Refurb of the ol' FJ62 GXL 3F H55F

[AussieCruiser62]

G'day Dave and Silveredition, sweet to see some West Aussies representing!
Sadly, my driver's license is currently suspended, so you probably won't see me on the road Dave, unless I'm in the passenger's seat I'll keep me eyes peeled for ya though.
Small world, I used to have a couple of mates who were ally welders at Austal Ships too, we're going back about 24 years though....
I'm not working at the moment, waiting for a back operation for a herniated disc, so I'm just about managing to keep the insanity at bay with tinkering on the 62 if and when the ol' back allows me....bloody sux getting old hey...and I'm only 47...scary!

 

[cruiserpilot]

Do you know the boys at GTurbo and PDI? I’ve been going back and forth with them
since spring. Just in the middle of an upgrade myself

 

[AussieCruiser62]

Do you know the boys at GTurbo and PDI? I’ve been going back and forth with them
since spring. Just in the middle of an upgrade myself

I don't know them myself, I've never owned a turbocharged vehicle, my personal preference is petrol (gasoline for the American peeps) V8's running dual fuel lpg systems. Over the years I've had 5 V8 Land Rovers/Range Rovers, all running dual fuel, 2 of which I did the full lpg install myself, then had them inspected, certified and licensed by a licensed automotive lpg tech. That way I saved around $1k on the installation, plus you then know your system inside out.
Many moons ago, my Nissan MQ Patrol SWB with the L28 2.8 litre 6 cylinder petrol had a custom 90 litre petrol tank and a 82 litre (usable) lpg tank, that was an awesome rig, never let me down in the 7 years I owned it, went all over the Kimberly region when I lived in Broome, recovered many bogged city slickers both on the beach and some knarly, muddy, more remote places too. It's all about those tyre pressures and vehicle momentum, as all you guys and girls know.
With my current '99 P38 Range Rover, I have a 75 litre (usable) lpg tank and sequential vapour injection system, and the original 100litre petrol tank, I can get around 1000km highway/country road range, then when I'm out in the country I just use petrol (around 500 to 600km range) coz in most rural country towns, lpg is the same price as petrol.

Anyway, enough dribbling....does it work out cost effective buying from these guys and shipping to the States? I guess it does, or you wouldn't be doing it. Plus, they do seem to know what they're doing alright!
Cheers.

 

[sogafarm]

Does the LPG system get better mpg's? Curious as to the benefit of running a duel fuel system.

 

[cruiserpilot]

LPG here in Canada doesn’t work. Too cold for propane to work properly

 

[AussieCruiser62]

LPG here in Canada doesn’t work. Too cold for propane to work properly

Hey Cruiserpilot, sorry mate, didn't realise you're in Canada, thought you were in the US. I spent a couple weeks in Vancouver when a mate and I did a west coast US trip back in '95, awesome trip, had a blast and met so many great people.
How's your turbo/intercooler upgrade coming along?

 

[AussieCruiser62]

Does the LPG system get better mpg's? Curious as to the benefit of running a duel fuel system.

The main benefit of lpg is (was) the much lower cost at the pump.
Unfortunately, the price of lpg here in Australia has slowly crept up over the last 30 years to a point where there is now only a slight economic advantage of running on lpg.

Another advantage is an environmental one, lpg is much cleaner burning with lower emissions in the exhaust.

Also, because it's cleaner burning, the engine internals remain much cleaner, my oil stays a golden colour for at least 6000km after an oil change. And that's on a 280 000 km engine.

Back in the 80's/90's/early00's, the Govt had a rebate scheme, so when you had a vehicle fitted with an lpg system, you could claim the rebate, and it was basically no cost to have a conversion done. You could only claim 1 rebate per person (current driver's license holder).

Lpg gets only roughly 80 to 90% of the mileage of petrol, so you do use a bit more, however, the price difference really made it much more economical. Back then, lpg was much cheaper than petrol-around half the price. All the taxis and fleet vehicles etc used to run it.

Nowadays, there's no rebate scheme, fewer and fewer petrol stations supply lpg, and the price keeps creeping up. Currently, here in Perth, Western Australia, petrol is about $1.30/litre and the best price for lpg is $0.82/litre. So it is still cheaper to run lpg, not forgetting that it only gets around 80% or so of the mpg of petrol.

Cheers.

 

[AussieCruiser62]

Well, because she has been sitting for a couple of years, I've been flushing the cooling system on the 62, (removed thermostat, filling with just tap water, running for a good 10 minutes or so until up to temp, letting it cool down, draining by removing bottom rad hose for a quick dumpand repeat until I finally got clear water instead of brown rusty water....took about 6 cycles..I think..might've lost count!)

I had a look at the plastic radiator drain plug and decided it was looking rather worn, possibly even cross threaded previously, so I came up with a little work around that I thought I'd share with you lot

The thread is M14x1.25, (parallel thread, as the plug seals by a rubber washer against the shoulder of the flanged head; the same as a sump or diff drain plug). This thread size is very close to 1/4 BSPT, the pitch is practically identical, but the 1/4 BSPT thread is a slightly larger O/D. So all you need to do is carefully run a 1/4BSPT tap through the thread.

Then you can use your choice of 1/4 BSP valves that you have saved over the years, coz you knew it would come in handy one day

I used a brass stop valve from an old, decommissioned water cooled TIG machine, I like the patina, it sorta seems about right for a 31 year old rig!

It doesn't leak a drop when up to temp/pressure, and with a hose tail and a bit of garden hose, it's a piece of cake draining the coolant into a bucket...not trying to catch it as it spews all over the front axle and suspension.
FYI, below pic is just tap water for an action shot

 

[AussieCruiser62]

A few other jobs I've knocked out a while back are replacing the left front engine mount, it was completely separated.
I got the ol' fan grinding on the top of the shroud when I was doing a river crossing which had very steep banks, low range, first gear, full throttle type of gig. Mind you, it was probably already busted, I just hadn't put that much torque through the drivetrain before!

I also replaced the gearbox mount, Crikey, there was some gunk built up on that cross member!

 

[AussieCruiser62]

I haven't done a whole lot on the 62 this week, been busy with some other projects, but we had a little bit of quality time together today
Because my FJ62 was sitting in a shed for a couple of years untill recently, the engine cooling system is a bit corroded in places

I'm thinking of cutting the steel heater pipes back to where the wall thickness is good and fitting new longer hoses to fit it back up.
We don't have the oil cooler over here so those spigots are just capped off, so I can happily delete that section right back to near the centre mounting tab. What do y'all reckon? Good idea...or should I delete the steel pipes completely?
Interested to hear what others have done, cheers.
Tim.

 

[AussieCruiser62]

This arvo I started on sorting out some rust on the driver's door around and under the door skin seam sealer. It's been bugging me lately and seeing as how it's Sunday, I thought it would be a good little job that I can do with hand tools so as not to upset my neighbours with the angle grinder, air compressor etc...on second thoughts, bugger 'em
Hehe, nah, it's not true what everyone says...I'm not a complete pr/ck all the time I just used a large flat blade screwdriver and chipped and scraped all the loose paint and rust off, and cut the seam sealer out with my Stanley knife. This is the only door with any rust in it, all the others are mint, and it would appear the reason for this is the door skin was replaced at some stage, and moisture has gotten under the seam sealer and caused corrosion...just can't beat Mr T's factory job! The seam sealer is black, I guess it's Sikaflex or some other urethane, unlike the off white standard stuff, and was definitely not applied as neat and smooth as the factory job.
The following 3 pics are after cleaning it all up and treating with Fertan; which is a type of rust converter that converts the rust (I know, who would've guessed it!) into ferric tannate. It's really good stuff, I've been using it for years, and it's non-toxic, unlike the phosphoric acid type converters.

The next few pics are inside the door cavity.

 

[AussieCruiser62]

Thankfully, it's not too bad really, I reckon I got on to it just in time!
This is the product I used if anyone's interested.

Tomorrow, I just need to wash it off with fresh water, let it dry, and it's ready for primer; seam sealer; top coat; then cavity wax.
Cheers, Tim.

 

[AussieCruiser62]

I decided to cut back the steel heater pipe section to where the the metal is solid, give it a quick sand blast and paint with hi temp engine enamel.

I just need to make up longer hoses to connect to the heater valve.

 

[AussieCruiser62]

I got around to fixing the horn today. I considered doing the .22 casing trick, but the new pin is only about $6.00, plus I always like to do a job properly whenever possible. I actually found a few spent .22 shells under the front seats, plus a couple of live rounds too, from the old farmer who was the PO, his eyesight was probably failing I guess...

You can see the wear on the original, should be good for another 323 000km

I also removed the horn pad and then the contact plates. I checked and cleaned the 4 contacts, they were all good.

I reassembled it all, but the horn was still not operating when pressing on just the left side of the pad, pressing on just the right side it worked fine. Took it apart again, did some head scratching, then found the orange wire on the left side, where it is riveted to the contact plate, was a tad loose, you could easily spin the ring terminal on the rivet. The rivets are aluminium, so I simply crushed them tight with small vice grips, in the pic above, you can see the left one is done, the right is how they look originally. I did them both to be sure. Popped the steering wheel on and she's good as gold

 

[AussieCruiser62]

Continued...

Oh, almost forgot...I put some silicone grease on the slip ring for lubrication/corrosion protection.

You guys n girls from the land of the maple tree might like my key tag...I've had it since the summer of '95, I spent 2 weeks in Vancouver with a local lass (she gave me the key tag) who I actually met in a supermarket down in Santa Monica...ah, great memories!!