Wow,amazing work!
How to build a diesel 40 on a budget w/ an Isuzu 4BD1T
- Thread starter longbow
- Start date
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longbow ... Amazing rebuild..
You are extremely skilled.. Don't worry I have the same Toyota Emblem on my HJ47 ..
Though I did just shell out and get a new year correct one to stop people bitch'in
You are extremely skilled.. Don't worry I have the same Toyota Emblem on my HJ47 ..
Though I did just shell out and get a new year correct one to stop people bitch'in
- Thread starter
- #23
Thanks guys!
I still have a long way to go to finish this thing. I am currently working on my front bumper and rear tire carrier. If I had unlimited funds and no job to go to, I could finish it in a couple of months, but we all have bills to pay and so it will be at least another 8 months to a year before it is close to finished. But I love this thing and every time I fire it up and take it for drive, it make me smile. Hearing that turbo spool up is just a sweet sound going down the road.
A lot of the wiring is still in a temporary state as I figure out where I want to mount everything. I am also finishing up an HJ60 air cleaner housing that will go right behind the battery and then plumbed to the turbo. The K&N filter is just temporary until this is finished.
Lots of details to work out when doing a conversion. I'll just keep plugging away as I get time and more money.
Chamba, I'll dig up my photos of the triple wiper conversion in the morning and post up how I did that.
Don
I still have a long way to go to finish this thing. I am currently working on my front bumper and rear tire carrier. If I had unlimited funds and no job to go to, I could finish it in a couple of months, but we all have bills to pay and so it will be at least another 8 months to a year before it is close to finished. But I love this thing and every time I fire it up and take it for drive, it make me smile. Hearing that turbo spool up is just a sweet sound going down the road.
A lot of the wiring is still in a temporary state as I figure out where I want to mount everything. I am also finishing up an HJ60 air cleaner housing that will go right behind the battery and then plumbed to the turbo. The K&N filter is just temporary until this is finished.
Lots of details to work out when doing a conversion. I'll just keep plugging away as I get time and more money.
Chamba, I'll dig up my photos of the triple wiper conversion in the morning and post up how I did that.
Don
Beautiful build
Bang Bang
Age is a state of mind.
By the way when you tilt the cab to remove the engine and there is only 4" clearance with the roof and you remove a 1000 pounds of engine and tranny from the equation, the cab then jams into the roof and makes it really hard to get the carcass out of the garage! 1/2 hour later and a lot less air in the tires and it rolled right out. Wife was really impressed.
So that brings the total to $4680.00 for a diesel FJ40 built entirely in my garage. Now I'm sure I missed a few things like fluids and misc small stuff, so we'll round that total up to an even $5000. Now that is just my cash out of pocket. If you pay me 25 cents an hour I think the total is right at about $62,842 for total cost.
Don
This made me laugh so hard my kids came in and wanted to see what I was laughing at.
Great build. You have way more skill than me.
Great Job
Thank you for taking pictures and sharing.
Thank you for taking pictures and sharing.
Great work on the build up. You've got an amazing 40.
Bear Lake Cruiser
SILVER Star
Great Job, nice to see another nice cruiser in Tucson
Impressive!!!
What hydroboost unit did you use? You stated the MC was from a Dodge. Was the hydro also from the same vehicle? Did you stay with stock 4.11 gearing?
I've got an 83 Chev half ton pickup with a 6.2 I've been planning to part out for my 71 FJ40. I think I would much rather use an Isuzu diesel because I'm after good fuel mileage as my first priority. But, I'm on an even tighter budget that you are, so I'll use what I have. I have 3.70 gears to replace the 4.11's, a ranger OD, an 83 FJ60 four speed tranny, and a 203 doubler mated to a late 70's TC. If I've got everything figured right I'll be able to be about 1800 RPM at 60-65 MPH, and still have low speed crawling ability. It will be a long drive train, but I've already used FJ55 rear springs in the rear and plan to do more mods to move the axle back further if needed.
I'm definitely interested in keeping up with your project as it appears we have similar goals. (and the same great name)
Don
What hydroboost unit did you use? You stated the MC was from a Dodge. Was the hydro also from the same vehicle? Did you stay with stock 4.11 gearing?
I've got an 83 Chev half ton pickup with a 6.2 I've been planning to part out for my 71 FJ40. I think I would much rather use an Isuzu diesel because I'm after good fuel mileage as my first priority. But, I'm on an even tighter budget that you are, so I'll use what I have. I have 3.70 gears to replace the 4.11's, a ranger OD, an 83 FJ60 four speed tranny, and a 203 doubler mated to a late 70's TC. If I've got everything figured right I'll be able to be about 1800 RPM at 60-65 MPH, and still have low speed crawling ability. It will be a long drive train, but I've already used FJ55 rear springs in the rear and plan to do more mods to move the axle back further if needed.
I'm definitely interested in keeping up with your project as it appears we have similar goals. (and the same great name)
Don
Don't know what's going on, what I may be doing wrong, but I started this second posting because when I tried to post the first I got a message that I had to wait 30 seconds to post a second message. So I tried to do a second post after a couple minutes and got the same message. I then hit refresh and found my first message had actually posted, so I deleted the second message and am instead venting my frustrations over my lack of computer savvy. GGGRRRR!!!!!
Don
Don
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25 cents an hour ...sounds about right. But how many busted knuckles and bloody fingers and banged heads! Nice work. Mike
Have you figured out the MPG yet? Cool build!
Awesome build love the color too.
- Thread starter
- #35
D'animal,
Glad you liked the pics. Really love your extended cab 45! I've been following that one for a long time and also, thanks for all the great info you've posted about Stihl saws over the years! You don't know it, but you helped me fix my 045AV last year from one of your threads you posted on oil pump repair. Thanks!
Handcannon,
The Hydroboost was from an ASTRO minivan and the Dodge brake master wasn't a bolt on. I had to machine a small spacer bushing to get the center rod to the right dimensions to press on the center rod. I thought that all hydroboost would be the same, but I found out there are a bunch of different versions out there. I am still running the 4.1 gears in mine but hope to find some 3.7s in the future for lower rpms at highway speeds.
Michael Hanson,
Yeah, I lost track of how much blood and meat has come off my knuckles and skull during this build! But the end result is worth it in my opinion. My son is ten and he has helped me all through this build and says that this 40 will be his one day. I keep telling him "maybe" if he keeps helping me. My dream cruiser build will be a 4 door 40 on an 80 series frame with lockers and a diesel. If I finish that, then this one will probably go to him.
Hichirokufan,
No, I haven't go the odometer hooked up yet. Need to buy a longer cable to reach the transfer case.
Roma,
Thanks man! I have been following your build for a long time and your's is one of the rigs that inspired me. Love that trip you did up to Yosemite and the color of yours as well!
Don
Glad you liked the pics. Really love your extended cab 45! I've been following that one for a long time and also, thanks for all the great info you've posted about Stihl saws over the years! You don't know it, but you helped me fix my 045AV last year from one of your threads you posted on oil pump repair. Thanks!
Handcannon,
The Hydroboost was from an ASTRO minivan and the Dodge brake master wasn't a bolt on. I had to machine a small spacer bushing to get the center rod to the right dimensions to press on the center rod. I thought that all hydroboost would be the same, but I found out there are a bunch of different versions out there. I am still running the 4.1 gears in mine but hope to find some 3.7s in the future for lower rpms at highway speeds.
Michael Hanson,
Yeah, I lost track of how much blood and meat has come off my knuckles and skull during this build! But the end result is worth it in my opinion. My son is ten and he has helped me all through this build and says that this 40 will be his one day. I keep telling him "maybe" if he keeps helping me. My dream cruiser build will be a 4 door 40 on an 80 series frame with lockers and a diesel. If I finish that, then this one will probably go to him.
Hichirokufan,
No, I haven't go the odometer hooked up yet. Need to buy a longer cable to reach the transfer case.
Roma,
Thanks man! I have been following your build for a long time and your's is one of the rigs that inspired me. Love that trip you did up to Yosemite and the color of yours as well!
Don
dohcdelsol93
snoogans
I really only had 2 issues with the ranger OD
1. was loud...now that i daily a fj40 i now have an entirely different idea of what loud really is. the 3 speed tranny and case is louder than the 2nd coming of christ.
2. Now that I know the proper clutch/pressure plate to buy for SBC applicatoins the shifting is much smoother. I played around with several different GM clutches before I finally found one that had completely flat fingers as I refused to pay the AA price for the "Chevota" clutch kits.
If you ever need one..1966 Checker Marathon with an I6...145 bucks at Orileys.
With only 27% overdrive and 31" tires the 4bd1t really didn't like cruising more than about 65.
With the 40 and factory 4:11's and 33" tires I'm guessing anything over 55 would really be rough.
I like the idea of the OM617 turbo matched to a sm465 and 33" tires as i've heard they rev much smoother.
I just like the isuzu so much better for power and torque. You can't go wrong with an industrial/commercial engine.
If you ever start marketing the parts to match that A440 to the isuzu put me on the buyers list!!!!
I'm starting to get tired of shifting gears. I want an auto tranny that will allow me to keep my factory PTO winch.
- Thread starter
- #38
Hi Riley,
Glad to see you found the thread and thanks for the kind words.
Jetranger is building one bad mother of an FJ40 and he is the first person that I know of that did the triple wiper conversion on a 40 here in the states. Without his help I would have never even considered doing triple wipers on mine. Here is a video of his when he got the geometry worked out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCMgywMz10o
He's building a 76 as well and it is getting a 2UZ drivetrain and is going to be one heck of a build thread when he FINALLY posts it.
Don
Glad to see you found the thread and thanks for the kind words.
Jetranger is building one bad mother of an FJ40 and he is the first person that I know of that did the triple wiper conversion on a 40 here in the states. Without his help I would have never even considered doing triple wipers on mine. Here is a video of his when he got the geometry worked out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCMgywMz10o
He's building a 76 as well and it is getting a 2UZ drivetrain and is going to be one heck of a build thread when he FINALLY posts it.
Don
- Thread starter
- #40
Ok, so Chamba asked for the pictures and how I did the triple wiper conversion, so here is how it was done. Again, huge thanks to Jetranger for all his help on this!
First you need an extra set of wiper linkages so you can cut out the middle arm and assembly and add that to the original linkages. Here is what the original linkage looks like.
All of the rods work on a ball and socket type of joint where they attach to the motor and the wipers. The motor and the left end are both single ball joints and the one in the middle is a double ball joint to relay to the next wiper. To convert to triple wipers you need another double ball joint assembly to relay to the left end wiper. Here is what the middle assembly joint looks like up close.
The linkage arms are shaped like a c channel and to join them back together, I just cut some 3/16" plate about 5" long and just wide enough to fit into the c channel and then welded it to one arm and then used small c-clamps to hold the other side into the other half of the arm until I could adjust the length and angle of the ball joint arm back to the same as you see in the photo above. I didn't take a picture of that part of the process but here is a pic of the finished arm after adjusting the length and welding the joining plate to the two halves of the arms. You can't see the other side, but it was welded on the other side as well.
The spacing of the holes for the wiper hubs was pretty simple. Jetranger had sent me some measurements that he had gotten from an Aussie with a BJ42LX with factory triple wipers and they were strangely spaced in my opinion. I ended up just laying my wiper arms with wipers on them down on the windshield frame and coming up with my own spacing that was evenly spaced from wiper to wiper. He later told me that was what he ended up doing as well.
I drew a centerline through the old wiper arm holes and then played around with the spacing so that the arm closest to the wiper motor didn't hit the winshield frame in the down position and the one at the other end didn't hit the other windshield frame upright when in the up position and then cut the distance in half to get the center wiper arm hole location. I then just drilled 1/2" holes through the frame and made new reinforcement plates to go on the backside to support the wiper hub assemblies and to keep them from rotating in the windshield frame. There are two nubs on the wiper hub housings that lock into these reinforcing plates and so you will have to get the holespacing right for them to sit flush. Here is a pic of the plates that I made.
I don't know why the factory made the notches around the center hole because there is nothing that corresponds to that notching on the housing, so I left that out on my plates. I made my plates out of some .093" thick cold rolled steel that I had in my shop. I then tacked them on 4 sides with the welder to hold them in place. I then cut some slices off of some 1/2" rod to fill the factory wiper holes and welded them in place from the back side and body filled the front side later when prepping for paint. You can just see the plug welded in in the upper pic of the finished linkage arm if you look closely.
Now to the most critical part of the whole conversion to triple wipers. The motor arm. The motor arm rotates in a circle and this circle must be shortened to get the proper linear travel of the triple wipers. The original wipers have approx. a 120 degree sweep and the triple wipers need only a 90 degree sweep. It took me a little while with my caliper to measure what the difference in linear travel equates to with a reduction in the radius of the motor arm, but I figured it out and it comes out to a shortening of the arm by .100" of an inch to get a reduction of .200" of linear travel. There is a dogleg in the motor arm for offset and that is where I cut mine for the shortening process and then just clamped in place .100" shorter and welded it back together. Here is a photo of the motor arm after welding it back together.
You can see that in my picture I have the overall length of my motor arm written on there as 1.700" reduced to 1.600" overall length. Your overall length of the motor arm may be shorter or longer, but the main point is that you reduce the length by .100"
Here is a pic of the finished product. These wipers are supposed to be 12" and when I installed them they ended up being 12.5" so they are a little too long and the one on the left is touching the windshield gasket. They will be replaced with the correct length here soon.
Well that is how I did it and hopefully I explained it simply enough so anyone can do it because it really wasn't that difficult, just time consuming.
Enjoy!
Don
First you need an extra set of wiper linkages so you can cut out the middle arm and assembly and add that to the original linkages. Here is what the original linkage looks like.
All of the rods work on a ball and socket type of joint where they attach to the motor and the wipers. The motor and the left end are both single ball joints and the one in the middle is a double ball joint to relay to the next wiper. To convert to triple wipers you need another double ball joint assembly to relay to the left end wiper. Here is what the middle assembly joint looks like up close.
The linkage arms are shaped like a c channel and to join them back together, I just cut some 3/16" plate about 5" long and just wide enough to fit into the c channel and then welded it to one arm and then used small c-clamps to hold the other side into the other half of the arm until I could adjust the length and angle of the ball joint arm back to the same as you see in the photo above. I didn't take a picture of that part of the process but here is a pic of the finished arm after adjusting the length and welding the joining plate to the two halves of the arms. You can't see the other side, but it was welded on the other side as well.
The spacing of the holes for the wiper hubs was pretty simple. Jetranger had sent me some measurements that he had gotten from an Aussie with a BJ42LX with factory triple wipers and they were strangely spaced in my opinion. I ended up just laying my wiper arms with wipers on them down on the windshield frame and coming up with my own spacing that was evenly spaced from wiper to wiper. He later told me that was what he ended up doing as well.
I drew a centerline through the old wiper arm holes and then played around with the spacing so that the arm closest to the wiper motor didn't hit the winshield frame in the down position and the one at the other end didn't hit the other windshield frame upright when in the up position and then cut the distance in half to get the center wiper arm hole location. I then just drilled 1/2" holes through the frame and made new reinforcement plates to go on the backside to support the wiper hub assemblies and to keep them from rotating in the windshield frame. There are two nubs on the wiper hub housings that lock into these reinforcing plates and so you will have to get the holespacing right for them to sit flush. Here is a pic of the plates that I made.
I don't know why the factory made the notches around the center hole because there is nothing that corresponds to that notching on the housing, so I left that out on my plates. I made my plates out of some .093" thick cold rolled steel that I had in my shop. I then tacked them on 4 sides with the welder to hold them in place. I then cut some slices off of some 1/2" rod to fill the factory wiper holes and welded them in place from the back side and body filled the front side later when prepping for paint. You can just see the plug welded in in the upper pic of the finished linkage arm if you look closely.
Now to the most critical part of the whole conversion to triple wipers. The motor arm. The motor arm rotates in a circle and this circle must be shortened to get the proper linear travel of the triple wipers. The original wipers have approx. a 120 degree sweep and the triple wipers need only a 90 degree sweep. It took me a little while with my caliper to measure what the difference in linear travel equates to with a reduction in the radius of the motor arm, but I figured it out and it comes out to a shortening of the arm by .100" of an inch to get a reduction of .200" of linear travel. There is a dogleg in the motor arm for offset and that is where I cut mine for the shortening process and then just clamped in place .100" shorter and welded it back together. Here is a photo of the motor arm after welding it back together.
You can see that in my picture I have the overall length of my motor arm written on there as 1.700" reduced to 1.600" overall length. Your overall length of the motor arm may be shorter or longer, but the main point is that you reduce the length by .100"
Here is a pic of the finished product. These wipers are supposed to be 12" and when I installed them they ended up being 12.5" so they are a little too long and the one on the left is touching the windshield gasket. They will be replaced with the correct length here soon.
Well that is how I did it and hopefully I explained it simply enough so anyone can do it because it really wasn't that difficult, just time consuming.
Enjoy!
Don
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