Builds WEAKFISH another FJ62 Build Thread (1 Viewer)

[huminajumina]

before installing the new piston rings, I checked the piston ring end gap, I checked the top and bottom of the cylinder but they measured the same, so no taper here....

New rings installed, these pistons have a little wear on the skirts but over all look great, the casting parts and serial numbers are still visible on the tops after cleaning. And the cylinders looked fine even prior to honing them.

After assembling the pistons I put them back in the block and swapped out the cam.

I think this is officially the first assembly of the whole conversion, so hopefully I am only posting about getting stuff done after this point... hoping to get the heads back on tomorrow.

 

[dbbowen]

damn. I wish i did this to my motor before i swapped it in. Ive been lucky enough to not have any issues, but it would be nice to have some piece of mind

 

[huminajumina]

damn. I wish i did this to my motor before i swapped it in. Ive been lucky enough to not have any issues, but it would be nice to have some piece of mind

I think I am bad luck so I had to, this thing is in great shape, no problems anywhere so far, just miles (carbon build up and rust). but I know if I didn't I would regret it down the road..... My van has a 2002 LS1 swap in it, I bought a wrecked car and pulled it, I drove it for approximately 40K miles and 4-5 years.... then it snapped a ring and has no compression in one cylinder. Honestly not bad, got my money's worth, but ha dI done rings when it was out I wouldn't be in that situation. My Tacoma had a burnt valve and I rebuilt it since I wanted to pull the engine to replace the leaky oil pan and do a clutch, so why not do rings and bearings while I was in there. So I would probably have been fine with this engine, but like I said I have bad luck

@rkymtnflyfisher stopped by today and checked out the progress since he's in town for a few days....It was good catching up, talking about Cruisers, talking about this summer's fishing trip.

I was able to get the pistons back in and today I got the heads on, timing chain cover, oil pump, valley cover and kocok sensors, starting to feel like progress, swapped the valve springs and seals out.

New oil pump is a melling 295 and cool to see its made in USA.

I had to torque the rods after putting them back in

New Valve seals being installed while upgrading the springs

New Springs being put on

Early on I knew I would be pulling a lot apart and bought the complete Felpro Permatorque gasket set.

 

[huminajumina]

The knock sensors on these LS engines are buried under the intake in the valley pan, and can be a pain to replace, so I knew from day one that I would replace them.... this valley pan had water sitting in the rear knock sensor when I removed it.... I cleaned up the corrosion and painted it, but it snapped off when I touched it.

A lot of good progress today. I am hoping that I will be done with the engine soon and start bolting up the adapters and getting more progress here soon. Excited to see some things being put back together.

 

[huminajumina]

I got a few things cleaned up these past few evenings, and I got a little bit more put together. I am trying to save all the accessories but this thing had 20 years of corrosion, so its taken a lot to clean it all up. First thing as of late was the intake, it was really dirty and after taking the throttle body off (which you can see is really corroded) I saw how much carbon was built up inside so I decided to remove everything and soak it in some soap and cleaner.

I wire brushed the throttle body and cleaned and painted it, I got the intake manifold back on and cleaned up the valve covers and got them back on with all new gaskets for both.

Next was the coil packs, I figured if I put all of this back together and its looking clean, I might as well clean up the rust and oil on the coil packs and brackets....

 

[huminajumina]

The coils were pretty rusted, so I just did a quick job and slapped on some Rustoleum to make them look a lil better

The brackets are hanging in the lower part of the frame, just coated the paint on thick, I figured youre really not going to see any of it enough to see the runs, I'd rather it protect it than look showroom quality.

Since the power steering pump had a bent pulley, I had to pull it to be replaced, so I went ahead and removed it for cleaning..... looks like the tanks are galvanized or zinc coated or something that doesn't hold up well this one was pretty rusty, but no leaks.... I capped off the hydroboost return line and slapped on some paint.

Hear is the bracket that it goes in, this is where I spent a lot of my time tonight, probably all for nothing, but I at least knocked off some of the aluminum oxide. Same for the A/C Comp bracket. I don't have all the trime and patience to get in all those crevices but it looks a lot better than it did.

Same thing with the Alternator, it sets on top and is going to be the most in view, so I want to clean it up.... I'd like to see how it works before I try to replace it.

I also dug into the fuel rails / fuel line a little more, for those familiar I have the later style single fuel line setup..... Same as what is on my LS1 in my van, so I will just run the corvette style fuel filter with the internal regulator. I plan to mount it on the fender in the stock-ish location..... then just run the single line with AN fittings from there to the fuel rail. I dug up an old post with someone asking about fittings, I ordered the threaded metric adapter to AN fitting that @cruisermatt suggested to another mud member.

Great progress, more questions answered. I am hoping to get my mounts soon, then the process will really start picking up speed.

 

[BurntToast]

The coils were pretty rusted, so I just did a quick job and slapped on some Rustoleum to make them look a lil better
View attachment 3905861
The brackets are hanging in the lower part of the frame, just coated the paint on thick, I figured youre really not going to see any of it enough to see the runs, I'd rather it protect it than look showroom quality.
View attachment 3905863
Since the power steering pump had a bent pulley, I had to pull it to be replaced, so I went ahead and removed it for cleaning..... looks like the tanks are galvanized or zinc coated or something that doesn't hold up well this one was pretty rusty, but no leaks.... I capped off the hydroboost return line and slapped on some paint.
View attachment 3905864

Hear is the bracket that it goes in, this is where I spent a lot of my time tonight, probably all for nothing, but I at least knocked off some of the aluminum oxide. Same for the A/C Comp bracket. I don't have all the trime and patience to get in all those crevices but it looks a lot better than it did.
View attachment 3905866

Same thing with the Alternator, it sets on top and is going to be the most in view, so I want to clean it up.... I'd like to see how it works before I try to replace it.
View attachment 3905867

I also dug into the fuel rails / fuel line a little more, for those familiar I have the later style single fuel line setup..... Same as what is on my LS1 in my van, so I will just run the corvette style fuel filter with the internal regulator. I plan to mount it on the fender in the stock-ish location..... then just run the single line with AN fittings from there to the fuel rail. I dug up an old post with someone asking about fittings, I ordered the threaded metric adapter to AN fitting that @cruisermatt suggested to another mud member.

Great progress, more questions answered. I am hoping to get my mounts soon, then the process will really start picking up speed.

I think Matt told me, but the corvette style regulators are impossible to get quality OEM ones. The aftermarkets have a bad rep for failure

 

[huminajumina]

I think Matt told me, but the corvette style regulators are impossible to get quality OEM ones. The aftermarkets have a bad rep for failure

Yea I have heard that from a few sources, and the first one I put in my van made some noise, but it worked..... (it was a cheap one). they are still available from GM as part number 19239926, I think you just have to bite the bullet and buy an expensive one from GM or a vendor that sells AC Delco, otherwise most of them on the market are knock off unreliable ones......

 

[dbbowen]

I have a ls1 intake sitting on my shelf that im debating putting in my truck that looks the exact same way inside. Crazy how much junk just gets up in there. Kudos for reusing all those accessories and not just slapping reman stuff on there. The temptation is real

 

[cruisermatt]

Great progress, more questions answered. I am hoping to get my mounts soon, then the process will really start picking up speed.

Your order is going out tomorrow

 

[huminajumina]

I have a ls1 intake sitting on my shelf that im debating putting in my truck that looks the exact same way inside. Crazy how much junk just gets up in there. Kudos for reusing all those accessories and not just slapping reman stuff on there. The temptation is real

Yea, its kinda crazy how much gets in there, I didn't want to use harsh chemicals, although it has to have fuel getting in there all the time. I read a few articles on LS1Tech and just went with Soap and water, simple green, mean green, that kinda stuff, works well if you can scrub it with a brush or towel, but it takes a little elbow grease.

Your order is going out tomorrow

Sweet!! I am pumped!!!

Yesterday I got the pressure hose from JTO....same hose I am running on my FJ40 with a SBC.... It looks like they use the GM Flared fitting so I am debating just buying the $9-13 Amazon adapter to adapt the JTO hose to the GM O-ring bubble flare fitting on the LS. PS Pump.

Heres the toyota PS lines added to my pile, it looks like chaos but it is nice to have everything laid out on the floor like this to keep things organized and separated....until I go over everything and determine what I need to reuse and what I can sell on mud to recoupe a little money.
( I will obviously be needing the return line fitting for the Steering box)

Here's the JT Outfitters pressure line for the power steering pump, and the GM o-ring bubble flare on the old line next to it. As I said above, I will probably just try the adapter to make it work. Theres a chance my dad has at Pre-80's GM pressure valve lying around so I may hold out until I search his stash.

Heres the metric to AN fuel line fitting that came in quick.

No real progress today, just cleaning the house and packing for a camping weekend...would be nice to have the cruiser but we will soon enough....

 

[FamilyCamper]

Nice work!! Just when I thought I was working hard in my swap and am feeling overwhelmed lol. Good job on all the engine work it will feel good to know all the parts so well once it's running.

 

[huminajumina]

Nice work!! Just when I thought I was working hard in my swap and am feeling overwhelmed lol. Good job on all the engine work it will feel good to know all the parts so well once it's running.

Haha, there’s too much to do! Between figuring out what you need & what route you’re gonna go, then what you can afford…a little of the little things seem cheap but it all adds up (I gotta delete this excel budget sheet )

Speaking of adding up, all the little things I bought for my accessory drive finally got bolted on. And I got my coil packs together….

It was so damn windy, no use in attempting to fish, but we were here so I had to try

Got in a good hike though!

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

I guess you found a place that didn't get washed out?

 

[huminajumina]

I guess you found a place that didn't get washed out?

Dude it’s been wild here lately! We were planning to go to New River Gorge for the wife’s birthday & our anniversary, but those storms made us cancel. We got dumped on last night, tons of rain! And that’s after this weeks flooding… we ended up in Davis for a day of hiking, much better here, and the flood waters are starting to go down. But with winds gusting to 40mph nothing was sitting on the water & nothing was biting…one bite but nothing hooked

Here’s my brother pulling some people outta the floods tho…

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

Yeah, that is crazy.

We passed through western Maryland on the way out and were talking about some of the areas we used to spend time at, got on the plane and headed west. Got up the next morning and saw all the carnage on the news. Crazy. I saw a clip from Harper's Ferry that looked bad.

 

[huminajumina]

Yea they were pretty underwater, much of river road to shepherdstown was under water too, looking a lot more normal around here now. I made good progress today, got a lot of things knocked out, and only had a few setbacks. I had to order the new dipstick tube since the old one was quite a pain to remove... I put it in the wrong spot while tightening the manifolds and cracked it... had to spend a few minutes welding it back together, I ended up filling in the groove the o-ring sets in to get it water tight, so I just put the Grey RTV all around it in place of an o-ring, should be good as new.... ( or not as good as new I guess).

Didnt get an after shot of the weld. and I didn't get a shot of it snaked through the headers, but its all on now.

I removed the steering box from the frame and cut off both of the factory motor mounts. I will touch up everything with a nice coat of POR15 once I get the new mounts welded on

I moved the engine back to the hoist so I could do the rear cover gasket, rear main seal, and start with the flywheel and such....

I also replaced the Oil diverter, probably more of a gimmick but it was $20 and is now metal instead of nylon/plastic whatever it was.

 

[huminajumina]

I also put the Toyota oil pressure sender on the block off plate above the oil filter, I am not going to run a oil cooler, and this plate had 2 plugs, I had to run a 90 and mount the sender forward to avoid the manifold collector.

Heres the rear main seal and pilot bearing, with the spacer all mounted up.

I mounted the flywheel but now have realized that the dowel pins haven't been pressed into the flywheel....so I am thinking I'll have to pull it back off to press the dowel pins in and not mess anything up. It looks like it will take a little puzzle solving to figure out where the pins go to allow all the bolt holes to align... I loosely threaded the pressure plate on to see if the alignment worked out....

The kit also didn't come with an alignment tool, but it looks like the shaft will work for now, I just don't want to leave all that weight sitting there for long. I think I have one sitting around, just gotta dig.

The real setback today and the thing that took a few hours of work away is my daily driver.... my '99 Tacoma blew a headgasket pulling out of my development today enroute to the parts store for more brake clean and other lil knick knacks. I just rebuilt the 3RZ-FE in it about 20-30K ago with a remaned head.... So I am not sure what is going on to cause a blown head gasket that soon. No fluids mixed, just blew out the gasket between #1 and #2 cylinders, I put air on it and you could watch it cross over.... At first I thought it could be a misfire, so I changed out coil packs (Obviously I kept some old parts lying around for this occasion). Then pulled the plugs, but once I checked compression it was evident. So that took a few hours and killed my vibe....

Pulled the intake to get to the valve cover, checked the cams and timing chain, but really I was pretty set on head gasket being the route cause.
I put the compressed air hose on the #1 spark plug hole and it came right out the #2....fun fun..... Hoping to not get in a hurry and check the torque on the head bolts before I pull them. It would be nice to know what caused it. Obviously its only 145hp and low compression so it should be good for a few hundred thousand miles. I'll borrow my dads straight edge and check the block and head, new head could have warped...worth taking to the machine shop I guess... I also lost a valve cover bolt somewhere in the skid plates, that took about 30 minutes of my life that I'll never get back (still never found it)

Still a lot to do here before I get it done, but I ordered a head gasket set.... looks like I am driving the FJ40 to work this week!

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

The Taco is cursed.

 

[huminajumina]

The Taco is cursed.

Dude, she has fought me tooth and nail since the beginning..... I have put some good miles on it and enjoy driving it, but if I actually added my labor into the equation I could never break even for the time I have spent working on this truck. Hoping I can maybe just get away with the head being decked and a head gasket, but that is still a days work and a few hundred bucks I didn't need to spend.... Its nice to drive that thing when the salt is on the road though, and the A/C blows cold so I can't complain too much.