Build The Dentist - Turbo Diesel LX450

[asutherland]

They shipped it UPS and of course UPS ****ed it up. After UPS refused to play nice, Huracan took the hit and refunded Ed and I for the shipment screw-up UPS did. Amazing customer service these guys. Nothing but good things to say about our experience with them.

Clearly my wife supports our obsession, since she brought us chicken wings, perogies and sausage out to the Cruiser Kitchen after a long afternoon of work!

 

[asutherland]

I bought two sets of these off Amazon, for charging accessories. I combined the 2 x 2.1 amp USB chargers and the 2 x 12V charging ports. I used the empty space in the centre console speaker grill for mounting it. I'm quite happy with the outcome. It's sturdy, looks good (imo), and is in a handy spot. I also already had two 12GA power and gnd wires coming directly from my Blue Sea distribution panel in the engine bay into the centre console, so it was a simple wiring job too.

 

[asutherland]

One more update for tonight! It's been a while since I wrote in this thread so I had lots to share.

I've also been eyeballing 270 degree awnings. Researched them all last year while I was building my pull out kitchen. Most of them are either A) self supporting, but don't come out far enough to cover my nested 2x pull out kitchen, or, B) long enough out the back but NOT self supporting. (like the Batwing)

After all the research, I landed on the OVS awning. Baja North once again came through for me with an aggressive price on it. The fitment turned out to be PERFECT. I was concerned with the fitment with the iKamper, and the ability to cover the kitchen in the back. I also didn't want it to stick way out the front like a javelin. This awning fit all the checkboxes for me!

@RockShoes and I tinkering at his house on a lazy Friday... hooking up the quick-disconnect gas connection on the stove pullout.

 

[asutherland]

Went camping last weekend with my wife (kid free! woo hoo!) and the awning came in handy. From sun, to rain and then snow. Lol!

 

[69 Pigboy]

What a great setup. I'm planning an 8020 sleeping platform and kitchen pullout build this summer and I'm fascinated by the various builds out there. I need my sleeping platform to accommodate me and my (full grown) son so it will take up the entire area behind the first row. I'll need headroom so I can't go with a full height refrigerator. Fortunately, Dometic makes a nice 30qt drawer-style fridge that is much shorter which will allow me to keep the platform lower.

I've been weighing the pros and cons of a few 270 awnings and an OVS like yours is a strong contender. I have a question based on your setup though. I was planning to have mine set up with the fridge on the left as you face the rear of the vehicle with the kitchen drawer on the right. If your kitchen drawer was on the right side rather than the left side do you think your awning would provide cover for it? I can't quite get a feel for it based on the angle of your pictures.

@asutherland

 

[asutherland]

What a great setup. I'm planning an 8020 sleeping platform and kitchen pullout build this summer and I'm fascinated by the various builds out there. I need my sleeping platform to accommodate me and my (full grown) son so it will take up the entire area behind the first row. I'll need headroom so I can't go with a full height refrigerator. Fortunately, Dometic makes a nice 30qt drawer-style fridge that is much shorter which will allow me to keep the platform lower.

I've been weighing the pros and cons of a few 270 awnings and an OVS like yours is a strong contender. I have a question based on your setup though. I was planning to have mine set up with the fridge on the left as you face the rear of the vehicle with the kitchen drawer on the right. If your kitchen drawer was on the right side rather than the left side do you think your awning would provide cover for it? I can't quite get a feel for it based on the angle of your pictures.

@asutherland

Sorry for the delay in reply! No, it wouldn't.. at least not with the double-pull out I have. It tapers back in as it reaches the far side of the rear. It's just enough to cover the fridge drawer slide.

 

[asutherland]

Finally - new suspension that's rated for my setup!

Out with the 7 year old Ironman. Apparently a 4" lift, rated for 200 pounds over stock. LOL
So sagged out, and the shocks were COMPLETELY done.. you could push them down with a pinky finger.

In with the OME 2350J (3" front), fat-girl 2868 2" rears and 30mm spring spacer, L shocks all around. All the other components were retained so no additional components were needed. Caster correction plates, adjustable front and rear panhard rods, swaybar extensions, Delta rear panhard relocator bracket...

4" Ironman on the left, 2" OME 2868 on the right. LOL

 

[asutherland]

Pretty happy so far. It recovers nicely from bumps in the road, doesn't sway or rock as much, and when I open my swingout it stays perfectly level instead of the whole truck leaning to the side

It definitely has a rake though. I was thinking the 3" J in the front would match with the 2" 2868 + 1" spacer in the rear, but those rear coils are gnarly heavy duty! My options would be to remove the spacer, but I'd need to make sure the coil wouldn't fall out with full droop with the L shocks... or maybe add a 10mm or 20mm spacer (trim packer) to the front to level it a bit more.

I'll wait until it settles a bit, and I've got my 50L OEM subtank installed and full... and then see where I'm at.

 

[asutherland]

Pretty happy! So nice to not bum drag and bottom out all the time! Looks good too, imo.

 

[asutherland]

It's been a while since I updated my build thread, so here we are!

Over the winter I tackled one particular problem and upgrade. My winch. My old blue HDJ81 came with a factory winch that I rebuilt 2 times in hopes that it would stop "powering out", pulling until it stopped and then wouldn't release - no luck. After a lot of looking online here and talking to a couple folks that have/had the factory winch it would appear it was a common problem.

Is it possible I didn't rebuild it properly? Did it need (even though visually it looked fine) the motor windings completely redone? Maybe. All I knew is I had spent a lot of time and effort trying to get the oem winch to perform better, and I was tired of it. Done.

After considerable effort I had narrowed my potential new winch selection down to only two, the Warn XPS 9.5 and the Seal Slim 10. All other winches were too big (too deep) to fit inside the Cruisin Off Road bumper, that had been specifically designed to house the OEM winch.

After discussing with a couple Cruiser heads (one that is particularly fussy about these sort of things and has a lot of experience with Warn winches) I decided on the Warn XPS, even though it was a lot more expensive than most other winches. I guess you pay for quality! With all the winter rescues I do on an annual basis in the Cruiser, I decided it was well worth the cost and ordered it.

Since the OEM winch has a built in base plate, Jason had designed the Cruisin' bumper with a slighly slimmer bottom plate. This was now an issue for the Warn winch. I went up to John's shop (Radd Cruisers John) and we spent all night working on it. John was able to add some structure to the inside of the Cruisin bumper to allow the Warn XPS to fit feet-first, which my understanding is actually a stronger way of mounting it. Excellent! He plasma'd out a section on the top of the bumper to allow access to the Warn clutch as well.

 

[asutherland]

Look at the windings! Wowza. Very nice.

Along with the new winch I decided to replace my old crusty $25 chinese hawse fairlead I'd had for a decade with a new Factor 55 made in the USA fairlead. Definitely a nicer piece of metal

All wired up and ready for winter rescues. Just in time too for the big dump of snow and -30c temps we had!

 

[asutherland]

Another small project over the winter, I replaced the backlight bulbs in the guage cluster with Philips 194WLED Ultinon LEDs.

There are 4x 194 bulbs that sit in little housings in the back of the cluster.

I went with the more expensive Philips bulbs and glad I did. They are dimmable! with the factory rheostat! A word of warning to those folks with trucks like HDJ81 that don't have the dimmer switch. These LEDs are crisp and modern, but they are bright at full power.

This next photo isn't mine, it's one I found on youtube where someone (prob on here) had done the same. I'm including it as it's a great way to show the difference.

 

[asutherland]

Onto spring and the next big project in prep for summer adventure trips. Over the past fall and winter I'd collected an OEM sub tank "kit" from Nick M., a fellow Canadian cruiser guy. He hadn't even opened the box since it came from Aus so it was a bit of a mystery when I opened it up.

It was "apparently", (what Nick was told) a gasser sub tank setup with a diesel style dual filler neck. Nick had sent me a spare gas sender pump, and I had purchased a new oem gas transfer sub tank button (84560-60020). In reality it had missing bits but also had parts from both gasser AND diesel setups. The tank itself was a gas tank with the built in lift pump. It had soft hoses from both setups, but the hoses were kind of crusty and old. It was missing all hardlines except the filler hardline. It had both oem diverter valves, both sending and return, for the diesel setup. It had the diesel sub tank filler neck (Nick had made sure of that). It had one of the brackets that hold the hardlines for the diesel setup (but no hardlines). It had no bracket for the two solenoids. It had no sub tank brackets (was warned of that). The tank itself was in great shape inside and out.

I was super happy to see the diverter valves and upon verifying they actually worked, I changed course and decided to do the oem Diesel sub tank setup design instead.

I used some spare oem connectors to make pigtails for the solenoids, and Brock S. made me a fancy cnc cut bracket for the two, which bolts into the bottom of the body of the truck into 2 factory captured nut holes, near the cross member directly behind the main fuel tank.

A couple things I found out that are worth mentioning,

The gasser sub tank has a slightly smaller fill hose. Not just the filler neck portion, but the actual soft hose and the hose end on the tank too. Turns out Gates has a product line of flexible fuel filler hoses and I managed to buy one that worked. Flexible Fuel Fill Hose | Gates Corporation - https://www.gates.com/us/en/fluid-power/engine-hose/fuel-fill-hose.p.4271-000000-000001.html

Since the duel filler neck end was wider than the tank end, I had to use a small section of slightly smaller hose (from the pile of old hoses in the kit) to make a "sleeve" over the tank inlet. Worked great.

The gasser tank pickup also has a lift pump in it. That had to be removed for the diesel setup. I used some fuel hose to bring the hose end down to the bottom of the tank at the same level the lift pump pickup sat at.

 

[asutherland]

Back at my friend Brock S.'s shop, he built me two new brackets to hold the tank securely in place. Funny fact, a strip of plastic garden / yard trim worked perfectly cut in half as an isolator between the metal tank and metal straps. Hot wheels tracks would have also worked lol

I cut the factory fuel filler hardline and breather hardline right alongside the inside edge of the frame rail, pulling the single filler neck out.

You can see how close the filler neck and sub tank are in this pic. The pic was taken looking across the frame rail from within the rear wheel well. When the duel filler neck is installed, it lines up perfectly with both the sub tank inlet and breather, and the (now cut off) stubs of the main tank hardline and breather. Make sure to use fuel rated hose for all of these hoses, even the breathers.

Here is the diesel dual filler neck. Since there's a lot more to it than the single neck, it has a m8 bolt that holds it to the body in the rear wheel well area behind the plastic. Nicely all the trucks seem to have the captured bolt hole for it.

The duel filler neck inlet has a pull rod that diverts flow to the sub tank. When the knob is pulled out, you're filling the sub tank. Push the knob in, and it's the main tank. Super simple and very effective.

 

[asutherland]

I then installed the two diverter solenoids and connected them inline with the main and sub tanks. In their (off) position, they simply allow the IP to pull diesel from the main tank. once 12v is applied to them, they switch over to the sub tank, and the IP pulls diesel (and returns diesel) to the sub tank. See diagram up there ^

I ran new wiring for the solenoids from my pigtails, wire loomed and tucked nicely along the left side frame rail, up and under my dash and to where I had planned on installing the new sub tank button. I had to purchase ANOTHER sub tank button from Partsouq (not cheap) as now the gasser one wouldn't work. The gasser button, 84560-60020 is a non-latching button, designed to trigger the sub tank ECU in the gas setup. I wanted the DIESEL button, 84560-60030, which is latching.

84520-60020 - Petrol momentary sub tank button (96 style dash)
84520-60030 - Diesel latching sub tank button (96 style dash)

I moved the dimmer rheostat to a vertical button hole to make space for the sub tank button. Note, if you've never removed this switch it can be daunting... all you need to do is pull the knob directly off (you may feel like it's going to break, but it is only pressure fitted on and will pull off...) then undo the slim nut holding the switch to the plastic plate.

 

[asutherland]

I looked through my extensive collection of OEM switches (didn't realize HOW extensive until I dumped them onto the bench! haha)

I determined that a 92 (old style button) defrost switch pigtail is a perfect fit for the latching sub tank button. Don't even need to re-pin anything. NOICE

From 'mud:

 

[asutherland]

Now that the sub tank functionality worked perfectly, I had to do some work with the fuel level gauge. If you have the sub tank gauge for the headliner cluster, then cool, but in my case I didn't have any of that.

So rather than put a second fuel gauge in, I did some relay trickery. Pin 18 of ID2 connector (big long connector in left front kick panel) is Yellow w/red stripe. I cut that, and intercepted it with a relay.

Pin 30 on relay to the yellow/red wire going up to gauge cluster.
Pin 87a on relay to the yellow/red wire going down to the main fuel tank fuel level sender.
Pin 87 on the relay to the sub tank fuel level sender.
Gnd on relay to kick panel ground. Trigger on relay to the output wire from the sub tank button (the one that goes down to those two solenoids)

When the sub tank button is pressed, it now activates the two diverter solenoids, but also triggers the relay, switching the dash fuel gauge to the sub tank sender.
Takes about 30 seconds for the fuel gauge level to fully update to the sub tank level. Pretty slick alternative to having the headliner gauge.

 

[woodsman 44]

I looked through my extensive collection of OEM switches (didn't realize HOW extensive until I dumped them onto the bench! haha)

I determined that a 92 (old style button) defrost switch pigtail is a perfect fit for the latching sub tank button. Don't even need to re-pin anything. NOICE

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From 'mud:

View attachment 2972675

Nice!..luv it when it works out like that

 

[asutherland]

Been a while since I posted anything in here. Always doing little things here and there, so I'll add a few updates! Probably won't be in the correct order but that's not important .

I sold my oem 16" rims and found some well priced aluminum rims that I stripped and painted satin black. Used etching primer and 2k Clear clear coat. They look amazing and have held up great! They have what I think is the best offset, the outer edge of the mud terrain lines up exactly with the outer edge of the flare. So a little more aggressive than stock but not crazy.

 

[asutherland]

I purchased and installed the Whiteline extra HD rear sway bar. The thing is beef, and made a significant noticable difference reducing body sway especially on the highway. My wife even commented on it and she didn't know I had even installed it