Resurecting a Canadian LN66 (1 Viewer)

[FabzToy]

Hey folks!

Been a while since I posted on forums, but I found so much info here and noticed it was still pretty active. I figured it would be the best place to thinker with what I'm doing that old truck of mine. Little background before we start. I've been playing with cars for a while already and had a lot of them over the years. Mostly old Toyotas as of lately (MX63, TE72, ST185). I also had an 89 4Runner 10 years ago and bought another one that's too far gone to bring back, but has a lot of good parts for when I pull the trigger on a clean base.

Back to the main subject! In november 2021, I bought an 1987 2LT 5 speed 4x4 pick-up that has been sitting in a farm yard since 2014 atleast. Atleast 4 or 5 of my friends tried to buy this truck from the old farmer, but I somehow found a way the the guy's heart, and he accepted to sell me the thing after 6 months of occasional visits. The honeymoon was short though. I didn't really looked into it before he sold it to me as I already had 4 or 5 old toyota's. The truck looks great from afar, but quickly understood how much it had been messed with when loading it on the trailer. Frame had beed re-plated from the doors back, cab and box had a lot of rust work (poorly) done. Paint wasn't of the best quality either. Brakes needed work and I assumed something was wrong with the engine for it to be parked initially. I took the winter to reset my expectations and started the quest of resurecting the thing on the cheap. Cleaned up the brakes, replaced all the oils, , cleaned up the rat nest wiring and gave it a good clean before putting it to the test and deciding if I was putting more money into it. Here's what it looked like at this point.

It needed more love still, but there was potential. So I replaced the batteries, installed new to me tires, redid brake lines, installed a willwood prop valve to replace the missing LSPV, post turbo EGT, boost and oil pressure and fixed the rotten fuel level cap among other things. I'm basically following the Ideas for improving the 2LTE by GTSSportCoupe. This is pretty much how it sits right now.

At this point, It likely staying for a little while so I ordered more parts (timing belt, valve cover gasket, water pump, thermostat, etc.). I'm also looking at how to fix what probably what stopped this truck 8 years ago. A leaky turbo. I find the turbo to be very laggy. I ended up completely removing the wastegate hose and It struggles to build boost. I see a max of 10psi at what sounds like high RPM (No tach). It made be entertain the idea of a turbo upgrade, but with what the truck is and the costs involved, I want to have a better idea what a healthy CT20 should feel like.

Right now, the future plans are:
- Engine maintenance
- Evans waterless coolant
- Oil catch can
- Replace turbo: CT20, Subaru VF turbo and the likes, or GT18 VNT turbo or similar ( I didn't figure out all the details, but have a general idea what would be involved)
- move EGT probe pre-turbo when replacing it.
- 2.5'' or 3'' exhaust
- install small FMIC
- Suspension work. I have a front axle off an 85 Pick up. I might do a cheap SAS and lift eventually.

I don't wan't to build a powerhouse. Just something that can keep up with traffic and hold 110kph with some load in the box for off road and dirt bike expeditions, camping trips and home improvement projects.

I hope you liked my little story and I'm looking forward on having input on my plans with this little truck!

 

[pappy]

Nice introduction! Welcome to our slice of MUD.

 

[Woodini]

Cool truck, sounds like you have the capabilities to bring her all the way back

 

[FabzToy]

Thanks guys!

I'll do my best to bring her back atleast a bit closer to her former glory than to the grave lol. She's had a rough time, but she's still a solid 20 footer! Might even become a 15 footer once I polish her up a bit.

 

[FabzToy]

Happy new year everyone! It doesn't look like it's starting much better than 2022 with all of the passings in the automotive industry but lets not loose faith.

Looks like I didn't loose my habit of not posting frequently on forums. I like to have a bit done before updating, and it usually takes a while.

So, I fell down the rabbit hole... the whole list of upgrade will be done by next summer. At which point i'll probably dig out that '85 front axle I have in my part stash for an eventual SAS.

Here's approximately where we are standing right now.

An overview of most of the parts. I ended up going for a GT1852 after some research and questions on here. Not the easiest route, but I was curious to play around with one so I took the opportunity.

It needed some work to fit. It's a Renault Espace 2.2 CDI turbo. I made the compressor outlet front facing and clocked the turbine housing to allow for vertical positioning of CHRA with a better turbine inlet orientation.

This is not plug as easy as a normal turbo, but I could still clock the turbine housing every 10 deg. approx. by clocking the VNT control ring at the same time. Fine tuning might be necessary later on, but I think I got it pretty close.

I needed to make a new 5/8 oil drain fitting to fit the small hose of the turbo. Stock dia is closer du 3/4''. Some aluminium stock and a bit of machining and tadah!

 

[FabzToy]

Part 2:

This thing is so grimmy. I regret not pressure washing the engine before I started.

Now on to the manifold!

Sorry for the blurry pic. I went for the budget option with 1.25'' sch40 butt weld elbow and 12'' nipples from the hardware store. I'm lucky to have access to a plasma cutter so I made the flanges out of 1/2'' steel.

It's not my best welding, but it'll do. I tried to orient flow as good as possible while keeping a simple log style design.

I'm reusing the stock maniolf brace and moved my EGT probe in the merge as you can see. Finishing touch is a coat of VHT flammeproof I had laying around for years.

 

[FabzToy]

Part 3:

Forgive the double pic on my previous post. I can't edit it out somehow.

Intercooler time!

Space was tight so I couldn't use silicone elbows as initially planned. I had to cut and weld aluminium 90 deg directly onto the intercooler. Again, not my best welding.

Quick shot of how everything fits. I stuggled a bit with my intercooler piping clearance holes, but I think the end result looks decent.

Looks decent!

I might do something else for the air intake later on, or atleast a heat shield , but fit is good for now!

Intercooler hot side done.

Pretty simple, but I used up all of the aluminium 90 I bought so i'll have to order more to do the cold side.

 

[FabzToy]

Part 4: Last one for the day!

Exhaust. I went with a 2.5 as 3'' didn't fit the turbine outlet. It should be plenty big for my goals. I was also using leftover straight tubing and ran out. I only managed to do the downpipe. Stainless steel this time!

The flat bar on the turbine housing was only used while I was waiting on the real flange i had cut by sendcutsend.com. We didn't have tips to cut 3/8'' SS and didn't have the material available, so I decided to try this service. Not the cheapest, but it makes things much easier for custom projects like this.

Last picture I took is an eyeball positioning of the oil catch can.

Ebay or amazon unit in the bigger size. I made a quick bracket to hold the pressure switches that light up the dash turbo lights and ended up using a straight piece of steel to tie the catch can to this same bracket.

Other than fabrication, I still need to figure out how to control the VNT actuator. I found the GFB thingy which is pretty expensive for a less than ideal solution. I read of a Patrol forum that cheap valves exist to reproduce the same system. My ultimate goal would probably include a mac valve, an Arduino and some extra sensors, but I would be very happy to keep it simple for this first itteration as these electronic projects are not my forte and end up taking way too long to complete.

Thats it! See ya later!

 

[AirheadNut]

Cool project! One of the neat aspects of a VNT is the ability to have an exhaust brake function. On my LJ78/VW TDI mashup my turbo will build 7-10psi boost when coasting at higher RPM's, giving me much better "compression braking" than one would normally expect out of a 1.9L engine in a 4800lb vehicle. Really nice for descending mountain passes or even decelerating when approaching a stop. Basically the ECU fully closes the vanes of the turbo when the throttle input is 0%.

 

[FabzToy]

Thanks!

Engine brake is a neat feature. I never realized vw used the vnt to do that. I could maybe make it work with that electronic boost controller if I end up making it. It's still a pretty rough idea, but I think I if I can fit a TPS, get an rpm signal, and a boost signal, I can build a 3D table and use that with a PID loop. Thats all stuff I played around with in school but never really but in application. Which makes it even more interesting. TPS will take some thinkering, but RPM might already be there if RyanMiller could just swap clusters without issue?

 

[FabzToy]

Alright! February update. I started the truck with the new turbo set up for the first time this weekend! But first, let's see how we got there.

I received my turbine exhaust flange from sendcutsend somewhere in early january so I switched out the mock up flat bar for the real thing. I noticed a little mistake I made after sending the drawings out. I was printing out the flange in 1:1 to check my measurments, but my printer settings were to ''fit to page'' so the actual flange was a little bigger than it should. I had to make the bolt holes bigger to make it fit, but it works great anyways.

Don't look too close. The frame is a total mess. I'll see what I do about this later down the route. No plan to make it perfect. But I'd like decent at least.

My tubing supplier was out of Vibrant 90deg. We found a non polished 180 and, with a piece of straight tube, that was enough to complete the intercooler cold side.

Welds are not the best everywhere, but considering I didn't TIG weld for months and just jumped back in on these, I'm happy with the result.

 

[FabzToy]

Now that the intercooler piping was done, I needed to have beads at each ends. I wanted to get into metal shaping for a while already, so i convinced myself to get a bead roller on sale at Princess auto. The same cheap ones you find everywhere online that needs modifications to be decent. Dies where too big unfortunately, so I ended up doing the moded vices trick. It sucked a bit, but the result was alright. I wouldn't do this in some of my other projects, but it's al right for this one.

Now, this is work from this last week. I sandblasted the few brackets I made plus the valve cover and powdercoated everything. I put everything together and did a first start on saturday morning with some rad flush in the coolant system to try to clean out the oil residues. I'm preparing for the worse, but I hope it just mixed up in the old turbo and not in the engine. We'll see once we run it a little longer.

Here's how things look right now, but with T-bolt clamps everywhere and the downpipe and thermostat housing bolted down.

Honnestly, I ran the truck without the clamps on my first shakedown and blew the turbo outlet pipe obviously. I found a decent amout of oil in the pipe already. This is not a good sight for what I was hoping to be a healthy turbo, but atleast I know the the wheels never touched the housings, so they sould be rebuildable without issue. I'll wait and run a truck a little longer before jumping to conclusion anyways.

Here's a link to a poorly filmed video of the truck running while I was doing the rad flushes. Note the silicone hose on the VNT actuator. I don't have all the parts I need to put together my dawes boost controller copy, so I was using my manual vacuum pumps to see how the turbo would react to differend vaccum pressures. The truck feels much peppier with this turbo already. I can't wait to see how it does with ''proper'' boost control.

New video by Marc-Adrien Boyer

photos.app.goo.gl

As of now, the truck is back in my garage and I'll be replacing all glow plugs, cam and crank seals, water pump, timing belt with idler and tensioner, and all accessory belts. That should be enough love for a little while hopefully!

 

[jgranthevagrant]

Frame looks pretty good if it has lived in Quebec for its whole life.

 

[FabzToy]

It might be hard to see on pictures, but the inside of the frame is plated over with bugger welding from the the tranny crossmember all the way to the rear leaf mounts. rear cross member is a 3'' C-channel. shock mount and transmission cross-member are all patched over. the bed is not too bad overall, but both sides were poorly replaced and the shapes are not even right to beging with. It's all crocked and the tailgate latch doesn't catch on one side. Cab has a ton of rust that was poorly repaired. The whole thing was repainted with bad prep work. There is overspray on many seals and windows. It's not a looker, but I don't care for now.

 

[FabzToy]

Well. I'm hesitant now. I started disassembling the truck and many of the parts I planned on replacing look pretty new. I know the PO put a lot of money in the truck so I was kind of expecting it. Everything is probably 10 years old, but barely broken in. Being somewhat cheap but mostly lazy. I'm thinking of putting it back together has is. The only thing I want to fix is the timing belt cover that was worn through and fixed with RTV. I already have the parts. I could keep them for whenever I really need to do that service in a few years. I need to check if they fit though, as the glow plug don't.

Here's a list of what I got off Rockauto:
Glow plugs - NGK 7492 (don't fit, but old ones tested good)
Valve cover gasket - ELRING 752738 (Barely fits. Had to superglue it to the cover)
Timing belt idler - GATES T42026
Timing belt tensioner - GATES T41068
Water pump - AISIN WPT013
Timing belt - GATES T084
Thermostat - GATES 33198
Power steering belt - GATES 9345
Alternator and fan belt - GATES 7390 x2

I also bought some OEM misc parts; valve cover rubber washers, cam and front crank seals

Here are a few photos of what it looks like right now. Let me know what you think. Would you just replace everything while you're there, or just slap it back together and wait a little bit?

 

[gnob]

if it aint broke .....

 

[FabzToy]

Well. I decided to fix it anyways, and noticed cracks at the base of many tooths on the cam belt. Atleast I know i'm good for a while with all the new stuff.

I also tried myself fixing the belt cover which must have been loose at some point because if was worn through where the belts run.

I bought a plastic welding kit off ebay and went at it with polypropylene filler. I'm not sure this is what the cover is made of, but it worked decently. I don't know if masters of the skill manage to make stuff look brand new, but I feel my result are decent!

Today, I finished putting everything back together and went for another test drive. The bleed valve+ needle valve boost controller seems to be working alright, but I think my turbo is blown. It boosts pretty well, but I found oil in the boost pipe after only a few mins of driving. I'll have to look into having it rebuild. Hopefully I can find somewhere that can to it even though it's a EU market turbo.

Next on the list is to try to give the paint a little shine. I'm already thinking of digging out my front solid axle and do a SAS and chevy 63'' rear leafs, but I need to do my research, because I'm definitely not spending 2k$+ just for a kit on this truck. Hopefully I can hold myself for a little while and focus on finishing my '82 Corolla wagon before jumping in another project on this thing.

 

[FabzToy]

While we're here, why not show the reasons why this thread migh become a lot less active in the following months.

'92 Celica GT-Four RC. Pretty stock with a few mods like coilovers, wheels and a few other basic things. great cruiser. Had it for 12 years I think? I bought one in high school for cheap. It had a bit of rot and I tought I could repair it. Luckily, I bailed out and bought this one instead. The old one would have never been this nice.

There's this thing too. '84 Cressida with a '92 1UZ-FE swap. Had this one for 11 years I think and completed the swap 4 years ago now. I have other plans to upgrade it. like a 3UZ-FE with maybe ITBs. I miss my old 20V 4AGE, and I read that VVTI 1UZs can push like 300+ WHP with itbs and a tune. I'm kinda aiming to build it into a s***tier E39 M5 if you will.

Last one I'll share. '82 Corolla wagon I bought myself as a graduation present 7 years ago. It's got a few mods, but no go fast bits yet. I fitted a W50 to the stock 3TC and I'm in the process of completing an AW11 steering rack + Yaris EPS conversion. The mechanical part is completed, but I am a bit fussy and want everything to work flawlessly. So I started the journey of building an integration module to handle CAN communication, adjustable speed relative steering assist and drive a small electric motor to replace the cable driven speedometer (while allowing to correct my speedo error). The problem is, I'm not that good with electronics and programing... Without going into too much details on project that might take years to complete, I hope she'll see boost in her future.

 

[FabzToy]

Well. That didn't last long!

I've been using the truck to go to work a few time since getting it running. It's doing alright after some tuning, but as soon as I manage to get it to drive decent and keep up with traffic without too much effort, it started to have trouble starting after sitting for a few hours. Actually, it sat for almost a week until this morning and I had to use starting fluid to get it going. It took some patience to get going after work, but it eventually started by itself. I also noticed EGTs were higher than before. I struggled to maintain 90 on a slight uphill without reaching 1000F whereas it was barely breaking 850F the week before.

First health check I wanted to do was pulling the glow plugs and check compression. Unfortunately, I don't have a fitting that works in the glow plug holes, nor a gauge that goes past 300psi. I'll have to source that out. All glow plugs looked fine. #4 might have had some lighter colored deposits, that worry me a bit, but gauge temperature is good. I've ordered another gauge to get a more accurate temperature reading, but it's not in yet.

It's looking to be a fuel injection issue but I'd be pleased to get feedback from more experienced guys. Thanks in advance!