Ultimate 60 build. Om606/tr4050/hf2a/80 series frame swap. (1 Viewer)

[Slickrick]

Going to start off by saying I’m terrible at build threads and usually end up not completing or updating them. Just so everyone is aware..


Short recap on my 60. I found it about 30 minutes north of my house. The engine was torn apart, and had been sitting for 20 years without the head on. Most of the engine was in the rear of the wagon…plus the windows had been down for 15 years or so. The inside was full of spiders, dirt, dust…god knows what else. I was stoked to finally own a 60 series though, no matter how many spiders I had to battle with.

Now that we have the back story out the way, and the pre Botox pictures…we can fast foward to where I’m at now in the build.


I know everyone will probably want pictures of the frame swap situation, so I’ll throw those in as well.


Using a 94’ 80 series frame, minus 4 inches… my 60 was reborn. To me this was an absolute must have…I hate the harsh ride of leaf springs.

The end result was well worth the time and effort it took. Make no mistake, a frame swap is huuuuge job and requires a ton of fab. Doing it over I’d probably just buy the coil conversion kit for the 60 frame. Some of the challenges being body mounts, bumpers, fuel tank mounting…ect. Using the stock frame you eliminate the headache of building custom mounts.

 

[Slickrick]

And yes, that is two 80 series axles and parts in the back of my wife’s bmw haha. They was calling for rain, and didn’t want to risk it on the way back from sand blasting.

 

[Slickrick]

So this is the kinda crap I was referring to earlier about using the coil conversion rather than the frame swap.

This is a 25 gallon baffled fuel cell from a 50 something year model Chevy pickup. Actually fits in the rear great.

So I also forgot to mention that this truck already had an engine in it and ran/drove fine. My first iteration of this build I used a Cummins 6bt/nv4500/splitcase. The power was awesome, but the short power band and noise left a lot to be desired.

Normally loud vehicles don’t really bother me, but my neighbors could hear me start this thing up half a mile away. I just couldn’t deal with the noise, so I decided to go down the om606 rabbit hole.

 

[Slickrick]

Being everything else on the truck was basically new at this point, decided I needed to revamp the ac system. It’s actually not as much of a bear as you thing. I replaced everything I could regarding the ac system, trying to use all Toyota oem parts where possible.

Read on here about someone using this foam to seal around the air box for the ac…worked great. The factory foam had turned to dust at this point and was everywhere.

 

[Slickrick]

Next on the list for me was to help with the rattle of the doors. Being old tech, there isn’t much inside there 60 series doors. Compared to modern day cars which is filled with foam and sound deadening material. Figured I’d give it a shot at making it a bit more quite.

Decided to use this cheap Amazon sound deadener, stuff actually works pretty good. Compared to some of the other stuff I’ve used in the past, this is alot cheaper and basically the same quality.

Just so happened to have this 3m thinsulate left over from another project vehicle. This stuff is great, and would highly recommend it for anyone’s build. This stuff is used in most of your sprinter/van builds. It’s anti microbial, whatever the hell that means…and doesn’t hold moisture. It also will expand up to like 2-3” thick. It comes vacuum sealed in the huge plastic bags…pretty neat.

As you can see, I just stuffed this stuff inside the door. I used 3m super 90 spray glue to hold it in place. There is an art to getting that piece of insulation in the door cavity without it sticking to everything. How the gluing process works is, you coat the insulation and inside of the door. You then let it sit till it doesn’t stick to your fingers..then at that point it’s ready to apply. You would think being the glue is dried/not tacky that it wouldn’t be sticky. Once this stuff touches another surface that has the glue on it, it’s going to be there. So you can imagine stuffing a 2’x2’ piece of fabric through a 8” hole and be a pain in the ass.

To finish things off I went to Walmart and bought a cheap clear shower curtain. I think it was 3mil but I could be wrong. Also order some butyl tape, which is basically the same stuff the sound deadener is made from. Pretty much just run a bead of the tape around the edge and put the plastic shower curtain over it….jobs done.

This job was kind of a pain in the ass, but I do highly recommend doing it. It made a huge difference with road noise, rattles, and audio. The doors have a much more solid thud now when they close as well.

 

[Slickrick]

Just alittle poser shot….

Decided to give the 40 year old audio a bit of an upgrade as well. This insulated speaker wire from Amazon worked great running though the doors. Having the thicker jacket makes you feel alittle bit better and it not getting cut as easy. You can see the 3m insulation inside the door as well.

One of the transitions between the door and body. Kind of a pain to get to.

I had this old 12” sub and box laying around and picked up these cheap boss audio amps off Amazon. I know it’s not the best setup in the world but it works…or worked I should say. Think one the amps died on me lol. Guess that’s what I get for being cheap.

Regardless I got everything laid out pretty decent. One amp powers the door speakers, other powers the 12” sub.

I know this picture was in the last post, just wanted to point out the door speakers. Member on here sells a 3D printed bracket that allows you to mount speakers behind the stock door cards. They are really good quantity, highly recommended them. Ended up using some Rockford fosgates up front, and plan on another set in the rear in the future.

 

[Slickrick]

Another issue I couldn’t ever figure out with the Cummins was a leaking front crank seal. Even replaced it with a seal with a wear sleeve and it still leaked. Maybe I just wasn’t doing something right.

Only pain about these engines is needing to pull the timing cover everytime you need to replace the seal. Basically the radiator and everything has to come out to get to it.

On site at our new house we are building

Nifty little gauge mount I found online. Guy 3D prints these, and they mount where the factory radio would. Decided to use some auto meter gauges that look similar to factory. One is for egts, other is boost pressure.

 

[Slickrick]

One of the issues I’m now facing is bumpers. Going with the 80 series frame has a ton of advantages…however bumpers is not one of those. The 80 frame is more narrow and will require a lot of custom fab for the front and rear bumpers.

On a more positive note, I did get this old arb bumper for free after buying and selling another 60. Also picked up a warm 8274 I plan on putting on the front in the future.

This is kinda where my love for the om606 comes in. I bought this car locally from a guy and it was completely stock. Damn thing got like 35 mpg, and ran excellent. I knew about the power potential of these engines and wanted to toy with it some. So I had a stage two ecu flashed, and installed a hx35 turbo. Same size turbo that’s on the 6bt Cummins….which is twice the displacement.

I fabbed up a 3” stainless exhaust and let her rip. Thing pulled really hard…and ran great. I really started falling hard for the 606 after daily driving this car. It was the best of both worlds, you get power but also great miles per gallon. Another huge plus was it wasn’t that noisy…car had a 3” straight pipe and basically just had a slight drone going down the road.

 

[Slickrick]

Driving this car kinda set things in motion for my future swap. I had already been talking to a guy about selling my 6bt swap. He was in texas and had a 60 series as well. He also had a cherry om606 with less than 100k miles on it…plus a ton of new parts. Engine had basically been re-sealed, cleaned and painted. After a few months of back and forth we struck a deal. Guy drove the engine over to me from texas, and picked up the 6bt swap and headed back home. Very fortunate to work this deal out and wouldn’t have been able to do this deal without him.


Just pulled the engine and had it sitting on a pallet for the new owner. Part of the deal was to include the nv4500/splitcase. This made it a drop in swap for the next guy minus mounts and stuff.

The new new arriving at the house in the wooden crate he built. These engines are really beautiful in my option. Big benefit is new intake manifold…as the stock ones are rather large and ugly.

Another plus was the guy planned on using a nv4500 behind the 606, and already had the adapter I needed to bolt my transmission up.

The next trick up my sleeve was this sexy thang. This is one of those situations where I got lucky as hell and found an amazing deal. Without finding this deal I would be trying to find another nv4500.

On Facebook I stumbled across a guy selling a tr4050 trans and all the swap parts needed to go with it. After talking to the guy, he told me this transmission was suppose to be used in Robert downy jrs truck (guy that plays iron man). They were doing a tv show on discovery channel, something like Downys classic rides or something like that. Anyways, they decided to go another direction and wanted to sell this swap, and I was the man for the job lol.

For those that aren’t aware, the tremec tr4050 is basically a new, modern aluminum cased nv4500 rated for 600ftlbs of torque they are apparently just as strong as the old dinosaur they mimic.

They are quite pretty to look at, and should be for the $3800 price tag. That’s just for the transmission itself…then you have to add the extra on. You will need a bellhousing, that’s $400. Need a shifter setup which is another $100, then you will need a clutch and flywheel which could be $200-800 depending on what you go with…. The list goes on from there.

After totaling everything I bought from this guy, I paid $2700 with shipping to my door. All these parts are brand new, never been used. There is almost $6,000 worth of parts on that pallet which is absolutely crazy to me. By the time you add the trans, bellhousing, clutch, flywheel, slave cylinder setup, shifter…it definitely adds up.

But without this awesome deal I’d have to run a cheaper setup like a nv4500. Very fortunate to come across this and able to snag it.

 

[Slickrick]

Another BIG issues with the Cummins was weight. As you can see, the Cummins swap weighs in at 578kg…my scale is stuck in kg for some reason. Converted to Merica units that’s 1274 pounds. Compared to the om606 setup, it’s comes in at 414kg or 912 pounds. This is a huge savings over the front axle of 362 pounds. Basically the weight of a aluminum ls…

 

[Slickrick]

When deciding on what route I wanted to take with this build, I thought it might be neat to have the truck awd just like the 80 series. The hf2a are damn near bullet proof, and not terribly expensive. They have a very simple shifter setup as well compared to the split case.


I bought my adapter from axis industries and is really a top notch piece. Took me a bit to get it, looks like they have been moving and hard a hard time getting caught up. They aren’t cheap, but no one else made this adapter configuration.

Took be a bit of time to get this shifter just right, but it uses a 80 series tcase shifter with a custom bracket. It turned out great and the shifter is nice and tight. This is where I struggled on my split case setup behind the 6bt. The stock 60 series shifter is made of multiple pieces and can be a pain in the ass to work right. Overall very happy with how this turned out and ready to try it out for real.

Another challenge was finding a way to control the center diff lock. Would really be pointless to run this awd case without the ability to lock it up. Luckily I found a guy that already built a controller/relay. Don’t want to disclose any names as I don’t think they are ready to be sold publicly yet…but excited to see how it works!

 

[Slickrick]

Was able to use the stock om606 engine mounts by chance. Was pretty stoked about this as Mercedes are known for being smooth and these mounts have a big part to do with not transmitting vibrations into the frame/body.

These engines are a pain in the ass to lift, basically no where to hook a chain of hoist to. I ended up just running a strap around the front and back of the engine and hoped it held lol.

Another weird thing about these engines is they are sloped similar to bmw engines and such. Very much s optical illusion when trying to get things straight. Ended up using the fuel filter housing as my level reference point as these are mounted straight to keep from air bubbles and such from getting trapped.

Shifter lined up great, way better locstion than the 6bt/nv4500 was. Tcase shifter has just enough room as well….hope I can re use the factory shifter boots.

 

[Slickrick]

Local pick and pull got an early fj80, so I went and snagged the axles and suspension components. Front coil springs on these are more stiff to handle the weight of the 3fe. These seems to work perfect on my swap and is sitting almost prefect. By the time you add bumpers, winch, and batteries should be pretty close.

Fabbed up a down pipe, luckily most of the exhaust was already built from the Cummins swap and was pretty straight foward.

Also went ahead and knocked out the intercooler piping. With these 60 series, there is little to no room behind the grille to mount a intercooler. I started building a water to air setup for my Cummins and never finished it. Everything is in place now, just need to wire and and plumb some coolant lines. I’ll take the pipes to get powder coated later on..

Another trick up my sleeve…these 606’s are known to run on the hotter side, especially when adding some power to them. The stock 60 series radiator is rather small and I had this new aluminum 80 series radiator laying around. At first glance I thought it wasn’t going to fit…but where there is a will, there’s a way!

 

[Slickrick]

it fits.

Had one of these u-built-it fan shroud kits laying around that fit my 80 series radiator perfectly.

The fan on the 606 is pushed way to the passenger side. This kinda presented an issues for me as I want to use the stock mechanical fan. This was another reason for using the 80 series radiator. About 4” of core is hidden behind the core support , which works perfect for the offset fan.

After several hours this is what I came up with, I’m pretty pleased with how well it turned out.

 

[Slickrick]

With the 80 series radiator being a lot wider, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to fit another battery on the passenger side. I got extremely lucky and have just enough room to use an optima battery haha…couldn’t have planned that any better.

My wiring was a disaster from the Cummins swap, and wanted to clean things up a bit. I found these buss bars on Amazon for about $50. I decided to stack them on top of each other and run a long bolt on either corner to help keep them in place.

I normally don’t run a disconnect switch but picked it up on Amazon for not a lot of money and decided to throw it in as well.

This is where I left off last night. I’m basically up to date at this point, so updates will become more slowly.

I plan on building an air box rather soon, as well as running my ac lines. Still need to figure out a mount or location for the oil cooler. Should be ready to fire it up within the next week. Then I’ll just need driveshafts and I’ll be good to go!

 

[kirvesmies]

one word.................................nice! i can just see @Hojack in a corner whimpering cuz you tore that cummins out way to get after it sir

 

[kirvesmies]

neglected to say, i like your workmanship

 

[Slickrick]

neglected to say, i like your workmanship

Thanks man! I like the Cummins but it had to go, this will be a way better swap in the end.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

So this is the kinda crap I was referring to earlier about using the coil conversion rather than the frame swap.

This is a 25 gallon baffled fuel cell from a 50 something year model Chevy pickup. Actually fits in the rear great.


View attachment 3387171




So I also forgot to mention that this truck already had an engine in it and ran/drove fine. My first iteration of this build I used a Cummins 6bt/nv4500/splitcase. The power was awesome, but the short power band and noise left a lot to be desired.

Normally loud vehicles don’t really bother me, but my neighbors could hear me start this thing up half a mile away. I just couldn’t deal with the noise, so I decided to go down the om606 rabbit hole.


View attachment 3387174View attachment 3387175

View attachment 3387172

Great work! Doing similar build with fj60 body on 80 frame. Any more specs or where to buy fuel cell?

 

[Oilman]

@Slickrick
This is awesome! I'm fixing to do a similar swap / build. stretched fj40 on FZJ80 frame.
Questions:
adaptor plate number or where it came from?
What is the bell housing and where did it come from?
Tremec 4050, is it the short or long shaft?

Thank you ahead of time for your help!