HJ47 welcome here?

[Henry James the 47th]

Last couple.

Apparently the TM3 is now allowing the engine to start no problem, but doesn't seem to be humming along quite yet. The wiper motor remains to be solved.

Apparently I need to have defrost capability before I can pass inspection, so i will have to run 5/8" hose to the heater box in the short term until i can get a set of the hard lines or make some up custom if i put in a WVO system at some point (thinking about it).

I swapped out the rear crosspiece for the tray, and with a little fiddling, which included removing the 1/4" shims from the rear cab mounts, i got the sight lines looking pretty reasonable. The front wall of the cab looks close to parallel with the fuel evap. cover, and the deck surface is parallel with the chassis rails directly under the cab. All good.

I will be taking the truck on a shakedown cruise pretty soon, perhaps tomorrow. I have to complete the original importation procedure now, which means i need to drive the truck north about 45 minutes to a place where the Canada Border Services can get a look at the VIN plate, and give me the all-important two stamps on "Form 1". That will be followed by soon after by Provincial inspection at some garage. Then registration and insurance, and license plates.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Well, a lot has happened since the last post. It's been a stressful few days, let me tell you.

The truck was taken for inspection after much hurried work, on Tuesday afternoon. I chose to take it to the local Toyota dealer, as i had bought a fair number of parts from them and had developed a relationship. i thought that would be asset at the least.

At the beginning of the mechanic's overview of the truck it came to light right away that there were a few glaring problems. There was a diesel leak somewhere, and a persistent oil leak. There were loose seat belt bolts, and a couple of the cab roof fixing bolts were absent. The signal lamps at the front were wired backwards so the parking lights were flashing. So, the mechanic inspecting the truck suggested i attend to those issues right away, before he really proceeded into the inspection proper.

Then he remarked that he was having trouble "classifying" the truck on the Toyota database

He hadn't seen too many cruisers with disc brakes on front, and he said all the 45's he had seen had 4 wheel drums. Then he noticed i had 4 wheel discs. I then proceeded to open my mouth and tell him all about how the conversion was done, thinking i had made a really solid set up. Well, the mechanic wasn't too excited about that, especially the one "suspect" component in the conversion, namely the mounting brackets for the calipers, which of course were sliced out of front disc knuckle housings.

The mechanic said he needed to "do more research and consultation" before he could make a decision about whether to proceed with the inspection, being concerned about putting his name on the inspection paperwork unless he was fully confident.

This was a little anxiety provoking, and i was questioning whether i had made a mistake by going to such a picky garage.

Anyhow, I brought the truck back to E4 for a look at the oil leak and diesel leak. The oil leak looked to be primarily caused by the rocker cover not being tightened down adequately. The diesel was from a loose injector fitting. I'd seen the diesel around one of the injectors a day earlier actually, but hadn't thought it was much of a problem and forgot about it with all the other stuff to attend to.

Then I took the truck back to my space, and corrected the minor issues with the missing or loose bolts, reversed signal wiring, and so on. That took about an hour to sort out. No biggie.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

The night after the inspection 'attempt' was pretty much sleepless for me. So much of my whole plan had come down passing the inspection and getting the paperwork sorted out. any further delays with the inspection process could push me into the following week. The garage was fully booked up too, so i was wondering if that was going to slow the whole show down. That wasn't going to work for me and I was getting pretty anxious. A lot was hinging on passing inspection.

I phoned first thing at 8:00 over to Metro Toyota to see what was up, and whether they could continue with the inspection. They said they could. Whew! The mechanic had actually called the head inspector to describe the issue with the rear disc axle, and head guy told him to pretty much use his common sense and decide if he was comfortable with what he saw.

I told the dealership operations manager about my pressing schedule and time concerns, in relation to their fully booked shop. They said to bring the truck in right away and they'd see if they could fit it in. That didn't exactly ease my mind, but i remained hopeful. I whipped over there in my lovely HJ47. I was anticipating that there would be more issues, and that I was going to be back yet again.

I talked to the mechanic first thing and he asked me if i had taken care of the item mentioned the day before, and I went through that list and confirmed that all was done and things were working great. Then i left the truck there, fingers crossed so much it was almost painful.

I called them back at noon to see how things were progressing. The guy said that he would go and take a look. He came back to the phone a few minute's later and told me it was "ready".


Me: "Ready? Uh, what do you mean? Has the inspection process been completed?"
Service guy: "Yep."
Me: (kind of puzzled) "So, do you mean the truck passed inspection?"
Service guy: "yessir"

I pretty much bounced 6 feet in the air at that piece of news. Yahoo!!!

I zipped back on down there to puck up the truck. The only thing the mechanic had to say was that i needed to adjust my clutch slave cylinder rod for clearance. Good to learn, and something i took care of an hour later.

The biggest hurdle had now been crossed. Net step in my hurdle race was a visit back to the Federal Government Border Security people so they could inspect my paper work and vehicle VIN tag. The vehicle had arrived originally at the port pf Vancouver in a container and i had no chance to access the registration paperwork inside (one little piece of paper was all the seller had provided back in 2006, an unsigned piece of paper called a "Registration Certificate" I knew my paperwork was weak. Without that paper, i had been unable to complete the importation people, and i had to do that before i could go to the insurance and registration people.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Today I drove the truck up to Nanaimo to go to the government office about a 45 minute drive. That is the longest journey so far in HJ, and it went uneventfully.

I got there at 10:00am and marched on over to the office, documents in hand. I found a sign on the door saying back at 11:30.

Killed some time, went for a muffin and tea, and got back at 11:25. Now the sign on the door said "back at 2:00"

I might be tempted to contrast Canadian Border Services, their staffing and funding levels compared to the US Homeland Security monolith, but I'll leave that for another time.

At last at 12:05 a couple of customs agents appeared. Apparently a few float places had come in from Seattle, and they have to go down to the harbour to inspect things. That empties the office. Go figure.

Anyhow, that process went fine. They looked at my truck, noted the perfect VIN and clear chassis serial number, and put the all-important two stamps into my form 1. Hurdle cleared.

Then I went with the documents over to a nearby shopping mall to find an insurance dealer. That process took nearly an hour, with a few phone calls to head office needed along the way, along with much faxing and receiving, and in the end, $500 later, I had paid the import taxes off, registered, titled and insured the truck. Hurdle cleared. Because i am leaving the province next week, i didn't need to bother with the procedure to get a BC VIN plate. The N. American VIN system has nearly twice as many digits in the serial numbers as most other countries, and they don't like it when a VIN with fewer digits is put into the system. Anyhow, in the end my truck has fully legal title, as an HJ47, and I am ready to roll. The next two days will be all about getting the canopy put together for the tray, and loading my stuff aboard.

Near final hurdle, other than the 3500 mile (5500 km) drive coming up, is the US border process. i have to import my truck into the US when i enter. Fortunately, the truck is over 25 years, so it does not have to conform with DOT or EPA regulations. i will be subject to an import duty of 2.5% on "assessed value". Nervous about what that might be, I asked the border official the other day on the phone how they assessed the value. They use the Kelly Blue Book. I looked at that online, but the Kelly blue book listing only go back as far as 1988, so i wonder what they'll do with mine?

And the last hurdle, after reaching my destination, will be going through another inspection, registration, title and insurance process in Massachusetts. I'm not quite ready right now to give that much mental effort.

Anyway, i took a few photos after getting the plates on. The truck is running and driving really well. No problems on today's shakedown cruise, though i did find one of the bolts holding the steering box in place had come off in a later check over i did after getting back. I put the replacement bolt in with loctite.

I solved the fan blower problem at last. While it worked, it put out so little air that I knew something was wrong. It turns out that i had ended up installing a RHD vehicle's fan. This fan has the vanes going the wrong way, and the motor spins in the opposite direction. First i figured out the mistake with the vane ,and swapped in the correct one, and then by experiment i discovered that I needed to reverse the power wires to the motor, and then problem solved: it works very well!

The non-functioning temp gauge I traced to a break in the wire just at the combination meter connection. That now works fine too. I have a bit of a herky-jerky thing going on with the throttle at low rpm in first gear, esp. on bumpy ground, and I hope to solve that soon. Then I also need to investigate my tachometer to see why it isn't working - yet. There's still a few bugs to work out with the rig, fewer every day, but this is to be expected after such an extensive rebuild and my inexperience in general with the process.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

next set. you may notice the missing wiper motor cover. i left it on the fender the other night, with a million things on my mind, and deadlines looming, and sure enough drove off and it got thrown from the truck. I haven't been able to find it, and in fact did not discover what had happened until the following day. Well, oops. That could happen to anyone, but the timing was not great. It passed inspection without the cover, so it is a temporary inconvenience.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

here's some more. As you can see, the Tuffy box is in. i had to fabricate a little bracket for it to mount at the front to the cab floor, as Tuffy has no adapter available. It was pretty simple to deal with and it sure is nice to have an arm rest on the right side. I plan to throw a cheap cd player in there, just for the heck of it.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

And I couldn't help but park next to the big brother, the bridge moving truck, so i thought I'd post up a few comparative photos, my truck and the bridge truck, so as to convey why I think the cruiser shares so much in common with army trucks like this one. The roots are very obvious to me anyhow.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

next comparison

 

[Henry James the 47th]

then comparing front ends

 

[Henry James the 47th]

and then looking at the rear of the cab

 

[Henry James the 47th]

early Landcruisers also had the front windshield with the open-able separate glass windows

 

[Henry James the 47th]

hope these last few posts on the comparison points is of interest to some out there - i really dig the bridge moving truck, impractical for my life as it may be.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

last couple of pictures for now.

I'm looking forward to my trip next week and hope to get the chance along the way to post up pictures of my 47 in some interesting locales.

I'll also post up the canopy construction, though not in too much detail. It's not going to be much beyond bare bones.

Whew! That was a rough patch of time, and things are looking up on the path ahead.

 

[lostmarbles]

Wow! Thanks for all the lovely pix HJ.

And "Bon Voyage". ...... Happy cruisin.

 

[DanS HJ-45]

Your truck is so awesome it hurts.

I mean really hurts. I feel like I just got smacked in the face by a big bag of awesome.

Safe journeys if I don't get the chance to post up before then!

Dan

 

[Henry James the 47th]

Your truck is so awesome it hurts.

I mean really hurts. I feel like I just got smacked in the face by a big bag of awesome.

Safe journeys if I don't get the chance to post up before then!

Dan

Thanks Dan, I'm looking forward to following along on your build, maybe even chiming in from time to time if it's not too irksome.

Each day on this truck I am ironing out the little wrinkles, solving the electrical bugs, hooking up the cables, etc, and it just gets better and better.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

I solved the throttle problem today. i discovered that part common to fuel injected gas engined vehicles, and perhaps other type of vehicles, is a little dampener, with a sliding little rod that seems to move as if in syrup. I pulled one off a dead Mazda 323 to see what i could rig up, and here are some pictures of the fabrication process and modifications to my throttle linkage.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

It took a couple of hours of fiddling and it was in. I tucked a new bracket in behind and exiting one at the back of the injector pump.

My throttle response, especially dropping down the last 500 rpm idle speed, and running in that 650~1050 rpm range, is hugely improved. No more drop downs where the engine quits, which had been occurring with some frequency.


i suppose next I'm going to discover that there is some sort of Toyota part for the 2H that bolts up more directly, but it was fun to make and made a definite improvement.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

One last close up of the dampener, and it's white traveler rod.

I then spent some time wrestling with the "Fresh Pull" cable attachment at the blower motor plenum. That was a bugger to hook the little loop onto the door's hitch post. I ended up pulling the blower off the firewall and putting the cable on that way, so as to be able to rotate the lop on the cable into the correct position to slip onto the metal post.

Next item to tackle is the non-functioning tachometer, which I might be able to get to tomorrow.



The dog is called Brutus and, while he's not my dog, he likes to hang out at the back of the truck while I'm working. Good thing he's a softy.

 

[Henry James the 47th]

One thing i keep forgetting about is posting up the wiring diagram I created for this truck. It all works, except for that pesky intermittent wiper function.

i just tried to load the file on here as a jpeg, however it doesn't come out so well (too tiny).

It seems like there's no way to attach a .pdf file on here is there?

Well, if anyone wants to see the wiring diagram, shoot me a pm with your e-mail and i'll send you the file as a pdf attachment