red beard (7 Viewers)

[franklin40]

wipers, heater core, rear hatch handle ordered from @cruiseroutfit, brake booster ordered from @Racer65 and a windshield washer kit from cool cruisers.

exhaust was done today. no leaks make for a much quieter ride. i have a few body leaks to fix and then the heater work. this should be enough $ haemorrhage for now to keep me rolling.

i need to save up for the 1hdt rebuild i’ll be getting into shortly for my 62! i’m going to be poor for a while now but at least i’ll be cool right!!

 

[franklin40]

little more activity on red tonight.

new headlights are in. super easy!

then plugged some holes in my floor

then adjusted my steering box and my centre link to see if i can tighten up steering a bit. it’s still trying to kill me now and then!

lastly i posted the above to screw with you. give me more credit than that with all the bezel police around!!

 

[franklin40]

so my steering is actually worse now. the side to side slop in the steering wheel is no better but now it’s just harder to correct once the steering engages. i’ll have to loosen off the centre link a bit but this seems to make me think the slop is upstream from the centre link. i tried adjusting the screw on the steering box itself but it wouldn’t move (yes i undid the jam nut). i guess i’ll have to live with it for now. i have a mini truck power steering box and all the parts i’ll put in next summer when i have my second vehicle and this one can be apart for more than an evening.

 

[franklin40]

out with the old in with the new. thanks yet again @Racer65

this was a scratch and dent one too!! looks pretty dang good to me!! and as his site says literally a 1/2 hour job. fits perfectly. the only tech is that the fork that attaches to the brake pedal needs to be swapped over. i just counted the number of threads under my jam nut and replicated that with the new one. fit perfectly with no further adjustments.

next shocks…and heater core when it shows up

 

[franklin40]

check out the articulation

decided to try and measure for shocks. i think the shocks in there are limiting droop as front and rear are both 20 inches. compression is 17 rear and 16 front. the front is is 17.5 at ride height and the rear is 19.5

from another thread these are some numbers of shocks.

These Bilsteins should cover up to 4" of lift.

BIL33-185606 Front
Collapsed Length (IN) - 14.13
Extended Length (IN) - 22.58

BIL33-185552 Rear
Collapsed Length (IN) - 15.91
Extended Length (IN) - 25.93

kind of wonder if i should use the 606 up front and 552 rear. city racer site says that all 4 corners are the same for pre73. but my measurements say otherwise.

any suggestions.

 

[franklin40]

from the above thread those measurements were for 1970 fj40 so similar shock mount. i ordered those exact shocks today!! hopefully last of the major parts to purchase for a while. now to just drive it!! (until it needs a knuckle rebuild…..)

 

[franklin40]

more maintenance stuff tonight. i did differential, tranny and transfer case oil changes. glad i did.

i had done a tranny oil change earlier but with the wrong oil so i used it as a flush and got some proper gl-4.

not sure what was used in the diffs. one looked yellowish like water had gotten in there. i saw some metal shavings on the plug too so that worries me a bit. thankfully i have a few good diffs floating around here if i need one. the front oil looked like dark brown molasses not gear oil. so that’s done. i also adjusted the brake booster a bit so i don’t have a much pedal travel before engaging the brakes. i think i may still have a bit more to adjust. but little by little. lastly i fixed my choke (i hope). seems as though the spring on my edelbrock electric choke wasn’t engaging the choke mechanism. now it is and i found that when i rebuilt it i didn’t put the little gasket in so there was no way to tighten it up. now with the gasket in place i can get the housing to pre load a little to keep the choke on a little
longer when it’s cold.

so productive night on little things that need to get done but not anything to take photos of

 

[franklin40]

rear shocks on tonight. fronts another night soon!

i also got a new bulb in the high beam indicator so that works. i put some red LEDs in the instrument cluster. i’ll see how i like them on my drive in to work tomorrow. out of curiosity is there a dash dimmer on the 1972?

i’ll either adjust where the boots sit or just get rid of them all together. they look funky where they are

 

[Chungas Revenge]

rear shocks on tonight. fronts another night soon!

i also got a new bulb in the high beam indicator so that works. i put some red LEDs in the instrument cluster. i’ll see how i like them on my drive in to work tomorrow. out of curiosity is there a dash dimmer on the 1972? View attachment 3506466

i’ll either adjust where the boots sit or just get rid of them all together. they look funky where they are

I think you are going to like the new shocks…I just adjusted the boots.

 

[franklin40]

so amazingly i can actually tell the difference with these new shocks. they’ve made a significant difference from what was in there. this is what was in there.

these gas shocks have no self rebound and are pretty soft compared to the bilsteins.

now the springs don’t compress as much so there’s not so much rebound making it smoother but not harsh. i can feel the front bounce once or twice more than the rear making the driving characteristics a bit funny. i’ll get the fronts on tonight.

 

[franklin40]

new hatch handle on today

i also refurbished my dome light. i took it apart and sandblasted the metal. had to drill out broken bolts and retap the threads. then repainted the bracket.

i’m still going to try to add a door activated switch too so it comes on when the door is open. it just the dash switch

 

[franklin40]

i’ve also started working on my horn. i got the wires reconnected and thanks to @Green Bean who supplied me with a new rubber horn washer he had lying around (so much thanks to you for this part) i got the horn button cleaned up and reassembled. while it was part i noticed the horn contact on the spring was pretty worn down to i spot welded some metal in to fill it. looks pretty good now!

anyway after all that still no joy. i found the horn relay and took it off to clean it up but found it has a rattle to it. i assume something is broken inside. so now i have to figure out if something else will work or do i need to buy a $60 relay.

 

[middlecalf]

Are there three wires at the relay, a GR, GY and GW? If so, a Wells HR610 horn relay will work.

 

[franklin40]

Are there three wires at the relay, a GR, GY and GW? If so, a Wells HR610 horn relay will work.

yep those are my three wires. i’ll look for that! there’s also a standard motor products hr159t that i though looked like it might work. i’ll look for the wells as it’s been proven

 

[franklin40]

i looked up the relay you mentioned. i do have the three wires you mentioned but a connector like this.

i could get this one or i could just cut the wires and use the wells. i’m tempted to try to standard motor products one before cutting my wires

 

[middlecalf]

IIRC, the GR wire goes to the switch terminal (#2?), GY wire to battery terminal (#1?), 2x GW to horn terminal (#3? - are there actually two GW wires in your harness?). I’m not a circuit wonk, but I do see a resistor symbol, a diode symbol, and a switch symbol .

 

[franklin40]

while it’s still warm i haven’t been to ready to dig into the heater rebuild but i guess winter will hit sooner or later and i have a few days off to not need the 40 so here we go! front heater rehab and rear heater install

part 1. heater rehab. as i’m leaving everything patina…ish i’ve chosen to leave the heater looking good. as i’ve said before full blown heater restorations tend to lead to frame off truck restorations. i don’t want to go there.

so heater out

pulled apart. only about 8 screws and it’s apart

parts through the parts washer and cleaned up

i just cut my own foam pieces with some closed cell foam for the borders of the heater core and open cell for the heater flap.

i was able to reuse the core end cap foams as they were still in decent shape

 

[franklin40]

i put in a new core from @cruiseroutfit. all reassembled. really didn’t take too long to do.

i have a flexalite rear heater i’m going to use but while the front is out i want to pull the OEM switches and see if i can make it work for high/low on the flexalite. stay tuned.

 

[franklin40]

played with my stock rear heater switch to make it work with my flexalite mojave heater which i’ll use as a rear heater.

here’s the link to the thread i started specific to the switch and the very helpful info i gleaned so felt i could tackle it. it’s a gentle job but really a one job.

early 1972 heater fan switch

i see that @ToyotaMatt has refurbished some of these switches and wonder if anyone knows a thread that would guide me through the process? or is this only something electrical gurus should attempt? i have pulled the switch and can confirm my heater resistor is not the problem. the switch...

forum.ih8mud.com

my heater technically has three settings but the low is almost useless so i’ll wire it so the medium is my low and high is high

 

[franklin40]

i was able to get my rear heater in. it’s a bit of a messy job. it’s a flexalite mojave i’ve had sitting around for a bit. after cleaning up the OEM rear heater switch i wired it up with the red black connected to the original ignition power harness with a small jumper to the OEM rear fan wiring.
i then hooked my orange (high) to the blue/white on the switch harness and the red (medium ) to the blue/black on the switch. the yellow (low) i left disconnected as it really just makes noise whiteout really moving any air. this way i can use my OEM switch. i’ll need to wash the cab out now before i finish plugging the holes in the floor! oh yeah and a new fire wall heater hose grommet from @Racer65 thats been sitting in my box of gaskets/weather stripping! i think i’ll get some heater hose wrap and burry the wires in it too just to clean things up

i also disconnected the momentary button that for some reason activated the starter even though the key works fine . i’ll use this switched power for a couple charging accessories. the hole in. the dash is plugged for now but i may put a switch in there for some accessory dash lights. not tonight though.