Builds The Rushing Turdle (1 Viewer)

[FishTown]

Looks really good! I'd be worried about the extra leverage that the rack has on the mounting brackets since the weight won't be directly on top of them. I'm not an engineer, but I would think your weight capacity will decrease because of that.

 

[roadstr6]

Yeah, Fish. I am sure you are right about that. The capacity will be less with the brackets cantilevering like they are. I don't plan on putting a roof top tent on there or anything like that. As a rule I try to keep the heavier stuff down low (inside). The things that will go up top are things like camp chairs, camp tables, etc...bulky items that take up valuable interior space but don't weigh much. I have a feeling this thing will hold more weight than I am willing to heave up there anyway.

 

[FishTown]

Good deal - those are some good looking welds and I would be more than happy to have a similar set up. I enjoy watching the progress of this truck. You get right on things and don't let the truck sit for months at a time.

 

[roadstr6]

Thanks for the compliments. I do not profess to be a welder. I only have a little 140V Hobart MIG which is fine for small stuff. I get by. That is all.

 

[roadstr6]

The brackets I fabbed up were about an inch too long so I cut them down and drilled a hole for the bracket to attach to the TT gutter clamps. I primed and painted the TT clamps and my homemade extensions. I decided to go ahead and Plasti-dip the ends of the clamps at the points where the clamp will contact the body of the truck. I was impressed with the liquid Plasti-dip. I can think of a million uses for this product. The can is small and my parts would not fit into it so I poured the liquid in a paper plate and dipped everything and then poured the leftover liquid back in the can. I used two coats of Plasti-dip. Three would have been even better.

 

[roadstr6]

Here is the ARB 100 series rack mounted to the Turdle using Trail Tailor gutter clamps and my homemade extension brackets:

I am happy to report that everything fit just fine and the rack and clamps are very sturdy despite the offset mounting arrangement. I can rock the entire truck front to back and side to side by pushing and pulling on the rack and there is no indication of flex in the brackets or clamps at all. I don't foresee having any issues whatsoever with putting serious weight up there if I need to.

 

[izzyandsue]

Now you need an awning!

 

[roadstr6]

The Turdle had those awesome gawdy 80's multi-colored stripes down its sides long ago as evidenced by impressions left in the paint from sun fade. It looks like those got removed at some point and some simple straight line vinyl pinstripes were added. The last striping job appeared to be two 1/4" stripes, a yellow and an orange, running along the tops of the fenders and doors. The orange stripe has mostly met it's demise. There is still a section of it on the passenger side of the hood and the passenger fender. The rest of the orange is gone. The yellow is largely intact, however it has turned a "peachy" color and has various cuts, scrapes and shows many years of wear. In keeping with the beat-up vintage '80's look, I decided to leave the peachy yellow with all it's scars and replace the sections of missing orange pinstripe. I'm happy with the results. The striping is 3M brand and I got it at my local paint store. $15 for 50 feet. It went on really easily.

Here's what it looked like before:

Note the missing orange stripe (the bottom one) from the passenger door going rearward.

...and now for the big makeover reveal....(drum roll)....

Craptastic!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

That looks good!!

 

[roadstr6]

My son, Nathan (10 y/o) had his first driving experience last weekend. He drove me around my folks' property in the Turdle. I'm one proud dad!

Video clip below:

 

[roadstr6]

Last Saturday I was running some errands in the Turdle and at stoplights I started noticing a ticking noise from the engine. It almost sounded like the pfft...pfft of an exhaust leak. When I got to my destination I popped the hood to take a look. What I found was a wobbly crank pulley. The harmonic balancer was running true but the last section of the pulley (the outer two groove part) was wobbling. I knew this might let go at any moment but I took a chance on carefully driving the truck back home. I didn't make it. About three miles from where I made my discovery the outer pulley parted ways with the harmonic balancer. The charge lamp lit up and I lost power steering. I pulled into a gas station and waited for a tow. I got lucky in some respects. The pulley broke away clean and did not cause any collateral damage. In fact, it was just sitting there in front of the engine, suspended by the two belts. Last night I pulled the HB. Here are some pics:

Evidently this has been working itself loose for a while based on the galling and elongation of the rivet holes in the outer pulley. I plan to swap on another pulley from a spare short block in the shop. Hopefully the transplant will be a success. I guess we will see...

 

[izzyandsue]

Wow, thats a lot of shearing for a pulley!

 

[roadstr6]

I'm happy to report that the Turd is back on the road! I did a DIY repair on the Harmonic balancer/ crank pulley against my better judgement but I'm hoping that it will be a permanent fix. Here's what I did: I used a hammer and punch to drive out the remains of the rivets in the harmonic balancer. The holes were perfectly sized for a M10x1.5 tap so I tapped them. I purchased six metric grade 10.9 bolts (roughly equivalent to standard grade 8) and nuts and bolted the pulley to the HB using the grade 10.9 fasteners. Next I tack welded the bolt and nut heads to the balancer. Just for safe keeping I ran three 1.5" beads (equally spaced) around the pulley to secure it to the harmonic balancer.

I'm a cheap ass. I admit it, but I couldn't justify $400+ for a replacement pulley. I had a line on a 3FE pulley for $100 that would have probably worked but it would have required me to replace all three belts as the 3FE pulley is smaller. My current belts are brand new. I was also concerned that the alternator would not spin fast enough to keep up. It struggles enough as it is.

You might ask, "What about the balance of the balancer?" I asked myself that question too. What effect will the bolts, nuts and welds have on the balance? I'm not sure. I can say this...the original pulley had been working itself loose for many, many miles. I had no idea until just before it let go. No vibrations. No noises. Nothing that would make me think that the engine was being compromised in any way. The crank and key/keyway looked perfect. The front two pulleys had years of built-up mud and crud inside of them and there is no way that it was balanced perfectly with all that dried crud in there. Who knows, my DIY fix may be better balanced than it was before the pulleys separated? It spins true. One thing I did do was to loosen the belts a little to reduce the leverage on the front of the crank pulley. They were tight as hell which probably contributed to the demise of the pulley. Thanks alot, PO!

My OE radiator had been repaired and still had a slow leak so I decided to replace it with a 3 core Champion unit (CC 1213). It fit with a little fiddling. I'm keeping my fingers crossed hoping that this truck will behave itself for a while. I guess we will see.

 

[roadstr6]

I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY CRACKED THE DISTRIBUTOR RE-CURVE CODE!

I think it is common knowledge that desmogging an FJ60 and recurving the distributor go hand in hand. The distributor was set up to optimize performance based on a vehicle with the emissions equipment in place. Once all that stuff is removed the distributor provides too much advance and the advance comes in before you really need it and runs out when it is needed the most. Simply leaving the distributor and timing alone will, in most cases, cause pre-ignition or pinging when the truck is under load. There are a couple of band-aid fixes that will allow you to drive the truck but the results are far from optimal. One fix is to reduce the initial timing to the point that the pre-ignition goes away. This method can cause hard starts and stumbly idle and the truck will feel sluggish and under powered. The other band-aid fix is to leave the initial timing alone and run the truck with the primary advance from the carb connected to the secondary port on the distributor. The second method cured my pinging and allowed me to drive my truck for several months issue-free. It still felt sluggish though and I started to think hard about a dizzy recurve.

There is a vendor on this site who recurves dizzys, rebuilds carbs and sells de-smog components. He does excellent work. I've used him before and I always recommend him to others. I have a trip coming up and I wanted to get the Turdle ready. The vendor was not responding to my emails so I decided to go it alone using information gleaned from MUD. Here's what I did:

Remove the plug wires/vent hose from the distributor cap. Unclip the electrical connector on the side of the dizzy. Remove the cap. Take pics and mark the location of the rotor button in relationship to the engine (mine was pointing directly at the #1 wire position on the cap). Mark the position of the distributor housing. I used a dot of red paint on the distributor and marked a dot on the engine block directly behind. This is not super critical. You do want it close so that the truck will actually start once the distributor goes back in. You will tweak the timing later. Remove the hold-down bolt and pull the dizzy out. With the dizzy now on the work bench, gently remove the plastic cover over the electronic trigger. Remove the two screws that hold the trigger in place (consult the FSM when you re-install to set the gap properly). Remove the vacuum advance clip. Pop the advance rod off of the pin. Remove the vacuum advance hold-down screw from the side of the distributor. Gently wiggle and remove the vacuum advance canister from the distributor. Remove the two screws and the hold-down tabs that locate the advance mechanism. Pop out the vacuum advance mechanism to access the springs, weights and stop pin.

The first issue with the FJ60 distributor is the common problem of the advance stop pin bushing. Inside the dizzy is a pin that keeps the advance in check. Mr. T used a little plastic bushing on this pin. The bushings always crack and fall off leaving only the thin pin to limit the advance. The thickness of this little bushing equates to 3-4 degrees of advance so if your bushing is gone (it probably is) your distributor is advancing more than it should. To remedy this issue I found a replacement aluminum bushing at Lowes for 78 cents.

The aluminum bushing just barely fits over the distributor pin. I drilled the bushing out just a hair and tapped it over the pin. It holds nice and tight and should provide years of service.

The second issue with the FJ60 distributor is the advance springs. The primary advance spring is soft and thin and the secondary advance spring is thick and quite rigid. They work fine on a truck with the emissions intact but being de-smogged, I knew I needed something different. I picked up an MSD recurve kit (PN 8464) and used the springs in that kit. The kit was $16 at Pep Boys.

The kit comes with a pair of hard, medium and soft springs. I replaced Mr. T's primary spring with the blue (medium) spring from the MSD kit and Mr. T's secondary spring was replaced with the silver (light) spring from the MSD kit. Here is a pic of the factory springs next to the springs that replaced them.

Once the MSD springs were installed I reassembled the dizzy and re-installed it. I re-installed the vacuum lines with primary to primary and secondary to secondary as they were intended. I played around with the timing and I found that this set-up likes more initial advance than the original set-up. The timing light I have is a cheapo so I don't know my exact setting but it has to be around 15-17 degrees advanced. The BB is down below the sight window about 1/4". It seems like a lot of advance but the truck starts right up and runs great. I drove the truck hard with several pulls all the way up to redline. The truck pulls much stronger throughout the RPM range. Overall the truck just feels peppy. There was no pinging whatsoever and the advance curve seems very linear. My butt meter tells me I have a new truck now! I know I don't but the drivability is night and day compared to before. I will continue to drive the truck and tweak things as needed but for now I am very happy with my set-up.

I am sure that a professional recurve would improve even more on what I have done here but for $17 and a couple hours of time this set-up is hard to beat!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Awesome!!!!

 

[onemanarmy]

Thanks for the write up.

 

[TLC Norway]

Love the stripes. Reminds me of my uncles old opel. I might have to do that too!!

 

[77 KROOZER]

Great write up Dave. I can't wait to try it. What are your thoughts on which (primary or secondary) advance to use on a Trollhole carb desmog. Only have one vac port on the carb to use. Primary, secondary, or T both into the carb?

 

[roadstr6]

Great write up Dave. I can't wait to try it. What are your thoughts on which (primary or secondary) advance to use on a Trollhole carb desmog. Only have one vac port on the carb to use. Primary, secondary, or T both into the carb?

Mike, For now I would run the vacuum port from the carb to the secondary port on the dizzy. I would wager that the advance stop pin bushing on your distributor is toast and you are likely getting too much advance to use the primary port. Once you get the dizzy recurved I would tee both vacuum ports on the dizzy to the one carb port.

 

[helimech]

Dang that's a lot of work u have done, I have to start on about the same amount soon.
Are u pretty happy with your 17$ dezzy recurve? Who's the vendor u tried to use?