My '74 40 Build Thread

[Chamba]

Fantastic rig! I love the '74; one of my favourite years for US-Spec Cruisers. I assume yours is a California model, so four speed too?

I have the HEI in mine and LOVE it. The difference was night and day. I now have about 15,000 miles on it and still love it to death; no problems and smooth as silk. I put in Champion plugs with the four prongs on the end (can't think of the name just now...) and low resistance wires and I am certain I gained close to ten horsepower (though I did not Dino it) and my fuel economy went up about 1 MPG on average (I have an app on my phone, so it is fairly accurate). Of course, my rig is Australian-spec, so still had points in 1984 and the vacuum advance was dead, so not a fair comparison to stock. My '83 FJ40 was US Spec and felt pretty similar in terms of power.

How bad is the rust under that diamond plate? Are you going to repair it or leave it covered? Not a big fan of the plate myself, but the rest of your truck is absolutely awesome - nice find!! LOVE the FST tailgate.

 

[mricker33]

Yep, CA model 4 speed. The more I drive it the more I think the Holley 350 needs to go. Everyone I talk to describes a big difference when upgrading to the HEI and I just didn't see it.

There actually is no rust under the diamond plate. I would take them off but the previous owner cut the fenders with the intent of hiding his rough cut with the diamond plate.

Fantastic rig! I love the '74; one of my favourite years for US-Spec Cruisers. I assume yours is a California model, so four speed too?

I have the HEI in mine and LOVE it. The difference was night and day. I now have about 15,000 miles on it and still love it to death; no problems and smooth as silk. I put in Champion plugs with the four prongs on the end (can't think of the name just now...) and low resistance wires and I am certain I gained close to ten horsepower (though I did not Dino it) and my fuel economy went up about 1 MPG on average (I have an app on my phone, so it is fairly accurate). Of course, my rig is Australian-spec, so still had points in 1984 and the vacuum advance was dead, so not a fair comparison to stock. My '83 FJ40 was US Spec and felt pretty similar in terms of power.

How bad is the rust under that diamond plate? Are you going to repair it or leave it covered? Not a big fan of the plate myself, but the rest of your truck is absolutely awesome - nice find!! LOVE the FST tailgate.

 

[mricker33]

Metal Tech Cage Part 1

After a ton a research and talking directly with several manufacturers and re-sellers, I opted for a Metal Tech Cage. Although I enjoy welding in my garage, I don't do it frequently enough to weld my own cage. I was pretty sure I would end up with a cage that was a little racked and had some welds that I was not too happy with so I ordered the fully welded cage from MT. Their web site lets you pick some of the basic options then they follow up with a phone call or two to make sure everything comes out the way you want it to. I added the frame connection kit and seat belt mounts but opted out of the dash cross bar. I e-mailed the attached picture I found on Mud of a B pillar seat bolt connection and sent one of my seat belts to the shop for fit up. It came out really well and my seat belt actually made it back to me.

LT and Brandon told me to expect 2 weeks and it went slightly longer than that but I was very happy with the quality when it arrived. The cage arrived on a pallet, banded and shrink wrapped. I had mine shipped to work so we could use a fork lift but 4 guys could easily handle it. There was a little welding slag that had to be cleaned up prior to painting but overall it looked great. I sent mine off to the powder-coater then next day.

I snapped some pics of my Cruiser with the old cage off. It looked awesome.

 

[tawright]

Nice work. I have a '74 as well with a similar look.

 

[mricker33]

Metal Tech Cage Part 2

After the cage came back from the powder coater I picked up some hardware. MT recommends 3/8" x 1 1/2" bolts.

I grabbed 3 coworkers and we walked the cage from the back of the truck into place. It takes a little work to get it up an over the seats and to fish the base plate around the dash pad and steering wheel. Taking the seats out first is probably a good idea.

Once you drill the 4 holes for each side of the A pillar, the bottom plate utilized for the frame connection lines up well and the bolts can be dropped through and tightened. I attached a picture taken of the floor well and underside of the truck.

The rear is a little more complicated. My '74 had a factory cage with holes in the tub that matched up with a nut on the bottom. 4 holes line up with the cage on each side. What I found with my Cruiser was that the factory bolts were too large in diameter to go through the predrilled holes in the MT plate. If you are not going to run a frame connection kit then drilling out the roll cage base plate and using the existing bolt holes as they are, would be the way to go. Since my cage is going to have a matching plate on the bottom of the tub for the frame kit tube to weld to, I temporarily used 3/8" bolts that pass through the factory nuts just to make sure everything is right. Once I've checked the fit, seat belts, etc, I'll grind those nuts off and replace them with the MT plate. A picture is attached of the underside with the nuts in place but utilizing the 3/8" bolts that pass through the predrilled hole.

 

[mricker33]

Metal Tech Cage Part 3

First pic was right after we set the cage in place. The next one is in the driveway. You'll notice the windshield is down. I was actually removing the KC lights from either side. The cage is great and I'm very happy with the seat belt locations. A couple things that I learned in the process.

(1) if you are going to go with aftermarket seats and run a Metal Tech cage, upgrade to the reclining/flip forward versions. Climbing into my back seat is a little ridiculous. Obviously if you stay with jump seats you can get it from the back.

(2) it seems to me that the cage should connect to the windshield. It may be different once I put the SOR family top on but without a hard top, my windshield wiggles a little. A tab on the cage that allows you to run some bolts into the windshield frame would be really easy for MT to add. Take a look at the pic below.

 

[TrailRunner40]

Nice write up and great looking rig you got there. I have a '74 as well and am planning on the HEI and cage upgrades as well.

 

[mricker33]

Specter Off Road Family Top

With the Metal Tech cage and rear bench seat installed, I had to get rid of the old bikini top (it's for sale by the way for $50) and come up with something to provide a little protection from the weather.

I looked at various tops and made sure to scope out every Cruiser I saw running a soft top before I landed on Specter's Family Top. http://www.sor.com/cat272b.sor $130 seems pretty reasonable for what you get. The quality of the top is good and there are 5 locations that attach the canvas to the top in addition to the tiger channel. There is one in the very center of the top, one at each B pillar as well as the two long straps at the back of the top to cinch it all in place. My truck was a factory soft top so I could utilize the factory bows at the rear for those. The family top ships with 2 bows and screws for the factory hard top Cruisers without bows. The nylon strap locations actually seem like they were coordinated with the Metal Tech cage.

The one issue I have with the package is the tiger channel. It may be a universal channel sold by Bestop for Jeeps and Cruiser. It sticks past the windshield frame on each side and the instructions include a note stating that it's by design to allow the top to wrap past the edge of the windshield and cage but then the top itself isn't quite wide enough to do that, leaving almost an inch of channel on each side sticking out past the edge of the top.

The other issue with the channel is the fastening method. It comes punched with slotted holes and screws. The instructions state to find the center of the windshield, mark the holes and drill into your windshield frame to screw on the channel. The painted, pan head screws are not the greatest quality either. In laying out my channel and evaluating drilling into my windshield frame, I noticed that all the factory hard top threaded holes would work fine. My truck never had a top but the windshield frames must all be the same so I opted to drill new holes in the channel and bolt mine in place. I've tried to capture all that in pictures.

Lastly a warning to anyone that has not run a bikini or larger single piece soft top. They flap, a lot. My bikini top flapped some and this top flaps about twice as much since it's twice the size. It really doesn't start until about 40 mph but once you get moving it's pretty loud. It seems like a few more connections or some velcro on the cage/top could really minimize the flapping.

 

[mricker33]

Replacing the Instrument Cluster / Small Electrical Fire

The instrument cluster in my Cruiser came painted black from the previous owner. The paint job was not the greatest and was starting the flake off. In the box of spare parts that came with the truck was another instrument cluster in the stock gray color so I figured I would swap them this afternoon. My speedometer didn't work in the old painted cluster so I figured, I would be killing 2 birds with one stone . It turned out to be not that straight forward.

I pulled the old cluster, disconnecting the speedo, multi-pin connector and a positive and negative lead on the right hand side of the cluster. As I started to swap in the replacement I noticed some differences between the two. The spare part cluster had a 3 prong connector which I'm guessing controls the lights. I figured if the speedo worked, I would come back and sort out the lights another time. The studs on the + and - connections were also smaller on the replacement cluster. After looking at the two even closer, on my cluster the terminals appeared to only pass through the amp meter but on the new one they seem to connect the circuit board on the back of the cover.

I pressed on and connected the multi-pin connector, speedo and + and - leads. I fished it into place and screwed it in. When I turned the key to On, the temp and fuel gauges moved into position. The amp meter buried at -50 amps for some reason and when I turned the key to start the truck, things got interesting. A small fire started in the amp-meter causing smoke to fill the gauge. The truck wouldn't start either. I pulled the cluster and and the truck still wouldn't start.

I couldn't really figure out what happened and the amp meter from one cluster wouldn't swap into the other so I did what I probably should have done from the start and swapped the face from the replacement cluster onto the face of the old one. Unfortunately the speedo still doesn't work so it must be an issue with the cable. If you want to test the speedometer in your cluster, take a screw gun, set it in reverse, stick the tip into the receiver and pull the trigger. Mine worked fine on both.

Now that I have the original cluster back in place with a replacement face, none of the gauges work. I checked the fuses and the look fine. Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[mricker33]

I haven't been able to solve my instrument cluster issue. It's still not working but I did notice the lights inside the cluster work and dim but none of the instruments work. My parking brake light on the dash and headlights are also not working. Heater fan and parking lights do work. Double checked all the fuses under the dash and they look fine and check for continuity. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[mricker33]

Trollhole Carb Install Part 1

Received a new Trollhole carb the other day. I also ordered a factory style carb insulator from Classic Cruisers http://www.classiccruisers.com/

Looks like I have a few issues to work out to get the carb installed. From what I can tell, the connection on the factory carb insulator is for the PCV but the shaft on the carb conflicts with it.

Has anyone come up with a solution that does not involve trimming the shaft?

My Holley carb has a rubber fuel line where the Trollhole needs a metal line with a fitting on the end.

Is the best solution here to find an original fuel line and bend it to match up to the Trollhole fuel inlet? Are there are approaches that work better?

 

[mricker33]

Trollhole Carb Install Part 2

Just completed the Trollhole carb install to replace my old Holley.

1. It's well covered on this thread but you need to order a stock carb insulator with a top and bottom gasket. I sourced mine from Classic Cruisers.

http://www.classiccruisers.com/

2. You'll need a new throttle cable. The previous owner converted my throttle linkage to cable setup but the Holley throttle pulls straight back towards the fire wall and does not have a threaded end on the cable housing. I ordered one from SOR, part # 042-04B-EC . You'll need to purchase (2) 1/2" nuts and washers. The cable doesn't come with them.

3. The stock choke cable works fine and the carb comes with a bracket to clamp down on the cable housing.

4. I needed to purchase a new PCV hose since the Holley used a smaller line than the 7/16" one that comes off of the carb insulator. The one I received from Specter fits onto the crankcase side but not the carb insulator. Temporarily I have a larger hose cranked down onto the carb insulator fitting with a hose gasket.

5. You'll have to trim the carb shaft because it fouls with the PCV fitting on the insulator. See the pictures below. Not ideal but it seems to be the best option.

6. You can remove the studs from the intake manifold adapter that attaches the Holley and reuse them to connect the carb to the manifold but I found them to be a little short so I purchased used studs from Specter.

7. I was able to locate the original wire for the idle circuit poking through the firewall above the valve cover. 12V when switched to ON. Picture included.

8. My Holley was fed with a rubber fuel line so I had to convert back to steel. I went ahead and ordered a used factory fuel line from SOR 028-13D-U . I tried to replace the entire line from fuel pump to carb by carefully bending but eventually decided to give up and trim a little piece off then connect them with 5/16" rubber hose. It seems to work just fine that way.

9. The air cleaner is tricky. The Holley carb has a 5 1/4" flange diameter so my Spectre air cleaner doesn't work with the 3 1/16" Trollhole carb. A stock air cleaner is expensive so I ordered an adapter to fit the larger air cleaner to the smaller carb. That makes the setup too tall and the hood hits the air cleaner. I've looked into K&N and similar universal 2" tall x 7" diameter air cleaners but the stud on the trollhole is offset to one side. It's not centered on the air cleaner like some carbs. For now I have my Spectre cleaner running straight to the adapter without the bottom portion of the cleaner.

 

[mricker33]

Trollhole Carb Install Part 3

More pictures