!OY Coolermans 2/71 Build

[Coolerman]

OK another small update. I decided to do the Downey headers myself instead of spending $240 on ceramic coating the rusty ones I have. However my small kitchen oven I use for doing powder coat, would not hold the headers. So... I built a ugly ass 'Oven Extender'. See first pic. This will allow me to do the headers and the valve cover.

I put the headers in the de-rust tank for 48 hours, let them dry, wire wheeled the now loose rust off (too damn cold to sandblast), roughed them up with 400 grit sandpaper, blew them off, and finally wiped them down with Xylene to remove the last traces of dirt and any oil. See second pic of them hanging, being preheated and ready to apply the primer coat of VHT.

Since my basement was a cool 51 degrees, I used the propane heater and a hair dryer blowing into the collector to keep the headers around 80 degrees. I also warmed the spray can of paint.

The third pic shows the headers with their base coat of white primer. The paint will air dry in 30 minutes and they can he gently handled.

I placed the header in the oven, slide the extension on , insulated it to retain heat and started the bake cycle:
30 minutes at 250 degrees and let cool for 30 minutes
30 minutes at 400 degrees and let cool for 30 minutes
30 minutes at 600 degrees and let cool for 30 minutes

 

[ocdbeetle]

Sweet....As always thanks for the informative website....I have it in my favorites.......

 

[Coolerman]

After the baking cycle was complete I pulled the header back out and sprayed the top silver coat on. Now this is where I was a bit irritated with VHT. The primer was a thick paint that covered really well. The silver was a thin runny paint that constantly ran! I had to wipe off at least 10 paint runs. This resulted in a mottled appearance in the final product.

Anyway, pic one shows the header after the silver coat but before baking.

Pic two shows the header in the oven about to go through the same bake process as the primer coat.

Pic three shows the header installed n the engine.

One thing: After all that work (this process took all day Sunday) when I tried to install the header it would not fit! I mean it was way off. I thought the damn thing had warped after baking for an hour at 600 degrees. I had vision of having to use my hydraulic press to attempt to straighten them out...

Well, of course it was something I had done...

I had read that the 12mm 2F exhaust studs were better than the 100mm/12mm F studs, so I had upgraded. I had to enlarge the holes in the headers and the intake to account for that....

 

[Coolerman]

Tonight I will have the intake installed and everything torqued down. THEN I will have the make the final call on the color of the valve cover.

I also have some temporary things to do:

Install an oil gauge.
Make battery cables
Wire in an ignition on/off switch for coil + igniter
Wiring for idle solenoid.

Then I have a list of other things to do before I start it:

Install a bypass hose from the head to the heater tee in the lower hose.
Put water in the radiator (no antifreeze yet, want to check for leaks first).
Prime the oil pump again and verify pressure.
Install the dizzy and this time time it correctly.
Gap and install plugs, plug wires/cap/rotor.
Put gas in my tiller tank (see above for pic of my temp fuel system)
Prime the fuel system. (Use a Mity-Vac to pull fuel through the filter, pump and line to carb.
Prime the carb float bowl.
Install the valve cover so oil doesn't go everywhere.
Go over all belts, hoses, valves, and bolts to make SURE everything is tight.
Make sure tranny is in neutral.

Anything else? I already have oil in the engine and all the drive train sumps...

 

[Coolerman]

OK, still continuing the exhaust/intake/getting it started theme.

Got the intake installed. I torqued down all the nuts, in three stages. 20,35, then lb ft 50. I started with the center, and worked out to the ends. That last one against the firewall? I could not get a torque wrench on the bitch! I tried everything short of taking the body off So that nut was torqued by feel. When I take the body back off I'll retorque that one. Also got the oil filter bracket bolted to the intake.

Next I had to paint the carb isolator 'tube'. Yeah, anal, but it WAS rusted... Got that done and installed.

Finally I wired up a temporary, two switch 'ignition' system. One green lighted switch, provides power to the ignitor and carb solenoid, and the other red switch, is a spring loaded momentary contact switch wired to the starter. This allows me to bump the engine over easily and provides a fast way to kill it should stuff start spewing out every where when I start it.

While testing this I discovered that the 2F (non-gear reduction) starter I had pulled apart and cleaned had been re-assembled incorrectly... So off came the starter. Turned out I had soldered the end cap on the solenoid backwards resulting in the connections being backwards. This caused the solenoid to not work, and created nice sparks while attempting to connect the wire leads. Got that fixed, connected all the wires, and it worked!

I painted the BB and the two hash lines on the flywheel with a white paint pen, and using the valves as a guide (still have the valve cover off), I put the engine at TDC. Then I used SlickRocks guide to installing the dizzy. That went super easy. Rotor,cap and wires were next. Well five wires anyway... Don't ask me how but I managed to lose one plug wire. I'll steal one off the 2F engine I have tonight.

 

[slickrock]

Right on! Now you need to call Mark at Mark's off-road and get the ported carb base so you can run the vac lines. For now if you are below 4,000 feet, cap the closest to the base port on the dizzy and run your vac from the carb to the outer port on the dizzy.

need to add that to the write up.

 

[Coolerman]

Right on! Now you need to call Mark at Mark's off-road and get the ported carb base so you can run the vac lines.

That won't be necessary.

I had Jim C. rebuild my carb, add the port to the base, and finally re-curve the FJ60 dizzy.

I'll be installing the carb stuff this weekend and hopefully getting it started!

 

[natvet]

Looks great!!!!!!!!! Would you describe exactly how the switches are wired,either here or on your web site? As usual I plan to copy you How do you prime the carb float bowl?? Will you disconnect the power steering pump belt or is it Ok to run pump w/o entire circuit and ps fluid in it.

 

[Coolerman]

Looks great!!!!!!!!! Would you describe exactly how the switches are wired,either here or on your web site? As usual I plan to copy you How do you prime the carb float bowl?? Will you disconnect the power steering pump belt or is it OK to run pump w/o entire circuit and ps fluid in it.

Sure: You will need the following:
1 SPST (On-OFF 2 terminal switch) switch. Lets call this switch S1.
1 SPST momentary contact switch (spring loaded, push to make switch just like the start position of the key switch). We will call this switch S2.

1. Connect one side of a 20 amp fuse to the + battery. Note: If the fuse blows step up to a 25 amp fuse. The solenoid is a high surge current device.
2. Connect the other side of the fuse to one terminal of S1. Doesn't matter which one.
3. From the other terminal of S1 connect one wire to the idle solenoid, one wire to the + on the ignitor/coil and finally another wire to one terminal of S2. Again it doesn't matter which one.
4. Last connect a wire from the other terminal of S2 to the S terminal (Makes the starter engage) of the starter.

All the normal grounds need to be connected of course in order for this to work!

It works like this: Turn on S1 and current flows through the fuse, across S1, powers up the idle solenoid, powers up the ignitor/coil and applies power to one side of S2.

If you now press S2 the starter solenoid will engage and if the planets are aligned correctly the engine will start at which point you will release S2. To stop the engine turn off S1.

If you have points ignition do NOT leave S1 on for long if the truck is not running!

I'll see if I can draw up a diagram for you the later... Edit: See pic below for a pic of the harness I built.

Priming the float bowl is easy, just crank the engine with the coil wire unplugged until you see fuel in the bowl.

 

[natvet]

Very cool !!!! I will let you know how it goes.
Good luck starting it.
Thanks again

 

[BBQ BOY]

great progress. Keep up the hard work.

 

[thecrazygreek]

Coolerman, I enjoy your wealth of information and have used it many times on my rebuilds.

I have a question. You may have answered this before somewhere, but how did you get the name "Coolerman"???

Thx

 

[FJ40Jim]

Because there is no Cooler Man in the entire field of "cruiser geeks restoring their brother's abandoned project."
Right?

 

[Coolerman]

Because there is no Cooler Man in the entire field of "cruiser geeks restoring their brother's abandoned project."
Right?

Yeah! What he said!

Actually the short version is: Parents that used to camp a lot and used Coleman products, including a large green cooler. My middle name is Coman. Get it? Coleman? So...

I used to wheel Nissan's a lot. One day I was climbing a large rutted hill with said cooler in the back. The hatch was not latched completely, popped open, the cooler was not strapped down, fell out, spilling the contents down the hill. Someone yelled out "Way to go there Coolerman!" It stuck...

 

[IDave]

How cool is that?

 

[Coolerman]

Drum roll please!.....







I did NOT get it started this weekend...

First check post #169. I added a pic of the completed and cleaned up, 'Starter Harness'. I can use this harness anytime I need to bump the engine or even start it by my self while staying under the hood.


Now look at the first pic in this post. See anything wrong? Well that's my 'new' engine torn back down....

So what happened? Well....

I was getting it ready to start. I had done all the temporary electrical work,
got the fuel system tightened up, primed the oil system, got the dizzy static timed, and had the intake/exhaust torque down, and carb installed. I had also wired up the Auto Meter oil and water tamp gauges to monitor the start-up.

The fun started when I poured 3 gallons of straight water into the radiator… (I knew better than to put anti-freeze in. I KNEW I would have a leak or two.)

At about gallon two I heard a drip, drip. Looked under the truck and sure enough, water was dripping. I found the leak at the bottom of the water pump. I figured I just needed to tighten the lower bolt more, and went ahead and poured the third gallon in. That’s when I discovered the other three leaks…

The pump was leaking in two places , the lower radiator hose was leaking, and finally I had a radiator core leak at the very top front!

The hose was easily tightened to stop that leak, the radiator was easy to solder up (I had nicked two vertical tubes when wire wheeling the brass top) but no amount of additional torque on the bolts would get the damn pump to stop leaking! Yes, I used thread sealer on the bottom two bolts...

I finally determined that the pump leaks appeared to be coming from in between the pump body and the plate that bolts to the back of the pump.

So… drain the radiator/block. Remove the radiator/fan all hoses and finally the pump. I saw the pump and block and thought I saw the problem. I had painted both, and forgot to remove the paint where the two met. Excited, I removed the paint from both, applied new silicone to the gasket and bolted it back up. I refilled the block and ....... Still leaking! @#$@#$#$#$%

So back off it came. This time I looked very carefully at the spots where it was leaking, and saw what the real problem was. I had used the old 2F water pump from the engine I had bought. This is a made in China, aluminum water pump. With a steel back plate... Yes, the steel plate and aluminum had corroded to the point that there were two leaks. No amount of torque on the bolts would have sealed it up.

 

[Coolerman]

OK so the 2F pump was bad. Now what? I had a brand new 1F pump. This pump was put on before I decided to do a power steering install. I got the pump out, and set it next to the 2F pump. There was a difference of maybe 1/4" in the heights and the fan flange on the 2F pump was a different shape.

I pulled the fan flanges off both of them, and pressed the 2F flange onto the F pump. Next I made up a new gasket and used Ultra Grey Silicone to seal the two. Bolted the pump back up and put the pulley and fan back on. I had to adjust the flange a couple of time to get the belts to line up.

So that was it. Tonight the silicone will be set up and I will add water and see what happens... Good thing I love working on the Cruiser....

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

When you replaced your rear sill how did you go about the curved piece that you cant see? I am talking about the piece that wraps around the lower backside of your rear quarter panels. Did you simply weld the box tubing to the remaining pieces on both sides??

Thanks

 

[Coolerman]

When you replaced your rear sill how did you go about the curved piece that you cant see? I am talking about the piece that wraps around the lower backside of your rear quarter panels. Did you simply weld the box tubing to the remaining pieces on both sides??

Thanks

Try this page on my web site:

Rear Sill Replacement

It details exactly how I made this part.

 

[Coolerman]

No big update, and no I have not started it yet. On going family medical issues have kept me from working on it regularly.

However, I did get the front of the engine put back together, and NO WATER LEAKS!

I also had a disaster with powder coating the valve cover. The wife decided that red anodized was the way to go... so... Saturday morning I prepped the cover for coating. Wiped it down with Xylene, out gassed it for one hour at 550 degrees, let it cool and wiped it down again. Normally to use the red anodized, I first coat the piece with a xtreme chrome then while it is still hot, apply the red. Since the cover is already polished, I decided to coat the valve cover cold. Big mistake...

The powder would not stick to the polished surface like I was used to other powders doing. I made several adjustments to the gun, and finally got, what I thought, was a good coat of powder on the cover. Into the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, let it cool and when i brought it out I was really disappointed. There were several places where the coating was not thick enough and the aluminum was showing through.

I decided I would re-heat the valve cover to about 350 degrees, spray on another coat of red and let it finish curing at 400 degrees. So... back into the oven, heat it up, spray on a THICK coat of red, which partially melted so stuck really well and back into the oven to cure.

That's when the disaster hit.... We lost power to the whole house....

It was out for over an hour, which allowed the valve cover to cool to the point the partially melted powder solidified. It had a wrinkled texture. I thought I could just re-heat the part and cause it to flow out, but that did not work.

The pic shows how it turned out. I will have the chrome acorn nuts on there later. The wife actually likes the 'textured' surface, but it does not match the other pieces. I got on the web and ordered some powder stripper from Eastwood Co. If the cover grows on me, I'll leave it be. Otherwise I will strip it and re-do it. This time I'll give it a coat of extreme chrome then apply the red while it's hot.

If that wasn't enough to ruin my day, I lost the long, low pressure nipple, on the mini-truck power steering box. So now I have to find one of those before I can hook up the pump so I can start the engine... If you have one of those I'lll buy it from you...