Poor mans diesel conversion SWB style

[dohcdelsol93]

on a tight budge? Got a diesel bug...no problem!!!

get a $99 harbor freight welder, a pen and piece of paper, follow craigslist for a while and you can be diesel two.

Since i'm terrible about taking pics and posting pics I'll document this as i go.

Current rig

1967 fj40 4 wheel drums, stock brake master because i live life on the edge. Stock 3 speed tranny converted to floor shift as well as floor shift transfer case. PTO winch. SBC swapped using Downey bellhousing and propeller. Jegs/summit weld in engine mount brackets, custom brackets holding propeller to frame. Jegs electric fan kit


Plans

4bd2TC swap from 1994 NPR diesel

Going to keep turbo stock, keep stock intercooler.

I will not be moving the drive train, all axles will remain the exact same as the where with the SBC conversion. The rear drive shaft is in the front, the front is in the back, entire drive train was moved forward a few inches

Transmission:

Ford T170FT RTS 4 speed manual overdrive transmission

Similar shifting to an H42 if you take out 4th gear and add a .78 over drive.

When i go to adapt this transmission to my 3 speed transfercase I will be turning the OD into a .71 overdrive by replacing gear(s)

Goal 70mph at 1900-2000 rpms on 32x11.5 tires, stock 4.11 gears

Will be keeping my stock fj40 radiator and electric cooling fan that is currently being used on the SBC swap.

I plan on getting @25 mpg on this swap with a mix of city/traffic daily driving


At this time i'll also be installing a 70-72 fj40 front axle with fj60 knuckles/disks

GM corvette manual braking 1" master cylinder.

Currently lifted 4" in the back and 2.5" in the front on OME and HFS springs

I am planning on doing a 1" body lift to help clear the new transmission, possibly two.

I'm running on stock shackles so i may have to put a 1" shackle lift on the lift springs to help clear the motor.

I will be modifying the pan/oil pick up to make a much more shallow pan.

I still have to source a few adapters (engine to tranny, tranny to transfer case)

Once i get the powertrain together I aim to drive into the shop about 730am as a SBC powered fj40 and drive out about 5pm as a diesel powered fj40

here are some pics estimated date of completion is in March



transmission out of a 1986 f150, the I6 300 should have more torque than that of the isuzu diesel so should be plenty stout. This transmission also came behind the 5.0 and 5.7





the heart of the transplant






this swap will probably not look like a factory install, I'm not a machinist.

I'll build the exhaust myself, i'll pretty much do everything myself except make the adapters.

It will be reliable and economical in the end costing about the same as most SBC swaps.

 

[doug720]

Sounds like a fun swap. Post some pictures as you go.

As you know, these Isuzu's make a great engine in LandCrushers!

Carry on

Doug

 

[dohcdelsol93]

not a whole lot to add, wont be doing much to it until after Christmas.

I did hook a lawn mower battery up to the starter using about a foot of cable and was able to start her up.

Even with the temps @50 (Fahrenheit for you canucks) it required the glow plugs to be started

its been a while since i had my 4bd1t but the 4bd2t seems to idle lower/smoother/quieter at that rpm. Because the intercooler/charge pipe isn't hooked up i only ran it for a second to be sure everything was operational. I didn't want to over spin the turbo.

The 4bd1t had to be idle up a few hundred rpms to keep the rearview mirror from shaking so badly i couldn't make out what was behind me.

The heads of the 4bd2t may be more prone to cracking than the 4bd1t but from a comfort standpoint this may be an engine one should choose if the noise factor is what make/breaks a diesel swap for you.

I looking at using an OM617 for a while. They have a short stroke which makes them lively on the freeway, they are pretty light. But for an off-road and sometimes tow vehicle I want torque. I don't want to step down in power going from the 5.0 305 v8 to a diesel. If i had a YJ, the om617 would be on the top of my list

 

[dohcdelsol93]

after some research i found i really didnt like the 65 mph rpm range i was going to be getting with my current RTS transmission

3.25
1.92
1.0
.78

It was going to put me at about 2200 rpms at 65 on my current tire/gear set up.

The RTS came in 3 different gearing options.

Luckilly for me my gearing option is much more popular for the Model A/Model T crowd (the jeep guys liked this transmission and so do the flat head ford hot rodders)

I found a guy who's going to trade me gear sets for his RTS with 41% overdrive

so my gear ratio will now be


3.25
1.92
1.1
.7087

i'll be hitting about 2200 rpms @70 mph

since 65 is the top speed my life insurance policy covers me for in the fj40 (now @1900rpms) it should be really efficient on the freeway.

45 mph @ 2000 rpms in 3rd. I'll probably end up changing my driving habits a bit to keep in a more comfortable RPM range. 4th gear will be near useless until i hit almost 55

 

[dohcdelsol93]

for anyone who ever decides to use the for RTS transmission I found that it is very easy to swap the OD gear and gear cluster on these.

you can have a 27%, 40% or 37% overdrive. The 27 and 40% share the exact same 1st 2nd and 3rd gears and are the easiest to swap out. All RTS transmissions have the 1.00 3rd gear.

I also have a complete FSM on the RTS 170FT tremec transmission if anyone needs one.

This is the shortest overdrive transmission you can adapt to the land cruiser 3 speed or split case at 10.25 inches long and a 1" thick adapter.

Back in the 90's it was a somewhat popular swap for the Jeep crowd and its still very popular with the Model A and Model T crowd as there are 3 people around our country that mate these motors to flat head fords with adapter kits they build.

I've read about a few people that used them with 4bt swaps.

Seems the gear spread isn't bad in a light weight vehicle. By light weight i mean sub 4,000 lbs

There are better transmission option in an FJ60 (even the NV3500 has better on road gear ratios than the NV4500) but for an FJ40 or similar SWB vehicle its not a bad option IF you can find one.

If you buy one make sure it has all the shifter components because Ford will not be able to help you with them. This includes the bell washer, lower shifter arm (stub shaft that sticks into shifter slot), threaded retainer cup and shifter tower. These are unobtainium. Ford hasn't provided parts for these transmission in over a decade and will not have any look ups for them. If you find someone that knew about these back in "the day" you'll be lucky. But for parts/technical support you're out of luck with ford.

Rebuild kits (and commonly replaced gears) bearings, syncros, etc can all be found easily as most RUG, SROD and other top loader transmission shared the same gears, bearings and internal components.

A reputable builder of these transmissions/flat head ford adapter kit builder told me the key things to check for on these transmissions are mostly grooves in teeth/missing teeth and burnt gear oil.

Generally if the oil looks good there is a 99% chance the transmission is in great shape.

The input/output bearings rarely fail. If they spin freely, re oil and re use.

Same goes with needle bearings in on gear cluster shaft, input shaft and reverse shaft. If they look good reinstall and call it a day.

Its a good idea to install all new syncros when reassembling, you'll have it apart to replace output shaft anyway.


There is no drain plug in the bottom of this case. If you look at the belly of this case you'll find a circle cast into it. There is a magnet here. This seems the logical place to put a drain plug but it's very thin here.

Go back another inch and you'll find a rectangle shape cast into the casing. This area is very thick. Drill and tap here for a plug. A set screw which will recess into the casing will work best as you wont have something to catch on rocks. If you have a skid plate this is not an issue for you and use a regular drain plug.


reverse is a non sycro gear in these transmissions. You will find every RTS transmission has some chips on the reverse gear, this is normal. As long as the damage is not extensive you'll be fine and just re-use the gear. If it's really bad you can buy new gears for them, these can be found both used and new.

 

[dohcdelsol93]

The input shaft of this transmission is 6.5 inches. The sm465 is also 6.5 inches from case to tip.

It uses a standard 10 spline input shaft that toyota/chevy use.

I don't have a SBC bellhousing on hand but i'm willing to bet it would not be hard to adapt the chevy bellhousing to the ford RTS (same as adapting chevy to T18 or NP435) by either turning down the bearing retainer on the transmission or boring out the retainer hole in the bellhousing and then drilling new holes in the ears of the transmission.

A special pilot bearing would not be hard to find.

You could use your standard chevy or LC clutch kit.

The chevy clutch kit i use is from a 1966 Checker Marathon with I6. The fingers on the pressure plate run parallel with the flywheel rather than the usual chevy clutch its with fingers that span out towards the transmission before leveling off parallel with flywheel. This allows much better disengagement of the clutch with the shorter throw of the LC master/slave clutch cylinders.


I'm interested in seeing how i well i can use the ford clutch kit with my stock LC master and slave

Ill detail that as i go

 

[dohcdelsol93]

a little more progress, had to find a pilot bearing to fit the crank and the transmission. Couldn't find one anywhere. Ended up having it in the shop, been sitting on the shelf for probably 20 years


Looks like the ford bellhousing and transmission belong on the back of this motor

 

[dohcdelsol93]

Work has been super slow, so it's best to look busy.

We've had an stack of old flywheels sitting around the machine shop for some time now so I took it upon myself to clean them up today.

Near the bottom of the stack lay a 30lbs flyweel from an 80's Ford 300, she's been machined and ready to go but the customer never came to get her apparently. So being my duty to clean out this section of the shop I get rid of it.

While i'm not a machinist nor will i pretend to be the gears started ticking in my head.

I took a stack of pilot bushings and matched a few up where i could get the imprint of the isuzu flywheel centered onto the ford flywheel and then I drilled out the holes (approx 13mm IIRC) I used a 1/2 drill then reamed it to the 13mm as we don't have metric drill bits here but do have metric reamers and such for machine work (again i'm not a machinist i just happen to work in a machine shop)

So with no real hope for success i spent the day drilling 6 new holes (plus dowel hole) into this ford flywheel.

The ford flywheel basically the same things as a SBC flywheel with zero balance (internally balanced)

So with that said using this set up I was able to adapt a ford flywheel to my 4bd2t.

I'm not going to be using my this in the final set up but until i get some extra cash to buy the ford to isuzu adapter kit this will allow me to mock up how everything (11" ford clutch) and fit into my engine bay.

I will be picking up a band saw this weekend if weather holds out. I plan on using it to build a mandrel bent exhaust system for the diesel but since i'll have it set up at the shop i'll be building an adapter plate between the engine and transmission out of plywood for my fitment process.

Work on a remote oil filter kit will also begin next week if my materials arrive.

 

[dohcdelsol93]

i've been trying to reach 69rambler (dustin at dieseladapters) for about 2 days now with no luck to buy my adapter kit

Then a buddy of mind set me up with a guy who has an industrial 4bd repower kit (rare as blonde hair blue eye asian) that is set up for a SBF transmission.

I also got my AA ford T&C OD transmission to LC 10 spline adapter on order. Seems i bought they last one they will ever sell and since i have the truck transmission with the larger output shaft bearing I will have to have it machined to fit. Seems the jeep guys liked this transmission back in the 80's-90's and AA thought there would be a market for them in the cruiser world but they never caught on. As rare as they are i can understand why.

With the adapter i'm using i'll be required to use an internal clutch slave (93-95 f150 5 speed bolted to 4.9L) will fit my transmission as it shares the same 1.44 inch inner diameter size.

The land cruiser master cylinder is a .75 inch bore compared to the .706 ford clutch master but looking at pics of the 93-97 f150 clutch master it has a much longer throw.

I'll probably end up running a $60 willwood clutch master as it has a longer stroke and shouldn't be hard to adapt to my firewall.

last but not least is clutch. The isuzu flywheel is already drilled for a stock ford clutch. I wont know what size ford clutch but i'm assuming since this adapter was set up to run a t18/t19 or similar transmission it will fit an 11 inch clutch and again i'll use a 93-97 f150 clutch set up.


It will add more length to my drive train (about 4 inches).

I have no idea if I've mentioned this before but right now i'm running a 3 speed with a downey adapter bellhousing SBC(incredible good design and easy install i might add)

So when i installed the SBC I took out the rear drive shaft and put it in the front and put the front drive shaft in the rear.

My RTS transmission is only 10.5 inches long, the adapter plate is an inch thick.

as she sits now with the 3 speed and SBC set up i have 3" between my electric cooling fan and waterpump pulley of the small block chevy. The SBC from bellhousing mounting surface to front of the water pump pulley is approx 30 inches. The from the downey bellhousing where it meets the block to my transfer case is 15.75 inches. Total of 45.75 inches long

With the fan removed from the 4bd2t from the she is approx 27.5 inches from the back mounting surface of the inner bellhousing to the waterpump pulley

The repower housing (inner and outer) together is approx 8 inches.


grand total of 47 inches from front of engine to transfer case.

I hope these specs help someone out someday.


The widest area of this motor is going to be at the bellhousing from side to side where the starter bulge is.

Most of these starters are 3 bolt which really kicks the starter out on the drivers side.

The 3 bolt starter is mounted via studs and nuts.

You can remove 1 of the studs and then cut the ear off of your starter, this allows you to clock the starter from about 4 oclock to about 2 oclock. For most set ups this will allow you to clear your frame.

You fj60 and fj80 guys probably don't need to worry about this step.

You can also buy a new 200-300 industrial isuzu starter (search 4btswaps for partnumber) if you don't wanna go cutting off ears.

at the widest point of the 4bdxt it is approx 21 inches.

Your fj40 frame rail is 24 inches across. She fits but she fits tight.

I will probably be using a body lift to keep the engine sitting higher on the chassis. I'd like to keep my transfer case above my frame rails if at all possible and run the stock skid plate.

I know some people hate body lifted fj40's. Some lawn edging along the back will fill this gap as would a bumper. If you really wanna piss off the fj40 purists i hear a TJ and YJ rear bumpers fit nicely

In the front i have the factory pto which i intend on keeping even with this swap.

As parts come in and i get more pics i'll post them up

 

[dohcdelsol93]

when i ran the 4bd1t in my fj60 with only about 3.5 inches of lift (2 body 1.5 in shackle) i was able to use the stock dual oil filter set up. I did have to modify the passenger side of the oil pan taking a chunk out of it so it would clear the diff.


With the 4bd2t it has a HUGE bulge in the oil pan and a gigantic single oil filter that would be a problem.

2 solutions for the oil pan, mod the existing one (which i'm doing) or get a 4bd1t. If you have 6 inches of lift you can probably just lower your stops and run an unmodded pan.

With my fj40 i have 2.5 front springs, 4 inch rear springs and have a 2 inch body.

I will be running an industrial 4bd oil filter set up to prevent bad driveshaft/oil filter karma.

If i can fit her with the modded oil pan without the body lift the body lift will be promptly removed.

I do not have modded bump stops nor do i need 35" tires to keep this in a happy rpm range as i have the 40% OD in my transmission.

With 4.10 gears and only a 27% OD 35"s would be a must to do 65 with more rpm to give to pass if needed.

 

[doug720]

You have been very busy, and quite lucky it sounds like with the parts!

Post some more pictures when you can.

Looks and sounds like a great swap.

Doug

 

[dohcdelsol93]

clocking 3 bolt Isuzu NPR starter

These pics are with the inner bellhousing removed for better pics

stock position






clocked





As you can see the lowest hole will no longer be used on the bellhousing. What was once the top mounting hole on the starter will have to be cut off to clear the motor

 

[dohcdelsol93]

You have been very busy, and quite lucky it sounds like with the parts!

Post some more pictures when you can.

Looks and sounds like a great swap.

Doug

thanks man...we will see how lucky i am once all my parts get here.

I've still got to change the output shaft of the ford RTS transmission
I'll be rebuilding the transmission while i'm in there as it has to be completely dismantled to change the shaft (and in my case the gears so i have the taller overdrive gear cluster)

at the same time i'll be installing my disk brake front axle (fj60 brakes/knuckles) with a GM 1" bore master. I'm keeping her manual brakes at this time. I like having brakes when the engine stalls. With the SBC and 3 speed it isn't hard to stall when she's in 2/4 high. The first gear of the J30 leaves much to be desired. Probably isn't bad on stock tires but 32" tires it isn't much fun off the main road unless you put her in low.

I'm willing to bet the 4bd2t will be much harder to stall.

Then lets hope i don't run into any snags that you find when you do one of these swaps.

Being that i'll have a complete drive train (engine/tranny/transfer(also rebuilt) all assembled and ready to throw in all at the same time i'm hoping ill run snag free. I'll just have to fab up some motor mount brackets, tranfercase shifter linkage and exhaust.

once i have all the parts and power train assembled I hope to pull it in the bay in the morning and drive it home about 5. We will see how it goes.

 

[the gimpey one]

Dude please! U got a horse shoe up your a$$.....

 

[dohcdelsol93]

this guy wont be amused until video of a running 4bd2t powered fj40 is posted



he's unamused

 

[dohcdelsol93]

Dude please! U got a horse shoe up your a$$.....

and you need to change your sig.

You had a dohcdelsol93 installed wiring and when i got to the end of your wiring i found that you had only purchased 3/4 of a wiring harness.

Then it became a trollhole wiring job.

and a dohcdelsol93 lift
a dohcdelsol93 front axle rebuild
a dohcdelsol93 engine/transmission swap and transfercase rebuild

and brake job done on the mini van

Id get my stuff done 10x quicker if you didn't have stuff

 

[the gimpey one]

Lol kcco....might have to do some sig line work! Especially if i get that other 4bd2t.

 

[dohcdelsol93]

did you say diesel?

 

[dohcdelsol93]

Id love to see a 4bdxt set up with a M5r2 out of a late 80's f150


Its a pretty stout transmission, you cant get a passenger drop transfer case to fit it but you could use an np203,5,8 and others as a doubler to get that passenger drop. Great overdrive and off road crawling speed.

I'd keep your 3.7 gears and run a minimum of a true 33" tire, or some 34" skinnies!!!

you'd need to get a centered rear differential but a centered 3.73 d44 rear axle can be had from 50-200 bucks. One out of a K5 would be close to the right width and keep the same bolt pattern as your yota.

You would have half the cost in a transmission than what you would have in an NV4500 or H55

I also like the gearing of the nv3500 but some people say they are crap, others say they are good and i've heard rebuilds take special tools. I like rebuilds that you can do with hand tools and some good tunes.

 

[dohcdelsol93]

been a very busy week minus the few inches of snow that fell in the south...closed the place down for 2-3 days.

Rebuild kit for the transmission is in, got the knuckles rebuilt on the new disk brake axle.

I'll be using a willwood 3/4 bore clutch slave cylinder

I'll be using a GM C10 1inch bore master cylinder (still manual brakes)

The adapter kit should be in this week for both the engine and transfercase so pics will be coming soon!!

I guess I'll also be building the oil filter relocation kit this week.

so...stay tuned for pics...they are coming!