My TLC experience (1 Viewer)

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What a great start to a build. Hope to see you around as these are getting very rare around here. I work at a Toyota store and used to see these stop in the dealership. Have not seen any for quite a while.
 
My new mirrors showed up today. I need to make a bracket to attach them to the doors. I think I'm going to make it the same dimensions as the door hinge, then screw through the back of it to attach the mirror to the bracket. The bracket will be attached to the door using the bolts that hold the hinge on. I think it'll work, and I don't have to modify anything Toyota. I'll make the first few from just mdf to make sure everything falls in place perfectly. The final I'm not sure what I'll make that from. Originally I was thinking aluminum, but now I might do a uhmw plastic, or possibly a composite material like Richlite. Richlite would be cool, because you can polish it, and it'll look sweet. I'm not sure the strength is there though.

Another option would be picking up another set of sacrificial hinges and punching holes in them, the counter sinking the heads into the backside of the hinge.

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Version 1.0, or a more aptly named, "50/50 Fail" Some of it went well. Some of it, not so much.

Made the first test bracket out of mdf. Yes, it looks like my dog ate a pile of rabbet poo, then part of a rabbit, and vomited the whole works all over the new white couch. Thankfully there were grass garnishes.... I'm aware. Thank you. Leave my mother out of this.

I need to get my maths straight, and my dimensions good before I get carried away wasting machine time getting it pretty. I also just need to get it up there so I can work out or come up with some ideas of what the finished product needs to be. What looks good in my head, usually doesn't pan out. Then the voices make fun of me.....
The shape of the back of the hinge is bizarre. It's not quite an ellipse, but it's almost an ellipse. I botched the overall length, not sure how. Or why.

I didn't catch that the holes in the back of the mirror arm are not centered in the mount itself vertically. I find that strange. I'll have to take the other out of the package and see if they match, or see if I'm stuck making a left and right version with corrections to suit. I was kinda hoping that these parts would be exactly the same for both sides. We'll see.

This is a good start. Not much more. Hopefully I don't have more than a few thousand hours into dicking around with this. I'm a couple hours in at this point. I wanted an Icon set of mirrors, but I just can't justify it no matter how sweet they are.

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The back bolt hole did line up. I just couldn't find it, because for whatever reason it walked away and set itself on my desk. Desk was pretty far down the list of places to look for a bolt that was just in my @#$%^i!% hand 15 seconds ago.

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If I had fricking seats, I'd fricking sit in the fricking thing and see what the frick fricking things fricking look like.

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I should be getting my tranny and tcase back next week I'm betting. The tranny dude <---- my new favorite term btw, said he got a tracking number from the roo packers, and as soon as that bottle of Bundy is done, they're going to strap it to a Wallaby and give it a kick. Or I could've said 7-10 days, I should have a new 5th gear sitting on his stoop.
 
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Version 2 ran this morning. A little closer. I'll say 70% win, 30% lose.

-I offset the elevation of the mirror the wrong way.
-I also added a flip operation to countersink some holes in the back side.
-Ran one line of code with an end mill for the profile to test and see how that would come out. I need to make some adjustments there, but not too bad. with a .020" stepover, I'm going to have to copy that line of code 108 times....
-Pockets around the bolt holes need some attention. One, things can be tightened up a bit. Two, I need to run those operations past the edge of the part so the center of the tool clears the outside edge. The pockets around the bolts, I'm going to do those with a 3/8" ball end on the final product, that way everything with an inside corner has a nice radius to it.

About an hour and a half screwing around last night, and another 20 minutes this morning before work.

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Version 7. Almost there. I made basically a sub routine to cut some of the shape to run in the main program for the top profile. That needs some tweaks yet, but I'm real ding dong close.

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And the six leading up to the seventh attempt.

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Nice work on the mirror mounts. If those mirrors have tapped holes, you could use a countersunk head screw to attach them, and reduce the thickness of your mount by quite a bit. Might be able to get it down to to 1/4"-3/8" thickness?
 
Nice work on the mirror mounts. If those mirrors have tapped holes, you could use a countersunk head screw to attach them, and reduce the thickness of your mount by quite a bit. Might be able to get it down to to 1/4"-3/8" thickness?

They are tapped on the backside, and that crossed my mind.

I'm actually trying to kick them out a little. The arms are probably long enough? But I thought pushing them out wouldn't hurt. I'd certainly have to do aluminum at that thickness, which I'm opposed to, but I'd like to try this composite material first as I can do it with existing tooling I have. I have concerns about the strength of it though
 
Holy crap, this is a huge improvement. Corbeau seats, using their brackets. I wanted to make sure everything was going to work with the seats before I got the tranny back, so there wasn't any surprises. I'm super happy with them. I need to shim the front edge up a little bit, but that's pretty minor. The driver's seat actually does back an adequate amount, I was concerned about that.

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I got a top coat on both shift levers. Once those have dried enough I don't have to worry about dust, I'm going to crank up the cnc and hopefully get the final version of the mirror bracket done.
Then I need to harden up and cut the actual brackets.

The fork truck doubles as a paint rack from time to time...

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I dig them.

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Now to adjust the feed rates and number of passes for the final product.
 
I was hoping to get the transmission and transfer case back in today, but no dice. My buddy who has my drive shafts, and flywheel couldn't help today, so hopefully next weekend.

Did some little stupid things today. Replaced the antennae with a new Toyota unit, and replaced the washer nozzle.

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I can't be alone in thinking somebody at Toyota loves owls.
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Also adjusted the door lock mechanism on the passenger door so it'll actually lock now. Something is bunged up in the lock, I can't get a key into it.

I miss driving the thing.
 
I can sympathize for sure. Spent 3.5 years rebuilding/restoring mine with my own 2 hands and had a t-case issue on the test drive. Pulled it and I’ve been waiting over a month to get it back from the shop. Almost forgot what it’s like to drive, but those 18 miles on the test drive were like a meth dealer gave me a free hit to get me re-hooked.
 
Tomorrow I should have my toy back. Unless something stupid goes wrong, which I don't think will be the case.

Just read a thread about using bread to remove a pilot bearing... That seems like a trick...


Potentially dumb question, but if I were to put in everything for power steering, except for the pump and lines, would that be okay? The reason I ask is I'm planning on having a R2.8 put in. I won't be doing it. It's cheaper for me to do my job, than to wade through where to put what. But, the quote I got was more than I anticipated and I'm looking for projects that I can do to save some coin later.

I'm guessing it's not a good idea, but wanted confirmation.
 
Congratulations! That’s awesome having an overdrive. I wanted a Fairey back in the early 80’s but they were over $300 and I couldn’t afford it. Best wishes!
 
The Land Cruiser is back in the road.

HOORAY!

The transmission is a bit of a pain to get in and out. I've only pulled a few transmissions out of a few things. I'm no mechanic, but this was a pig. I think it might've been easier to just yank the engine and transmission. I'm used to mounting the clutch disc and pressure plate, then just sliding the transmission in. There just isn't enough room to do that. So the tranny and t case had to be cocked in at an angle, with the tail down, and the input shaft just barely into bell housing. Then the pressure plate and disc slipped on. Then the normal wiggle and push to get into the pilot bearing.

And that little spring retainer on the top of the clutch fork was a nightmare. I was ready to put my hand on the floor and smash it with a hammer so I could get it up in there. Got an angle that worked for my hand and got it finally.

I picked the wrong day to drive a bread box with no AC home. A week ago we had frost warnings, today it's pushing on 100°.

The new suspension really exposed how poor the steering is. No death wobble, but it likes to wander.

Things are much quieter in the cab. The idler shaft being chowdered was likely the cause, but it's much better now. Now I can hear the axles growling. My money is on the bearings are in rough shape. I think the axles will be the next thing on my list and I'll start hunting for kits. Might do the rear disc conversion at the same time.

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Test drive.
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This worked pretty well. Though my forklift doesn't have great control when trying to make little movements.
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Testing the balance with the forklift.
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Went on my longest trip so far with it today. About 100 miles round trip. Filled up with gas on the way and was lucky enough to be looking in just the right spot, and got to see some numb nut in Ford Fusion blow through a roundabout. That was exciting.

I wasn't planning on doing AC with the diesel swap, but I'm second guessing that idea. Also thinking I should put a whole mess of heat reflecting material in a few places when the body is redone. Everything gets hot in there when it's 90° outside.

Once I got back I had to return some tools to my brother and did some off-road in my own menial way at his house. Wanted to take the dog out and let her run. The Toyota seemed more fun than grabbing an atv to get her out. Horse flies were super thick and annoying, so that idea didn't last long. Just lope'd along in low range. The ground is pretty bumpy, I had nowhere to be, and all the time to get there.

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That's my dog adding to the biomass. Good doggy.
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The driver's side hub is scary stiff, I'm afraid it'll goober something if I put too much effort into turning it. I'll need to get on that sooner than later. I don't have anything even remotely extreme in mind off pavement, but it's pretty limited with just one wheel pushing.
 
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And I don't freaking believe this, but the bread trick worked for pushing the pilot bearing out. Easy and clean. Pretty sure the bread cleaned up the hole too.

I did make a dowel on the cnc 14.96mm in diameter. Slipped a 9/16" socket over the end, and used an extension to tap on it.

Dumbest thing I've ever read, and it worked perfectly.

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