JungleBiker's FJ45

[JungleBiker]

Am I correct in assuming that moving towards larger bushings will be a positive thing? It seems to me that they might provide a better ride, especially as I have gone ahead and used the solid rubber bushings rather than poly ones. There must be some reason why Toyota has gone to progressively larger and larger diameter bushings?

 

[ozcrusier]

I'm with you on the larger bushes being for a better ride.

 

[JungleBiker]

It doesn't show up too well in the photo, but the front end of my frame had been pretty badly abused. Once I pulled off the homegrown bull bar, I found a motley collection of torch cuts, very badly "welded" in patches, mud and rust. So this morning, this is what I started with:

You can't really see it very well, but there is some really questionable patchwork here, especially in the frame rail to the right in the photo. The welding is especially atrocious and the end of the frame is a little bit twisted. Anyway, I used a great big pipe wrench to twist the end of the frame back to straight, cut out the old patches, ground down most of the ugly welds, and welded up all the old torch cuts. I also welded a plate into the passenger side frame rail to box in the last 7 inches of it, just to give a little more strength in that area.

With the frame now more or less sorted out, I wasn't comfortable with how wimpy the end of the frame seemed to be, so I decided to make up a cross member and weld it into place. Found a scrap piece of 5mm thick 2x4 hollow steel and made it out of that:

Here you can see some of the plate that I welded in to box in the end of the frame:

Now I feel a lot better about the strength of the frame in the area where the spring hangers are.

Hope to get the front springs installed next weekend!!

 

[JungleBiker]

Got my springs installed! Fitting the HZJ75 springs was not quite as straightforward as I had thought it was going to be--the locating pin in the 75 springs is in a slightly different place. As I was replacing both hangers, it didn't matter too much. I tried to keep the axle in its original location and then just move the springs forward or back to fit. I was glad that the workshop's HZJ75 was parked nearby, I was able to measure how far apart the hangers on the 75 were compared to the 45 and was able to make adjustments accordingly. As it turns out, the hangers on a 75 are 3/4 (19mm-20mm) farther apart than the hangers on an FJ45.

Eeeeeeeek! Hideous! The springs had been more or less loose for so long that they had pounded a groove into the bottom of the frame. This truck must have been loads of fun to drive in its final days before it was parked:

Getting things cleaned up:

springs aren't quite the same:

had to repair a crack in the frame:

old rear hangers gone, new ones tack welded into place. I still need to weld in some gussets and do some finish welding on this, but I got to a point where I felt like I'd done enough for today:

ditto the fronts:

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setting it down on the new springs:

Looking good to me! I know the shackle angles look really bad, but remember there's no engine in this thing right now:

I jumped up and down on the front cross member and the springs flex nicely, the shackles move out the way they are supposed to etc. Now I need to do something about the engine, the rear suspension, the transmission cross member, the rear end of the frame, the brakes, the floors, the seats, the windscreen, the driver's side window, does it ever end?

 

[JungleBiker]

Here's a couple more:

 

[JungleBiker]

Didn't make it down to the shop over the weekend--my wife was out of town and I had to babysit. I did bring the kids down to the shop for a little while and got them to help me wash years worth fo accumulated mud off of my Land Rover windows, however. This weekend I hope to get started on sorting out the brakes on my FJ45.

This morning I noticed this big old bullbar that has been laying around the shop for years and years and suddenly wondered what it would be like on my LC, so I dragged it over and mocked it up:

There are a lot of things I like about this bullbar (especially the price, free to me!), but unfortunately I don't think it will work because it blocks the headlights too much. I thought about cutting some material out of the middle and narrowing it, but I'd have to take 6-8 inches out to adequately clear the headlights and that's not very appealing. I'll leave it mocked up on there for a few days and see if some kind of inspiration hits me.

 

[tlc762]

I like the bullbar. Why not widen the center to clear the lights and cut the outer pipes down. Basically keep the overall width the same but move the uprights outboard to clear the lights. BTW- looks like the outer pipes are not the same height above the bumper.

 

[JungleBiker]

I like the bullbar. Why not widen the center to clear the lights and cut the outer pipes down. Basically keep the overall width the same but move the uprights outboard to clear the lights. BTW- looks like the outer pipes are not the same height above the bumper.

Hm, I suppose I could try widening it, it'd be a lot more work than narrowing it, though. I had a look around at other bullbars to see how they cope with the lights and most of them seem to get around the lights by not going high enough to cover them. Except some Aussie bullbars, some of those are HUGE and I don't know for sure how they get around the lights. I did drive a Mazda BT50 here though that had a Aussie TJM aluminum/aluminium bullbar on it and driving at night, the reflection of the headlights off of the bar and straight into the driver's eyes was awful.

I considered just mounting lights on the bullbar and referring to the headlight holes in the bib as "massive fresh air intakes".

 

[tlc762]

lots of good points there...

Widening the front would be more work since the bumper tapers back at the uprights... but that would take some of the aussie roo projector out of the design and protect more of your bib area. And the blinkers need protection from impacts as well in my opinion. (I'm not a rock crawler obviously) I run an old style ARB bar on my road legal 74V8- lots of deer, etc. loose on the back roads of Texas-especially after dark. Saw a chevy truck with only a factory bumper hit a cow on the highway several years ago- it wasn't pretty. I can only imagine what wanders the woods and roads in Papua NG...

I masked and painted the rear half of the top bar on the drivers side of my 93 suburban grill guard flat black because the black powder coat reflected the headlights back at me. Annoying but not blinding but I'm sure the aluminum would be a much better reflector than powder coat. I couldn't see the passenger side so I left it alone.

Still haven't rewired the headlights in my 69FST since I found it and put it back to work. It came out of a junkyard and all the wiring was trash. It now has Hella 500s in the blinker holes on the fenders and LED floods above the winch behind a 4 plus bullbar but it is a ranch use only truck.. Along that line don't install the headlights until you have secured the bib in place... they hit right on the tow hooks and explode when it pivots forward unexpectedly...

you're making great progress whatever route you choose to take,

Will

 

[JungleBiker]

lots of good points there...

Widening the front would be more work since the bumper tapers back at the uprights... but that would take some of the aussie roo projector out of the design and protect more of your bib area. And the blinkers need protection from impacts as well in my opinion. (I'm not a rock crawler obviously) I run an old style ARB bar on my road legal 74V8- lots of deer, etc. loose on the back roads of Texas-especially after dark. Saw a chevy truck with only a factory bumper hit a cow on the highway several years ago- it wasn't pretty. I can only imagine what wanders the woods and roads in Papua NG...

I masked and painted the rear half of the top bar on the drivers side of my 93 suburban grill guard flat black because the black powder coat reflected the headlights back at me. Annoying but not blinding but I'm sure the aluminum would be a much better reflector than powder coat. I couldn't see the passenger side so I left it alone.

Still haven't rewired the headlights in my 69FST since I found it and put it back to work. It came out of a junkyard and all the wiring was trash. It now has Hella 500s in the blinker holes on the fenders and LED floods above the winch behind a 4 plus bullbar but it is a ranch use only truck.. Along that line don't install the headlights until you have secured the bib in place... they hit right on the tow hooks and explode when it pivots forward unexpectedly...

you're making great progress whatever route you choose to take,

Will

Oh, BTW, you are right about this bullbar not being quite perfect--I am pretty sure it was made here at our workshop (though before my time). We are certainly capable of this kind of fabrication, though it's usually not quite perfect and can be surprisingly expensive, which is why I don't just commission a new one. Besides, I get a kick out of re-purposing junk that I find laying around and letting my projects sort of evolve out of the primordial ooze of scrap iron that tends to accumulate around the shop (which incidentally is also free).

The black paint is a good idea, and I've seen this done here. I have also seen hockey tape (grip tape is very non-reflective), and electrical tape used, they all help a lot.

Biggest animals we usually see on the road here are pigs. The real reason why you want a bullbar here is as an added layer of protection against fender benders and what not. There are lots of little things that appear in the road unexpectedly, whether animals or trees or broken pieces of other vehicles, and if you have any sort of a breakdown, you are really on your own as there's no rescue companies here.

Also an intimidating looking bullbar can be a real asset if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to drive through an attempted hold-up. If a bandit looking at your car decides that you might just be willing to drive over him, he may just decide not to try holding you up.

 

[tlc762]

LOL.... While we don't commonly have those type of road bandits here (we have the kind that attract hungry attorneys) but I still carry a handgun anyway. I agree with the thought process... Which is why I have grill guards/bumpers on my vehicles-notice all older- ie no big insurance ticket. The panic moments are always fleeting- do I stomp on the brakes and sink the front end prior to the hit or punch it and float over the wreckage...

 

[JungleBiker]

LOL.... While we don't commonly have those type of road bandits here (we have the kind that attract hungry attorneys) but I still carry a handgun anyway. I agree with the thought process... Which is why I have grill guards/bumpers on my vehicles-notice all older- ie no big insurance ticket. The panic moments are always fleeting- do I stomp on the brakes and sink the front end prior to the hit or punch it and float over the wreckage...

Yeah, I miss my guns. I had to leave them all behind when I left the US because PNG is one of those nations where guns have been outlawed to make crime disappear. Funny thing is I never had crime problems where I lived in the US (which is one of those places where everybody was armed), and I have lots of crime problems here (where guns are outlawed), so there's apparently been a breakdown in the thinking somewhere.... Also interesting to note that those rascally bandits usually have guns, in spite of the law! And now I need to stop before I stray into politics and religion and arouse the ire of the moderators.

Today I ran into the old guy who I suspected had built this bull bar and he said that yes, he had indeed built it--he built it for an old Land Cruiser that he has (I forget if his is a 60 or an 80 series) but he never really finished it and he eventually abandoned it behind the shop, which is where I first saw it. I don't know why he never finished it--he had it mounted at one point, but then took it off, and he didn't tell me why. I think all it needed was to be painted.

 

[JungleBiker]

Got into the front end today, had a plan to rebuild the knuckles, straighten out the diff and have the whole front end sorted out by the end of the long weekend. As usual, things did not go quite to plan... But first:

WILLY WONKA WAS HERE! And apparently filled my front axle with some sort of caramel. I was afraid it might be expired, so I didn't try any of it:

Needless to say, all of my front axle bearings need to be replaced, hub bearings, knuckle bearings, all 4 diff bearings, looks like some water got into the axle at some point and while it was sitting idle for 20 years all the bearings got pitted. Plus it looks like it was low on gear lube when it was parked. I wouldn't be surprised if people started "borrowing" all the fluids while it was sitting. So far everywhere I've looked the fluids have either been low or completely gone, and it doesn't look like they all leaked out.

I've seen better looking swivel housings--this is AFTER the clean-up:

Incidentally, this is one of those areas where I really think Land Rover did a better job than Toyota, my Series trucks have much bigger swivel housings with much better chrome on them and if they do go bad, it's no trouble to bolt on a replacement! I do acknowledge, however, that the Toyota axle is better in pretty much every other respect--which is why one day I'm gonna fill the axle housings on one of my Series IIA's with Toyota parts. Right before I start my massive overland trip from PNG to the USA by way of the UK...

Anyway, I now find myself at something of a crossroads--while I was rebuilding the knuckles, (we happened to have a Terrain Tamer knuckle rebuild kit in stock, SCORE!) I came across several pairs of Hilux/mini-truck disc brake knuckles laying around the shop. I also found a set of spindles, hubs, and calipers, along with a mismatched set of brake discs (one vented and one not, ummm....?) Also all the assorted steering arms and what not that go with the knuckles.

The cool thing is that the parts are all free to me if I want them. So naturally I find myself wanting to go ahead and upgrade, since hey, I've got a leg up on the cost of the conversion. So for now, since the weekend is nearly over and I need to get the truck off of the lift so that we can use it for work tomorrow, I think I'm just going to bolt the original spindles on, slap the hubs and wheels back on, then maybe start assembling all the parts I need for the disc brake conversion. Gonna give this some thought--I actually don't have a problem with drum brakes, though if my 100 lb. wife would have an easier time stopping the truck with discs, that might be enough to push me in that direction. I think the thing that is holding me up right now is the tie rod ends. I want to make sure I really have the right combination of parts before I start down this road. Next month we are supposed to be getting a HZJ75 in here to strip down for parts, so depending on what the steering components on that look like, that could make a difference in what I decide to do, too.

Can I use my original type brake MC with the disc front brakes? My truck is a 1979 model, but it's a General export model, so it came equipped with double leading shoe drum front brakes rather than discs. There is a good chance that we have a new Hilux brake master cylinder in stock, so I might just go that direction instead.

Decisions, decisions!

 

[JungleBiker]

Looks like I've found a set of mini truck birfields too, but I haven't pulled them out of the axle they are in to see what kind of shape they're in yet.

 

[Honger]

This is a cool build! I'm loving this journey of scrounging parts and hobbling the Cruiser together bit by bit...

I'm confident all your LR luvin' will stop once you actually get the Cruiser running. =)

 

[tlc762]

Making some good progress there... On your rover/cruiser axle hybrid idea google "series trek". Lots on cool mods and upgrades to his rover detailed on his site.He even modded the LR housings to use cruiser diffs and did mercedes diesel conversion. I stumbled onto the sight researching power steering conversions- he used 60 series power box if I remember correctly.

 

[JungleBiker]

This is a cool build! I'm loving this journey of scrounging parts and hobbling the Cruiser together bit by bit...

I'm confident all your LR luvin' will stop once you actually get the Cruiser running. =)

Thanks, Honger. We shall see if the TLC can actually move me away from the LR. I already acknowledge that the TLC will be a better truck for long trips, certainly less cramped than the LR. But the LR is so easy to fix and so easy to get parts for and so much less expensive to support. For most of my short range daily driving, the LR's do great. Were it not for the fact that Toyota has such an huge presence in PNG, (easily 75% of cars here are Toyotas and a huge percentage of those are Hiluxes or Land Cruisers) I might not bother. But old Toyota parts have accumulated around the shop and in nearby villages and I think I may just be able to put this thing together more or less on the cheap. (That said, I just figured out that I need US $300 worth of bearings in my front axle.)

Making some good progress there... On your rover/cruiser axle hybrid idea google "series trek". Lots on cool mods and upgrades to his rover detailed on his site.He even modded the LR housings to use cruiser diffs and did mercedes diesel conversion. I stumbled onto the sight researching power steering conversions- he used 60 series power box if I remember correctly.

Yeah, I've come across series trek before, I think that's where I got the idea. Right now I'm accumulating Hilux non IFS type stuff to use in a spare set of LR axles I have, but that's a longer term project. I have an early 1960's Series IIA 109" that I want to resurrect into something I can use to haul my family around. Reliability is going to be pretty important, so it's going to be a real mix of parts built around the LR frame and body.

 

[tlc762]

Being a child in the seventies I grew up watching tv and movie footage of Land Rovers in Africa (including mutual of omaha's wild kingdom when my dad wasn't in the room) and dreamed of having one. Years later my dad found my first cruiser in the newspaper classifieds in 1987 (74 FJ40 #1 now with V8, 4 speed, AC, 4 wheel disc, 3.70 gears w/ 33x10.5 tires, powersteering etc.) and bought it as a high school graduation present/project. He said they were better than Land Rovers because they were made by Toyota and not english cars and that he had a few friends that used them very hard as hunting vehicles in south Texas. Drove it all through college and then I almost traded it for a series 3 '88 in the early nineties- best decision I ever made after I test drove the land rover around the neighborhood. Parts were also hard to find for rovers at that time.

All my other cruisers retain the Toyota 6 cylinder engines and period 3 speeds but are only used as ranch vehicles on dirt tracks/ in the pasture. The rovers have an advantage in the non rusting aluminum body minus the infamous bulkhead rust issues and also have rust problems with the frames/ crossmembers. Also they are underpowered for use at paved road speeds (everything is spread out in Texas hence the V8 and gearing change) and have more weak links in the drivetrain. Plus who can forget Lucas Electric-"The Prince of Darkness"... but properly set up that 109 could be a neat hauler for the family.
Good Luck with it and keep the updates coming,
Will

 

[JungleBiker]

Being a child in the seventies I grew up watching tv and movie footage of Land Rovers in Africa (including mutual of omaha's wild kingdom when my dad wasn't in the room) and dreamed of having one. Years later my dad found my first cruiser in the newspaper classifieds in 1987 (74 FJ40 #1 now with V8, 4 speed, AC, 4 wheel disc, 3.70 gears w/ 33x10.5 tires, powersteering etc.) and bought it as a high school graduation present/project. He said they were better than Land Rovers because they were made by Toyota and not english cars and that he had a few friends that used them very hard as hunting vehicles in south Texas. Drove it all through college and then I almost traded it for a series 3 '88 in the early nineties- best decision I ever made after I test drove the land rover around the neighborhood. Parts were also hard to find for rovers at that time.

All my other cruisers retain the Toyota 6 cylinder engines and period 3 speeds but are only used as ranch vehicles on dirt tracks/ in the pasture. The rovers have an advantage in the non rusting aluminum body minus the infamous bulkhead rust issues and also have rust problems with the frames/ crossmembers. Also they are underpowered for use at paved road speeds (everything is spread out in Texas hence the V8 and gearing change) and have more weak links in the drivetrain. Plus who can forget Lucas Electric-"The Prince of Darkness"... but properly set up that 109 could be a neat hauler for the family.
Good Luck with it and keep the updates coming,
Will

Yeah, I agree that any of the LR's I have here would be awful on a US highway. For that matter, most of the Toyotas sold here up until a few years ago would have been in the same boat--no way would I willingly have taken a General Export version of a Toyota Hilux with a naturally aspirated 3L diesel engine on the highway on the US--those had a top speed of about 70 mph on a good day and it took a long time to get up to that speed. Then once you did it was anybody's guess as to whether you would manage to keep the rubber side down or not. The newer ones are much better on the road, but not nearly as good off.

 

[JungleBiker]

I made an exciting discovery today--years ago I found an old Detroit TrueTrac diff squirrelled away in a corner of the shop, doubtless left there by somebody who knew what it was and what it was worth, but there was no clue as to what it fit. It only had a cryptic "DA44" part number on it, which I took to mean it was for a Dana 44. There are no Dana 44's here that I know of, by all accounts there were Dana 44 axle equipped trucks here a long time ago, but I've never seen one. Anyway, I hid it away "just in case".

Anyway, this morning I was looking at the diff I pulled out of the front of my FJ45 and it suddenly occurred to me that the old TrueTrac was about that same size... so I dug it out of hiding and tried fitting a Toyota axle into it. It fit!! More checking with a set of calipers confirmed that all of the other critical dimensions were also the same (bearing seat sizes, ring gear number of bolts and inside diameter, overall width, etc.).

Now only a few questions remain: will this work with a semi-floating rear axle? Would I have to pull the whole thing all apart in order to get the c-clips in place? If it won't work with a semi-floater, am I going need to find a full floating rear axle or is it possible to modify a semi-floater into a full floater? I can think of ways that this might be doable with the tools and tech available to me here--I could cut the ends of of my current axle, weld flanges on and bolt on a set of removable spindles and hubs (copying Land Rover again!!). What have others here done?