Builds Joel's multipurpose 40 on 41s (1 Viewer)

[frijolee]

New project getting started... 1972 FJ40. Forgive me as I'm a bit late to the party. Having never really wheeled Toyota products before I hadn't run across IH8MUD until I bought my first Cruiser. However, because of the fact there's so little Cruiser left, I'm guessing this belongs in the hardcore corner. I have a thread going over at Pirate but figured it was worth cross posting here.

Jumping into it.

This is what happens when you ask a five year old to pose by your new rig.


Backstory first, then on to the build.

Over the last year or so I've been debating putting serious axles and suspension under my current 1999 Jeep Cherokee (which I've loved as a great all around-er kind of vehicle).

The Jeep in question if you're curious.
Joel's multipurpose XJ build (rocks/boulevard) - NAXJA Forums -::- North American XJ Association

I decided to carry over the rocks/boulevard description for this one since that's still pretty much true.

The XJ is simple from the outside but I've had fun building things for it. This is a scratch built tire carrier with two positions for running the spare low or high, all critical welds cleaned up for fatigue resistance.

I made a variety of aluminum armor for it because I can. The top one is a double deck, ribbed and riveted. The exhaust is mandrel bent stainless so a big mid skid helped me in keeping that happy.

You know that old joke about sending your girlfriend to buy muffler bearings at the car shop? Yep, I ran one... It's linear bearing for thermal expansion and moves about 3/8" as the car warms up.

Anyways, Polaris RZRs have been ruining my perception of happy power-to-weight off road. That said, most of the side by sides on the market are really fragile and seem to be constantly breaking drive-line stuff. I was at a ride and drive event where we didn't have enough vehicles and so I jumped in my XJ and started taking folks on hot laps. On the one hand, my rig was pretty capable and will go most places. However, at the end of it I was forced to admit: The I6 4.0L that everyone in the Jeep world seems to love...

...is kinda gutless...

So I could add an LS swap to the wheels, tires, axles and lockers I was looking at, but then I'd end up spending a total of $17k on a vehicle that would never be worth more than 11k or so. And I live in CA so I'd have still smog challenges with an engine swap. Time to go shopping. I'd looked casually a few times and never seen much that got me jazzed. However, the very same night I decided the XJ's power train wasn't up to it, I ran into one I was so stoked on I literally walked straight into the kitchen with laptop and told my wife I wanted to buy a vehicle.

A couple weeks and a few crazy logistics later, I have a new project to introduce...

1972 Land Cruiser, though really how much of a Land Cruiser is left is up for debate.

Clean 1972 title
2000 vette LS
Turbo 400 trans
Atlas 4 speed transfer case
Double triangulated links front and rear
Dana 60 front, 14B rear (both shaved)
ORI struts
and a big stack of spare parts:

Most of the frame and driveline work is complete, but the other hand, there's no exhaust, no cooling, no electrical, and minimal floorboards. The body has been cut and boat sided by about 5" with 3" of that cut out of the door frames. I have doors but they need to be shortened.

Oh, and because I'm an idiot I can never buy interesting vehicles locally I picked this up in Kennewick WA and I live near Disneyland. I maybe should have had it shipped but I really wanted to see it in person and a road trip sounds rad.

There's a heck of a lot of country on the west coast between it's northern and southern ends:

Even saw some rain (this was sunrise front of my in-laws place in Clarkston on the Idaho border)

Good news was that I picked on my of oldest buddies halfway up CA and so it was bro time for ~32 of the 46 hours in the car.

Tow vehicle gives a better idea of scale.

And now it's home... My kids dig the "new Jeep" and I might let the name stick since it amuses me greatly (sacrilege I know).

 

[frijolee]

There's a steering ram up front but no dash, no instruments and no steering wheel (have the OEM in a box but unlikely to run it). Former owner could certainly weld though.

Back is pretty small considering I'm coming from an XJ. Going to need some careful packaging for sure.

Nice looking node up in the roof.

Shock towers are in and the geometry looks good, but some additional welding needed. Last guy was pretty clever with use of removable cross members which will help serviceability.

Not only is the rear 14 bolt trussed, he actually sleeved each of the dimple die locations to keep it from packing with mud. There's a bunch of spots where this kind of attention to detail shows. My kinda builder for sure.

Only about 1/3 of the floorboards exist so I have a ton of fab work ahead of me. Somehow I need to snake headers and exhaust through the boat sides and custom headers took me stupid amounts of time last time (I also have a 429 ci LS2 RX7).

There's also a good bit of rust I'll need to deal with. It's doesn't need to be perfect but once I get into it, the temptation of pushing it that extra little bit is going to be high... :halo:

The goal is really just to be a faster, more fun, more hardcore version of the XJ I'm replacing (which I loved for being an all around performer). I want it to be capable offroad in the rocks and desert whoop-de-woos. Running fast in dirt is a ton of fun so the extra power should help. The heavy axles won't help going fast but that comes with not wanting to have to baby throttle in the rocks.

I want to be able to take the family camping and haul stuff at Home Depot. Frankly just the thought of loading up the roof of this with plywood makes me smile. Do I have and idea what it'll take to make a load path to do that? Nope, but I can figure it out.

It also needs to be able to tow. I want to be able to haul cars in a pinch and I'll likely need a smaller trailer for camping. That's one of the things that has me stoked about the strut setup. From what I've read on the ORI's, it sounds like changing pressure on both sides sounds of the piston will let me change the effective spring rate.

Last but not least, it'll serve as a fall back to the RX7 when that's getting work done. In the meantime I need to get the RX7 back on the road with a quickness so I still can't really get into this for some time yet. I'd really like to have it stashed in the garage and that can't happen until the garage is functional and given we bought our first home about a year ago, there's been a ton of work on attics, lights, electrical etc, going on.

Hope y'all like it.
-Joel

 

[boots4]

Welcome to mud. Looks like a lot of hard work has already been completed but still plenty left to spin it your way. I think you've definitely stepped up from the jeep. Extreme all round vehicles are never perfect at everything but compromises can be made to make things work pretty well. Hope you have fun with your new project.

 

[TCinVA]

I saw this for sale before you bought it, what a great project start you have look forward to how you finish it up.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

You've got a great starting point. Can't wait to see you finish her off!

 

[baldilocks]

This thing is tits!

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Neat rig.... do they allow you to run hydrosteer on the street in California?

lol @ plywood carrying... I'll enjoy watching the build.

 

[frijolee]

Thanks y'all. To the question... Hydro steer is bit like beadlocks. There's a great deal of uncertainty online, but the actual vehicle code is silent. Here's the most concise link I found in researching this.
LiftLaws.com - Is Full Hydro Steering Street Legal?

Now, if I get a cop who's an ass and misinformed I might have some headache, but I'll take that risk vs the headache of redoing the front links from the get go. Referencing the state specific codes in the link above, Tennesse looks like the only one that would be illegal, but so would any sort of steering mods hydraulic or not.

The important things for me was that it's setup properly with both a return to center function (load reacting), and the manual check valve that gives you a powered-off manual mode. This rig came with a Trail Gear steering valve and talking with their tech support it looks like the right thing. As to the behavior on the street I'm quite hopeful after reading Billavista's articles on full hydraulic steering.

BillaVista.com-Performance Off-Road Systems Hydraulic Steering Tech Article by BillaVista
BillaVista.com-Hydraulic Steering Bible Tech Article by BillaVista

From the first link above.

PERFORMANCE
I am THRILLED to report it is everything I had hoped it would be and more. Not only that, but none of the negative things I had read were even remotely true either!

First - what it isn't.

All the tings you may have read, certainly that I had read, about hydro steering, all the negatives and drawbacks - none were true of my system. The steering wheel returns to center fine after a turn. There is plenty of "road feel' both at speed and in the rocks. It is not "squirrely at speed", at least not up to 45-50mph, despite being approximately 2.5 turns lock-to-lock. It doesn't wander, there is no fade, and, when plumbed properly and with all the components in top shape (no crapped out old pump or malfunctioning hydroboost booster or improperly rated suction hose sucking closed at high rpm - all mistakes I made of course!) it is cool and quiet.

I attribute this to the fact that the components themselves and in particular the system is designed for my specific application. The steering unit has the proper displacement for my pump and turns lock-lock desired. My new pump produces the appropriate flow and pressure, hoses are properly specified and sized, cylinder is custom built for purpose, etc etc. I believe a lot of the "negative" feeling and opinion / experience you may read about "out there" on the net comes from the early days of guys pioneering the idea of 4x4 hydro steering (no offence to them - they did us all a service) with used, mismatched, parts scavenged from broken combine harvesters and wrecked forklifts and such. As you are now fully aware - this can lead to all manner of wacky results - you need only review the section in Part 2 about system design to understand this. I am pleased to report that none of these faults are present in my system.

Second - what it is.

Quite simply - the best steering I have ever experienced, on ANY vehicle I have ever owned or driven, with the exception of an extremely expensive sports car I rented once at one of those fantasy places. Not only can I now steer my welded and slugged, 38" @ 5 psi shod Dana 60 sitting still on the rocks LOCK to LOCK with just one finger...but the feel and response at (moderate) speed is unbelievable! There is no slop at all At speed, (granted, we're only talking up to 40-50 mph here, as that is as fast as I have driven the Wolf) it is tight and precise. I'd never driven a 4x4 with a slop-less steering system before - usually a huge amount of the slop is the hallmark of a 4x4. Not so anymore. Being a fluid power system, there are no gears requiring backlash, and with the only joints being the rod ends between cylinder and steering arms, and those being brand new ptfe lined units, there is simply no slop in the system. This alone makes it a joy to drive again.

But the real thrill is in the rocks and over the tough stuff

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

it's federal code - the steering wheel (and brakes) must be mechanically linked to the wheels.
here's the link to the law - but I'm too lazy today to point to the specific section... it is there, though, I've had the chance to argue this
eCFR — Code of Federal Regulations

bead locks are the same thing, but they fall under the split-rim prohibition on light-duty trucks. The reality is beadlocks are nothing like split rims, but they fit the description "tire held in place by steel ring." As you said, it'd take a rare jerk-of-a-cop for a state-certified cop to be enforcing federal code. That said, if something bad happened which was caused by the hydro-steer; then all bets are off and I can imagine that enforcement would occur.

Around here, most police tell the feds to enforce their own laws; and only enforce if there's something else going on where it's expedient to use federal law rather then try to force a state law to conform to whatever they're trying to do. Plain language, if you irritate a cop, he or she will find a way to nail your hide to the wall.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

now my opinion - if you're going to drive it on the street where you can be doing 70 mph on the highway; I'd be certain that I have steering and brakes if an engine failure occurs. That said, there are electric steering pumps that could provide backup.

 

[frijolee]

Been off the grid for a while (longish term international assignment for work so I'm just getting back into this. Figured I should cross post a bit of progress as well as few of my conundrums and research done while on the road.

Before I left I made a quick car cover. This won't make it into the garage until the RX7 vacates space and I a) didn't want to admit to my HOA how rough this is and b) wanted to keep it out of the elements and try to keep all that bare steel from rusting immediately.

Took some misc car cover I had and tried it. It fit over but wasn't close to covering tires so I cut up and sewed in a tarp. Random fun frijolee fact: I know how to sew, iron, cut hair, and cook. My mother is so proud...

Discovered Harbor Freight sells a DIY tarp grommet kit. Sweet. That'll help keep things in place...

Shortly after I made this we had rain on the horizon. No time to get a proper cover made (California Car Cover can do so, but it'd be better if I had the fenders done and sitting at ride height). I checked whether the cover I had was water proof and was meet with a resounding no. I at least opened it all up to see if I could get some plastic under it.

FYI, I kinda get the impression there will be a lot of pictures taken in the dark on this project.

Good news is that I jacked it up to check out what ride height might be. Looks wicked, but this sucker is going to be big!

And I did have enough drop cloth lying around to get it protected as best I could on short notice.

-Joel

 

[frijolee]

Back seat came in and kids seem to like it.

This is a Bestop Trailmax II Fold and Tumble, picked up from Summit on Black Friday. Bestop TrailMax II Fold and Tumble Seats 39440-01 - Free Shipping on Orders Over $99 at Summit Racing

Not quite as hardcore as a suspension seat but the lost space with big bolsters on each side was going to hurt me. This actually measures right around 33.5" wide (a touch under the published 34" spec so it should be perfect for me. I ordered not knowing for sure whether car seats would fit but that looks like it'll be fine.

It is short though.

Even with the headrest all the way up it lands just below centerline on my noggin (your average 6' white dude).

 

[frijolee]

The fuel tank is kind of a bugger. The two obvious places this could go are either under the rear seats or else along the passenger side of the transmission/transfer case. I like the mid mount slot next to the trans because it's well protected and down low. Exhaust will live outboard of the frame rails on either side (each bank will running down the tunnel formed by boat sides) so that's not a problem like it would be in an RX7.

However the trans and transfer case may still put out a decent amount of heat. Downside is that I'm still probably only getting 8 gallons or so in that space.

I almost wonder if there's a good way to daisy chain two tanks together. I see three possible ways to do this:
1) Just plumb them together. Likely means I need a check valve from the upper (rear seat area) to lower (trans area) so it can't run away from the pickup when facing uphill. Not sure if check valves in the fuel system are a massive no no from a reliability perspective.
2) Two separate tanks with a switch (main/reserve). This is proven and I could steal some tech from the boat guys. However, it becomes a bit of a pain filling up, although maybe I could put a "Y" in a TBD fill neck or something.
3) Treat one as a "lift tank" of sorts? Still means extra pumps and wiring but not the end of the world.

The other approach is to get crazy under the rear seats by carving deep into the floorboards. The biggest conflict on space claim here is that I still have to dodge around my suspension links under full compression. You can see the power bulges that were already started to make space:

And here it was during the build before it had floorboards at all.

This ends up as a welding project to make a seriously crazy tank. It would basically have to have three low areas around where the two upper links can swing. How do OEM's do a tank with multiple low spots? I seem to recall modern Camaros do something like this, heck now that I think about it, I think the RX8 does too. Is it multiple pickups to a single pump? Bite the bullet and get a hydro mat that spans all three deep areas? I swear I'm reinventing the wheel here I just don't know what they're doing.

 

[frijolee]

Feeling dumb, but how do you edit a post? Apparently needed to remove the resizing commands from my images above.

---[Ed note] must have been a post count thing, because once I had 10 posts, suddenly I could see the edit button.

 

[GW Nugget]

On my phone I have to turn it horizontal to get the signatures & edit button to show up.

 

[frijolee]

On a computer... all I see is Report, Quote, and Reply for my posts can Like posts by others. Just switched browsers to be sure. Same thing on both Chrome and Explorer.

---[Ed note] Nevermind.... issue resolved

 

[frijolee]

Did a little looking into balance tubes regarding the question prior for a multi sump tank. I did some quick googling and came up with this:

It looks like you can get special pickups where the filter screen itself function like an air sensitive check valve.
RCI Fuel Cell Multiple Pickup Kits

And here's a better description of how this style pickup works:
Auto Performance Engineering - Walbro fuel pick-ups

Some of the tech I've never played with kills me, but I'm at least starting to wrap my head around what I could do with these crazy pickups.

 

[frijolee]

Since I'm starting from scratch and recognizing that interior volume of this vehicle isn't huge, it's probably worth some effort to maximizing packaging on the big things (like the fuel tank). That probably means a shallow tank under the rear seat nestled in and around suspension components which passively feeds down to a lower tank that's relatively tall and narrow where my fuel pump lives. The pump would draw from minimum three pickups in the main tank and a 4th in the lower tank with the pump. I may also be able to snake some crossover tubes under the upper link mounts.

Can't work out the geometry from afar but it at least gives me a concept to shoot for. Maybe I can build a driveshaft loop and some uhmw skid plates into my tank supports. :halo:

 

[frijolee]

Next research topic: Accessory Drives.

I have a known conflict between my 'vette alternator placement and the drive side shock tower mount (whose position I like at the moment). I also want to be able to run AC (or at least plan the build so I can add it without too much difficulty). The AC compressor has to live up high as well since my suspension links up front tuck in so tight on either side of the crank pulley.

I started looking around at accessory drives and wow, some of this stuff is beautiful. Here's the Billet Specialties version:

However, I quickly found that beautiful also means clutch your ankles expensive (more on that in a second).

The most economical version which lets me put both alternator and AC up high are the Holley versions (20-136, 20-137, 20-138 are the same basic kit with various compressor options).

Look nice but doesn't necessarily solve my width challenges and may still be into the shock towers.

The contender which would solve all issues with shock towers is the Vintage Air LS front Runner.

Downside of this one is that there's no idler pulley for the power steering pump so the belt would be at risk vs. my links. My folks were in town visiting the family, so I asked my dad to open things up and take a stack of measurements for me [ed note: wrote this in China]. You can see how having that extra idler makes a huge difference for allowing the links to clear the belt. Moving the engine up might an option as that would be easier than down or fore/aft. This is shown with shocks full collapsed.

As a reminder, here's the OEM vette setup.

And here's a couple quick photoshops comparing each of the above.

Holley

Vintage Air

I had just about convinced myself to try for the Vintage Air setup, when I decided it might be a good idea to roll up a budget and see where things stood relative to the overall. I figured I had a grand or so needed each for cooling, fuel, and exhaust. I was ball-parking $7-10k total left Holy crap! After working the spreadsheet from top to bottom, it estimates I'll be done shopping $22,400 from now. Nickels and dimes apparently come faster when you're trying to make something cool from almost scratch.

All in the Vintage air setup would be $3900 once you add in the under hood bits.
Electrical gear runs $2400 with cool gauges, lighting, lojack, etc
Fuel estimates $1400
Exhaust (albeit w/ merge collectors and scratch built headers) $1700
Cooling was $1000...
Steering stuff nets out to $1900.
Diffs $2500 (would really like ARB's and could recoup something on the Grizzly lockers but still)
Stupid stuff like setbelts can easily end up $600 if I want even basic harnesses.

And that $22k I didn't even allocate for a cam swap.


That budget won't fly on the home front, so this puts me back to the drawing board and drives a stronger focus on being economical where I can or at least spreading out the expenses over a few years.

So back to the topic at hand. By far the most economical method I can see would be to pie cut the vette alternator mount in order to roll that away from the shock tower a bit. The belt line is far enough aft of the shocks (vette helps a great deal in this case) that with some fiddling I might be able to get it to work with the mount I already have. Then I add in Holley AC mount and do the same to it as needed, maybe compromising the shock towers slightly. Downside is that I've never welded cast aluminum. Been reading some how tos and to be honest it sounds pretty miserable. Aluminum Welding of Small Castings

So for all the welders on here: What are my odds of getting a decent structural weld in cast aluminum? Any suggestions on material prep, TIG setup, and/or technique? This could be a case where I just tack it and haul it to to a friend, but if it's purely a bad idea I'd rather hear that first.

Thanks in advance,
-Joel

 

[frijolee]

Had someone suggest a full custom version but to be honest, I haven't yet gotten to the phase where I'm desperate enough to just start with some big blocks of aluminum and go to town. It might be kinda fun, but it sounds more like a way to ensure I never finish this damn thing. Designing in CAD is no problem, but I've never learned to program master cam or any other CNC language. I don't think I'd ever tackle making my own harmonic balancer or water pump, so that pretty much limits my belt line options to vette, f-body, or truck. The trick to getting both an alternator and AC compressor packed in narrow seems to be letting the compressor live in front of the passenger head (which is slightly aft vs. driver) while the alternator lives in front of the driver head.

Here's yet another example of that same basic packaing. Concept One Victory.

This basic layout works for me because I'd rather have my PS pump down low given I need a drop from the reservoir (which will be larger than normal for this setup).

Interestingly both the Vintage Air and one version of the Holley (20-138) use the exact same compressor: the Sanden SD7B10. It's significantly smaller than some compressors, but I still don't think you can quite get tucked all the way in front of the passenger head. Here's a nice screen grab from the Holley install instructions.

Note, Holley sells spacers so you can run any of the belt lines, but the default shown here is vette. I might actually try scaling this using the pulley ribs as a reference dimensions. Eyeballing where the head is, it looks like the F-body belt line might do it. Truck certainly would and that wouldn't be a terrible way to go either.