Builds OL'BETSY ZX: 1991 HZJ77 (2 Viewers)

[JDM Journeys]

Finished the wiring for my trailer today. I used this 24 volt kit from Curt

I adhered the box to the side of the cubby in the back, and sent the trailer end out through a grommet.

I was able to access the required taillight wires from inside, via the jack compartment and under the RHS trim.

I also switched the bulbs back to 24v on my trailer, so I should be able to light it up now on this truck.

Still need to find some eye loops for my chains, and maybe switch the pintle/ball combo hitch to a pure pintle hook.

 

[JDM Journeys]

A little more progress today, and some planning too. Trying to get this rig set up for camping, as I always do. The last four rigs have been fitted with some sort of drawer type organization, and it's always worked well, so I'll be doing the same. I've always had one large rear door, so having split doors brings new considerations and options. Still in early planning stages, as this pic shows...

Meanwhile, I was able to put my awning on this afternoon. I have had good success using angle off the edge of the awning (ARB 2000x2500) so I've done the same here. In this case the angle tucks in between the rack and its legs. U-Bolts along the length keep everything in place. Lots of fastener redundancy on both the angle and the u-bolts, but by keeping it close, there is a lot less leverage on each mount.

Here are some sad garage pics. I was going to do an overnighter tomorrow night, but have decided not to rush quite yet, and instead I'm going to tackle the steering and get that all replaced.

 

[JDM Journeys]

Today I started on the steering components. Plan is to change all the tre's and rre's. But man alive, getting those tubes turning is no fun. Pulled the whole thing as an assembly, and then got one tierod off.

What a workout. Pipe wrench, heat, and my vise were not enough persuasion to get the other three moving. So tomorrow I'm going for more heat and a bigger vise: meanwhile the three other ends shall pickle in penetrant overnight, while the clamps and bolts/nuts enjoy a nice relaxing soak in Evaporust.

Looking forward to breaking into that box of Terrain Tamer parts, which are actually stamped triple 5's. I usually buy OEM but this box was a bonus from the previous owner, and I've never had any trouble with 555 on my previous rigs. So we shall go with em...

My steering feel at the moment is ummm... Kinda vague!

 

[JDM Journeys]

Got them freed! Took more heat, bigger vise, and both of us on a pipe wrenches at the same time, but the tubes are now free of the ends. Once off, there wasn't even that much corrosion inside, but I guess it doesn't take much when there are that many threads inside the pipe?

Yes, the foot brace was necessary!

The new ones went in smoothly on one tube, but on the other one, both ends got really difficult to thread as I got towards my target of 5 threads showing, so I backed them out, and am going to soak the tube ends in Evaporust for a few days, in case there is some detritus left in the threads, up past the slot where it is difficult to reach. Then I'll try and thread them on again.

Also sandblasted the through-bolt for the steering stabilizer, so it's ready to go back in as well.

So hopefully I'll be able to button this up in a few days without having to use as much force as it required to get it apart? Finally it'll be off to the alignment shop, and then on to the next project.

 

[JDM Journeys]

Oh... ummm... I might've just ordered a bumper! Ssshhhhh!

 

[JuanJ]

What a workout. Pipe wrench, heat, and my vise were not enough persuasion to get the other three moving. So tomorrow I'm going for more heat and a bigger vise: meanwhile the three other ends shall pickle in penetrant overnight, while the clamps and bolts/nuts enjoy a nice relaxing soak in Evaporust.

Hello,

At some point, my 73 Series' PO did the same, and his wrench was big, a 36 in. or 48 in., judging by the marks' size.

Two years ago I had to replace the TREs. Surprisingly, they were easy to unscrew. No need for a pipe wrench, thankfully.

The bar bears the scars to this day. I sanded them during reassembly; however, I forgot to paint them. One of these days I will...





Juan

 

[JDM Journeys]

Hmmm. So I'm having a tie-rod adjustment issue. The drag-link ends threaded all the way in until 5 threads were showing, but the tie-rod tube does not want to accept the tie rods far enough to achieve my 5 threads and prescribed length. Is it possible that 555 tie rods are longer, and are attempting to thread past the threaded portion of the tube? They feel like they're bottoming out, but it's too narrow to see properly in there. I had the ends soaking in Evaporust, just to see if there was some hidden corrosion in the threads, but it hasn't seemed to make any difference.

 

[JDM Journeys]

Well, the evaporust bath made no difference. I was able to get the TRE's threaded to spec, according to the FSM, but those last four threads or so required considerable force. I'm a bit concerned that the alignment shop may not get any movement on them when they do the fine tuning, let alone me in my garage when I try to "toe and go".

I can only assume I'm running out of threads, which begs the question - should I try to shorten the ends of the links a little?

In other news, ARB 3412130 is IN STOCK in Calgary, and is getting picked up today! Woohoo!

 

[coldtaco]

Get new rods?

 

[OGBeno]

You could always ream the rods with more threads.

 

[JDM Journeys]

Get new rods?

I have thought about that, but I'm wondering if I'll run into the same problem?

I've also considered tapping new threads @Onur , but my kit doesn't have anything that big (I know - that's what she said!) More investigation needed...

Meanwhile, bumper is on the floor in front of the truck!! So I have several things to do this weekend.

 

[AirheadNut]

If you think there is rust/crud gumming up the threads, try putting a small wire brush (like this: McMaster-Carr - https://www.mcmaster.com/tube-brushes/shank-style~hex/) in a drill and poking it in there to clean them up. Sometimes a little abrasive action will clean out what chemical processes can't.

 

[JDM Journeys]

So it turned out my rod wasn't threaded as much as my 555 tierods were, or the ones I removed. I gave the threads a good cleaning anyways, and then did some measuring to see how much room I needed, and carefully filed back the end threads on the new 555's until I had enough room to get them to thread in properly. Then I gave each joint an application of copper antiseize, and threaded them in.

The factory manual specifies the overall eye-to-eye length of the tierod and draglink assemblies, so I bench assembled them, while getting the exposed threads matched, side to side.

The short one was just under a meter (960mm or close to it?), and the long one was around 1200mm. I got them as close to the millimeter of factory spec as I could with my tape measure (in Canada you can easily buy a metric/standard tape measure LOL), and then bolted them back under the truck.

The truck and I were both anxious to get to the large lump of steel on the floor, but first things first.

TOE AND GO

I centered the wheel, bolted everything in place, torqued the nuts, inserted cotter pins, and then set to work figuring out a system to check my toe. I started off by using a large drywall T-square ruler, to mark the edge of the tire at 90 degree intervals, on both wheels, as well as the floor position of the t-square, so I could replicate after moving the square.

Then I put a piece of tape across each tire at a measured spot, and marked a line on each side. At this point it was simply a matter of measuring across (using my marks to line up) and then rotating 180 degrees and remeasuring.

My measurement was 1/8 of an inch less on the front side than the back side, so toed in 1/8", which was exactly what I was going for. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it's pretty darn close, and will let me drive it to the alignment shop soon. And now that the entire steering system has been rejuvenated, the alignment shop should have an easy time of fine-tuning it.

 

[JDM Journeys]

Okay, let's get to the fun stuff!

Ordered my ARB 3412130 last Sunday, was ready on Monday, and my wife picked it up on Thursday.
(As an aside, a 70 Series ARB WILL fit in the back of a 100 Series, if you take it out of the box. )

I've installed many bullbars over the years. This one was the easiest. We took a side each, and simply slid it onto the frame rails. Insert two vertical bolts/nuts/washers. Then two outboard and one inboard bolt through the frame horns on each side, and THAT's IT! Align, tighten, DONE.

I did mention that my toe and go was pretty close, so no harm in going for a spin, right? RIGHT! Took her for a little run around some range roads, not far from my house, and even got a few beauty shots (didn't have my good camera, @Gun Runner 5 so these less than perfect shots will have to suffice. )

The more astute eye might notice a piece of green masking tape on the left front tire. I'm sure I picked that up driving down the road. (cough cough) Nothing to do with my measuring from the previous job. Clearly MY green tape was a different shade.

Tracked pretty straight, and having an actual bumper in front of me again was very satisfying, right up until I pulled back into the garage, when I almost (but not quite) rubbed my slatwall. Heheh. Ooops. She's longer now, although not as long as when she came home...

I also bolted up a tow point left over from the Prado 90's ARB install (you can just see it in the last pic, RHS, just under the ARB badge), and I'll probably rob the hook off the OEM front porch and put it on the other side, in case I ever need to hook a rope on there so I can watch it fall off (open hook). Speaking of front porch, I still have full intentions of shoehorning the PTO in there somehow, but I can't quite bring myself to cut this fancy piece of metal work quite yet.

 

[AirheadNut]

Looks great!

 

[JDM Journeys]

Looks great!

Thanks! It's getting there.

SO my alignment shop was able to turn the tubes by hand after loosening the clamps... so good, after all my work to get those bad boys freed up. Alignment and wheel balance transformed the way it drives. So much more stable, esp at speed. 120kmh down the gravel was zero drama. Or at least in theory (Cough cough).

And the new bumper is solid... So happy with it.

Parts order for cooling system service is on the way. And I finally have a trip planned for this weekend. But first... I'm driving it to work every day this week. Should be a good 800km shakedown.

 

[JDM Journeys]

So now that I have my steering under control, I'm able to better assess how it runs. I have noticed a few things...

-temp guage doesn't get above 1/3 EVER. Do need to do cooling system maintenance as I said above, so could be that there is no stat in there?
-Oil Pressure guage doesn't seem to move much either. Level is good, oil is fresh, as is filter... new sender?
-I get what I'd call an extra valve clatter when I feed it lots of throttle, accompanied by black smoke, which disappears when I let off the throttle. This happens in most gears, and the sound really appears above 2000 rpm or so, if I flatten the skinny pedal. Sort of a dump truck sound, under load?
-Not exactly powerful. Shocker!

Not my first diesel by any means, but my first N/A straight six, so I'm not sure how it's supposed to sound. But I do know that I don't want black smoke. Haven't run a full tank through yet, so fuel econ returns are still out. And it probably sat for a long time, so I may still be de-coking it? 240k on it now, but I've only put about 700km of that on myself.

So my likely order is...

-cooling system service
-valve adjustment (need to find shims and SST tool)

Then I might look at the condition of the injectors, and possibly turning back the fuel a little. I'm at altitude, (1100m) but I'm not sure that's enough to affect it dramatically.

Starts better than any diesel I've ever owned (24V FTW!) and runs down the highway at 110km/h without issue.

 

[coldtaco]

On your gauges issue try verifying the grounds are good. And welcome

 

[bj70_guy]

FWIW the temp and oil pressure gauge in my BJ74 have always been the same as yours, and my BJ70 before it was also the same.

 

[Mookies]

I'll second the above.
Your photo of the gauges is identical to what I see in mine. You should see your oil pressure rise slightly under load.
I have an extra aftermarket water temp gauge for more accuracy and it always reads the same range unless Im really slogging up a mountain grade. Then the stock gauge will read about half for a bit then right back to 1/3. For sure double check the grounds and if you ever take your cluster out check for corrosion inside the connector. I had to clean some of the pins and I did notice a change especially in the oil pressure gauge. Beautiful rig!