Builds "Scout" the 1977 FJ40

[77CruiserDog]

I tend to agree with you; the pertinent temps are the top of the radiator/upper hose. If they are close to the thermostat temp like yours are, that says to me the cooling system is working as intended. It sounds like the temp sender is getting some heat soak from the head, i.e. is not getting full flow of coolant to it - possibly a bubble of air in it, or a partially-blocked coolant passageway in the head? I don't remember, did you burp the air out of the system really well already?

Well, $hit! I used the burp bucket early this morning before I took my rig for a long drive up to Snoqualime Pass. I hooked it up where the radiator cap normally goes, filled the bucket with clean water, let it warm up on my driveway which is also a pretty steep incline and what do you know... as the T-stat opened a rather large bunch of bubbles came out. As volume goes, I'd say the amount of liquid the bubbles replaced would be about 20 ounces, so pretty significant. I popped off the burp bucket, put the radiator cap on, topped off the reservoir and hit the road.

I headed up to the pass and averaged about 70 miles an hour (speedo shows 60 but my GPS app tells me that's about 72mph with my larger tires. The entire drive is little more than 60 miles one way and 3,000' elevation gain. For the last 3-4 miles I had the gas pedal matted and was passing semis at about 70mph which was a nice change from before with my timing corrected. The ambient temps ranged from 50 degrees at my house to 38 degrees or so at the top of the pass, it actually snowed on us at the top.

ZERO overheating issues! I am not 100% sure this issue is resolved as the ambient temps were pretty cool. I'm still going to replace the radiator with the OEM one and I'll likely swap out the temp sender and do some research on a more aggressive fan clutch, but it's a great start. Yesterday I couldn't drive 10 miles on the freeway without the temps going up.

Pics in a bit... gotta restart the lap top, or throw it out the window.

 

[77CruiserDog]

So I bought this vacuum bleeder based on your report here. I bled my rear drums last night and was getting heavy spitting into the bleeder tank, but never a solid stream of fluid. I double checked with the friend pumping the pedal method and had a solid stream into my gatorade bottle.

Hi Reddog!

Yes, it was concerning for me the first few times I used it too. Mine does the same thing. However, I find that even though it's not a steady stream it bleeds all of the air out of the system.

I replaced my rear wheel cylinders and used this tool many times to bleed all of the air out of the lines, worked like a charm.... just don't get overzealous and suck all of the fluid out of the reservoir.

Cheers,
Adam

 

[77CruiserDog]

I would do all of the above when the radiator is out and the coolant is drained. Cooling system parts are all around the same age. Do the job once and you won't be chasing down each issue. Use an Aisin fan clutch.

HA! Thanks Racer! You and I are on the same page Dude! I'd rather get this thing rock solid now than mess with it on the side of the road somewhere. You don't happen to know if there is a Aisin fan clutch that is a bit stronger do you? I thought I read here somewhere that the FJ60 one is a little stronger. Could be just rumors and speculation but I figured you'd know if anyone did.

 

[Racer65]

HA! Thanks Racer! You and I are on the same page Dude! I'd rather get this thing rock solid now than mess with it on the side of the road somewhere. You don't happen to know if there is a Aisin fan clutch that is a bit stronger do you? I thought I read here somewhere that the FJ60 one is a little stronger. Could be just rumors and speculation but I figured you'd know if anyone did.

I would stick to the F40 one, but switch to an Aisin if you have another type on there now.

 

[77CruiserDog]

Pics or it didn't happen right?

70mph and the hottest the temp got was below. (notice how I'm not showing the stereo.... I did something but that's going to wait until my next posting.)

Pretty stream at the top of the pass:

A gratuitous picture of Scout at the top of the pass. It's much happier this time than a month ago when we were in this same spot on our way to Walla Walla.

 

[77CruiserDog]

I would stick to the F40 one, but switch to an Aisin if you have another type on there now.

Yes, it's an aftermarket one on there now. I will do some searching and find the right FJ40 one and get it coming. You don't stock these do you? (edit) Never mind, found it on Amazon... it's headed my way. Time for an OEM temp sender now.

 

[77CruiserDog]

The sweet and the sour - Warning, not a single picture of a Land Cruiser in this post

So I hit up Moab for some mountain biking and some rock crawling last week with some buddies, my brother and my cousin. It was also "Cruise Moab" but I only saw 3 FJ40s and about 7 FJ60s. I did however see a ton of 100 series and newer. Pretty fun seeing that many kick a$$ rigs in one small town. What a fun town too, if you've never been there, I recommend it. We mostly went there for some world class mountain biking but we did tackle one awesome trail in my JL which was super fun. It is called Hell's Revenge and while it's rated a 6 out of 10 we did opt to do all of the optional challenging pieces including Hells Gate, which nearly required a change of shorts... but we all had smiles on our faces when we were done. We also had fun riding some bike trails, Porcupine Rim and Captain Ahab, both get two thumbs up from me. I've been to Moab about 10 times and this time was absolutely the best, mostly because of the fun crew we had with us.

Porcupine Rim Trail -

Hell's Revenge -

Yep, we climbed that.

Hell's Gate Exit -

It's not possible for the camera to do this tiny section any justice. Butt pucker factor was a 10 (out of 10)

Even though we were having a fun time, I couldn't help but think of my project waiting for me at home. Front axle rebuild including new rotors, Warn hubs, bearings, calipers, seals, grease and so forth. I was actually kind of eager to do it.

I get home sleep 14 hours and then start tearing it apart and find that someone had recently done the wheel bearings, brand new grease and the races looked great, so I pulled out the birfs and found they had recently been packed in some moly grease as well. So I ended up replacing the inner axle seals and installing the new rotors/calipers and hubs. Pretty mundane but the calipers and rotors looked to be about 20 years old. I'd call this great news, it saved me a ton of work.

Everything went back together just fine, I took it for a drive to bed in the new pads and eventually they started to grab nicely. Drove it home, parked it in the garage and that's when I heard it. A faint bubbling noise. I popped the hood and my heart sank. Bubbles were coming out of the over flow tank. Based on what I know, this means a head gasket has failed... which is possibly part of the source, or cause of my slight over heating issue.

So here is the plan of attack. I called a local shop that specializes in Land Cruisers, Torfab in Everett WA. I have heard great things about them. Yes, I could do this myself but there are a few reasons I'm not going to.

#1. They've done hundreds of these, maybe thousands. I've done exactly zero.
#2. They will have some sort of guarantee on their work. Adam's garage, has zero guarantee except that he's going to be pissed if he doesn't have the right parts, tools, gaskets, bolts, information or whatever... Torfab has all of that and loads of experience.
#3. I can drop it off and work on other projects looming over me right now. like my job. HA!

The only think I'm not sure about is the cost. I'm assuming somewhere in the $1400 to $1800 range. I'm hopeful my head isn't cracked.

I do have a question for those of you who are more knowledgeable than me, is it a good time for me to throw on a header? Do you have experience with a header that you particularly like? Let me know, I'm curious.

Until next time - Happy Cruising!

 

[77CruiserDog]

Just kidding!

 

[77CruiserDog]

I heard back from Torfab, $2500 - $3000 complete... maybe less if they don't need quite as many parts. That is more than I expected. Then they say they're pretty booked out and can't get it in until July 1st.

I sat on that information for about 20 minutes and then decided to do the job myself. The full removal of the head took 1.5 hours. I've already dropped the head off at the machine shop that my local Toyota dealer uses, I took detailed pictures of the head for each cylinder. I didn't see anything completely terrible but the head gasket certainly looks like it has begun to fail. I'll post more pictures later this evening.

 

[77CruiserDog]

I found what appears to be some sort of blockage in the cooling system sitting inside one of the cooling ports in the head. There were 3 of these chunks but the other two dissolved as I tried to remove them because they were larger than the hole they were in. The freeze plug in that same location was also pretty rusted from the inside.

The head looked fine to my untrained eye, I'll know more once the machine shop does their magic. The gasket on the other hand looked a bit worse for wear, especially around some of the cooling jacket holes. I couldn't see exactly where the failure occurred but the gasket was in bad enough shape I suspect it was not only the source of my over heating problem (adding combustion gases to the cooling system, but also the source of the bubbles in the radiator over flow tank.

The piston in the #2 position looks like it has some of the carbon removed, and that's the position on the head gasket that I suspect failed. I'll post pictures of the head and block next.

It's certainly a good feeling knowing I'll be doing this myself and with a wealth of knowledge at my fingertips here on Mud, I'm not worried at all.

 

[77CruiserDog]

Here is the picture of the entire head.

Here are cylinders 1 & 2

3 & 4

5 & 6

 

[77CruiserDog]

Here is a picture of the hole where I found the 3 chunks of rusted gunk.... (that's a technical term you know)

That's in between cylinders 1 & 2

If I didn't know any better, I'd say some of what I found is sand.... which is interesting because I found some tiny little pebbles that made their way in between the moving pieces in the thermostat not long ago. I'm beginning to wonder if someone used a bucket to scoop up some water from a stream during a trail repair.

 

[77CruiserDog]

I spent a little time cleaning up the block. Per the interweb I used good old WD-40 and green Scotchbrite pads. It worked really well.

I'm not going to worry about the top of the pistons. They look ugly but the plan is a full engine rebuild here in a few years so I figure they're fine for now.

 

[77CruiserDog]

I also took a look at the mating surface between the intake and exhaust manifold and noticed that when I put a flashlight on the inside of the exhaust manifold I could see some light coming through where the heat riser gasket is. So I took them apart and noticed that it had a prior weld job done on two small cracks. One of them was continuing to crack. I failed to take any pictures before, but I used a grinder to deepen the crack and then a welder to seal it all back up. here's the after welding pic.

I also failed to take a pic after I ground the weld flat, but after doing that I mated them back together and checked it again with a flashlight. Much better! I still may end up going to a header but I'm leery of doing that right now, I'd rather get it all bolted back together sealed up tight and enjoy it.

 

[77CruiserDog]

Also, I think someone has been in the intake manifold as well because this doesn't look like what Toyota would have done, however I can't see any fault in it, so it stays as is. I cleaned up the mating surface and noticed someone had already put Helicoils in the two threaded holes you can see at the top of the pic.

I also haven't gotten a call back from the machine shop yet, I think no news is good news, I'm just hoping for no cracks and an easy rebuild.

 

[TheHardWay]

Yikes

 

[77CruiserDog]

Yikes

Totally, I didn't want to separate them but when I did I was glad, they needed some attention and if nothing else it will last long enough for me to research which header I'd like to go with. I think the SOR one is leading the pack at this point.... unless someone has a time machine so I can get Mark's Off Road header.

 

[77CruiserDog]

I finally got around to replacing the aftermarket fan clutch that the "professional restoration company" installed on my rig and I wanted to show you the comparison side by side so that nobody does what this so called restoration company did.

Aftermarket Fan Clutch weight

Aisin Fan Clutch Weight

If you're not able to discern the difference in that picture, take a look at these two and guess which one is the aftermarket one.

If you guessed the beefy one on the right was the Aisin fan clutch, you're right. I'm no expert but I'd say that's a rather big difference. The aftermarket fan clutch is anemic in comparison.

 

[77CruiserDog]

A little Land Cruiser meditation.

 

[77CruiserDog]

I just heard back from the machine shop. The head is not cracked it was pressure tested and magnafluxed and will be torn down for rebuilding later this morning.

Happy Friday everyone!