Builds Last of the BJs: 1989 GEN BJ60 restoration, 15B-T swap (6 Viewers)

[Eurasiaoverland]

Steering box rebuild 9

Two O-rings to add before bolting the valve housing into the gear housing. One on the bore which goes to the the far end of the power piston's travel...

The other seals the valve housing into the bore of the gear housing.

The tricky part on assembling these pieces is getting the teflon ring snug against the O-ring in the bore at the front of the power piston during insertion. The entry to the gear housing is chamfered, making that bit easy. It's the knife-sharp edge of the forward bore which is hard. There is a lot of resistance to pushing the piston in by hand, so careful control is needed.

Of course, I went in too fast and guillotined the teflon ring cleanly into two pieces.

Second attempt - after waiting for a new teflon ring to arrive - was successful. The trick was to drive the piston into the gear housing using one of the valve housing bolts, tightening in tiny increments and making sure the teflon ring is seated under the sharp edge of the bore. The picture shows the power piston past the hang-up point in the gear housing.

Torque the four bolts to 46 Nm and the valve body is installed.

Next, setting the box up with the correct valve body bearing pre-load, cross shaft thrust bolt clearance and free play.

EO

 

[John Young]

My big question is assuming you change the sector shaft for new, where is most of the wear? Is it on the rack? I've just splashed out on a new (expensive)105 box for my petrol 80 here after trying to get several 80 boxes to perform better.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

My big question is assuming you change the sector shaft for new, where is most of the wear? Is it on the rack? I've just splashed out on a new (expensive)105 box for my petrol 80 here after trying to get several 80 boxes to perform better.

Hi John

The sector shaft is fine in mine - I only replaced the adjuster bolt and lock nut to minimise free-play. This is an original 60 box which seems to be in great condition (it is not the original from this vehicle). Also, the 60 shafts do not have the design flaw of the 80 shafts where the splined section of the shaft inexplicably narrower than the main sector shaft.

I believe free play comes from wear in the teeth, which obviously is not repairable, and the adjuster bolt being too loose. It should have no detectable (by hand) end float, but move freely. They are cheap and relatively easy to replace.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

PTO winch

I don't think I had ever seen a power take-off (PTO) winch on a Landcruiser before I came to Borneo, but I loved the idea. With the ultimate aim of taking this vehicle all over Africa, I feel a winch would be a good addition, and my dislike of all things electrical on a vehicle, and my aversion to modifications meant a factory PTO setup was something I dreamed of puting on this BJ60 build. The difficulty was in finding all the parts required - from the chassis extensions and brackets to make the 'porch' type front bumper arrangement (which I love the look of) to the winch itself, the correct set of drive shafts and chassis brackets, the PTO box, the engagement lever and knob, the rubber gaiters and the mounting piece which is welded into the floor pan.

PTO winches are usually found on high-spec JDM 60s with fully chromed porch bumper setups. They were also an option on (only left-handed) European 60s, and in General market models. I believe they were not an option on Australian 60s and definitely not in the US, though I am not sure about Canada. Here in SE Asia, they were an option on the ultra low-spec BJ60. According to my friend, there are just two BJ60s in Brunei with factory PTO winches and bumpers - one of which belongs to his brother. These were actually ordered back in the 1980s by the company I work for here.

This vehicle is in pretty worn out condition, and my friend has retained the winch. It is exactly the same model as mine, made about 3 months earlier (04/1989). His brother is selling the vehicle, so my friend asked me if I could save the winch bumper. Note that the indicator/marker lights in the front bumper are not original.

He also let me remove the PTO shifter base and gaiter from the floor pan, so I drilled the spot welds, made a blanking plate and welded that in, followed by seam sealer. This is the later style (08/1987 on) base which has a different bolt pattern from the earlier one. You can see a clip on the outside surface of the base to keep the speedometer cable away from the PTO lever assembly.

I took all the brackets and plates off, made standard sized bumper brackets, then put the bumper back on as a standard bumper. Note that although it has been repainted in black, the top plates on the porch bumper are not chromed, but were originally silver. The bumper would similarly have been gun metal coloured, like my standard bumper. When my friend came to collect the brackets a couple of weekends back, hearing that I was after such a bumper setup, he gave them to me on the spot! I was delighted!

A week later, the same friend forwarded me a fuzzy picture of a PTO setup for sale here in Brunei. After a short drive into the interior after work last Tuesday, I found a full PTO setup in great condition and bought it immedialety.

The winch, with original hook and cable. Dated 08/1986. All moves quietly and smoothly, and is well greased. Too heavy to lift out of the boot of my RAV4! The winch end cover has clearly been removed and refitted (upside down) with silicone and only 5 out of 6 bolts. Hopefully no horrors when that gets stripped down.

The three-piece shafts used on 07/1986 onward 60s, with the two pillow block mounting brackets. Splines are good. Pillow block bearings are shot, some of the UJs are worn, all have hardened rubber seals. Only issue I see is that the shear pin holes have been drilled out to about 7 mm. (standard was a very weak 4 mm on the 60s, increased to 5.2 mm on the 70 Series). I'll need to think of something to remedy that.

The filthy PTO box and shift lever. The PTO box sounds rough and occasionally makes metallic sounds when turning, but there was nothing really alarming. Also, these boxes are probably the least difficult part of the whole setup to find, so I am less concerned about anything being wrong here.

So, apart from having to re-purpose my factory standard bumper was a winch bumper (just adding some more holes as far as I see it), I have the full PTO setup, with the exception of the plastic winch cover. Almost as satisfying is that I now have more greasy, neglected hardware to dismantle, clean and restore.

EO

 

[John Young]

On the pillow block bearings, I did not see a way to remove them to replace them. Is there a way to do that? (I ended up really boning it up with Golden Boy's PTO getting the wrong shaft--probably I got a 60 shaft.)

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

On the pillow block bearings, I did not see a way to remove them to replace them. Is there a way to do that? (I ended up really boning it up with Golden Boy's PTO getting the wrong shaft--probably I got a 60 shaft.)

I have not had a go yet, but as the EPC shows the individual components of the pillow blocks (none of which are available any longer save for the locking bolts), including the bearing, yes, they are user serviceable. 60 shafts use a standard 6205 bearing. I plan on carefully pulling the dust seal retainers and making new felt dust seals if necessary. Luckily mine look nice and greasy and not corroded, but let's see. I'll start on the shafts once the box and shift lever have been serviced.

The later (1990-on I believe) 70 Series, and 80 Series shafts are not serviceable and have to be replaced. See this thread: PTO drive shaft - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/pto-drive-shaft.969474/ You can tell the shafts apart from the shapes of the yokes.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

PTO box disassembly 1

I started to dismantle the PTO box shortly after I got home with it. I'm not sure if I have a section in any of my FSMs for the PTO box, but it's so simple that it shouldn't be necessary.

Removing the drain plug (note this is not magnetic, but the same as the filler plug, with a ca. 10 mm deep bore on the inside of the plug) showed it to be absolutely packed with yellow metal flakes. I'm glad I did not buy the transfer case that this came from!

After draining some filthy oil out of the case (I think it could barely still be called oil - it looks like the crap that comes out during a swivel housing service of a solid front axle with blown oil seals), I removed the PTO link lever, connecting pin, spring washer and cotter pin. All these items are still available from Toyota, except the link itself.

Remove the locking tab and M8 bolt from the rear of the input gear shaft bore...

...then with a hammer and brass drift on the back of the input gear shaft, drive out the front blanking plug. Don't push the (most likely corroded) exposed end of the shaft through the brass bushing of the input gear. Instead, push the shaft out towards the back once the plug is out. Out of this lot, only the blanking plug and bolt are still available.

Next, remove the locking tab and pull out the link lever shaft. Only the bolt is still available from this lot.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

PTO box disassembly 2

PTO output gear and shift for assemblies exposed, and the filthy insides of the case.

Remove the shift fork shaft detent ball plug, then remove the copper gasket, spring and ball. Then remove the nearby (mangled in my case by some bodger trying to remove it by hammer and chisel) filler plug.

Turning the shift fork shaft slightly aligns the end of the slotted pin in the shift fork.

Drive the slotted pin out, pull out the shift fork shaft. Inside the bore is a felt dust seal and a rubber O ring. Remove these carefully. Remove also the 20 mm plug from the rear of the shift fork bore.

The entire parts pile for the shift fork shaft. Only the rubber boot, felt dust seal, detent ball, slotted pin and copper washer are still available.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

PTO box disassembly 3

Now it's time for some fun with my favourite tool! With the washer, castellated nut and cotter pin removed, I pulled the flange off the shaft. It's a long interference-fit section on the shaft, so needs a good long puller.

Flange, woodruff key, washer, nut and cotter pin. Flange and washer NLA.

Remove the four 35 mm M8 bolts and tap the front bearing retainer off with a soft hammer to expose the front output shaft bearing...

...then knock out the old oil seal. Oil seal thankfully still available, as is the paper gasket.

Remove the output shaft rear bearing cover. This should be sealed on, similarly to the rear input shaft bearing cover on the transfer case, by a cork gasket. Toyota have generously dicontinued this gasket, so I have ordered some 1.6 mm rubberised cork gasket sheet and will cut my own.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

PTO box disassembly 4

With the retainer off, the output shaft assembly can be moved out of the case enough to get the puller on the front bearing. The shaft only comes out from the back of the gear, so taking the rear bearing off at this stage will not allow the shaft to come out. Both my bearings are rough and noisy and need replacing.

Remove the output shaft from the rear side of the case, then remove the gear and two output shaft spacers.

Remove the snap ring (NLA, so be careful with it) from the rear of the shaft and pull off the rear bearing. This rear bearing is the only part in the above picture which is still available.

Horror

Fishing around in the muck at the bottom of the case revealed the source of the occasional metallic sound I heard when spinning the box. Something tells me the parent transfer box to this PTO did not have a happy life. Thankfully, no damage to the gears in the PTO box.

I had already bought all the available replacement parts for the PTO box, I got lucky and found a NOS front output shaft bearing, but it is the O-rings that f***ing Toyota have discontinued that I need to figure out before I can fully rebuild the box. I think I will try both imperial (as per brake cylinders) and metric options.

EO

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

PTO shift lever 1

The shfit lever mechanism consists of a lever with a plastic knob (annoyingly missing the OFF/ON graphic), a bracket for the transmission and a linkage to the lever on the PTO box.

The PTO lever link with joint. The rubber grommet is pushed into the end of the PTO lever and has a small brass bushing. The rose joint with the perished rubber boot is the same as is used on the high/low range linkage on the split case transfer. Everything in the picture is still available new, except for the link itself.

The PTO lever is attached to the transmission bracket with a spring washer, two plastic split bushes (the same as are used on the clutch and brake pedals) a large washer and an 14 mm M8 bolt. On mine one of the bushes was missing and some bodger had replaced the large washer with and undersized washer, meaning the lever was very sloppy and could be moved around the lockoutplate on the transmission bracket. Lever and bracket NLA.

The knob is held onto the lever with a tiny (2.5 mm hex drive) grub screw and claw washer. Unscrewing the top button allows the knob to be removed. There are two lock buttons - the forward button is supposed to unlock the top button which can then be pushed to move the pin at the base of the shaft down the gate in the lockout plate, so the lever can be pulled back to engage the PTO box. For some reason, the forward locking button was not working, but I can't see anything broken or missing. Perhaps thetop button was screwed down too far. To be investigaed. Annoyingly, the rubber cover at the base of the lever is split a bit and is of course NLA. Of the knob assembly, only the scew, washer and possibly top button (tbc) are still available.

EO

 

[Samppahj]

What I am about to write is my own investigation on euro spec winch:

Early winches (for round headlight models up to -87 here) must have the winch bumper with a notch in the middle. Compared to later models (with square headlights from -88 here) the winch fairlead is 15mm taller on early models. They also have different winding direction. Early ones winds the wire in from the bottom of the drum and later models from the top. That is why early ones has to have the notch in the bumper. Difference is also in the support bar that comes inside the bumper. Early ones have lower section in the middle for the notch in the bumper.

Check these if you are going to use a straight bumper with that winch you bought. The pto shaft seems to be the later model as it has 2 pillow blocks.

There are also two different versions of the PTO itself. Really early ones are two way and the later ones one way. So with the old one you can run the pto 'in" and "out", later ones just "in".

And pillow block bearings are changeable. Pry off the dust seals and there is a cirlip holding the bearings. It is discontinued an thinner than normal standard cirlip.

Per my knowledge every HJ60 came to Finland with a winch fitted. Hj61 did not. But all 60 and 61 had PTO.

Check my project thread (link in my description below) Snow white. There is something winch related pics and writing.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

What I am about to write is my own investigation on euro spec winch:

Early winches (for round headlight models up to -87 here) must have the winch bumper with a notch in the middle. Compared to later models (with square headlights from -88 here) the winch fairlead is 15mm taller on early models. They also have different winding direction. Early ones winds the wire in from the bottom of the drum and later models from the top. That is why early ones has to have the notch in the bumper. Difference is also in the support bar that comes inside the bumper. Early ones have lower section in the middle for the notch in the bumper.

Check these if you are going to use a straight bumper with that winch you bought. The pto shaft seems to be the later model as it has 2 pillow blocks.

There are also two different versions of the PTO itself. Really early ones are two way and the later ones one way. So with the old one you can run the pto 'in" and "out", later ones just "in".

And pillow block bearings are changeable. Pry off the dust seals and there is a cirlip holding the bearings. It is discontinued an thinner than normal standard cirlip.

Per my knowledge every HJ60 came to Finland with a winch fitted. Hj61 did not. But all 60 and 61 had PTO.

Check my project thread (link in my description below) Snow white. There is something winch related pics and writing.

Thank you very much for this interesting information on EUR-spec 60 PTO winches. I was not aware that any 60s had a two input-gear PTO box or bottom-spooling winches. Do you have a picture of one?

As I understand, the two input-gear PTO boxes have input, idler and output gears, meaning that they would turn in the opposite direction to the transmission output gear - would this correspond to the early, bottom-spooling winches? Or is this incorrect, and the bottom-spooling have a left-handed worm gear?

So European HJ61s were sold (in Finland at least) with PTO boxes but no winch/shafts? Interesting.

I had noticed that early EUR spec HJ60s had a very different shaft setup - were they single shaft? I would guess that some of the differences come from the vehicle being left-handed, so the steering column and box are on the same side as the PTO shaft... but that's just a guess.

On JDM and GEN (general market, like my Asian BJ60) 60s, the situation is different. There was the change in bumper shape in 08/1987 with the headlight change, and this meant a change in the winch roller assembly. My 08/1986 winch will not fit my straight bumper, but I should be able to swap the roller assembly and the top bars for the corect type. But the winch itself is identical. Pre and post 1987 were both top spooling - and all winch part numbers for a 1986 HJ61 and 1989 BJ60 are identical. If you look at the picture of my winch above, you can see it is top spooling. The date '86 7 23' is cast into the winch clutch handle. You can also see that the shape of the top-bars is different from a flat bumper winch setup.

As for the shafts, there was a change in the three-piece shaft assembly in 07/1986, with both brackets being changed; from this point on the shafts are the same. I'm pretty sure I have the 07/1986-on shafts as the forward pillow block bracket on my shafts is identical to the same bracket on my friend's 04/1989 BJ60. I will go and compare shafts to be sure.

I'll go and check your build thread for PTO stuff now.

EO

 

[Samppahj]

Yes the PTO was fitted to all. 4x4 off road vehicles got a cheaper tax. That tax help required PTO. It was because defense forces could take your car to war if war would start. First it was totally free of taxes later it was around 30% tax and in the beginning of the 90´s the tax benefit stopped totally. Here are a lot of 60 series because of that tax help.

You got good points of the winch and pto shaft difference. That is why I wrote that my writing is from euro spec versions. Just wanted to give a heads up of the possible differences.

I was lucky that I got my winch in the trunk of my car except of the rollers. Here are a ton of winches laying around but majority are the older models. Because all 60´s came with winches and they were pulled off at some point being useless on dailydrivers. And then later model HJ60 was sold very little as civil cars because 61 was 176700mk (Finnish currency before EU and euro) and HJ60 was 174200mk. So very small difference in price so many bought 61. For comparison a W124 Mercedes 300d wagon was 442600mk so Land Cruisers were dirt cheap. HJ60 with square headlights and different winch setup was sold and used mainly for government purposes, military, border control, railways etc. And a small % of those were sold later to civil use. And there is the reason why the newer winch is very rare here.

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

Yes the PTO was fitted to all. 4x4 off road vehicles got a cheaper tax. That tax help required PTO. It was because defense forces could take your car to war if war would start. First it was totally free of taxes later it was around 30% tax and in the beginning of the 90´s the tax benefit stopped totally. Here are a lot of 60 series because of that tax help.

You got good points of the winch and pto shaft difference. That is why I wrote that my writing is from euro spec versions. Just wanted to give a heads up of the possible differences.

I was lucky that I got my winch in the trunk of my car except of the rollers. Here are a ton of winches laying around but majority are the older models. Because all 60´s came with winches and they were pulled off at some point being useless on dailydrivers. And then later model HJ60 was sold very little as civil cars because 61 was 176700mk (Finnish currency before EU and euro) and HJ60 was 174200mk. So very small difference in price so many bought 61. For comparison a W124 Mercedes 300d wagon was 442600mk so Land Cruisers were dirt cheap. HJ60 with square headlights and different winch setup was sold and used mainly for government purposes, military, border control, railways etc. And a small % of those were sold later to civil use. And there is the reason why the newer winch is very rare here.

That's very interesting, though I think I would prefer to have one without a PTO so the military can't take it... Strange that the 61 was so close in price to the 60. Thanks for sharing this info

 

[PapaGiamati]

This is such a good thread. Just plowed through the whole 9 pages today.

Best of luck keeping this dream going and I have learned a lot to keep in the knowledge bank for when I have to conduct some more maintenance on my CDN spec 3B.

Also extremely excited for your Africa travels.

Take care,

 

[Eurasiaoverland]

This is such a good thread. Just plowed through the whole 9 pages today.

Best of luck keeping this dream going and I have learned a lot to keep in the knowledge bank for when I have to conduct some more maintenance on my CDN spec 3B.

Also extremely excited for your Africa travels.

Take care,

Thanks PG!

The dream is very much alive, unfortunately I don't have time to put all the rebuild details on the thread (the bulk of the time spent has been on the bodywork, welding, prepping and primer coating, which is still in progress) as I prefer to document the mechanical stuff where progress is easier to track. I've kept an eye on your thread and enjoy seeing the minor differences between a Canadian pre facelift BJ60 and mine. Great if you can get some info from my thread, and please reach out any time for help with anything mechanical. Africa will be a few years in the future though. First I'll need to drive this car (I hope) to Europe to get it registered there.

Cheers
EO