of inches easily enough.

It can be a little dispiriting to have to do something again, especially after all that work and scheming, but I don't want to have any problems with the set up, or present cause for failing inspection. It's a cramped cockpit, plain and simple, in the 45/47 cab. At least the body of the tilt head and it's plastic shroud aren't a problem, so I can keep the basic column set up I have devised.

Another problem that has cropped up is the dust bucket on the air cleaner, which will have to be moved a couple of inches to the left. It interferes with the alternator pump otherwise. A price paid as a newbie learning as I go. Won't do that next time hopefully.