Princess Rig: Diesel Manual Troopy-Style Pop-top Conversion and Off to Adventure

[Ragnaroek]

The "rectangle" is where the running board mount used to live.

You should definitly get a snorkel. After adding one the amount of sand and dust in my air filter reduced drastically.


Dumb question: did you plastigauge your BEBs to make sure they're actually the right size? I've never seen them wear so fast, and i've serviced a lot of diesel 80s.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

Unfortunately with my heavy breathing turbo, I would need the 4" snorkel, which is a big investment on a truck that I already have too much invested in. Lol. I also would have to get creative with the intake on the snorkel as my Campteq pop top is in the way. I have yet to see a set up running a Campteq and a 4" SS snorkel.

I plastigauged the BEBs on the first set of Taiho's and on the following set of OEM bearings. All were good. Measured the crank journals to make sure Nothing was egging or anything weird. Also checked the crank thrust. Doing the same OEM bearings this time I didn't see the need to check them again.

I have actually never come across anyone that pulled the BEBs at a confirmed lower mileage to check condition, so I have no data for that. Obviously I agree that this would seem "too early" to look like this. But I also have no comps. I'm running 'only' 20psi (I know a lot of guys run higher), I don't redline it or lug it, I'm generally fairly gentle on it. So I have no clue what the issue is. Other than possibly the really early piston design.

 

[AussieHJCruza]

Out of curiosity, what oil are you running?

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

For most of the last 40k miles I've been running Chevron Delo 15w-40. Usually either full or semi-synth, depending on what is available. Always use Toyota filter 90915-30002.

At the time when the first set of bearings got hammered out there was some theories that I was over-fueling or pump timing was set too far advanced. Upon some inspection and tuning she was definitely running quite rich and I dialed that back to what I think is a good level. Pump timing was set according to instructions that came with the rebuilt pump from G-Turbo with the proper method. Otherwise it runs like a dream.

 

[Ragnaroek]

Unfortunately with my heavy breathing turbo, I would need the 4" snorkel, which is a big investment on a truck that I already have too much invested in. Lol. I also would have to get creative with the intake on the snorkel as my Campteq pop top is in the way. I have yet to see a set up running a Campteq and a 4" SS snorkel.

I'd look for an exhaust shop that does good stainlesss work, Show the a few pictures of the aussie intaktes and ask them for a custom 4" snorkel to fit your setup. Should be cheaper than replacing a turbo or rebuilding the engine. Dust and clogged air filters can do bad things.

Just my 2c.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

After a mighty struggle that had me questioning my sanity, I did finally get the new H152 in. Damn that trans tunnel is tight in an 80.

Details here:
80 Series H151/152 Installation Help - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/80-series-h151-152-installation-help.1344025/#post-15589308

Copying the important "figured it out part" of the saga here for posterity and for the next guy:
Some details for the next guy that's struggling.

I ended up popping the exhaust off at the turbo downpipe (along with pulling the nuts off the rubber exhaust hangers) and popping off my intercooler piping.

I think what finally did it for me though was loosening up the nut on the TOP of the motor mounts. I had loosened the bottom nuts up, thinking that should offer similar tilt and the bottoms are easier to get to. But loosening the top of the mounts really did it. Then I got my engine hoist and grabbed the motor by the front lift point to lift the engine instead of jacking it up from below. My crane is barely long enough to reach that front point on the big girl with the Delta bumper on, so I had no chance at getting the engine leveler on.

I thought I was already hard up against the firewall before I did all that but I guess I ended up squeezing a bit more out of it.

I had plenty of clearance on the fan on the front of the motor. I just pulled the top bolts off the fan shroud up so that it could move & flex better and the fan could pop over it at the top when the engine tilted. That worked great.

I still really didn't think I had enough to get it lined up but I went under and started trying to get things in place to take a look with the scope and *POP* she just slide into the pressure plate cage. Huh. Really surprised me. I had plenty of room now.

Oddly then I had it fully bolted up within an hour.

One of the keys for me was using a drafting angle (or huge protractor) with a small magnetic bubble level hooked to it. That allowed me to measure the tilt of the motor and relatively precisely adjust the transmission to be level with it. Worked a treat.

After it was leveled I got the input shaft splines lined up with the clutch (spinning the output shaft with the box in gear). The alignment pins I made worked great to line things up and see if I needed to make any fine adjustments, like twisting the box a few degrees CCW etc. To get the input shaft into the pilot bearing I ended up wedging myself btw the gas tank and the rear of the trans and just jiggling the whole thing on the alignment pins. It went slowly but worked great. At that point I was just able to get all the bolts started, but continued to wiggle the transmission into place while hand tightening bolts until they were about half on. Then I started tightening the bolts in a circle pattern using a 3/8 ratchet, a couple turns each at a time to make sure that nothing was binding. It all went in very smoothly with the transmission leveled to the engine though.


How I set the angle of the trans to match the angle of the engine (this is for demonstration and obviously had to be re-done after the input shaft was in the clutch pack and I was ready to pull it in with the bolts).

After a LOT of buttoning up I finally took it out for a drive. Wow! This is my first new transmission ever in anything, much less a brand new Toyota tractor transmission. There was actually a bit of a learning curve because this one is so tight & precise compared to my loosey-goosey old transmission. Not to mention how insanely much quieter the new box is. I did sound-dead the tunnel while I had the console out, but only 2-3sq/ft so it shouldn't have made too big a difference. It's so much more relaxed to drive now.

But it's a joy to drive. Clutch feels great (no surprise there). Trans shifts amazing. While I'm still on 33s (part of the reasoning for the swap to the H152 was for the more modern gear ratios to suit a switch to 35s) the gear ratios are a league above the H151 for modern driving. First is a bit lower (great for Low range and steep hill starts) but isn't annoying low even on 33s. And 5th is like a legit overdrive now and should drop me down a lot at 70-75mph. I can feel that in hilly 55mph terrain on 35s you might be jumping 4th to 5th a bit. But I'm rarely in a hurry.

Really stoked to head back out West with thing soon. Well as soon as the rest of the repairs & upgrades are done...

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

Between wrestling the transmission and the frustrating third-time-in-four years knuckle rebuild due to failed axle seals...

I decided to check the valve lash. All exhaust valves were dead-on but interestingly the intakes were all about .05mm too loose on average. I guessed that the valve seats were a tiny bit gunked up, it being a big dirty diesel and everything.

I was looking for a solution somewhere maybe short of a full meth/water injection system (I have WAY too much money in this rig already...). Back in Mercedes diesel days we used something similar to this product on the old neglected OM617s etc and it worked great. So I thoughtI'd give it a go in the 1HDT.

While I haven't opened it back up to re-check the valve lash now, but seat-of-the-pants feel (I drove it right before and after) I can feel a difference. Mainly in more lower end power. The boost seems to come on more smoothly now. I didn't expect that. The whole engine feels a little bit smoother. I need to get some more miles on it to get a better feel, but almost immediately I ended up with the knucks apart.

Might become part of my yearly maintenance routine now.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

During and in between everything else, I added a power steering cooler. Even on 33s and not wheeling hard, I absolutely cooked my PS fluid in 30k miles. So I yanked out the paperclip. I wanted something with a bit more cooling power than the single-pass-through options that I've seen advertised, I went with a Derale 10000 series.

My biggest issue was that I have NO room behind the grill due to the big PDI Intercooler occupying all that space. I wanted the cooler to be able to grab a little bit of air without being too too exposed. I custom fabbed a mount that bolts to the front frame rail and eventually made everything fit.

I'm hoping it's tucked away enough, but time will tell. I'll definitely be carrying enough spare line in case anything happens to it in the bush.

I also switched to Mobil DTE 24 ISO 32 hydraulic fluid, which I hope will also help keep the system up as long as possible.

 

[CaptBeardilocks]

I have been experimenting with all of this lately. I have a custom airbox with 4" inlet in the fender that fits a ~2005 Duramax panel filter. I ran that basic set-up for about 40k miles. It worked fine and had what I would call expected turbo lag with the PDI Intercooler.

My biggest problem with it was that I was getting way too much dust into the airbox and clogging the filter extremely frequently (lots of desert driving doesn't help of course). So after a ton of research I picked up a AEM Dryflow filter that is washable (at least I'm not blowing $20/mo on new Fram paper filters). I have yet to really test it, but it did increase flow quite a bit. I now have significantly less boost lag than before.

At the same time I determined that my dust ingress was mainly due to a large triangular hole at the rear of the tire caused by removing the factory steps (which have a plastic piece that covers this). That threw all the dust kicked up by the front tire directly into the fender, where the turbo was sucking. So I blocked that off to reduce the dust but that created a significant flow reduction and I could hear air whistling through the cracks around fender at full boost. Sigh.

Unfortunately I was only a couple of days from leaving again for the next 10mo living in my truck and there's no time (or funds) to order a big stainless snorkel yet. So I pulled the corner marker light to see how much that improved airflow and WOW. Almost no turbo lag through the complete RPM range. I had no idea how much even my 4" intake box with big panel filter was restricting. So I jury rigged an old busted signal housing into an air duct. It's ghetto has hell but the increased airflow is great. I have yet to test it in monsoon conditions but I figure that I can always cover it with painter's tape for periods if I'm experiencing a hurricane or biblical rain.

I cut most of the interior of the marker housing so that i have a lot of air flow into the fender & repositioned the light (switching it to orange LED ). It super Mad Max and very temporary. Next year I will spring for a 4" snorkel. Of course with et Campteq pop top I have to get a front facing snorkel as well, which is even harder to track down/more expensive.

I do also had a motocross style hydrophobic pre filter sock on the end of the airbox intake as a pre filter and safeguard. I'll report back on the AEM Dryflow performance in a couple of weeks when I get some real desert driving in.

But for those curious about their airflow, try pulling your marker light housing and taking a run and see if you can feel any difference.