New owner and connector identification? (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Sep 15, 2020
Threads
3
Messages
45
Location
Spokane
New to the FZJ80 club here. I picked up a 95 FZJ80 from a friend who had been driving it for a number of years. She was not a car person and is a single mom living in the boonies so it had not been maintained unless it was an absolute necessity. As in, I think the car received maintenance when it stopped running. I'd talked to her off and on for a number of years about selling it to me when she was ready to get rid of it. It started leaking even more than it was and she got a quote of 1000 bucks to fix just one of the leaks. Time for it to go so she passed it on to me at a very reasonable price. Wasn't a seal or a hose on it that did not leak and the seat covers are in (what I've learned) is the usual state of decay. In the three months I've owned it the following has been done:

Complete knuckle rebuild with trunion bearings (inside of tires were splattered with diff oil)
Wheel bearings replaced (they did not seem shot but I'm in there anyway)
Birfs disassembled, cleaned up, repacked and all bearings packed
Axles sleeved (yes there were the usual wear patterns from the seals but in my research I discovered that sleeving with quality sleeves will last nearly as long as replacement axles. Fortunately the neighbor had a press so I made a custom press tool to press the sleeves on. I now have the same press in my shop. Not sure how I lived without one for so long)
Relay arm ends replaced (they were oozing water)
Tie rod and ends replaced (same condition as relay ends but no amount of heat or BFH would persuade the ends to come loose so new arm as well)
Steering stabilizer replaced
Main seal replaced (leaking)
Oil pump cover seal replaced (old one was the most brittle seal I'd ever seen)
Water pump replaced (she was told it was leaking, it wasn't but as long as you've got everything pulled apart...)
Power steering pump replaced (the old one was beyond gone, major noise and steered like a 1950's manual pickup truck)
Distributor seal replaced (leaking)
Distributor cap and rotor replaced
New plugs and wires
Wheel hub caps replaced (looked trashed)
Wheels cleaned with wheel cleaner and white brillow pad (look very good now)
Accessible vacuum hoses replaced (the ones that don't require removal of the intake manifold)
EGR path to intake manifold cleaned out (discovered that both ends were plugged while replacing hose. Small drill bit turned by hand to pull the debris out)
EGR vacuum modulator replaced (broke off a nipple while taking compression readings on the back cylinder)
Radiator flushed, later replaced (under the false belief that the core was bad)
Main coolant hoses replaced (still need to do the heater hoses at the back and the valve)
Radiator cap changed to correct cap (12-13 psi rather than the 20 psi the shop put on following a professional flush, that 20 psi exposed a bunch of leaks and may have created some)
Thermostat replaced
Coolant outlet metal pipe replaced (had a hairline crack)
Orings on coolant outlet and inner pipe replaced
Coolant replaced (a couple times due to constantly chasing new leaks)
Window belt molding on passenger side replaced (old stuff was all cracked up, driver side OK)
Oil changed to Mobil 1 with new oil filter
UJ's replaced front and rear (one of the rear ones was buggered)
Transmission serviced (by a friend who owns a transmission shop, he said it was in good shape and it does shift with authority)
Both diffs and transfer case oil replaced
Running boards removed
Dent removed from front fender by a paintless dent repair guy (he did a wonderful job)
Rear window removed and rust damage repaired (After hitting it with a wire wheel on a grinder I shot it with a rust converter. The pinch weld was in good shape and the rust around was not so bad that it could be a structural problem. No welding required. Some bondo, some shaping, some priming, some painting and clear coat.)
Rear window reinstalled and front window replaced at an auto window shop (wasn't temped to tackle those jobs)
Removed broken and sloppy roof rack and repaired rust around the screw holes
Repaired clear coat issues on other parts of the car preceded by paint touchup where it needed it (like where the roof rack mounts were located)
Plasti coated the front bumper and rear bumper (plastic parts only on rear) with a black metallic color
Painted the grill with a satin black but left the chrome parts chrome
Painted the metal 4 hole part of the back bumper with the same satin black
Sanded the aluminum step part of the rear bumper to clean it up and sealed it with aluminum wheel clear coat.
Installed CV diff lock switch
Repaired CV diff lock indicator switch and now get the indicator light on the dash (new switch ordered but not yet installed since the old one is now working)
Replaced bulbs in dash switches that were burnt out (ended up replacing the old ones that were working as well, now illumination works in all and all switches function as expected)
Replaced front and rear door stock factory paper speakers with Pioneer 6.5 in front and Alpine 4.5 in rear (did not improve things much)
Replaced lower end Kenwood stereo head unit someone had installed with higher end Alpine that has bluetooth and phone (this made a big difference, sounds very good now)
Tried to get the sub in the back working but failed (I think it was factory based on brackets but it spazzes out when a signal sent to it. Not needed anyway as the sound is very full and clear now. Still, might replace it down the road for a bit more below 100 hz but most would never notice)
Fixed that passenger seat that would not go forward or back with new plastic gears (for those who have not removed their front seats beware, half the weight in the car is in the front seats and it would be possible to end up with your testicles sucked up around your adams apple when boosting those things out)
Exhaust system rebuilt by a local muffler shop who had done work for me in the past (cat was blocked, one of the bricks was broken off and rotated sideways, its gone and a nice new stainless tip now emerges behind the rear tire. Have not thrown a single check engine light since that work was done)
Lot of cleaning along the way. Multiple rounds of cleaning. When I got the rig you needed a shovel to dig for the bolts. Much better now but what a messy job.

Whew, so that's where my last three months went along with a couple knuckles, finger nails, connecting tissue, muscle tissue, brain tissue and sanity. Read something on this site where one owner said that every time you open something up on one of these Land Cruisers you find a doorway to hell. I get it.

I was fortunate in that the body on this rig was very straight and except for the rear window area and a little on the old roof rack mounts, zero rust. Zero rust on the under carriage as well (probably due to the amount of grease and oil it was coated in all these years). A compression test with the engine warm that I did before I started any of the above work showed that all cylinders are near factory new spec. 170-180 psi. And now that the work has been done this thing runs like a top and looks like a new rig. The Toyota tractor parked next to the farm tractor:


Land Cruiser small.JPG


Still, more to do.

90 percent of the leaks are fixed. I still have a small coolant leak that looks like it is coming from the block side of the housing that the metal water outlet goes into and that the heater outlet feeds into just behind the water pump. Can't find that gasket part number. Looks like it would be square so If anyone knows, please post it.
Need to replace the heater hoses at the back near the firewall and under the car along with the heater diverter valve at the back on the firewall.
Need to reverse flush the heater cores. I'm getting air bubble sounds from the dash under acceleration so I'm guessing that the main heater core is partially plugged. Not dealing with remaining cooling issues until spring though.

Got a 66 inch roof rack on the way that Titan Truck talked me into. I'll get that installed when it arrives.

Got big round old school looking (but LED) aux lights on order that I'm going to mount on the bumper. Also have the Aux light switch that mounts in one of the dash available slots on order. Need to get the connector for that Aux light switch and figure out where I'm going to pick up the illumination and switch power. If anyone knows the connector or has a bright idea about a slick way to power it (was going to tap adjacent switch but would like a better way) please post your ideas.

The biggest thing that needs to be done (money wise) is new seat upholstery. For the time being I ordered a set of Rixxu sport seat covers in dark brown to see how the color looked. The color looks very good with the cream/taupe interior and the quality of those Rixxu seat covers are well beyond what I expected. I just got the fronts and laid them out on the seats loosely fitting them. I called the wife out to render an opinion. We looked at each other and had the same thought at the same time, they look so good and the quality is so high that maybe we should just order the backs and call it good. We will see.

Got a couple of lights out on the dash. The drive and the neutral in particular.

Those are the main things I'm planning but my neighbor is refurbing a 60 series and he is a bad influence. He's already done a 2 inch OME, installed onboard air and a tank and has a set of ARB lockers sitting on the bench that he plans to install over Christmas. His activities have me scratching my head as far as how far I should take this build.

Anyway, I have a another question. There is a flat connector installed at the bottom of the dash under the steering wheel. The previous owner does not know what it is. I had one of these on a used jeep I bought a number of years back as well and never did figure out what the hell it was. It is not Toyota. Does anyone know what this is?

unknown connector.jpg


unknown connector1.JPG
 
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I believe that was a dealer installed security device for use by the dealer and not something intended for use by the buyer. There was a small printed circuit board that plugged into that slot that must have some logic chips. There were some posts on the subject many, many years ago but I can't recommend any search terms that would useful.
 
Had a question in a PM about sleeving the axles. The tools, parts and process. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the process but I do have some pictures that may help and I can describe the process.

Step 1, selecting sleeves:

As far as the sleeves I used, there are a variety of brands that show up when you do a web search and it turns out that this is a more common process for a variety of applications than I originally knew. The sleeves I used were found at the local NAPA auto parts. They were deep enough to cover the damaged area on the axle and still leave plenty of sleeve material on both the inside and the outside of the oil seal.

1608393138922.png



These sleeves are sold to fit shaft diameters and the sleeve covers a range of diameters in thousands. For example the sleeve in that link above fits 1.490 in. To 1.496 in. / 37.85 mm To 38.00 mm or a range of 6 thousands (in our SAE world here in the US). The process of selection is simple, using your dial caliper measure the diameter of the axle close to the damaged area then run down to the parts store and get a sleeve that is deep enough and where the range covers that diameter. Ideally both axle sides should be the same diameter but measure to make sure. I took my measurement to the left of the damaged area in the pic below.


Land cruiser axle.jpg


Step 2, separating the axle from the Birf joint:

There are two excellent videos that cover steering knuckle rebuild. One covers the disassembly, the other covers assembly.




The trick he used with setting the axle into a tube and banging it on the ground works. The trick he used for reassembly using a hose clamp to compress the keeper ring also works. I got the axles apart and back together with no damage to the ring. While it is apart, it is a good time to clean out the Birf and start the repacking process. That is also covered in the second video.

Step 3, pressing the sleeve on:

As you can see in the picture of the sleeve, they have a flange and they come with a sleeve driver. The driver is larger in diameter than the sleeve but smaller than the diameter of the flange. The idea being that the driver contacts the flange and presses the sleeve on to the shaft. That sleeve driver is useless given the depth you need to drive the sleeve onto an axle. However, what the sleeve is useful for is finding the diameter of the hole you need to make in the press plate you are about to build. Consider the press I used in the pic below:

Land cruiser press.jpg


I did not have a press but my neighbor did. I now own the same press and I don't know how I lived without it for so many years. They render the BFH (Big Ferking Hammer) nearly obsolete. This is a cheap Harbor Freight 20 ton press. 200 USD at full retail but I found a coupon for it and was able to get it for 160. If you watch Craigslist or Facebook market place you can find them used for even cheaper.

If you look at the press, you see two press plates that come with the press sitting on the iron cross members and span the gap. The press plates form holes of different sizes and shapes when turned in different directions and pushed together. Those plates are useful for many things like driving UJ cups out but for specific jobs you'll end up making drivers and press plates that are unique to the job at hand. It is easy to do. For example when driving the UJ's out, I just cut some bar stock that was slightly smaller in diameter than the UJ bearing cups, pushed the stock plates together to form a hole on the bottom side larger than the cup and used the driver on the top of the UJ to press the cups right out.

For the job of pressing the sleeves on the axle a custom press plate was made out of a chunk of flat steel as the stock press plates do not form a hole that fits the flange on the sleeve. You need a bit more precision than the stock plates provide. To provide it, I drilled a hole in the steel that was roughly the same as the inside diameter of the driver that came with the sleeves. That piece of steel was not large enough to span the gap in the press so I used the stock press plates to form a hole large enough for the axle and set my custom press plate on top of those.

Now comes the fun part, pressing on the sleeve. Examine the three pics above and picture in your minds eye the long portion of the axle hanging out the bottom through the custom press plate which is sitting on the stock press plates and the sleeve flange resting on the custom press plate. The end of the axle that goes into the Birf joint pointing up. You want the flange on the outside of the seal toward the Birf so slide the sleeve up from the bottom (long end) of the axle with the flange pointing up and take it up to the thick portion of the axle that you are going to sleeve. This is what it will look like before you begin the press operation with the axle hanging in the press and held in suspension by the sleeve flange resting on the custom press plate which is resting on the stock press plates. Now grab the handle to the press and start pumping. The sleeve will press on. Looking again at the picture of the axle, I pressed the sleeve up past the damaged area and just a hair (about the thickness of the flange) past where the diameter of the axle begins to drop off.

Job done. Pat yourself on the back and crack open a beer.

You can trim the flange off on a grinder if you desire. I didn't as there is nothing for the flange to interfere with between the seal and the birf.

Step 4, reassembly:

The second video above covers that process including installing the axle back into the Birf, the seal into the axle housing and the whole assembly back into housing and the diff plus a lot more.

Some may ask why would you sleeve the axles rather than buy new axles. The answers to that (for me) are time, cost, utility and practicality. Time, I was on a roll and wanted to keep this project going. Waiting a couple weeks for new axles to be shipped would have brought the project a halt with the rig sitting on jacks in the shop all torn down and taking up space that could be used for other projects. Cost, the cost of the sleeves and the press were less than the cost of just one axle and I have already used the press multiple times for other tasks. That press will last longer than the car and save me a lot of sweat and busted knuckles in the years to come. Utility, I'm not an extreme rock crawler. I don't need axles made from custom blends of steel that are guaranteed to breaks rocks before the rocks break the axles. This rig is being built as more of an off piste adventure rig. A rig for crossing the deserts of Morocco and the Sahara in Africa or the Atacama in South America or the Outback in OZ... OK, not likely but it may be used to run up to the mountains via forest service roads and haul a small boat into smaller more remote lakes to do some trout fishing and camping... Or, it may just be used as a snow buggy and mall crawler... You get the idea, I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it. Practicality, these sleeves will last a good long time. The rig had 280,000 miles on it when I got it. By the time these sleeves wear out there will be more than just axle work that needs to be done and that work is for another time. With the compression on this motor and the work that has been done as well as the work that is planned, this rig will hopefully last well beyond my attention span.

Hope this helps those faced with similar issues. Please feel free to ask questions.

P.S. there are other ways to accomplish this.

You could take the axles and sleeves to a machine shop and have them press them on for you.

You could take that axle to a machine shop, have them build up a weld in the damaged area then turn the axle back to spec in their lathe. I thought about this since I have a lathe but I was concerned about what it would do to the heat treatment of the axle. I don't have an oven to retemper the axle in.

My neighbor and I thought about yet another approach. Given the tight tolerances between the axle and the sleeve, it might be possible to put the axle in a freezer and heat the sleeve just a little. Doing so may allow the sleeve to be pushed on by hand. If it works, it'll be nice and tight when the axle warms and the sleeve cools. Just a thought.
 
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I believe that was a dealer installed security device for use by the dealer and not something intended for use by the buyer. There was a small printed circuit board that plugged into that slot that must have some logic chips. There were some posts on the subject many, many years ago but I can't recommend any search terms that would useful.

Thanks, I'll poke around and see what I can find.
 
Thanks, I'll poke around and see what I can find.
It also may be part of a leftover DUI security device so the driver would not drive impaired and they had to blow into a device before the ignition was enabled.

Either way, not factory, I would surgically remove it.
 
My 93 had a similar connector mounted in the same spot. It was a starter kill device. When the circuit board plug was removed, it would disable the starter circuit. I removed mine from the harness when I was diagnosing another issue. Based on yours missing the insert, I would guess that yours is disconnected already. Or maybe it is something different!
 
It also may be part of a leftover DUI security device so the driver would not drive impaired and they had to blow into a device before the ignition was enabled.

Either way, not factory, I would surgically remove it.

That is what I was wondering. Got to pull the instrument console to replace some lights. Think I'll uninstall it then.
 
My 93 had a similar connector mounted in the same spot. It was a starter kill device. When the circuit board plug was removed, it would disable the starter circuit. I removed mine from the harness when I was diagnosing another issue. Based on yours missing the insert, I would guess that yours is disconnected already. Or maybe it is something different!

I'll find out when I pull the panels. Either way, it's coming out.
 
Rixxu seat covers installed. I think the color works and the quality is much better than I expected.

Land cruiser seat covers.jpg
 
So with respect to the coolant leak I mentioned above. In the picture you can see it pooling on the housing behind the water pump that the outlet pipe goes into. That'd be the down pipe with the short inner pipe. All three orings were replaced. The red at the top of the coolant outlet pipe is not coolant, it is red assembly grease I used to lube the oring prior to install. A bit of it squeezed out. If you look at the block that the coolant return pipe bolts to and that the thermostat is mounted on, on the side next to the block, it looks like it has been leaking. There is a line of dried coolant all along the top of that part (not sure what the part is called). That is the gasket that I have been looking for. Does anyone know the part number for that gasket on the opposite side of where the thermostat mounts? It looks like it should be square in shape.


Land cruiser water leak.jpg
 

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