My First Landcruiser Project Journal

[sitesbyjoe]

I took the FJ out with the Southern Nevada Land Cruiser Club for it's first trail run!

I admit I had never done a trail run before so this was quite an adventure. I had never used the low gear before and tried going up a steep hill in High 4. Lesson learned there. Then I discovered how awesome Low 4 is - it's unstoppable - and we were all over Mt. Charleston which was really, really fun!!! I learned a lot about off road techniques thanks to Pete agreeing to be my navigator and school me along the way.

I now feel ready to take on all sorts of things I'm probably not ready for...

So at the end of the run we pulled over to get tires refilled and I see that something has leaked. It's the GD power steering reservoir.

When I bought the truck the reservoir was bone dry so I filled it. It also looked like the fluid had leaked all over the place so I got out the spray de-greaser stuff and cleaned everything up in the region to see what was leaking on the pump. Seems no one has had a pleasant experience with this.

Looking at the pump, it looks like it's just the reservoir leak - probably where it connects to the pump (theres an o-ring there according to the FSM) and it was oddly leaking around the top edge of the reservoir. Not the cap, but the top of the reservoir. I'll get a picture.

Anyway, I drove it home fine and parked it and haven't touched it since.

Looks like the plan is to drain the power steering system, remove the reservoir and try to figure where the heck the leak is coming from for sure and replace the o-ring with a fresh one.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Finally got to spend a few minutes replacing more vacuum lines. Some are easy, but I'm getting to the tough ones now. Ugh!

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Still many many to go. I didn't buy enough hose.

 

[Landpimp]

No reason to cut the fan shroud on a fj60, a fj62 yes...a 60 no, plenty of room to get to things

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Just ordered a new PS pump from Toyota. Now I'm mentally preparing for the most complex thing I've ever attempted on an engine ever.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Dang, power steering pump never arrived, order was cancelled as they won't send to a PO Box. I guess the new pump will have to wait a little bit longer.

I was looking through all my service manuals and the illustrations of the PS pump all very from mine slightly. The specific item is the spot where you'd loosen the tension on the belt before you start to pull the pump off.

Mine just has one at the alternator, not the PS pump like the book shows.

Guess I just need to dive in.

Anyone have any tips on tightening the belt if you don't have a tension gauge?

 

[cruiser enthuiser]

Guess I just need to dive in.

Anyone have any tips on tightening the belt if you don't have a tension gauge?

I've never used a guage, just do it by feel really. Someone told me once or maybe I read it somewhere that a properly tightened belt should deflect about 1/2" when you push down in the center of its longest span. Obviously a very general guideline but this amount of tension is what I shoot for and it seems to work out fine.

Glad to hear you've been out enjoying your rig - do this often as it makes all the work spent wrenching much more enjoyable

Cheers
-Ed

 

[sitesbyjoe]

...One of the guys from Southern Nevada Landcruiser Club warned me "be real careful with the little plastic pieces" when I mentioned getting ready to try and start swapping out vacuum lines...

So I had a few free moments today and was like "hey, I'll try to do a couple more hoses" since I had a couple feet of 3mm silicone line left. I looked around and saw I still had the couple really short line up in the front between the upper radiator hose and the one belt.

I had to kinda wedge my hand in there since it was a tight space. I pull the one of of the hose of the metal end - just fine. I go to pull it from the bottom (from BVSV1) and of course the plastic nipple broke right off. Ugh.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

So, I was pretty bummed out of course. I started looking online to 1) find out what this part was called (which I believe is BVSV1) and 2) to find a replacement. I'm thinking that supergluing it isn't gonna be a good way to go.

I'm gonna start a separate thread to ask a little more about these. I'm pretty sure this is BVSV1 and that it's similar neighbor in there is BVSV2. They don't seem to be readily available and I'm reading that one should be violet, and the other pink (#2).

This is odd, neither of mine appear to be close to those colors...not even close.

In hindsight, I probably should have removed the upper radiator hose and loosened up the belt before trying to swap these hoses. Also need to be REAL careful when I go to to BVSV2 - looking at sor.com and toyotapartdeals.com I see it's gonna be a tough one to replace!

 

[erse]

Just stumbled on your thread. fellow LV 60 owner and noob here. Impressed with all your work so far.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Big day. Finally ordered a new power steering pump, BVSV1, and the missing wingnut that goes on top of the carb/air cleaner bit!!! Preparing for the greatest adventure on an engine I've ever embarked on:

• Remove old power steering pump
• Remove old belt
• Perhaps replace the screwed up hoses etc that the pump connects to
• Clean/inspect the Smog Pump (which I see is discontinued )
• Remove that belt too
• Replace both belts

then of course I'm looking down there and I see cooling system hoses that need replacing... Maybe I'll be flushing that system out and putting on new hoses too.

Feeling pretty nervous and excited. This is where I finally put my FJ Big Boy pants on.

 

[joebattle1]

Real nice thread. Don't be afraid. Take lots of pics as you're disassembling parts. I don't know the names of half the things I'm removing/replacing/fixing but I ain't afraid. But I take lots of pictures usually. The most important tool on my bench is an old beat up laptop connected to a 24" monitor that lives on this website.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

New PS pump!

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Ok, I ventured into the point of no return... I started digging in to get at that dang PS Pump. First I started to remove the air system stuff that was in the way:

I pulled that air intake line that comes out next to the headlight. And another photo to remind me where that little bolt goes:

I drew a little arrow in the grease...

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Here's where it connect on the motor. This is pretty obvious but I want to make sure I document this for when I go to put everything back together. Note the hose with the green stripe on it with the major kink in it. Dang PO's... that'll need to be replaced before I'm done for sure.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Then I removed this hose too - looks like the exit line?

and the other end:

 

[sitesbyjoe]

Then it was time to do the first irreversible step - loosen the bolt on the PS pulley, loosen up the bolt on the alternator, remove the belt and the pulley itself - yikes!!!!

The little half moon piece on the axle was in good shape thankfully.

This is gonna need a good cleaning.

 

[sitesbyjoe]

All that's been removed so far. Doesn't look like much, but for me this was a huge start. Old belt wasn't cracked or anything, but it had tons of PS gunk in the "teeth". Fortunately the PO had an extra PS belt in the back when I bought the truck. One less part to buy.

My garage is small, and I don't have a work bench or anything so it looks like I'll be spreading cardboard around and placing all the parts on there for now. Could be worse.

Yeah, there sure is a lot of gunk down there! As I look at it I think about the evil bolt in the back. That's gonna be a treat. Also realizing that there's more stuff in my way - starting with the upper radiator hose. Guess the next steps are draining the cooling system so I can remove that hose, then draining the PS pump. Time for more reading on this site before I do anything else.

 

[The Machinist]

The Machinist's "Project" Thread: 86' FJ60 [Lots Of Pics]

 

[sitesbyjoe]

The Machinist's "Project" Thread: 86' FJ60 [Lots Of Pics]

Great, now I'm dreading that bak bolt even more..... me vs. the bolt.