JT's FJ40 build

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I'd sell ya my hunk-o-junk.

But I don't wanna.

It's too much fun.
 
Those 345's bent the steering shaft in my 80 at Moab. Twisted splines.

Pitman arm off...what a bitch. Fortunately the splines on the sector shaft are not twisted (poor picture):

IMG_0268.webp
 
I removed the old cooler, the failed pump, all the lines, and the gear box yesterday. The replacement pump and the new stacked plate cooler are here, and the new pitman arm should be shipping soon.

The cooler is pretty big. After seeing the dimensions on Summit's site (specifically, the 2" depth) I figured it wouldn't mount up front without modifying the grill. As suspected, the screen had to be removed. It fits almost perfectly in the opening of the bezel:

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I would have to come up with a way to 'suspend' it in that location, but it has upper and lower brackets, so that wouldn't be too difficult. Alternatively, it could rest on the lower lip of the bib opening and be bolted in directly:

IMG_0287.webp


Couple of questions:

Will either option significantly impact the cooling abilities of the radiator due to blocked air flow?

Is the second mounting option viable, or should I go ahead and figure out how to get it centered in the opening (I'm guessing I already know the answer to this)?

I was upset that the screen and Toyota logo had to be removed until reading post #105 in the tech link that Butch posted earlier in Jrob's thread. I think I'll have to copy that idea...thanks, Butch!
 
I'd run something thinner.
1" outta be more than enough

Whatever you do, DO NOT use the little plastic zip-tie dealios that come with the kit to mount the cooler. That's a good way to waste a perfectly good radiator.

Georg @ Valley Hybrids
 
That's funny...I just hung up the phone with those guys and came back here to grab some pictures to send them.

I pulled my gear box the other day when I ripped out all the other stuff. I think I'm going to go ahead and ship it to them, let them rebuild it, and port it for ram assist. He referred me to the link you just posted and said that if I pull those parts off my pump and send it with my gear box they would do those mods as well. Turns out that the 'washer install' that I did earlier is only one part of these mods.

The saginaw conversion kit I used seated the gear box pretty deep into the cross member. Looking at pictures of other ported gear boxes, I'm not sure mine can be ported. He said there were several options, so I'm going to send them some pics to see if it's doable.
 
Don't be in a hurry....it took them 3 times back and forth to send me my non leaking box. Once after all that it has been good. It just sat at bossman ' s for a few months during the ordeal.
 
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Can't get enough of your love, babe...
 
 
Everything is put back together. Ended up sending the box to west Texas offroad and letting them rebuild, port, and tap it. Got their hydro assist setup too (going on later). New pump with all the "redneck" mods done to the high pressure side. Ended up exchanging the cooler for a thinner one that wold fit between the grill and radiator. All new low pressure hoses. We'll see how this thing holds up:

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Oh yea...bought a set of feeler gauges too that I'll probably use exactly once. Gonna see if I can adjust the valves in this old 2F.

Finally opened the gauges this morning and set about adjusting the valves. I have no idea how out of spec they were. I had it in my mind that I was gonna adjust them no matter what, so I didn't even think to check them before backing off the lock nuts (stupid). Seems to be a bit quieter now.

The fuel injection conversion came with an FJ-60 style distributor. The cap on it has two vacuum hose type holes/ports on it. I ignored both of them. A couple of folks have told me that I needed to use them to properly vent the cap. A couple of Mud searches revealed that the larger port was supposed to run to a filter in the cabin (or 'high' up on the firewall) while the smaller port was supposed to be connected to a vacuum source. The idea being that the vacuum would constantly pull warm dry air through the cap. I picked up some hoses and a filter from the parts house and plumbed all this while messing around with the valves.

Also, the truck was idling around 1000-1100 RPM. I wanted to get it down to 700-800 but never got around to adjusting it. I rotated the distributor cap while in there today and got it down to 750 or so. The idle is quiet and smooth now. This might end up biting me in the ass, though, since it crawled without stalling at 1000 RPM...I kind of got used to not having to mess with the throttle on some trails. We'll see...
 

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