My 84 BJ60, the Nipperwagon. SOA, 35''s, Locked.

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looks good dude, body work would have been easier if you just did the cruiser white roof. Thats what im thinking of doing for mine.
 
Having two weeks off from school during Christmas has definitely given me time to put some work into the truck, so less talk and more picture.

I got the snorkel for Christmas. On a badass scale of 1-10 it's a solid 7.5.
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Holy s***! the truck has an arch again.:D
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This is pretty much that main reason I haven't actually dug into the rust fixing. I hate huge rust holes in tough to work places. The lower inner wheel well is pretty much not connected to anything anymore, a couple twists and the whole peice would probably break off. And yes that is an 85, with no rust.
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Finnally got some rigidity back into the whole thing. I was going to cut these lower quarters out completely but decided to fix them. In behind is one sheet of steel that is welded everywhere I could. I used some JB weld in the inside of the wheel well to seal it up knowing that it's going to get a lot of mud, salt, and snow thrown at it and I don't want it leaking. From there it got sealed throughly with an automotive sealer meant for these conditions; I forget what it's called.
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You can see I used what what left of the lower lip and brought the sheet of steel down low enough. Now I have a lip to wrap fiberglass around and use to form the body. You can see what it looked like under that patch.
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I build the rest of the arch down, it's coming along very nicely! I'm very pleased with the progress.
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First coat of fiberglass. I started by laying cloth inside the wheel well and wrapping it out, then outside wrapping in, hoping to seal it completely as best as possible. I intend to use as little bondo as possible, and so far with the metal that has been welded in the bodylines are looking great!
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Looking good Spence, Glad shes getting some body love. Hows alberta as far as cops giving out vehicle inspections? I had to do some silly stuff to get my lancer alberta approved when switching from bc to ab insurance. Do they pull vehicles off the road often? Grand prairie was hillbilly farm truck heaven and seemed like lots of old wrecks drove around with no issue.
 
Alberta is super chill when it comes to vehicle condition. Insurance inspections are super easy to pass (if you can't pass them you really shouldn't be on the road). It covers basic things like horn, lights, ebrake, front end, and brake pads. I've never had an issue with the cops because of the condition of the body. I did get a speeding ticket a few months back (yes, a speeding ticket in a BJ60) and he lightly brought up that I should have mudflaps, but didn't care. The only time I get pulled over for mudflaps and stuff is when a cop is bored on a weekend and wants to bug a young dude for an easy pull-over.

Hell, cops don't even comment that I have three 12ga buck shot shells on my CB antenna.

When you moved over provinces you went through an Out of Province Inspection, they are pretty stringent; it's like a 350ish point inspection that covers almost everything on the vehicle.
 
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So last Friday I hopped into my truck, started it up and let it run for a few minutes. I backed out of my stall and just after I get into 2nd gear I hear a clunk-clunk-clunk coming from the rear end. I didn't know what it was, but it sure as hell sounded like a tooth was missing off the ring. Great, I just had the whole rear differential rebuilt in March that ran me over $2300.

When driving/accelerating any fast than 10km/h is clunks, but is quiet on deceleration. Thank God the shop that rebuild it was within 2km of school where I broke down, it hasn't stopped snowing in over a week and tow trucks are quoting over 72hours, even to a Platinum Member like me. So I hobbled the Cruiser down the freeway at a 2nd gear idle and dropped the truck off at the shop.

Later on that night, while drinking my sorrows away with a couple buddies we were discussing this situation. Remember that water hole I went through a page back, well that may have been the start to my problems. Somebody suggested that the diff could have taken on water, which separated from the oil and froze that -30C day, expanding and when I tried to move the truck it took a tooth with it. I was watching Ice Road Truckers just the other day and at -40 ice is stronger than steel, so this makes the whole thing plausible. So I crossed my fingers that the breathers did their job, the oil was clean and something else was the issue of the problem.

They opened up the diff and the ring and pinion are fine, so they pull the third member out and tear into that. I'm now worried because if something is found broken that is not covered under warranty, then I'm going to have a big bill on my hands, and being in school I have no money.

When I went in to follow up today they had tore apart the locker and found that one of the spider gear thrust washers was broken and another was half way out the door. By the sounds of it the pin was not installed properly for these spider gears. The installed new spider gears when they rebuilt the diff, so as of now I'm covered by warranty.

As you can see, #19 is the thrust washers that were damaged. Is there a special way to install the pin that they might have messed up, is there any insight I can give them?

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yikes man that sucks. Make any progress on figuring anything out? maybe you just got bad luck with rear end parts?
 
I really need to get in the loop of things and post up more updates. Every week this truck is getting new stuff, if it's not fixing broken stuff or upgrading to better stuff.

This looks a bit stronger than the stock steering system.:D .250 DOM tie rods, 80 series tie rod ends, beefier pitman arm and knuckle arms. And to make it even better the tie rod is brought above the leafs.
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I bought a cheap pitman arm puller from Princess Auto, and not to my surprise it exploded under the tension and the pitman arm didn't even move. I then went out to a local industrial supplier and bought a professional forged puller. I've been WD'ing the pitman for the past week, and sat there with heat on it for almost 5 minutes before trying the new puller. I had a 4 foot snipe on the ratchet and I could hardly move it anymore, I figured at this point if I went any further either the ratchet or puller was going to break, it wasn't going to be the arm. While it was under tension I put the acetylene torch to it for some more heat.

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BANG!!

I prepared myself for it to let buck, but it still scared the s*** outta me! After pulling the puller off it turned out the threads were all damaged from the tension on the puller. I'll be returning this tomorrow. I cleaned all the threads up on the steering box output shaft, and coated the new pitman arm in grease before slipping it on.

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I did my own alignment, and it's perfect. If you take two pins, poke them into each front tire. From there roll the pins to the front at the same height as the hub from the ground, take a measurement from pin to pin (tire to tire). Then roll the pins to the back of the tire, same height, take your measurement. If the rear is farther apart than the front, you have toe in, vice versa is toe out. Take your two measurements, find the difference/2 and now you know how much you need to adjust your tie rod. After adjusting keep checking the front and rear of tire measurements until you have 0 toe (same measurements). Tighten up your tie rod and check again.

Now stand back as far as possible and eye out when you think your tires are straight by adjusting your drag link, then tighten it up. You are going to be off, I guarantee it. Take the truck for a drive around town, and on flat pavement you will be able to tell how far your steering wheel is off, for example 10 o'clock 4 o'clock when it should be 9 and 3. Go back home and put your steering wheel to 10 o'clock 4 o'clock, and adjust your drag link until your steering wheel is straight. You're done! Mine turned out perfect, the steering wheel is straighter than when the last shop did the alignment and toe is bang on zero.
 
Who makes that flex-a-arch? I'm in the states and would like to find me some for my project. I have the same problem with mine, not quit that bad, but bad enough.
Yours is looking great BTW:cheers:

Mike
 
Who makes that flex-a-arch? I'm in the states and would like to find me some for my project. I have the same problem with mine, not quit that bad, but bad enough.
Yours is looking great BTW:cheers:

Mike

I picked mine up from Canadian Tire, which is pretty much a Canadian Wal-Mart with a decent automotive section. I know I've seen the stuff at body shop supply stores everywhere, you would definitely have a few of those in your area. You should also have CMAX in the States, its NAPA's autobody store.
 
i used to eat hachis for breakfast lol unless they had the same engine as me. you'll like the SR20 my friend has one in his 86 if he was a better driver he could smash on me lol
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sexy is the perfect word for it lol. it is quite fun, and expensive. i do autocross as well but this is drifting. aka Dori
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sorry for stealing the thread, no more pictures unless asked. I can help with the SR swap if you want.
 
Right on Spence, did you get the diff thing sorted out? Where abouts did you get your hysteer setup? trailgear?
 

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