Tenerife to Texas: a 1997 HDJ80 Tale

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Steering wheel successfully extricated.

Back to driving the 74. Man, what a difference. It’s loud, guttural, smelly, and also loud, and I have really missed it.

 

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Sooooo….the leather kit from Redline is nice.

It definitely has a front and back:

Front (notched tabs)

Back (flat tabs)

The leather is soft, feels great, smells great….but the thread included is super thin and kept pulling out as I started stitching in the single cross pattern they suggest. Plus, it looked like ass.

So I cut out the machine stitched thread and started to single thread baseball sew it like factory. The thread is sawing through the nice Polish leather, which is not ok. See the holes elongating?

 

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My mind 2 hours ago:

“I’m a surgeon, and I’ve done leatherwork for nearly 30 years, I’ll be done in 2 hours.”

My mind now:

“Let’s order 3,117 yards of big ass polyester thread and leave town for 10 days.”

 

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Bonus: the urethane has delaminated from the aluminum frame at the 10 o’clock position so I need to get some 2 part epoxy to inject it anyway. Wasn’t gonna be done tonight no matter what.

 

[davidp14]

Nice work so far.

I sewed my steering wheel cover on in about six hours. I broke through the leather a total of 2 time but was able to make a hole just behind them with little consequence. I used painters tape and placed it over the stitches just behind the new ones. This seemed to help keep them all nice and tight.

 

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We are visiting family in Colorado for the weekend. We rented a car, and now I’m checking out its steering wheel stitch lacing patterns.

It’s a….Jeep. Blech.

 

[Dave 2000]

Long post!

Hi a great looking Spanish 80 you have. I I live in Spain and own a 94 1HDT run a garage as well.

Looking at your list:

Brakes pulling to one side, almost certainly stuck pistons, pull the pad on one side of the disc and have someone push the brake pedal GENTLY. This will allow you to bring the pistons out a fair way to inspect the rubbers. If they look good then 'exercise' them a few times, and fit new pads. If the rubbers are perforated then change the caliper/s. Whatever your decision change the brake fluid anyway. Discs are pretty hardy and unless you intend to work the 80 hard then the stock brakes are fine when working properly. You will see that the ABS system and load sensing valve are often mistakenly removed, I often wonder if this is done mainly because repairs to the ABS can be very expensive, or the need to join the 'lemmings gang' citing the brakes are poor with it working as an excuse to get around the cost, and removing the LSV above the rear axle is quite frankly BS as there is no point whatsoever, it has an important job to do.

Off roading in here in Spain, I often find I am thousands of metres above ground level, my 80 loaded to circa three tons and the brakes are fine, so I maintain the posture that a properly maintained system is fine, given the vehicle can be loaded with a trailer bringing total train weight nearer seven tons, if your 80 does not stop with three tons let alone seven then there is something very wrong! In my opinion if there is an issue it is the front discs, in my opinion they are a little on the small side, so can be a little smelly after descending from a climb not being able to shed heat build up, despite using the manual gearbox on my vehicle to help the brakes (ex HGV driver) the heat can cause glazing of the pads, the result is the driver presses harder and thus compounds the issue. Choosing discs that are grooved and dimpled (not cross drilled) as I did will help but not by much. The handbrake is also a little on the weak side in my opinion, and I have seen more than one set of handbrake shoes installed incorrectly, they also do need to be manually adjusted to allow for cable stretch and so forth, either way I would not trust it when loaded up. Seeing your impressive vehicle line up, I may or may not be be teaching you to suck eggs, but you will find my experience as a mechanic for more years than I can remember with my own business, along with owning one of these fine machines for twelve years more than makes up for those citing 'my best friends mates uncle told me to do this and that' you will often hear on many forums, MUD is no different.

Windows tend to be slow, and may even stop in cold weather, at the age these vehicles are the problem is normally the rubbers in the window runners, they go hard preventing the window moving easily, the regulators will eventually fail. If the regulator looks good a simple grease up and new rubbers will sort the problem, continued use without the above repairs will eventually burn out the contacts in the switch gear.

Given the way the heat here affects rubber and plastic, it is no surprise you need to replace the components you mentioned. Be very wary of the plastic strip on the outs that is at the bottom of the window, it can lift from the chrome trim and exposes a razor sharp edge, the simple task of washing or polishing your 80 could see your fingers or hand opened up like a sardine can!

Timing belt and tensioner is an obvious job, very easy on both the earlier engine (such as mine) and the later. The Spanish have trouble in particular in the warmer South with using antifreeze, of course antifreeze also has corrosion inhibitors, the lack of use along with water that has a calcium content hard to get your head around, you find the lower areas of the radiator (including heater rad) can easily become caked up, the rear heater lines also rust through (not restricted to Spain) given the work involved in replacing them most simply bypass and remove the heater below the seat, a good place to put 'stuff', whilst under the seats look to see if the seat heater wires are unplugged, the switches in a position to activate by accident.

I know there is more but will leave it there, that is a great looking 80, enjoy.

Regards

Dave

 

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Yup, that’s pretty much the list.

First I’ve got to finish the steering wheel or just clamp some vise grips on it to drive.

 

[Dave 2000]

Yup, that’s pretty much the list.

First I’ve got to finish the steering wheel or just clamp some vise grips on it to drive.

If the outer covering is slipping then mix a two pack epoxy and inject it under wherever there are splits, it won't last long but will get you out of trouble.

Regards

Dave

 

[bottombracket]

Yup, I have successfully injected a 62 wheel with great long term results, a 3” 18ga spinal needle makes it easy to distribute epoxy along a good distance. Mine is only loose around the 10 o’clock position on the wheel, so hopefully an easy fix.

 

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We traveled to Colorado this weekend to visit family, and I got to meet @Workhorse and his lovely wife in person. I got to pick his brain about his awesome FTE converted 100, and even better, got to drive it around. First FTE I HAVE EVER DRIVEN!

And yes, it is as lovely as anticipated. Quiet, fast, power for days. Can’t wait to hang again soon.

This license plate is not his (or mine). Do I want a love tractor, or do I want to stay away from someone with one?

 

[shatbox60]

Congrats on the HDJ80. I too recently acquired a Spanish 91 HDJ80 manual, and I've been daily driving it in Houston with a huge smile.

 

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Back to work on the steering wheel:

Anybody want 10,000 feet of gray thread? Turns out the stuff I bought was way too thin. So much for consulting the Internet.

I dropped by my local Tandy leather shop today and picked up a roll of waxed braided nylon. It’s about 0.8 mm in diameter. Unfortunately, my color choices were white, off-white, and black. Black it is.

I started on one of the smaller sections and got it reasonably good the first time. Moving onto the bottom section, I realize that the secret is to never let go of tension: pulling the first stitch tight, and holding it tight while you take the next stitch with the opposite hand and alternating between the two, but always keeping under tension. The second section looked so good I went back, cut out the first one, and did it again.

Pull FARKING HARD

I also found it super helpful to enlarge each hole just a little bit with a diamond awl. Made passing the needle one handed under tendon a LOT easier.

 

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Family history here:

When I was a little kid, my dad was into collecting Case pocket knives. Being from Pennsylvania, it seemed like he had one of every model that Case ever produced. I have always loved this little pair of sewing scissors/flyfishing scissors, and recently I asked my dad to look for one at yard sales or flea markets. I’ve been looking on eBay for a decade. Apparently they are quite rare, and were only produced in the late 70s.

Last February for my birthday, this showed up in the mail… His own pair. This is the first project I’m using them on. They are at least as old as I am and they’re as sharp a cutting tool as you could ever wish for.

 

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Half done. Two pull throughs on this section which makes me unhappy. It’s somewhat annoying to me that they laid this stitching out on a machine, and the variability of the stitches is pretty high. A millimeter off here or there can really affect the tension and screw the whole thing up.

Bedtime.

 

[ToyotaMatt]

very nice ride !

HDJ80 ..

are the keys the lexus style center cuts

or

the double edge cut style like a usa spec. has ?



if this new to you HDJ80 uses the 90999-00164 's i would like to GIFT you a complete MASTER KEYS SET -UP , all professionally CODE cut on my SST computerized NipponDenso as a Vehicle warming gift to you Mr. Bottom Bracket ...... 🍻 🦄

 

[Vitek]

very nice ride !

HDJ80 ..

are the keys the lexus style center cuts

or

the double edge cut style like a usa spec. has ?



if this new to you HDJ80 uses the 90999-00164 's i would like to GIFT you a complete MASTER KEYS SET -UP , all professionally CODE cut on my SST computerized NipponDenso as a Vehicle warming gift to you Mr. Bottom Bracket ...... 🍻 🦄

As an European origin 80, I am pretty sure it will be the Lexus style center cut one

 

[bottombracket]

@ToyotaMatt unfortunately they are the center cut Lexus keys…with a transponder. But thank you for your generous offer.

This is currently an unsolved problem… I was able to find someone with an appropriate Lexus key blank and had a copy made, but I didn’t know about the transponder.

 

[SNLC]

@ToyotaMatt unfortunately they are the center cut Lexus keys…with a transponder. But thank you for your generous offer.

View attachment 3187318

This is currently an unsolved problem… I was able to find someone with an appropriate Lexus key blank and had a copy made, but I didn’t know about the transponder.

You can still get the whole internal key set, from Toyota.

Cheers

 

[bottombracket]

@SNLC NICE, I’ll start looking.