Builds When your inner voice speaks, you need to listen. (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Why can't you get them out the top? They're installed through the side cover and would come out the same way. You can't remove the cam without first removing them, unless you have the engine upside-down, but then the lifters would fall out anyway.

I meant pull out all of the lifters, one at a time, and thoroughly clean both the lifters and the bores.
 
OK, well then I guess I need to work on getting these out. They will all slide up to nearly flush with the top of the lifter bore, but won't actually come out. I'm guessing there is a lip of oil varnish on the bottom of the lifter, so these are going to be a real PITA to get out. Now wishing the block was on an engine stand...The biggest issue with working them out is getting purchase on the inside of the lifter. I don't see anything, like a lip, that I can grab onto to work it out. If I could, maybe I could use some brake cleaner on the bottom while working them up and down to dissolve the oil varnish and get them out...?
 
Use a magnet to pick it up out of the bore.
1567615555145.png
 
Lightly scour the top ring of crud and a magnet like shown above or even a heavy duty type (picture) would pull them right out. I’ve pulled mine twice now, so I have a bit of experience ;). Very simple. But you know, you’ve got the engine out, why NOT pull the cam? Then you can do the timing plate gasket and replace the screws w/ torx screws. Edited, sorry just seeing now it’s not on a stand.

EB443930-9B92-40D4-A201-49176E2324A0.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Alright, a little more progress.

New valve guide seals and cleaned a wee bit of carbon buildup off the valves. I'm betting the carbon was from the rock hard valve guide seals seeping oil
20190831_151909.jpg

20190831_161727.jpg

Then I pulled the camshaft and got the lifters out. Getting the camshaft out was fairly easy since all the lifters could be pulled up and they would stick in the up position. Then I dropped them out through the bottom. I cleaned all the lifters and their bores, reinstalled the camshaft then the lifters, ensure a nice coating of assembly lube.
20190905_194650.jpg

20190905_194659.jpg


I went to reinstall the rocker arm assembly and found that two of the bolts (13951A in the fiche) are bad. One isn't a stock bolt (doesn't have the thick shoulder to lock into the rocker assembly shaft) and the stock bolt was actually cross threaded, explains why it was so tight coming out. Problem is these bolts are NLA. So I may have to source some non-OEM bolts for this purpose. The one non-OEM bolt is fine, even though it doesn't engage the rocker assembly shaft, there are the other 4 bolts for the valve cover that do, which I would think would be enough to do the job.

Getting the oil pan off was slightly more than a bitch. That old cork gasket had turned to petrified wood and tried to permanently attach itself to the block/pan. Same for the pushrod/lifter cover when I went to remove it. The flame wrench was the only thing that would get it to budge. That wrench has more than paid for itself over the years...

Anyway, gaskets are arriving in the mail so I will be buttoning things up over the next week or so. Then I will pull the transmission to replace the rear main seal. Should be super fun! After that, reattach brake lines, fuel lines, sway bars, etc. in preparation for the body to go back on the chassis.
 
The engine is starting to get buttoned up now. It's taking a long time because I am spending so much of my time cleaning everything thoroughly prior to reinstallation. The fasteners take the most time, each needing to be run through the wire wheel after degreasing. The rocker arm assembly was a mess too, so it had to be thoroughly cleaned. Got the valves adjusted and the cover back on. Plus all the brackets have to be cleaned and painted, same for all the pulleys. But I like the results. I'm an engine bay nerd. I like it very clean and tidying there. Also got the new SS brake lines installed.
20190914_134115.jpg

20190914_213236.jpg

20190914_213252.jpg

20190914_213302.jpg

20190914_213317.jpg
 
Back at it now that the weather is sucking again. Gotta say though, this late warm weather has been nice!

So I got all the suspension and steering bits buttoned up. Also got the driveshafts back in and welded up the last of the frame repairs. For the frame repair I used 3/16ths plate cut to fit the gap where I had some rust the needed to be cut out. Now the frame is fully skookum.

Next I'll get the exhaust sorted before I put the tub back on the frame. Oh,almost forgot, I replaced the rear main seal. Waaaaaaay easier now than later.
20200111_160357.jpg

20200111_190844.jpg

20200116_181316.jpg

20200116_181325.jpg

20200116_181255.jpg
 
Small update just to let you know I haven't bailed on the project. Its riding weather now and I'm planning a big bike trip way up into Canada/Alaska in about 10 days. So that's taking most of my spare time. But I've gotten the axles mounted again and all the new suspension bits on the frame. The front axle will be power washed and painted the new seals put in when I get back to devoting more time to the project.

View attachment 1993829

View attachment 1993830
I may be wrong but on my suspensión the arrows on the leaf springs are supposed to point towards the pivot pin not the shackle (all arrows pointing toward the passenger compartment).
May not be applicable for your build but I accidentally put mine in backwards and it caused steering control issues.
Thought I’d mention just in case and freely admit that I haven’t read the entire build thread 😀
Cheers.
 
I may be wrong but on my suspensión the arrows on the leaf springs are supposed to point towards the pivot pin not the shackle (all arrows pointing toward the passenger compartment).
May not be applicable for your build but I accidentally put mine in backwards and it caused steering control issues.
Thought I’d mention just in case and freely admit that I haven’t read the entire build thread 😀
Cheers.
Well that would suck. I need to confirm this. Thanks for the heads up!
 
I may be wrong but on my suspensión the arrows on the leaf springs are supposed to point towards the pivot pin not the shackle (all arrows pointing toward the passenger compartment).
May not be applicable for your build but I accidentally put mine in backwards and it caused steering control issues.
Thought I’d mention just in case and freely admit that I haven’t read the entire build thread 😀
Cheers.
Yeah, you are right! Here's what OME says:
Which way do I orient the leaf springs?

For most leaf spring applications such as the 40, 55, 60 and Tacoma applications. The shorter end of the spring will be the 'fixed' end of the spring. This is measured from the spring bushing eyelet to the spring center pin. OME has recently started placing a painted arrow on the top leaf that will indicate the fixed (non-shackle) side of the leaf spring. Furthermore, this should match the existing springs you are removing. While it is entirely possible to flip the springs to gain additional wheelbase, this is not recommended by the OME engineers and customers will need to sort out the additional modifications such as driveline lengths, pinion can caster angles, etc
 
I updated the thread name to more accurately describe my near constant state of mind with this project.

Anyway, there is some progress to report! The body is once again sitting on the frame. Praise the Lord!

Being able to walk around in my shop again is a glorious thing. I do have a slight problem though; I bought new poly bushings and 1" body lift pucks from 4x4labs, but I'm not entirely sure I got the right hardware. The picture below is the longest of the original bolts next to the longest of the new and a tape measure, the new ones are actually slightly shorter than the old ones. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over? What say the horde?
20200222_164329.jpg

20200222_175945.jpg

20200222_200341.jpg

20200222_195217.jpg
 
I have a stock pin and body mount setup. I’ll get a pic and measurement for you...

6A6531DE-A4A2-47E4-9A42-CABA6AC383BC.jpeg
 
Your guess is as good as mine. If you want me to stack all the parts together and measure, I can but not till tmrw. Heading to bed.
 
Looking back at this... took some staring at this awhile to grasp how you lifted the body up to get it on the blocks and 4x4's. The rotisseries' engine stands were confusing the F out of me. Pretty awesome.
The new name is fitting.
Regarding the body mount hardware. That little 1/4" difference from the longer new one to the stock isn't a big deal. I definitely wouldn't use the much shorter ones.
 
So I emailed 4x4Labs last night and got a prompt reply that confuses me a bit. I asked if I did the install wrong or needed to have ordered another hardware set for the kit I ordered:
This is because the factory bolts have extra long thread while commonly available bolts have much short threaded portion. If the bolts were as long as stock, you would run into the problem that the nuts would bottom out where the threading stops. And with the poly bushings, having a shorter bottom portion than the OEM rubber bushings, this bottom out would be the case. Thus we do ship a slightly shorter bolt with the poly bushing kits to account for that issue. It appears you have the proper length bolts 5" and 4" that we typically supply for the 1" w/ poly kits on the FJ62.

That being said, it's not uncommon for a vehicle to use a slightly different set of bolt lengths that what we designed the kit for and have been supplying parts for (our FJ62 base model had working bolt lengths of 3.5" and 4.5". Usually pops up once every year or two that some vehicle comes along that has extra long bolts from the factory because of some change in the way the bolts pass through the floor of the body or the frame bracket or something like that. If that's the case, its not an issue to swap out bolts with something longer:

4Crawler Offroad - Custom Body Lift Kits

So is he saying not all bodies/frames are same from the factory?
 
So I emailed 4x4Labs last night and got a prompt reply that confuses me a bit. I asked if I did the install wrong or needed to have ordered another hardware set for the kit I ordered:


So is he saying not all bodies/frames are same from the factory?
Maybe he means other brands... :) is just point blank tell him you got the wrong size and include the photo.
 
Have you tried installing one to see if it will work?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom