PNW 1995 HZJ75 Fire Truck 4 Door

[AdamFire]

Picked up a 4 door Hzj75 fire truck from Japan with some low low miles. Give my beater 75 series Ute (pictured below) some well deserved company!

Anyways it’s got some super funky additions such as a front bumper heat exchanger attached to the radiator? No a/c or power steering. Don’t care about the A/C but have to add some PS at some point. The back seat is elevated to make room for the PTO pump. The seat just sits on that opening loosely which makes for a very loud car ride.


Tentative plan is to
-Ditch the pump platform
-Build Aussie style flat bed (see photo below)
-Baseline including timing belt and suspension bits.
-Fix emergency light hole in roof.
-Add power steering
-Run a compressor off PTO.
-Drive it a lot
-Do something with the roof?
-Add GTurbo green wheel and PDI front mount
-Add high flow airbox from Trundles (NZ)

 

[Dusten]

Does that say 8500 km's?

 

[OGBeno]

Smoke show . Now pull out the $$$$$$$$$$

party’s just getting started.

 

[AdamFire]

Yep 8500kms off the boat. Comparatively my single cab from Australia has around 480kms.

If anyone has pulled the back end apart I’m all ears for any tips.

 

[SKULLYOTA]

nice rig. personally I would keep the high roof, maybe for some sort of overhead storage of light stuff like coats

 

[AdamFire]

High roof has been slowly growing on me. It has a ton of little zipper cubbies in it. Tore into the pump tonight from underneath, some really neat engineering went into building this especially given the year. I’m expecting to lose near 3,000 pounds between the actual pump, the body and eventually going away from the heavy split rims.

 

[Gun Runner 5]

High roof has been slowly growing on me. It has a ton of little zipper cubbies in it. Tore into the pump tonight from underneath, some really neat engineering went into building this especially given the year. I’m expecting to lose near 3,000 pounds between the actual pump, the body and eventually going away from the heavy split rims.

Looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

 

[red66toy]

What a cool rig!

 

[AdamFire]

Made some progress today. Got all the accessories off the back and plates off so I can get a better idea what’s going on in there. Luckily nothing is rusted and everything is coming apart easy. Biggest thing to think on is it has an auxiliary oil cooler fed by the radiator which is also plumbed into the main pump. So will have to find a way to block it off somehow and also try to keep it functional.

 

[SNLC]

You will be able to run an industrial sized compressor off the PTO. Like seriously, 125psi and at least 15cfm.

You could run a hydraulic pump off it as well. Then you could have an onboard hydraulic system like a Unimog. Or you could power the most ultimate hydraulic winch off it, or both!

I looked into the hydraulic winch off a PTO long and hard 15yrs ago when building a Patrol that I had x2 PTO’s on. Hydraulic winches get a bit if a bad rep when run of your power steering system. When run off a PTO though, that is industrial tow truck territory.

Cheers

 

[AdamFire]

We’ll she’s off! Other than sorting through the back wiring harness to find the fuel pump wiring and a few welds to cut it was easy.

My 75 Ute bearing the carcass off to the scrap yard.

 

[AdamFire]

Trying the 33’s from the single cab on. A real bear with no power steering in parking lots.

I’ve commissioned a local fab company to build me an Aussie style tray in February. In the meantime two major things to take on.

-Sourcing all the power steering parts. I can get a lot from partsouq but not everything. Still looking for the high pressure lines.

-Fuel tank. Need to find a factory fuel tank that I can retrofit. The current fuel tank is just tied down up top and is only 15 gallons. In place of the usual fuel tank location is the spare tire brace.

Thoughts on these two issues? I need to get the fuel tank sorted before the tray is built.

 

[Greek Cruiserhead]

Could you please give a list of the power steering parts needed for your conversion?

 

[SKULLYOTA]

I think for the high pressure line, there was a thread in the 60 section long ago about making them out of PTFE steel braided line and AN fittings. I remember buying the line and some of the conversion fittings when I was putting a FJ60 ps box in my old 55, but never finished the swap. I bet I could find that thread later.

EDIT:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/power-steering-box-thread-size.440224/

 

[Dusten]

I think for the high pressure line, there was a thread in the 60 section long ago about making them out of PTFE steel braided line and AN fittings. I remember buying the line and some of the fittings when I was putting a FJ60 ps box in my old 55, but never finished the swap. I bet I could find that thread later.

When I installed hydroboost in my lightning I made all my own lines with ptfe and -6 an.

 

[OGBeno]

High pressure PS line is readily available.

For RHD truck: 44410-60520

The PS gear box fittings/piping are readily available as is the steering gear box and pitman arm in RHD flavor.

But doing PS conversion requires ALOT of parts and a lot of disassembly of the front of the engine to get to the oil pump case housing.

 

[AdamFire]

So looks like I have been able to source every part I need almost in regards to the PS box. It is indeed a significant amount of labor that is for sure.

I’ve been doing a bit more research and talking to some local folks and they’ve turned me on to the idea of electric power steering.

There are a few different brands available such as this company: Custom Build Power Steering Kit - https://epasperformance.com/products/custom-power-steering-kit

I’m waiting to hear back from an Aussie guy who has some Landcruiser electric power steering intel.

EPS is attractive to me due to if we can fabricate or lightly modify a kit then it makes buying more of these fire engines all the easier.

 

[Dusten]

The f100 crowd has been moving to epas on the crown Vic swapped trucks.

 

[AdamFire]

Ok we’ll have had some highs and lows with the truck mostly highs. Got a set of KM3 255/85r16 on a set of jegs steelies. Fit good and much easier to turn then the 315s!

The steering stuff is kind of on the back burner now. I think I will end up going with this kit

Straight Electric Power Steering Kit - ePowerSteering.com - https://epowersteering.com/purchase/product/straight-kit

Sent some inquiries to EPAS about using them for off road purposes but the never responded. The above company responded to my email via phone call and said it should work just fine on current tires so they’ll be getting my business.

Also built a dog platform for the back.

That was the good news! Bad news is was driving over mountain pass about 3.5 hours to see the family. Halfway through hit a pretty hard bump at speed and immediately get a whirrrr sound coming from the front end. It eventually went away.

But now anytime I hit a bump at speed the whirrr/vibration will come back until
a) I hit another bump or go over the rumble strips b) drive for 1-2 minutes and it will go away.

I’ve been able to replicate this about 5-6 times now. The sound doesn’t change with turns, engine off/on, in gear or not clutch in or not.

It does sound like it’s coming from the hubs. The wheels spin fine and offer no unusual sounds or resistance. Jacked the front end up and there is no play at all. Checked diff fluid and it’s basically brand new. Looked in hub inspection hole and one side was pretty full of grease the other side not as much. I pumped a good amount grease into both sides.

I’m not at my house so my ability to investigate is pretty limited. Worth noting is the front end is about 0.5” away from the bump stops at rest.

I’ve got a whole new set of suspension on order.

 

[SNLC]

Pull the grease zirk on the front driveline at the slip yoke. If you have to much grease in there and it can’t compress this can cause you dramas. With sagged suspension it could be making it more obvious.
So pull the grease zirk and get it to compress which will squirt all the grease out. I would start with that.

Cheers