kw90surf's Grad Present to Himself, 1991 FJ80 H150F Touring Build

[kw90surf]

Once we got to camp, @BelnanDiesel decided he'd drive his 80 up onto the rock face and camp up there. It's a plateau with a gentle slope that becomes a sheer drop several hundred meters to the valley below. Bigger gonads than me my friend. I and the others opted to set up in the little turnaround at the end of the access trail.

Here was his view in the morning:

The rest of us in the more sheltered area:

 

[kw90surf]

@BelnanDiesel found his hitch pin and took over Dodge towing duty that morning, which I was happy about, to give the 3FE a break. We would have to tow the Dodge back to Margaree Valley and arrange for a tow truck. It was the end of the trip for its owner, which really sucked.

On the second or third big climb, during a 3-2 downshift, some slack accumulated in the strap and when it came taught again it ripped the tow hook right out of the Dodge. Aft-facing GoPro footage shows the tow hook slingshotting forward and spanking off the FZJ80's tire carrier. Good thing that was there.

The Dodge was loaded on a tow truck to be taken to a transmission shop two hours away in Sydney. The owner sold it to the transmission shop for cheap and rented a car to drive back to the mainland. We were all pretty bummed.

I took a quick trip to the local post office to ship some HDJ81 parts to a couple of mud members. Was cool to ship 80 series parts from a tiny post office in the middle of nowhere while I was on a camping trip with my 80 series.

 

[kw90surf]

From there we went back up into the highlands and found a flowage to camp at for the night.

That night I had a friend flying in from Newfoundland to Halifax (also Coast Guard, his month-on, month-off cycle is offset from mine by 2 weeks). I had left his Duramax at the Halifax airport with his camping gear inside (which he had his brother send up from his place in NB), so he could hit the road for Cape Breton and join us as soon as he landed. From the flowage we camped at I remembered roughly that there was a narrow switchback trail that I had climbed on my first ATV trip back in 2019, which would take me from the tablelands down to sea level where there was a convenience store where my buddy could leave his GMC. I had remembered it being a little sketchy climbing up on an ATV in the daytime, but I was about to descend it at night in an 80 series. With an agreed "come and have a look for me" time of midnight, I set off.

I don't have any pictures of this as I was too busy white knuckling it but I ended up finding the trailhead and working my way down. It was severely overgrown to the point where it was less than an ATV's width, steep, rocky, and through the foliage I could see that it was a nearly sheer drop off the one side, about 2-3 feet from my passenger's tire for much of the way down, which included a few switchbacks. Certainly the type of trail where if you get hung up or reach an impasse you will be unable to turn around. I made it to the bottom successfully, picked up my friend and we turned around and climbed back up, making it back just before midnight. Certainly the most adventurous/sketchy/sendy thing I've done in the 80 to date, and probably behind the wheel of a vehicle ever.

After hearing about the descent that night, in the morning @BelnanDiesel wanted to do the descent himself and we decided we'd make for the coastal highway down below (there was a logging/NS Power road that bypassed the descent for the RAV4 and LX450/trailer) and continue up the coast. We stopped for a fish and to check out an old school defunct windmill on the way to the trailhead (you can see my head poking out):

We then tackled the descent in the daylight and these awesome pictures were taken (not by me) once we reached the plateau of the trail down near the bottom:

We were lucky to have someone along with a nice camera to capture many of these pictures.

 

[kw90surf]

Once at the bottom we drove up the coast to Meat Cove and camped on the beach there. On the way in we got some pretty awesome shots:

We then proceeded to set up camp on the beach under an overhang:

What an awesome campsite this was, 30ft from the ocean.

 

[kw90surf]

The next day we got our seedy selves out of the tents and got moving, but not before fooling around on the beach and getting some more shots of the Cruisers!

 

[kw90surf]

We then hit the Cabot Trail and followed it to Cheticamp, stopping for the odd fish along the way.

 

[kw90surf]

Once to Cheticamp we got onto an ATV/snowmobile trail to take us back up to the highlands again. I had ridden this ATV trail in late 2019 and remembered it being a little rough, and on the first major hillclimb/washout the RAV4 decided to opt out and take the highway back to Margaree Valley where he would get on the logging road system and meet us once we got up there. The 80 series guys were very keen to do some four wheeling that might involve locking the centre differential and so we set off!

Nothing too technical or intense but it was fun to do a few hours crawling around in low range. When we got up to the highlands it was getting dark and our original campsite plan didn't workout so we ended up hunting for a campsite into the night. After a tire blowout on the trailer around 11pm and getting a bit lost, everyone was getting fatigued and so we stopped at the first flowage we found and set up camp. I quickly passed out in my roof tent with my boots on

The next morning we parted ways for the first part of the day and I went back to the switchback trailhead for a photo and my buddy who flew in and I just set up some camp chairs and made a coffee.

Later that afternoon we met up at that same brewery and shared a pint to cap off an awesome trip, then convoyed home to the mainland!

 

[kw90surf]

Partway through my 12 week vacation this summer I decided it would be a good idea to swap the Aussie 5 speed into the FJ80. I would have to do all of the 5 speed-related modifications to the truck anyway for the diesel swap (so doing them in advance would help simplify that process and help with engine mount placement), I was very curious what the 3FE would perform like in front of a proper gearbox, and I still wasn't 100% sold on the diesel swap if the 3FE turned out to be awesome with the 5 speed. Plus, I had all of the parts laying around.

So with the help of a few buddies we put it on the hoist and set to work.

For the most part for the automatic transmission removal we just followed the FSM. We ended up clipping the trans cooler lines at the rubber flex line/union.

 

[kw90surf]

Here was the list of tasks for the swap (in no particular order):

• Install bellhousing adaptor plate, pilot bearing and flywheel
• Install clutch
• Modify wiring to suit M/T (reverse lights and NSS)
• Clean up, paint and install clutch pedal box
• Figure out solution for hydraulic clutch lines
• Bend RHD clutch pedal to suit LHD
• Trim brake pedal to suit smaller pedal pad
• Modify transmission tunnel to accommodate M/T shifter locations
• Figure out transmission tunnel cover solution
• Bend RHD shifter to LHD oritentation
• Modify transmission crossmember/mounts to suit M/T location 2" closer to engine

The clutch pedal box for an 80 series stands alone from the brake pedal, and I can confirm that a RHD pedal box works fine for a LHD application. There are two types of pedal boxes, a vacuum assist (which my HDJ81 has) and the spring-assist as seen here. The pedal box was surface-rusted and so I opted to use a rust-remover gel followed by black Tremclad.

Here is the pedal box as I received it, complete with surface rust and aussie-spec mud.

Here is it and the pedal after being de-rusted and painted. Dad got this shop hoist from a buddy for free because it leaked a bit, and it sure makes painting things easy

To bend the pedal I simply put it in a bench vise, heated it with MAP gas and reefed on it.

For the pedal box install 2-3 holes will need to be drilled. Two on the firewall for sure, and one under the cowl for me (some 80s apparently have a hole with a captured nut here already, mine did not).

For the holes in the firewall I made a template on graph paper, transferred it onto the truck and then started drilling.

Master cylinder mocked up.

 

[kw90surf]

The master cylinder was unfortunately seized, so I freed up the piston by tapping down with a socket extension, then held the piston down as far as I could and threaded a bolt wrapped in teflon tape into the inlet to plug it, so the vacuum would hold the piston down. This allowed me to get at the ridge of rust in the bore, which i cleaned up using a scotch brite pad, followed by emery cloth. Once I got close, I wrapped a thick rag around the end and used compressed air (yikes) fed through the inlet to "pop" the piston out.

Once I was finished the bore looked and felt pretty good, so I installed the OEM rebuild kit I had with some brake fluid and lithium grease (NOTE: this is a before picture, I didn't take an after picture, whoops)

The slave cylinder was much the same and received the same treatment.

 

[kw90surf]

As for mating the 3FE and the H150F - the bellhousing adaptor between the A440F and the H150F is different. The holes are in the same place, and the overall thickness I THINK is the same, but it is contoured slightly different. It's possible that it could work, but I didn't want to get the whole thing together just to need to take it apart again, and I had the H150F-specific adaptor plate, so that's what I used.

You can see it here, and with the new pilot bearing installed.

Flywheel installed:

I was under the gun to get this finished before I went back to work for a month, and with COVID the lead times on all sorts of things have been unpredictable. I didn't have the time to get the flywheel re-surfaced (which ideally I would have), and so I didn't. Oh well.


The friction disc and pressure plate were installed with the clutch alignment tool, and then the new clutch fork (OEM) and release bearing (NACHI) were installed in the transmission prior to hoisting it into place and bolting it onto the engine. BEAR IN MIND there are two different length bellhousing bolts with TWO DIFFERENT THREAD PITCHES. Ask me how I know.

The wiring modification was done by a good friend of mine while I was doing something else, and the reverse lights currently do not work, so more on wiring details later

We just jumpered the NSS for now so it will start, I will end up extending those leads into the passenger compartment to a clutch switch as well as a clutch start cancel switch, so that I can use my cruise control.

 

[kw90surf]

For crossmember/mounting solutions there were a couple that I had seen or heard of:

• enlarge existing mounting holes for M/T in the frame, weld nuts onto large washers or drilled-out pipe caps, weld them in, then cut mounting brackets off the frame, shift them forward and re-weld them so that everything mounts like it would have from the factory;
• drill holes up through the frame through M/T mounting holes and use long bolts and nuts (didn't like this idea);
• use rivnuts in factory M/T holes and tack them in place, drill hole in crossmember to catch 1/2 bracket bolts per side and avoid moving bracket;
• build a custom skid plate/crossmember
• cut the centre section out of the crossmember and shift it forward using pieces of plate and then tack and fill once the fitment is right.

I opted to go for option #5, as I didn't want to do any cutting or welding on the frame if possible, and I have a few crossmembers around (auto and manual are the same). I got this idea from a thread on a UK forum and it worked well.

First we had the transmission up and in place with the transmission jack supporting it. Then we cut the crossmember right at the point where it becomes uniform on both sides so that the centre section where the transmission mount and skid plate are were separate. Then we took two oversized pieces of 3/16" plate and tacked them on the centre section side. Then we bolted the end pieces to the frame and the centre section to the transmission mount. Then, once the alignment looked right we tacked the end pieces to the plate, unbolted everything, fill welded it, torched off the excess and cleaned up the remainder with a flap disc on a grinder. My Dad helped me out with the metal work as I'm still a novice in this department and he happens to be a red seal fabricator.

I think it came out pretty well, and it's a less intrusive way of achieving the desired result than some of the techniques I've seen. Here are some pics of the process:

Note that the little spacers had to be removed with a chisel to allow for use of the slotted holes.

 

[kw90surf]

I got the rough idea on the trans tunnel mods from this awesome thread. I ended up using an air-powered 90* drill and a hole saw (3-3/4" I think?) for the transmission shifter hole, then I trimmed off the bit for the transfer case shifter using a reciprocating saw.

I then used a wire wheel on a drill and a file to dull the sharp edges and dabbed some Tremclad on the bare steel with a brush.

 

[kw90surf]

I was able to make a correct LHD M/T transfer case shifter out of the RHD manual and LHD auto shifters, just had to do some disassembly and reassembly.

For the pedals, I bent the RHD clutch pedal and trimmed the LHD auto brake pedal as I mentioned. It's worth noting that pedal spacing isn't perfect, the LHD manual brake pedal moves the pad a bit closer to the gas pedal (maybe an inch?) than what is achieved by simply cutting the brake pedal pad down uniformly on the auto pedal. In order to make sure the brake and clutch pedals aren't too crowded (they are a little bit), this pushes the clutch pedal over further toward the door. The result of this is that the clutch pedal and dead pedal are a little crowded as well. Ideally, the clutch pedal would come over to the right 1/2-3/4" or so and the brake pedal would come an inch closer to the gas pedal. I may address this later, or I may just delete the dead pedal. I'm not fussy about its placement anyway and my Jeep XJ never had one which never bothered me.

I don't have a picture of this but I'll edit one in later.

Another thing I don't have a picture of is the bolt under the cowl for the pedal box. I laid under the dash and drilled straight upward after marking the hole location through the pedal box hole with a punch. When I went to install the pedal box however, if I tightened the bolt on that goes through the cowl until the pedal box and cowl were touching, the pedal was way too high and it started to flex the firewall. I'm not sure if this is a RHD/LHD thing or if the factory solution involves some kind of sleeve/spacer, but what I ended up doing was using an extra long bolt and "pinching" the cowl and the pedal box tab each with two nuts, so that a length of the shank of the bolt would act as a spacer while holding the pedal box in place in both directions.

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone without pictures, but let me tell you it was a PITA doing that up under the dash. As @BelnanDiesel calls it, "truck yoga".

I applied some silicone to the bolt head under the cowl to prevent leaks.

 

[kw90surf]

So with an August long weekend camping trip around the corner, the push was on to finish this thing. The clutch line solution for the time being was a combination of re-bent RHD lengths and a PRICEY length of braided stainless hose I had made up. We bled it and got the clutch working, plugged in the transfer case connectors, installed the driveshafts and flashed it up. Idea being make sure it works, then tackle the "little" things like shifter bending and trans tunnel cover etc.

10pm the night before. Check fluids, start it up. It's on the hoist. I put it in first, let the clutch out, then 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th, then 5th. Great. Reverse. Reverse?

No reverse. No grinding, no stiffness, no noise, no drive to the wheels. Shifter is falling all the way into place. No reverse to be had.

Dejected, we packed up for the night and my friend and I took her Jeep JK of Shame camping that weekend instead.

SO, the following week, after reading this H151F rebuild thread I saw that the reverse gear was in the rear housing, aft of the intermediate plate which provides the backbone for the transmission. So I undid the driveshafts, supported the trans with the jack, took the transfer case off, undid the crossmember and pulled the rear housing off (after draining the fluid). My thoughts being, if reverse isn't engaging I should be able to see why right away if I popped this cover off.

Lo and behold:

The reverse gear selector fork was shattered. That explains it.

I was feeling pretty rotted and sent the guy who shipped it to me an email asking if he'd known about this, of course he said he didn't and it's very possible that was true. In any case, I'd need to find a new fork or have this one repaired. I took it and its pieces to one machine shop that told me where I could go, another machine shop said they'd do their best with it. In the meantime I looked and looked until I found a listing on Megazip new OEM for $75 so I ordered it. When it showed up it looked different than the original, and the machine shop (Velocity in Burnside) had done a beautiful job on the original, so I opted to put the original back in.

After rushing to put it all back together before I left for work the following day, I realized I'd forgotten a circlip on the output shaft and would need to take it all apart once again to reinstall it. Oh well, I'd tackle that next month.

 

[SteelHunterFJ80]

So with an August long weekend camping trip around the corner, the push was on to finish this thing. The clutch line solution for the time being was a combination of re-bent RHD lengths and a PRICEY length of braided stainless hose I had made up. We bled it and got the clutch working, plugged in the transfer case connectors, installed the driveshafts and flashed it up. Idea being make sure it works, then tackle the "little" things like shifter bending and trans tunnel cover etc.

10pm the night before. Check fluids, start it up. It's on the hoist. I put it in first, let the clutch out, then 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th, then 5th. Great. Reverse. Reverse?

No reverse. No grinding, no stiffness, no noise, no drive to the wheels. Shifter is falling all the way into place. No reverse to be had.

Dejected, we packed up for the night and my friend and I took her Jeep JK of Shame camping that weekend instead.

SO, the following week, after reading this H151F rebuild thread I saw that the reverse gear was in the rear housing, aft of the intermediate plate which provides the backbone for the transmission. So I undid the driveshafts, supported the trans with the jack, took the transfer case off, undid the crossmember and pulled the rear housing off (after draining the fluid). My thoughts being, if reverse isn't engaging I should be able to see why right away if I popped this cover off.

Lo and behold:

View attachment 2828089

View attachment 2828090
View attachment 2828091


The reverse gear selector fork was shattered. That explains it.

I was feeling pretty rotted and sent the guy who shipped it to me an email asking if he'd known about this, of course he said he didn't and it's very possible that was true. In any case, I'd need to find a new fork or have this one repaired. I took it and its pieces to one machine shop that told me where I could go, another machine shop said they'd do their best with it. In the meantime I looked and looked until I found a listing on Megazip new OEM for $75 so I ordered it. When it showed up it looked different than the original, and the machine shop (Velocity in Burnside) had done a beautiful job on the original, so I opted to put the original back in.

After rushing to put it all back together before I left for work the following day, I realized I'd forgotten a circlip on the output shaft and would need to take it all apart once again to reinstall it. Oh well, I'd tackle that next month.

Great write up! Love the pictures and how you got everything fabbed up. Required reading for those who want to do this swap

 

[kw90surf]

After I got home from work, the truck had been largely sitting for the last 2 months, and so it needed a boost unsurprisingly. I flashed up the HDJ81 to boost it, because why not, that thing could use to be run as well.

Took it outside and ta-da! Reverse. Time to tidy things up and get this thing on back on the road.


To bend the shifter, I pulled it out and put it in the vise, and proceeded to heat it with some MAP gas. It was tough trying to keep the metal at the base/bend hot while also not melting the rubber inside the shifter. I remembered a trick my dad showed me where you use a spray bottle to spray water on the part that houses the rubber, but I remembered too late and ended up melting the rubber somewhat when I put the cheater pipe on it to bend it. As a result, I stopped with it about halfway bent, so it's almost dead-centre. Not terrible ergonomically but it interferes somewhat with the transfer case shifter when I go for reverse (can knock it into neutral if I'm not paying attention).

For now, I cut the existing automatic tunnel cover and boots to clear the manual shifter positions, widened the hole on either end of the shifter console box to accept the manual lever positions and stuffed the console box full of rags for road noise suppression. Not a permanent solution, but it'll work for now. I'll post a picture of this soon, a better solution is in the works.

 

[kw90surf]

As a shakedown I loaded up the 80 and took it on a 4 day 600km camping trip from Halifax to Guysborough to Bridgewater and back.

Time for driving impressions!

It's quite a transformation. The combination of the much deeper gearing, an extra gear, and elimination of the parasitic drain of the A440F makes a huge difference. Here's what I've noticed:

• The gearing is quite short, but in a good way imo. I'm in 5th by 60kph if I short shift (1800-2000rpm or so). First gear is very short.
• The portion of the rev band from 1000-1600rpm has been unlocked, and there's lots of grunt down there. I can lug it down to 1100rpm in 5th cruising through town, and when I squeeze the pedal slightly it will accelerate.
• The 3FE is surprisingly responsive and revvy.
• HUGE difference on the highway. I can cruise at 60-65mph (2500rpm) with my foot barely in the pedal. Most hills I squeeze the pedal a bit more and I can easily maintain speed in 5th, the odd very steep hill I'll either need WOT or to downshift to 4th, but then I'm good. The biggest difference here is that the 80 actually feels comfortable at highway speed now, I'm not constantly burying my foot/watching the speedo/downshifting/hunting for gears. I can pretty much cruise effortlessly without paying attention to speed and throttle. Like a normal car (almost).
• It will do 75-80mph comfortably now if I want it to.
• Cruising around town at the same pace as the auto (slow, short shifting), I barely need any revs or throttle. No longer spooling the converter.
• If I drive it hard it's actually peppy around town now, it's suddenly possible to be in a rush.
• It's WAY more fun to drive now. The 80 has 120% more character now. Feels overall a bit like a 3.0L pickup or 4Runner to me.
• It's still a 3FE. Wide-open throttle/full revs acceleration is still underwhelming. But it is improved.

As far as fuel economy, I've put 3 tanks through it so far and here's what I've got:

• All highway @60-65mph, being easy on it but trying to maintain speed on hills: 17.3mpg US / 13.5L/100km. (my buddy with a 3rd gen 4Runner 3.4/auto with similar mods only got 19mpg for the same trip)
• backroads @40-55mph, again mostly driving easy: 16.3mpg US / 14.5L/100km
• hard city driving (keeping up with traffic, shifting 3000rpm), highway 75-80mph: 12.3mpg / 19.2L/100km.

So it looks like if you're willing to drive it gently, there's fuel economy gains to be had. If you want to use the newfound extra power all the time, you're going to get the same mpg as before. I averaged 11-13 mpg with the auto in mixed gentle driving.

I think if the 3FE was offered here with a manual transmission it would have a completely different reputation. The auto really smothered its character in a lot of ways and with the manual it has come alive and it really feels like you're getting the most out of it. It almost has me second-guessing swapping it for a diesel. It's still slow compared to any modern vehicle but it's the kind of slow that pretty much all early-90's Toyotas are, Camry's, Corolla's, Pickup's etc.

 

[kw90surf]

Yup, I’m selling the diesel swap

 

[kw90surf]

Popped over to Saint John to help a buddy of mine process a ‘93 Toyota parts truck and collect some of my good un-garbage that I had stored in his shop all winter.

Towed the trailer back 5 hours over hilly highway to Halifax at an approximate weight of 3000lbs, the 3FE did awesome. Most of the drive was done at 65mph in 5th, 4th only being used on steep hills and during one ripping headwind near Memramcook. A/C on the whole time, and overall not a completely draining experience. As posted earlier in this thread, last time I tried towing a trailer a little more than half this heavy with the auto, I couldn’t hold overdrive at all and got 8mpg. This time I got 11.

Speaking of, still collecting fuel economy data. So far it’s looking 14mpg avg in mixed carefree driving (light trailers, city, highway 70mph). I recently pulled down two full tanks at 14.8 and 15.2 mpg respectively mixed city/highway, including stop and go rush hour traffic. This is unloaded, but the 15.2mpg tank was with roof tent.

And it drives AWESOME. So happy with this swap. The 80 is a lot of fun to boot around town in now, especially with such short gearing.