Builds Reconstruction after rollover - building The Champ 2.

[baldilocks]

The CSF 2517 radiator showed up a few days ago and it appears to be well built and accurately constructed.
Although the the original water pump looked and felt like new I decided to replace it with the Aisin WPT-023. At $62 it's a good bargain when compare to the dealerships price $194 and said to be the same exact part. The underhood maintenance has gone farther than I intended as I need this rig Rubicon read by May 21 and was planning to focus on axle and armor swap but the "while I'm in there" mentality seems to make sense so I also pulled the thermostat. It says Germany on it so I ordered an OEM thermostat. With new hoses, she will have an all new cooling system to protect the HG that was replaced last summer per the PO with documentation.
I have two of the black hub fan clutches that seem to be working equally. Months ago I bought some new oil thinking I would go for a thicker viscotsity to pull more air on those long, low speed trail runs. Does anyone have a proven viscosity to suggest for the black fan clutch? I remember reading in some thread here on mud that 15 was about as thick as one should go with the oil in this clutch, I would appreciate any info that is backed up by experience.

 

[baldilocks]

Took a couple hours out today to remove the front axle from the rollover rig to be installed in "new" 93. The dolly I put together a couple weekends ago sure does make this chore easy.

 

[baldilocks]

I'm taking time off work to make this heavy, dirty work go more quickly so the project is moving along nicely.
Over the weekend the radiator, new water pump, thermostat and hoses went in after I finished the front axle install. I back flushed the cooling system for an hour because there was a lot of rust in the block. It's apparent that some maintenance items were not kept up on.

 

[baldilocks]

Before closing up the cooling system I drilled and tapped the water outlet tube for a Koso water temp gauge sender. My shopvac hose fit perfectly over the outlet tube to suck any metal particles that may have fallen into the tube while drilling.
I got the idea from a post by another member who used a 1/8 NPT tap. Thread pitch was ok but I felt that the sender seemed rather loose in the hole so insatalled it with some grey RTV and have no leaks so far.

 

[baldilocks]

I was running slee 4" springs but I picked up a set of OME comps from @Apounder, 5" front and 4" rear. Without my bumper and winch, only 150, the springs render exactly 5". These springs compressed 4" and leave little down travel with the OME L shocks so used some washers to get back about 1.25" of down stroke without needing to drop the bump stops. If I stick with these springs I will need to get longer shocks or weld a three inch tube spacer to the lower front shock mout mount. The spring will droop 4" before becoming loose and falling out and right now I only just under 3" of shock left for droop.

 

[baldilocks]

A comparison photo of the 5" comp and stock front springs. The comp is 22", the stocker is 19.5 but compresses 6.5" under load as opposed to the comp 4" of compression. It's obvious that the stock set up has twice as much down travel as up and it looks to be just the opposite with the comp springs. Under load the stiockers are 13" tall the comps 18" with no winch or bumper.
The slee 4" stand right at 20" free and 17" installed. I was told that the comps springs flex better than the Slee's by a guy who has ran both.

 

[rc51kid]

Great thread with lots of good info. I have 94 that shifts great. But once in a while it will pick up about 200 rpm between 1-2 shifts at very light throttle opening. Is there a way to test the selonids with out opening the trans?

 

[slow95z]

Nope, open it up to test them.

 

[baldilocks]

Great thread with lots of good info. I have 94 that shifts great. But once in a while it will pick up about 200 rpm between 1-2 shifts at very light throttle opening. Is there a way to test the selonids with out opening the trans?

Check the throttle valve cable adjustment. A flare between shifts is normally corrected by adjusting slack from the throttle valve cable.
Don't bother checking solenoids until you see the OD "off" light flashing at you.

 

[baldilocks]

I got to a rather late start this morning and heat was already picking up so progress was not what I had hoped for today.
The rear axle is in place but not finished. At 4+" of lift I was experiencing rear driveline vibes that I could not correct with MT upper and lower rear control arms so I had a DC rear driveline built.
The slip joint end is all Toyota. The DC end was built using a new NeapCo DC and Spicer 1310 life time joints. This is the same as my front DC shaft.
This may be long winded so stay with me. As you may know, when we put a DC joint at the Tee case, there can be no angle at the pinion in order for the shaft to run smooth. I had no problem attaining proper alignment with the MT adjustable arms. However, the photo shows how the OME 4" comp spring refused to comply and seat positively on the lower perch.
Given the fact that I am committed to taking a visitor from Florida up to spider lake this coming Saturday, I will let the spring ride as it will and haul this bitch up to the Rubicon on my trailer so I can deal with clocking the spring buckets later.
This is not my first bout with the 80 series rear suspension but today's business caused me to realize just how saphisticated our rear suspensions are. What other SUV had a rear 4 link suspension, disc brakes and a full floating axle assembly during the 90's?

 

[baldilocks]

This photo was taken with full vehicle weight on the springs. A DC rear shaft will require my plasma cutter, grinder and welder to get everything back into to harmony. (That sounded kind of *ay).
The cool thing about an 80 is the vast amount of possibilities.........

 

[93yotasr5]

She's coming along very nicely my friend!!!

 

[baldilocks]

Got my ass up and out to the garage by 0530 today in an attempt to beat the heat. Finished the rear axle and moved on to a bunch of other stuff like skid plates and ARB air line routing.
I need to keep the rolled rig mobile so I actually did a double axle swap. Yeah it sucked but it's done now.
I have included pics of the issues brought on by rotating the rear pinion up far enough to acomodate a DC driveline.
The panhard mounts are nearly parallel with the garage floor! Parking brake cable and brake lines are down in dangers way so I predict a not so far off rear axle total redo via plasma cutter, Lincoln , and various other toys.

 

[baldilocks]

the DC rear driveline runs smooth as silk at all speed s and conditions. That is worth the extra work I will need to do to correct the previously mentions rear axle issues caused by rotating the pinion up that far.

 

[baldilocks]

The ARB air lockers from my rolled 94,now installed in the replacement 93, needed to be wired up for operation. The 94 came to me a couple years ago with the 4.88's and ARB's already insatlled and were wired up to be controlled with an OEM switch and some other push button switch for the compressor that fit perfectly in the OEM spot for the alarm mic. So I simply copied the cut and splice procedure that someone else did on the 94 since it worked with no problems.
The off white connector goes to the dash lights dimmer. The larger pure white connector goes to the locker selector switch and the black connector on the right is the compressor on/off switch. The larger gauge red and black paired wires that barely stick out from under the dash are compressor power wires provided by ARB.
The second photo shows the mass of wires, two relays and the orange female connector which represents the female of the elocker ECU. The wiring for elockers is in everyFZJ80 so this orange connector will plug into that harness once the elocker ECU is removed. This harness and elocker ECU is located behind the passenger kick panel. I am assuming that all non locked 80 have this orange female as it has 3 wires coming from it. All I had to do was removed the elocker ECU from the 93 and plug this baby in. This all took a couple hours and works just like it did in the 94.

 

[GW Nugget]

Wow, that's a lot of work...
5" lift... I'm sure it looks good.
Are you running the 35s or going back to 37"s?

 

[baldilocks]

Wow, that's a lot of work...
5" lift... I'm sure it looks good.
Are you running the 35s or going back to 37"s?

Still on 35's. I have never run a 37 on and 80 but did on a previous crawler. It's only 5" in the front. It sets pretty level and a slight bit lower on the rear 4" comps as opposed to the rear 4" Dual rate Slee springs I was running before. Took it to the Rubicon last Monday and although the work is far from finished, she did well. I took no photos but my companions did and as soon as they send me a few pics that they took I will post them.

 

[baldilocks]

After a month (two weeks off work) of concentrated love and sweat she stands proud with zero leaks and at 269k the 1fz burns no oil and runs unbelievably smooth and quiet. The White Rhino has concoured various sections of Rubicon twice but now it's time to remove all armor and prep for Monstaliner, some interior work and .......

 

[slow95z]

looking great man

 

[GW Nugget]

The white on white is going to look great.
It's coming all together.
Thanks for sharing your jurney with us.