Just another 80 series diesel swap....

[c2dfj45]

Haven’t done a build thread lately, not for lack of builds but rather for keeping customer builds on the down low.......but this one is one of ours so it’s fair game. Shouldn’t be anything new to see here, just another 80 series diesel swap as the title to the thread states. This one is somewhat of a shop build......I’m supplying the parts and my LC tech is providing the labor....and the truck If he sells it, I get first dibs to it. Sounds like a disaster to sort out but we’ll worry about that later. I don’t think it will ever get sold.

He diligently pursued this one on FB Marketplace for a while....finally got with the owner and made the trip from Tampa to Savannah. Clean 1991 80 that’s spent time in FL and Oregon before coming back to FL. Pretty clean, no rust, mostly modified.

Trailer was needed because this puppy doesn’t run

She’s a good 50 footer.....repaint is a mess but no rust so we’re OK with that. ARB and winch are for sure a plus....along with the Toyota front license plate

Not much going on here.....curiously though there was an oil catch can. Hmmmmm.

 

[c2dfj45]

Got it on a Friday.....it was starting to be pulled apart on Saturday

 

[c2dfj45]

Since we’re going to do a partial restoration along with the mods for swapping in the diesel, it was a no brainer to pull the body and get the chassis out. We have some time on our schedule over the holidays with nothing pressing to do on our outside lift so it’s a perfect time to do it....plus it’s about the most perfect weather we have in FL this time of year.

Off with the body....

 

[c2dfj45]

Chassis is super clean....we think it must have been treated with something at some point. Not bad for 34 years old.

 

[c2dfj45]

SUPER easy to pull the motor and trans with the body off

 

[c2dfj45]

We were curious as to why the motor was seized.....no windows in the block but we could see that the oil pan was not quite right.

These are things that should NOT be in your oil pan

Yup...that’s part of the cam.

And this guy is what probably caused the issues.

 

[c2dfj45]

We broke out our beloved Hotsy hot water pressure washer and spent an hour or so cleaning....didn’t need much as this thing is clean. The hot water pressure water melts the dirt and grime away. The Hotsy was one of the best $500 I’ve spent....along with the $2000 in parts to rebuild it. Ha.

Before

After....

 

[c2dfj45]

Clean. Clean. Clean.

 

[06reg4x4]

Great start!

 

[AlbertoSD]

Good work as always, Chris!
Watching this and looking forward to updates

 

[c2dfj45]

Good work as always, Chris!
Watching this and looking forward to updates

Well hopefully it will be entertaining....not quite as fun as a 70 build but they can’t all be 70s builds

 

[c2dfj45]

Steam cleaned the frame so we could begin the next stage. Super clean frame....couple broken bolts in the rear bumper area.

Motor mounts leaving the chat

 

[c2dfj45]

Trans crossmember mounts were up next....we’ll reuse these so we took those off pretty carefully.

Front all cleaned up and ready for some new mounts

 

[c2dfj45]

Body reunited with chassis.....and in the main shop it goes.

 

[c2dfj45]

Always cool to see them like this....

We’re pretty familiar with diesel motors going in FZJ80 frames.....our 79 builds get done this way. We also have a customer's diesel swapped FZJ80 in the shop that we took some measurements on to figure out where we were going to place the engine mount brackets. We wanted to make sure the FJ80 frame was the same as the FZJ80....and they were....we were on easy street.

For my upcoming FJ80 build, I had bought 2 sets of RH FZJ80 engine mount brackets. The LH bracket was not available, so I figured we’d use the LH side bracket on the RH side or modify it or whatever. Getting a little ahead of ourselves, we put the engine brackets on in the right spots front to back based on our FZJ80 frame but we failed to notice they were different.

 

[c2dfj45]

We’re using this turbo 1HZ for the build....it came out of my 79. This engine has a weird tick in it from about 2k to 2400 RPMs. I’ve read and read about the tick and it seems normal on some of the 1HZs. I put about 10k miles on this motor and it has never changed sound or frequency. It drove me nuts so we replaced the motor with a 1HDFT. So this little gem was ‘on the shelf’ but the shelf. Can’t use it for a customer build and I can’t sell it.....so.....it's my donation to the project.

 

[c2dfj45]

Our hopes of having an easy day were stopped cold........we couldn’t get the mount on the drivers side to drop in the slot. Front to rear location was spot on but we were off by an inch of where the mount would go thru the bracket. We checked various diesels we have in the shop(gratuitous shot of a really pretty 1HDT and 1HDFT ) to see if their engine mount brackets were different(one side is the same on all the trucks, one side is different for the 80 vs. the 70). We had the right ones on it. Something else was going on.

Passenger side spot on

Uh-oh on drivers side

 

[c2dfj45]

So after so looking at things....we realized the driver’s side engine mount is quite different from the passenger side. Shorter and a bit higher up.

Spent a few hours working to make a new mount and low and behold....we had a mount.

After some fine tuning of the bracket placement as well as cleaning up the edges and making it pretty, we tacked it in and set the motor down in its new home.

 

[c2dfj45]

And now for the moment of truth.....test fitting the motor in the body. We knew we were going to be in the right neighborhood with this set up based on the diesel swapped 80 we took our measurements off of. Kind of cheating but if it’s available, use it

Compared to almost every other motor swap we’ve done.....this was a walk in the park.

What do you know....it fits like it was supposed to be there

 

[c2dfj45]

Our finalized LH bracket burned in. In hind sight it would have been easier to probably cut the OEM RH bracket we had to fit what we needed but we’ll save that one for the other 80 that is going to get this same swap at some point.

Now on to the trans crossmember....