No pictures today, I'm feeling reserved.
Today i finished painting the front axle, and popped the bearing seats out, then pulled the inner axle seals. It's pretty much ready for rebuild.
The rear axle is ready for finish paint. I rebuilt the starter simply by pulling the 12 volt armature out of my existing grubby starter casing, and fitting it into a nicer looking casing from a 24.v HJ60. Removed the 24v decal, so now it should work as a 12v. starter right?
Most days I take a look at the LHD bulkhead, with the wiring all apart and laying in it, and scratch my head about how to make it all work - in terms of the dash layout and what kinds of controls and instruments I want in place. One of the features that I wished the 47 had is intermittent wipers. There is a 40 series switch available from Toyota for this, but last time I checked it was $340 or something ridiculous like that, and had to come from Japan. I could also find some other dash-mounted wiper switch, or find something from an automotive electrical catalog. I decided against those options though, and today decided to mount a 60 series column. I checked it out carefully, compared 40 series to 60 series side-by-side, and examined the way the 60 column was put together, it didn't look too hard to modify to fit into place in my 47.
To mount the 60 series column, three things need to happen:
-the column needs to be shortened to bring the mounting flanges on the column into place to attach to the 40 dash.
-the dash mounting holes need to be moved outboard-the dash can be modded in a couple of ways to accomodate that need.
-either the firewall needs to have a section of 60 series firewall welded into place, so that the base of the 60 column can mount, OR the bottom of the 60 column needs to be chopped out and replaced with a section of the 40 series column (that way there is no need to modify the bulkhead and go and chop a piece out of a 60 truck). For mounting the upper part of the column to the dash, I might look at cutting a section from a 60 dash into that position instead of simply moving bolt holes.
Okay, 4 things: the 60 steering spindle needs to be shortened and have the terminal of the 40 series spindle welded to it.
With this mod, I will gain the intermittent wiper function, conveniently mounted at fingertip range, which is a little safer than taking one hand off the wheel. Also, the 60 series column is a colapsible design (which also showed up in some 40 series vehicles after 1980), which again is a safety improvement. further, the 60 column tilts, which might be nice sometimes, as I gain a huge beer gut for example. It also de-clutters the dash somewhat, removing not only the wiper switch, but the hazard switch button as well from the dash onto the column. Finally, the steering wheel is the same as what came on my 47, so it will look fairly stock for the most part.
I want to have a simple and clean dash, and by moving some of the controls to the column, I can put in such things as a tach, a pyro, and an hours meter and still keep it pretty clean - I hope.
The 60 series column has a different ignition switch, in that the 'glow' position is forward of the 'off' position instrad of behind it as on the 47 ignition. This means that with my right hand I can turn the ignition to 'glow' and then push a momentary switch, mounted on the dash at the left side of the instrument cluster, with my left hand.
I'm not sure how the dash pads will work with this column yet. Oh yeah, I need dashpads with this new firewall. Anybody got any decent ones?
Anyway, I steamed right on ahead after realizing that this was a sound plan, and disassembled the 60 column. That took 10 minutes. Then I drilled out 4 spot welds on the lower section of the column, and separated the sections. Now I can adjust it for length, or weld on the section of 40 column in place of the 60 one. The 60 column seems better designed in a number of ways though, and would be nice to keep as much of it as possible - besdies it simplifies the lower bushing interface. I'll bring my calipers tomorrow and measure the 40 and 60 column diameters to see how they might be married and go from there.
I finished off today by pushing some bushing into the spring eyes. Hopefully the shackles will arrive soon.
Next: I need to repair the rear axle spring seats, as their mounting holes are distorted badly. I'll cut sections off of a 60 axle's perches to splice in sections to the other axle. I'll take pictures.
doh: ) was a little premature: I checked the mounting brackets and they are on correctly, with the stamping on the right hand side one visible: "R".