Builds Mike's 1978 FJ40 Turbo Diesel Refit Project and Cross Country Road Trip! (4 Viewers)

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Tell me more about the power steering? Did you get it to work? And what were the issues? Thanks.
 
Tell me more about the power steering? Did you get it to work? And what were the issues? Thanks.
Well first I have a Saginaw 800 Box with a 6.75" arm and also a PSC 1.5"x 6" ram. The VW KYB pump has plenty of pressure, but the flow is a bit lacking. Going down the road its great with no issues, but when your idling in a parking lot while rolling and steering from lock to lock there is not enough flow.

I read up a bit and bought a 2004 Jeep grand Cherokee V8 power steering pump. The idea was to install it at the same time as i build the on board air.

What i did was buy new lines from the jeep and replace the lines to my truck as follows- 1/2" high pressure line from pump to box, 3/8 line from box to cooler, 3/8" line from cooler to reservoir, 19/32" 10" long line from reservoir to pump inlet. I had to tap the inlet to the pump and build a fitting to get around the interference to my steering shaft.

When i started this project the Jeep restriction was 0.345". It was so loud and made the steering extremely light and hard to drive. I tig'ed it shut at the top leaving the small holes in the sides free flowing and re welded it to 9/64, then 5/32', then finally 5/64". the steering was great at 5/64" but the pump was still loud at above 2000 engine rpm.

After that i bought a few other power steering pumps. One from anther VW, which came in damaged, and 2 others from jeep 4.0L engines. I had a lot of conversation with the guys at PSC about all this and they told me the pressure section on the 4.7 pump was the same as the 4.0 pump, and the only change is the PRV. Supposedly there are only 3 sized pressure sections available for the TC or type 2 GM pump.

Anyways, after over a gallon of Mopar PS fluid and countless assemblies and disassembly s I decided the toss the 4.7 pump. I made new lines for the 4.0 pump and swapped it in. It was quiet right out of the gate. Now at idle the steering is improved over the VW pump, but definitely not as fast as the 4.7 pump. This leads me to believe the 4.7 pump does in fact have more displacement and it moves more fluid at low speed even with a smaller orifice (PRV is shut, or close to it at low speed). The only issue i had with the thing is now after driving it a few weeks it has developed a little bit of intermittent bearing noise. Which sucks because i was already sick of messing with it. It makes for a huge cleanup taking all that apart. Sigh

I'll get there, without and manufacturer data it just takes time.

-Mike
 
What kind of fuel economy did she do on the trip? How was the power? What would you do differently?
 
Dude -- I'm buried in calc HW and physics BS, and have very little time to work on my own BHW swap. Help a brother out with some sweet driving videos :)
Hey, sorry for the delay.

I have already done a ton with the truck, but unfortunately I have no camera man and i'm always driving.

I've been meaning to get some videos on here soon, but here are the only ones I have:

 
What kind of fuel economy did she do on the trip? How was the power? What would you do differently?
I think one of the things i would do differently would be to change around my power steering shaft location, maybe add another joint to clear the accessory drive. That or maybe use the transverse car's accessory 6-rib drive. Not sure how that would work out though without seeing it all side by side.

As for the fuel economy, it was somewhere in the mid 20's on the trip. It was 26 on the first fill, but then my speedometer cable broke so that was unfortunate. I downloaded a GPS app for distance traveled, but I was having too much fun to keep it going consistently.
 
A little help would save me a bunch of time on this one...

Where is the washer fluid reservoir usually on a 78? I've been looking for the wiring to tap into for my new washer fluid tank, but haven't started to trace the wires yet. I searched and got overwhelmed.

Here is the tank's location for attention:

upload_2018-10-24_15-25-48.png


And one of the truck for good luck :) :

upload_2018-10-24_15-27-42.png
 
As for the power steering update, I had the guys over at PSC build me a pump to my spec:

upload_2018-10-24_15-30-20.png


Made a banjo fitting for the high pressure side:

upload_2018-10-24_15-30-52.png


After so many PS pump changes I can happily report that I was able to change the pump, and flush the fluid without spilling a drop.

I wish I had just had them build me one in the beginning, but having tested so many configurations allowed me to hone in on a perfectly matched component for my steering system. I am very happy with the result, and the guys i dealt with at PSC went above and beyond so I'm happy to give them my money.

Here is the steering shaft clearance I mentioned earlier:
upload_2018-10-24_15-37-8.png


Believe it or not this was the biggest constraint with the engines location in the compartment.
 
Met a bunch of cool people at Turf n' Surf:

View attachment 1754056

Added a front swaybar:
View attachment 1754064

Got new tires and went camping in Baja:

View attachment 1754057

Lowered the front:
View attachment 1754061

Heard a change in pitch from the transfer case and found out it was time to go under the knife:
View attachment 1754068

To be continued....
Wow, Cool build and trip. Would you happen to have more information on that Front Swaybar? Thanks, Guy
 
Here's the only video I have with the new setup in the dirt:



This is a quick after work sunset run down the street from me.
 
Wow, Cool build and trip. Would you happen to have more information on that Front Swaybar? Thanks, Guy
I built the swaybar setup utilizing a lot of parts from TeraFlex.

Here are some shots of it when disconnected:

upload_2018-10-25_10-31-1.png


Here is the disconnect knob from TeraFlex:
upload_2018-10-25_10-32-11.png


I'm not one to take a lot of pictures, so I had to dig deep to find this one that shows the apparatus soon after I built it 18 months ago:

'
upload_2018-10-25_10-38-30.png


You can see it here with the lights mounted off the brackets; a change I made recently:
upload_2018-10-25_10-41-44.png


Its a 32 spline 1.5" solid bar. Its great when the top is on, especially with a RTT. There is very little body roll with this puppy locked up. Driving the truck goes from regular SOA FJ40 feel to modern 1 ton truck feel. If I had to quantify it, it would be like driving my dads 2003 F350 with the sway bar connected. Completely different road manners.

-Mike
 
washer reservoir : yellow arrow on a 77 and red arrow on a 79 , your 78 is problably like the 77

View attachment 1817047

I've been digging around in the 77 location and had no luck. I'm going to pull the battery this weekend, I remember wrapping a pigtail up under there...

I will take some pictures of the pigtails, maybe you guys can help me identify whats for what. I've been slowly figuring it out in the background, but never really focused on it.

Thanks,

Mike
 
My high altitude '77 OEM washer bottle's location.
IMG_0311.JPG




I removed and opted to install a carb cooling fan.
IMG_1394.jpg


I think the '77 washer bottle has a L & LY (light blue & light blue/yellow stripe) wire connector, seen dangling free in the photo below.
IMG_0379.JPG
 
My high altitude '77 OEM washer bottle's location.
View attachment 1817551



I removed and opted to install a carb cooling fan.
View attachment 1817554

I think the '77 washer bottle has a L & LY (light blue & light blue/yellow stripe) wire connector, seen dangling free in the photo below.
View attachment 1817555
Now that's a good looking engine compartment!

What are those two green connectors on the drivers side inner fender? I have those as well. One has at least 4 pins?

Thanks,

Mike
 
Now that's a good looking engine compartment!

What are those two green connectors on the drivers side inner fender? I have those as well. One has at least 4 pins?

Thanks,

Mike

Thanks...The green connectors are for some of the original smog stuff, when the engine compartment looked like this.
140311-11.JPG
 
I made a quick GoPro video of the over the road performance of the truck today:



Best I can tell 0-60 is around 13 seconds without trying to kill it with a hard launch or bang gears. It's plenty fast enough for me, and it has impressed everyone I've given a ride so far. The diesel has so much torque it feels really quick, but its still a 4cyl diesel in a 4900lb land cruiser on 37's after all :)

It really does look slow in video's especially compared to the ones of my car though haha


Also I finally got around to truing up the power steering/York drive pulley in the lathe (had a coworker school me on proper 4 jaw technique :) ):
Also here's a video of the York 210 filling up my 7 gallon air compressor from 0-115PSIG at idle:



After the video I found a slit in an air hose leaking badly, but I doubt it would affect the time by too much.

When I aired down the truck last time to 4PSIG it took me 3 mins 12 seconds to fill all 4 to 30PSIG. I love the York.

Hopefully my next videos will be throwing up some rooster tails at Turf and Surf in Pismo Beach in a few weeks. My dad's coming out so its going to be awesome!
 
Are you running a cooler on your York or is the cooler for powers steering?
 
Are you running a cooler on your York or is the cooler for powers steering?

I originally had a copper coil to cool the air coming from the compressor, but it wouldn't be pretty with the new setup. Its not intended to be, and it doesn't have much internal surface area, but this PS cooler I added inline does seem to drop the temperature of the air flowing through it considerably.

-Mike
 

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