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

[Godfather90]

This is the part that makes the largest difference:

Cut down the pillow block bearing for clearance to get it to float better int he firewall opening. (quick and dirty this part was)

Installed isolators and some thicker gaskets:

Glued the gaskets/weather stripping:

Installed the hats:

All installed:

I put the OEM gasket behind (under) the isolator hats. The softer door seal allows a lot of free movement. I also tweaked the hat a bit to allow the lower steering wheel position.

I wish I took a video before and after! AN enormous difference in vibration. When I first fired the truck up afterwards I thought I left something disconnected because there is absolutely no engine vibration transmitted through the steering wheel anymore. Before it was getting to be annoying, jingling my key chain violently at idle. You could see the steering wheel vibrating with about a 1/4" amplitude at idle before. Just off idle it would be perfectly smooth, but still I didn't like it at all. An additional benefit after driving the truck 400 miles last weekend is the harshness of the road it greatly diminished. Before I could feel every seam in the road through the steering, now it just glides right over it all.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

 

[HandForged]

Just tagging in to get updates

 

[Godfather90]

Maybe I’m just being anal about it! I read in the spec that I’m about 2 degrees too steep in the front and the opposite in the rear.

Maybe I'm just being anal!

My engine is between 7-8* leaning back so I've been looking to make it ~5* which I think is going to be the happiest place for it.

Here are my crude drawings (sorry made this while I was on my back under the truck):
View attachment 1978616

And then here are the current angles:
View attachment 1977950

After my proposed changes:
View attachment 1978084

There's some wiggle room there, so well see how much I can move it before things start to get close. I'll be sure to post my measurements after the changes.

-Mike

So I guess I'm a bit overdue for an update. You guys are going to get the cliff notes so if anyone wants more information give me a holler.

On the topic of the transfer case angles above, I did take care of this back in September of last year:

Made new passenger side engine mount "bucket":

Made new driver side engine mount "bucket":

New transfer case mount cross-member:

Made a quickie mod to the battery tray:

 

[Godfather90]

I got a little overzealous with the angle grinder and took a bit off the middle finger:

They sewed it back on so back to work:

Raised the transfer case up 1.75" along with re- aligning the engine up front for more power steering pump clearance.

Changed the valve cover to that of a different application for better PCV routing location:

Did a valvetrain inspection while i was in there- everything looks like its bedded in very well.

Buttoned back up:

Started on the new charge pipes:

 

[Godfather90]

More charge pipe work:

Started on the new inlet pipe:

New PCV condenser:

 

[Godfather90]

Condenser finished:

Inlet finished:

Buttoning up:

Blew a charge pipe coupler on the test drive:

 

[Godfather90]

Had some new clamps made:

Wheeled it a bunch:

 

[Godfather90]

More wheeling:

And then I ran out of talent:

 

[mattressking]

One of my favorite trucks, really cool seeing what you dig into.

 

[Godfather90]

I showed up to Glamis sand dunes for the first time and flew my buddy out from NY for the trip. We drove out there and arrived at around 10PM.

We proceeded to drink adult beverages and decided to explore the dunes at night (bad idea..)

Anyways I messed up pretty big and got a little too much air and this was the result:

I limped back to camp that night and came up with a plan during my time by the campfire. I found a guy with an enormous hydraulic jack.

No one thought it could be done!

I bent the front axle back.

Then we proceeded to enjoy the rest of our time in the dunes:

 

[Godfather90]

Now I took it to the nearest alignment shop on the way back from the dunes and was actually able to bend it back within spec out there in the sand.

As an engineer I would never bee able to leave it like that so this is where I started down the rabbit hole:

 

[Godfather90]

Wasn't much time for pictures as it was time for the King of the Hammers race and my buddy needed help. We worked side by side helping each other and we both made it in time.

At the race I tore up my traction bar mount:

Predictable type of failure on this type of joint in tension.

 

[Godfather90]

After KOH was over I had a list of stuff I wanted to do:

 

[Godfather90]

 

[Godfather90]

New vs old:

First I wanted to get the rear geometry where I wanted it:

Made up a new spring pack from old FJ60 and late FJ40 parts :

Epoxy and wax makes a huge difference:

Right about where I wanted it:

 

[Godfather90]

Onto the traction bar:

Wrapped the axle with 5/16" plate by using a piece of angle iron iron the back of the truss, and a piece of plate over the front of the truss:

Needed my buddies 220v service for this job.

Fitted the plates:

Welded them on and added a skid for the bottom of the housing as well:

Made up a front mount that was 10" further forward than the original mount. Its about as long as I could make it and still be able to drop the transfer case out. I would have to pull the rear cone cover to do it now, but the extra length is worth it.

Stuck it on there:

 

[Godfather90]

Made up the new bars. Tacked in place to check flex on my buddies Bobcat skidsteer:

No binding at all so I melted it together:

Ok so that brought us to right about the beginning of this COVID-19 deal.


To break it all down here's what I did:

The front axle-
I brought the axle to by buddy's garage where we straightened and trussed it all up. Then I decided to do a cut and turn. It was a huge pain in the ass getting it all where it needed to be. I used some flat keyed steering arms from Diamond axle. They are too thin to accommodate the proper depth of the Toyota taper. They are also too narrow to get the proper ackermann angle for a truck with less than a 120" wheelbase:

If anyone interested in learning more about that let me know, otherwise I'll leave it be. I was however able to make some parts in the mill and lathe to make the steering arms work. I set the front axle up with +1.2 degrees of camber, and 7* of caster along with 90% ackermann angle.

Moving forward from the axle housing I found this later on:

 

[Godfather90]

Not I had already replaced these upper trunion pins so I didn't look to closely to them until later on. I decided to change to the 25mm pins that Marlin crawler sells after this discovery.

With he solid 1.5" front swaybar It was a bit too stiff for the truck. It was increasingly apparent with the top off. This was the reasoning behind making longer arms. I attached the new arms outboard of the front shocks. The front shocks are mounted on the rear of the axle as you can see here:

Now this allows the steering to clear the arms with the additional steering angle of the new setup.

I changed the shocks on all 4 corners to Rancho 9000s because both fronts had exploded with my little trip through the sky in Glamis.

I had changed the axles to 300m RCV's and used stock hub gears to act as the fuse in the front end. I also build a new ARB front third member. I have spare assembled locking hubs in the tool bag for a trail side repair.

Other little things included the steering stops- I opted to have a more forgiving collapsible steering stop. In the event of a severe binding situation I would prefer the steering stops to fail rather than another front axle housing. I also added skid plats on both front and rear housings, along with the front of the front housing. I mounted the PSC ram In a different location to accommodate the new tie height relative to the new castor angle.

The flat steering arms allow for 4" of front compression at ride height with 7* of castor.

Because I mount my shock absorbers to the rear of the front axle the original shock towers are too far forward. I made extended pins for the upper location to fix the geometry as in the pictures of the previous posting.

The traction bar was too short before allowing excessive lifting force during high load situations. The was most evident when climbing with wheelspin, or in the sand. The longer arm provides less lifting force and much less "bounce" in these situations. I built the lower tube to be parallel to the driveshaft to protect it.

 

[Godfather90]

Onto more recent projects:

I replaced the fuel tank with a larger unit:

At the same time I made a new seat frame and modified the seat frames themselves to allow the passenger seat to be 1.5" lower than previously:

While I was in there I built a new heater box for blow the center console:

 

[Godfather90]

Replacing the fuel tank also resulted in me losing my sub woofer enclosure mounted under the seat. I decided to get a little sneaky:

Completely hidden:

10" powered drivers were a little excessive after testing them out so I added these: