HJ47 welcome here? (6 Viewers)

[Henry James the 47th]

Well, things have slowed down a little after Sunday's work. On Saturday I had made the very foolish mistake of grinding for 2 seconds without eye pro, and sure enough I got some sparks into my eyes. Both of them.

On Sunday my eyes were irritated and I was having trouble with any sort of bright light. I was only barely able to make the short drive home after taking the last photo above. I went to sleep on Sunday night hoping to wake up feeling better - instead I woke up at 2 a.m. with water running out of my left eye and burning pain. I had no option but to get in the car and drive myself to the hospital - I thought that I could make it in the dark by taking the backroads and was able to get to the hospital alright.

They found some pieces of metal in both eyes and managed to use a pick to dislodge a couple of them. Unfortunately, the machine that they needed to get a better look at my eyes was in need of a new light bulb, so they told me to come back the following afternoon. Before I left they gave me an injection of demerol into my butt cheek. By the time my friend arrived at 5:30 to pick me up, I was staggering around. That demerol is good stuff!

Anyhow, back the following afternoon for more, and then this morning to an opthamologist to have a more detailed exam. Although it felt like there was a spiky ball under my left eyelid this morning when I woke up, The eye doctor determined that all the metal was now gone from my eyes and that I had some scarring on my corneas. I have a whole range of drops, creams and pills to deal with now, and back to the eye doctor tomorrow. I'm feeling a little better this afternoon however - well enough to see the computer screen and do a little typing.

Lesson learned: never ever will I so much as pick up my angle grinder without the goggles on! Just the last few days with the bleak possibility of eye loss or permanent eye damage was enough to drill into my thick skull how important vision is to me.

I think I'm over halfway through the welding and grinding section of my rebuild, and I would say I'm starting to look forward to the end of this phase of the project.

 

[DanS HJ-45]

Man, sorry to hear about the metal chunks in the eye. That sucks.

Get better soon.

You're absolutely right regarding not using a grinder for a single second without goggles...

Dan

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Thanks Dan, i'm better now, and I lot more thoughtful, I hope, about treating my eyes as the precious jewels they are. I really don't want to think about adapting to life without one or both of them.

I'm going a bit harder on the timber frame at the moment, as we're starting to raise the frame. I've been putting in a couple of hours here and there.

I fitted the other disc brake bracket to the rear axle and got some dust seals (thanks John!) and gaskets put in. i still need to weld a brake line mounting onto the driver's side of the rear axle.

I mounted the license plate bracket and one of the lights on. The was a pretty simple affair, mostly involving figuring out where to place it, and then drilling 4 holes. I tapped them too, but I don't think the attachment is all that solid so I'll probably back them up with nuts.

The last tow days have seen some progress on getting a 60 series column to work. I picked up a second column from the wreckers.

The first puzzle was fitting the column to the firewall. The shape of the 60 flange mount would require cutting into the firewall and relocating mounting positions for bolts, yada-yada. I couldn't be certain of where the centerline of the hole would be. I thought about it a bit more, and decided to cut part of the 60 series column mount, and fit into into the 40 series mounting flange. I rigged one up and tack-welded it together. It isn't looking especially at the moment, but it looks like it will work.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Then I took the plunge and chopped some metal out of my lower dash. The 60 column needs some additional room opened up to get it to fit high enough. The first picture shows the column I had modded previously, clamped up into position.

Then I discovered today's '1 step forward 2 back' item: the RHD pedal box, which I had assumed would be the same as the LHD one, turns out to not fit at all. This is after carefully media blasting, priming and painting it, along with the pedals. Not only is the box itself asymmetrical to the place it could be fit to, but the pedals are shaped differently as well. With the RHD box pedals, they don't work well with the lower the steering column the need to fit around.

So, it was over to E4 to look at one of the wrecks in the yard to see if John had a pedal box, and he did: a 1977 one in the FJ40 wreck and a 1982 one out of a BJ42. The '77 one had the 3-bolt clutch master as my firewall incorporated, so I went with that, though I had been toying with the idea of converting the firewall mounting to the newer 2-blt clutch masters. John, i might add also wanted to hold onto the newer one if he could, to have as a spare.

Here you can see the difference between the RHD pedal box and the LHD one I picked up today.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Here's a couple of pictures showing the differences between RHD compatible pedals (shiny black) and the LHD pedals (soon to be crushed glass blasted). Obviously I need to find another set of pedal rubbers as the ones off the '77 are more rectangular.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

It was a bit deflating to have to deal with the whole clean up and repaint of the pedal box, but the advantages actually are in the new LHD box, as the shape of the box itself makes it easier to modify in some ways.

First, because of the way in which the column has to rise up into the lower edge of the dash, the lower extension of the box-dash mounting had to be cut back. I marked it out after eyeballing the best line I could, erring on the conservative side, and chopped it down.

Then I chopped it a bit more after another trial fit

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I'm planning to weld a 1/8' plate across the pedal box-dash mount s and then mount the 60 series column's breakaway type of aluminum mounts to the pedal box as well as the dash. The purpose of the aluminum bolt mounts, with little cast plastic ties within, is that in an accident, if I were to slam forward and hit the steering wheel with my chest, it would collapse inward to the dash. I hope I never get to test out that feature, let me assure you. I aim to fit the column so that this breakaway feature can work as it should. If you're wondering why the mounting bracket with the alu. bosses is not visible in the second picture, that's because it's a separate piece that i have left off for the moment

I spent a bit more time then getting the seat set up in the approximately correct place to check the steering wheel position and range of tilt.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

The current positioning of the steering wheel leaves me wondering if I needed to bother at all with those previous mods I did to the column, the chop job I did so as to allow the mounting points it to hold the steering wheel in the same relative place as the 40 series column did. The mounting would be so much better with the original boss location.

The steering column's plastic shroud will look better the closer it is in towards the dash, and I noticed that if the wheel were inwards a couple of inches from the stock position (which frankly does seem a little in too far towards my chest), then it would still be a good spot, and the mounting between the column, pedal box, and dash would be be better all around. So long as I get a rock-sold connection between the steering box and the dash, in such as way that I can then swing up into location and bolt the column to that assembly using the alu. breakaway bit, then all should be golden.

So, 45/47 owners out there: sitting behind the wheel of your rig, given the small amount of seat adjustment that you can have in cab, do you think that the steering wheel would still be in a good position if it were in towards the dash 2 inches? I could use some feedback so please don't be shy.

 

[seapotato]

I think it'd be ok, especially with the smaller wheel. one of the issues with the 45's is that the giant wheel is a bit low, so what you're doing should help in that regard...

I like what you're doing with the column, I may have a go at that with a 70 series column at some point...

 

[troopie]

I don't think the two inches would make a lot of difference.
I've actually shorted a colomn for a guy once by about an inch. He was a really short guy and he had to move the seat at the most forward point to get to the pedals. Only to find the steering wheel to close.
I'm 6'4" and could drive that 45 pretty easy to.

HTH

Mark

 

[DanS HJ-45]

After sitting in mine for about an hour pretending to steer and shift it, I think 2" closer to the dash would be fine. The biggest problem it might present is that it would lower the bottom edge of the wheel and reduce the space between the seat and the wheel--making it harder to slide in there. But I think it'd be fine.

Especially with a smaller wheel I think you'd have no problem.

Dan

 

[Henry James the 47th]

After a bit more work on mocking up the new column, I'm pretty much convinced that having the wheel another 2" forward will be if anything a benefit. Thank everyone for your feedback - it was helpful. The tilt feature allow me to set the clearance to my legs as I like, and the point raised by a couple of you that I could downsize the steering wheel if necessary, gave me an additional useful option to get the set up just right.

I did about 5 hours today on the fitting of the column, and managed to take a couple of pictures.

I noticed that the steering column bracket from the mini-truck, which I had previously grafted on to my first 60 series column, would make a good mounting front pedal box mount if turned upside-down, the aluminum bosses removed, and then welded to the pedal box. So, that's what i set about doing today. The camera was low on batteries so I didn't get too many shots - here is the bracket, then the holes drilled out, and then the raw piece.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I chopped a little more out of my dash and got the position of the column into a pretty straight line, though you can only see some preliminary marking lines in the second photo. I've taken the horizontal line up to the top of the square holes (used for mounting clips for the dash pads). I think it's gonna work! I may have to cannibalize a third column (and maybe another pedal box...), to get material I want to make the column just the way I want it. Once I have the pedal box support finished, then I will form a piece of sheet metal to conform to it so as to re-establish the lower edge of dash sheet metal.

You can see that the mini-truck bracket has a narrower spacing between bosses, so I might take a trip to the wreckers to see if I can find something maybe a little better. I've pared even more material off it now so to tuck it close against the inside face of the dash sheet metal, and up to the pedal box, which has also gone through even more radical slicing.

I realized when sitting in place on the seat with the steering wheel in the approximately correct position, that I really need to locate the tachometer as close to the instrument cluster as i can so as to have good visibility of the tach. I've got some ideas at this point - -we'll see where the cutting leads!

I also noticed today that my new brake master cylinder, while having the same bolt spacing, has the central hole offset from the one in my firewall/pedal box, so I will be drilling new mounting holes.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Today I abandoned the support bracket that I had taken the alu. inserts off of yesterday. I found a chunk of 1/8" plate, and fabricated a support bracket from scratch. I realized that the span across the top of the breakaway inserts was flat, and thus the arched style of the other piece I was messing with was unnecessary.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

another 3. I have concluded that the shape of the sheet metal at the center-base of the instrument cluster, the arched bit, is a hangover from the early landcruisers that used 3 on the tree shifting. I can't see any other reason for it. I'm going to fill most of mine in with a patch.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

the connection slowly comes together

 

[Henry James the 47th]

In the first pic, I've modified the nose-shaped opening to allow the pedal box to lay tightly along the inside of the dash. Then I used the steering column mounting bosses as locations to scribe from, and got the holes on the pedal box just where they needed to be. After drilling the pedal box holes, I put the pedal box back into place and transferred the marks, then drilled on into the dash sheet metal. I'll be welding a piece of sheet metal in to span the opening across the 'foot' of the pedal box.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

a trial fitting. I'll need 5mm. shorter bolts to mount the column, but otherwise, how does it look? The small gap at the top where the plastic column cover ends and the dash is, could be covered with a chunk of sheet rubber or something like that.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

working on the column mounting/hole cover, then filling in the brake master/booster mounting holes. The little tiny holes are on the centers for the new brake master and booster.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

another three, finishing it off with the crushed glass blast