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

[Godfather90]

Hello All,

This Thread will contain two parts, one being the overview of the truck i just put together, and the other outlining my drive from New York back to California.

Here's the Trip I have planned that starts next Friday (8/3/18) and continues (Hopefully) until 8/20/18:

Its going to be around 5,000 miles on this new build. I have completed~500 shake down miles already.

Now to keep this tech-appropriate i should move onto the truck:

The past few months I completed (well this stuff is never complete ) a powertrain refit in my 78 FJ40 I purchased off this board last May. I bought the truck from the previous owner in New Mexico, brought it to California, and did a bunch of work to it until February of this year. I had purchased the truck initially with the intention of doing this project, but decided to play around with it for a few months first. I shipped the truck to my Dad's in New York in February to get started. I live in California, so i have flown back and fourth many time to get the work done (Dad refuses to work on my stuff when I'm gone ).

Without any further adue, here are a few pictures from the project:

When I first bought it, driving through Utah with my Momma:

Not fitting very well in my garage in California :

Some of the minor rust repair:

Looks like its 5 pictures per post so to be continued...

 

[Godfather90]

I will skip the previous powertrain details but try to get you up to speed before we start on the latest:

3.5" straight through exhaust was mostly retained:

Some gauges and switches and stereo:

Some suspension work:

My Dad flew out and we did the Rubicon for my birthday present:

Fast forward a bunch of exterior work and went to Surf n' Turf:

To be continued....

 

[Godfather90]

Met a bunch of cool people at Turf n' Surf:

Added a front swaybar:

Got new tires and went camping in Baja:

Lowered the front:

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

To be continued....

 

[SAB]

This. Will. Be. Awesome.

Best of luck man. You'll never forget this trip.

 

[Godfather90]

Those are the cliffs to bring us to where the latest project began:

I knew there was a bad bearing in the transfer case, so I parked the truck before it was too far gone to get on and off a hauler. Off to New York she went:

We have an endless supply of low mileage beat up cars from NYC near where i grew up. I picked up the donor 2004 VW TDI Passat and flew to NY to get to work:

Straight off the hauler and into the snowbank because why not:

After a washing session cleaning the USA off the old truck it came apart (now you know why I like my dad's garage better than mine ):

To be continued...

 

[Godfather90]

Now I am uploading the time lapse videos of this work right now, so I will add these links later when i figure out how. This is the first time writing online about one of my projects so please bear with me

For future reference Here's what the old powertrain looked like before removal:

Transmission, transfer case, and reduction box out:

Engine out:

Sitting high in the front again

My Dad likes to use his little fork truck
I was seriously freezing my booty off after pressure washing the truck like this in the snow!

More on the way...

 

[Godfather90]

The Donor goes under the knife:

There was some beer involved in this part, so i didn't get many pictures! I will share the time lapse video's though!
Here is my buddy Eric helping me get the new Engine on the stand:

My buddy Paul was on loom removal duty (He wasn't to thrilled!):

All the dirty stuff getting cleaned before disassembly:

This thing was seriously gross:

More on the way...

 

[imyahucklbrry]

 

[Godfather90]

Here's one of the donor transmissions (Late model Asin AX15):

Two more donor gearboxes:
For those unfamiliar- H42 original to the truck mated to a 10 spline marlin Crawler ToyBox, mated to a 4.0 Orion transfer case. (Right)
R151F coupled to 23 spline R1fa transfer case. This one has a bit of internal work done to it. (Left)

New engine:
This engine is nearly 500lbs lighter than the previous engine. I will discuss my reasoning behind this selection later on.

Orion separated from the ToyBox:

The dirty little secret that gave me the final nudge into this project:

Not done yet!

 

[Godfather90]

Here's some more pictures of the failure:

Initial observation upon disassembly is that there was a spacer missing between the output of the ToyBox, and the input gear of the Orion. This was letting the Orion input gear walk back and fourth on the splined shaft.

Luckily the unobtanium splined output shaft escaped unscathed:

Now initial failure analysis of the bearing showed elongated grooves in the outer race. This normally means that the bearing failed due to excess thrust loading. After studying the assembly there should be little thrust being applied to this bearing (only the thrust being applied by the helical cut transfer case bearing, but this is being applied in the manner as designed). I could not see how the missing spacer would result in this type of excess loading either. It was a little unsettling not knowing why it would fail in such a way, but i did find out later. I will explain when we get to that part of the thread

 

[Godfather90]

Now here's the weigh savings going from the 4 speed H42 transmission to the Aisin based 5 speed transmission:

That's a 73 lb reduction on the transmission alone!

So here's where things got fun (for me )
The R1fa based transfer case utilized in the Toyota "Mini-Trucks" is where the Marlin ToyBox was derived.
My plan was to use the evasive R151F tailhousing to mate to my own ToyBox and use this combination to mate to the Orion.

Here's step #1:

Boom:

I opted to utilize a 2.3:1 reduction gear set over the 4.7:1 originally fitted to the ToyBox. I will explain this later as well.

So there it is. A 38 lb reduction box and adapter to connect my Asin transmission to my Orion transfer case.

Doing this also allows me to use the previously fabricated trans mission mount as my datum. By using this datum i can re-use many of the original ancillaries such as the drive shafts sifters parking brake etc.

More on the way...

 

[Godfather90]

After the transfer case pictures were taken in the previous post I flew back to California with this in my carry on bag:

I figured this is one of the things i can work on while away from the truck.

A few weeks later I came back to NY and the ole girl was waiting in storage:

I sold all these goodies to a very nice semi-local fellow:

The nice thing about taking these long breaks between working on the truck is you get ample time to plan, be organized, and most of all spend lots of money. Its nice to have things waiting for you, but its hard to know what will and wont show up on time, and what comes in wrong, or doesn't work the way intended.

Here's some stuff waiting for me:

More stuff to come...

 

[Godfather90]

The next task was to work on the transmission,transfer case, and reduction box assembly.

I started with the transfer case, because i couldn't stop thinking about that bearing failure while i was away. New bearing to replace the used one i pressed on for mock-up (notice the backlash take-up gear):

Plugging the old shift rail hole (a lot of people foget this step )

Assembling case halves:

Assigning the missing spacer (a recycled thrust washer from another application):

Next victim:

Continued...

 

[FloridaPhillip]

More stuff to come...tonight? C’mon, let’s do this thing!!

 

[Godfather90]

On to the Orion assembly:

Notice the thrust wear from the input shaft hitting the cast iron case:

I didn't trust this little stud, so i used lock-tight and saftely wire to retain it:

It was after i got the two cases together when i noticed something fishy:

The Bearing at the rear of the Orion was the wrong size for the input shaft all along:

This is the reason for the failure of the bearing at the other end of this shaft. The shaft is retained by a large stake nut at the end, which locks it to the inner race of this bearing seen above. The inner race being too large allows the shaft to "wag" and not be aligned at the time of tightening. once the nut is tightened the shaft is locked into this eccentric rotation applying a huge force against the race of the bearing opposite (the one that ultimately failed).

more on the way...

 

[Godfather90]

After next day air parts from California (Thanks Georg for answering my inquiries on a weekend ) we got her back together. (I actually couldn't wait so i pressed the bearing in with the transmission in the truck the next evening )

Had to do this to clear the 4.0 Gear set (very close):

Later that day i got onto the transmission:

Yada yada yada then boom it was all built up with a 10 spline chevy input shaft:

The money shot:

And in she went...

 

[Godfather90]

Tunnel Mock-up:

Starter Clearance (had to cut a hole here and didnt want contamination in the bell housing):

External slave clutch fork, and clearance from the front:

Toyota to -an adapter made:

More coming..

 

[Godfather90]

Clutch plumbing done:
(this is my favorite part of a swap)

New bearing arrived, and was driven in:
(i monitored the pre-load on the back side to prevent over-driving the bearing)

Engine mated the first time:

Dad expressing his concern over turbocharger placement:

Don't worry Dad

Engine alignment for drive flanges:

More on the way...

 

[Godfather90]

I utilized big block Chevy engine mounts because i have had good luck in the past, and the availability is superb.
Tension-side engine mount:

Compression side:

Rattle can'ed:

More to come...

 

[Godfather90]

Preliminary radiator fitment, and measurement for charge cooler:

After these photo's it was back to CA for me

More to come...