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I know! I was surprised as well. It is normally very dry here, but the truck did spend a little time in the garage, so maybe all the snow melting off the truck in the garage added some humidity? I put some ATF in the 90W and took it for an hour long drive and I will drain this weekend and refill before the next road trip.That's a ton of water to have mixed in manual transmission oil. I would change the oil twice after that, and keep a close eye on it. Do you drive it long distances to get the transmission hot enough to drive off the condensate? The humidity must be 100% in Calgary....
BeautifulBuilt a new alternator to battery wire. The stock one is 10ga and getting old. So I built a new 4ga wire with a 125amp fuse at the battery. Soldered to the lugs, protective sheathing and then heatsink seals at the end. Overkill but it should do the job well. The wire runs down the side of the radiator, across and inside the front cross member then out and up to the alternator. I left the stock wire still attached as well.
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Installed sliders and went for chicken feed!
(Not much glory this weekend, sorry guys.).
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love the fore ground sceneryroommate took some pictures of it.
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Thank you.Nice rear bumper and curious where you got the [Built for Safari Not for Speed] sticker ?.
That is looking great John. Hope to see it in AugustFinally got the refreshed 125,000-mile original radiator back in the '86 FJ60 project vehicle, along with the FJ62 fan shroud (the '86 has a rebuilt 3FE) and the remainder of the hoses and clamps. I should have known better, but I re-installed the original nylon drain plug without replacing the original O-ring - doh! So naturally it started to drip after the first couple of gallons of antifreeze/water mix. I rediscovered what a pain in the a$$ it is to drain the radiator in these beasts. It took a while to drain because I only opened the drain plug a tad so I wouldn't have coolant running everywhere. I did a lot of searching here on MUD for some easy retrofits but most folks seem to just put up with it. I got to thinking about a sleeve that could slip over the radiator drain fitting and a 17mm socket came to mind. A short trip to the hardware store netted a socket, a 45* brass street elbow, and a couple of metric O-rings.
I drilled a hole through one of the flats on the socket and tapped it for 1/8-27 NPT threads, then cut off enough of the socket to match the length of the radiator fitting. I had a short section of pipe down in the basement that was already threaded at both ends with 1/8-27 NPT threads. A quick trial fit showed that my idea would work, so I applied a liberal amount of Permatex Waterpump & Thermostat Housing gasket maker to the radiator end and slipped the modified socket over the fitting. The pipe with street elbow will be threaded into the modified socket when I need to drain the radiator. I'll buy a male hose barb fitting and a short length of tubing and package these up in my specialty tool stash, SSTs I guess.
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Next up is a final cleaning/paint touch-up on the condenser, along with new R134a compatible O-rings, and installation of the vertical brace, hood latch mechanism, grille, headlight trim, and turn signal assemblies. It'll start to look more like a finished vehicle soon, but even at this stage it looks a lot more complete.
View attachment 1625254
Finally got the refreshed 125,000-mile original radiator back in the '86 FJ60 project vehicle, along with the FJ62 fan shroud (the '86 has a rebuilt 3FE) and the remainder of the hoses and clamps. I should have known better, but I re-installed the original nylon drain plug without replacing the original O-ring - doh! So naturally it started to drip after the first couple of gallons of antifreeze/water mix. I rediscovered what a pain in the a$$ it is to drain the radiator in these beasts. It took a while to drain because I only opened the drain plug a tad so I wouldn't have coolant running everywhere. I did a lot of searching here on MUD for some easy retrofits but most folks seem to just put up with it. I got to thinking about a sleeve that could slip over the radiator drain fitting and a 17mm socket came to mind. A short trip to the hardware store netted a socket, a 45* brass street elbow, and a couple of metric O-rings.
I drilled a hole through one of the flats on the socket and tapped it for 1/8-27 NPT threads, then cut off enough of the socket to match the length of the radiator fitting. I had a short section of pipe down in the basement that was already threaded at both ends with 1/8-27 NPT threads. A quick trial fit showed that my idea would work, so I applied a liberal amount of Permatex Waterpump & Thermostat Housing gasket maker to the radiator end and slipped the modified socket over the fitting. The pipe with street elbow will be threaded into the modified socket when I need to drain the radiator. I'll buy a male hose barb fitting and a short length of tubing and package these up in my specialty tool stash, SSTs I guess.
View attachment 1625243
View attachment 1625244
View attachment 1625245
View attachment 1625246
Next up is a final cleaning/paint touch-up on the condenser, along with new R134a compatible O-rings, and installation of the vertical brace, hood latch mechanism, grille, headlight trim, and turn signal assemblies. It'll start to look more like a finished vehicle soon, but even at this stage it looks a lot more complete.
View attachment 1625254
Too unfinished to driveToo clean to drive![]()
Too unfinished to drive. Maybe in a few days.
If I could easily transport it to my oldest son in Seattle beforehand he could drive it down with the Seattle contingentI hope you bring this to SAS #2. I’m sure many cruiser heads would like to see it.