LJ70 Build Thread!

[Beno]

She has a love hate relationship with the 4Runner... She loves it because we've put so much work into it, and it is good for what we do... She hates it because it has some little noises I cant get rid of that emanate from the engine.

She also likes the look of it, almost a grown up 4Runner, and more comfortable than the FJ73 was. My only thought was that I'm not sure we'll get the same fuel economy as we get out of the 4Runner (12/100km) even with a diesel... So realistically we might be hunting a KZJ95

Paddler Ed
My brother had a Factory Turbo 80 series manual and they used to get around 11/ 100 out of it all the time and he was not a great a great believer in maintenance. If you could find a good Factory turbo 80 it would be worth it.
Yep i have a funny feeling they did come out Standard With A LSD but toyota LSD,S were renown for being terrible.

Couple of downsides were that the early 80 models only had a tow rating off 2500 kgs and they only came out with 15 inch rims. And they were prone to rust in the front firewalls down the bottom.

 

[Ben]

Ben to be quite honest i am not really sure. I will have a look at my manual and see what it says. I would have thought that the Diff set up would have been the same as they one in the Bundera to be honest.
Thanks for the info Ben it's much appreciated. Sorry i didn't see this yesterday Ben but living at Maitland i have been a tad busy watching the flood waters rising over the back fence.

No worries.

Hope you haven't been too badly affected by the storms and floods!

I've been working away and haven't had internet for a while and I've also had camera issues, but I'm hoping to get an update up soon!

I've got some exciting projects on at the moment!

 

[Beno]

No worries.

Hope you haven't been too badly affected by the storms and floods!

I've been working away and haven't had internet for a while and I've also had camera issues, but I'm hoping to get an update up soon!

I've got some exciting projects on at the moment!

Excellent looking forward to seeing your new projects. All good with the floods mate water starting to go down now.

Ben just wondering what oils do run in your G/B AND T/C AND DIFFS MATE. I haven't changed these oils in the Bj since i got it at Christmas and have been meaning to do it. I am leaning towards the Castrol VMX-M for the lot. I have heard it's good for everything. What are your thoughts?

 

[Ben]

I'm running Penrite in all of them, not sure exactly which grade, I just pumped it out of the 44 gallon drum at work.

Castrol has a very good reputation though, I've run it before.

 

[Ben]

A Long Over Due Update...........................

OK time to get this thread back on track!

We had an awesome week in Tassie after Easter. Quite a relaxing trip although we did get out to do some site seeing.

We went to Hastings Caves which are said to be the most stunning show caves in the whole of Australia.





We walked past some huge tree stumps on the way to the cave entrance.























I had wondered how they must have cut the trees down, 3-4meters high off the ground and after reading the information board above it made sense why all the big stumps had notches cut into them.



We soon arrived at the entrance to the caves.











Almost as impressive was the shear amount of concrete that must have gone into the caves to build all the steps as access was difficult and the road was a good few k's away.











Afterwards we checked out the thermal springs.

They had some picnic areas that looked awesome. They had been constructed around a huge tree stump, which was used to support the center of the roof, with lengths of wood then going out to walls constructed from river stones.

I want to build one when I get my land and build my house as I think something like this would work great as an outdoor entertaining/party area!













We took Bec's doggies out for a walk.







We could see Mount Wellington in the distance and I decided I wanted to go up it.





We took the dogs home who were now exhausted!





And off we went up the mountain, which conveniently has a road all the way to the top.



The Trig point was a popular photo point.



We walked down to the lookout.



The views looking down over the capital city of Hobart were pretty spectacular.







Some history.













On the way back down the mountain a hand-glider flew right over our car.









The next day we went to the historic shot tower.

For anyone who doesn't know what a shot tower is, its a tower that was used for making lead shot for guns.

By dropping molten lead from a great height it turns into a perfect ball as it falls and cools. At the bottom it is caught in a bucket of water.

Melbourne has a large brick onr on the edge of the city, but this one is the largest sandstone one in the Southern Hemisphere.













It was a 313 creaky old steps to the top and each step moved a lot when stepped on. We would later learn that they were designed like this on purpose as a sort of suspension system so that the guys carrying lead and other heavy materials to the top didnt hurt themselves as easily.

They used no external scaffolding as the tower was constructed and instead constructed the wooden stairs as they went and laid all the stones from the inside.





The fireplace at the top where the lead would get melted.









Looking down at the house which the guy who built the tower built first and developed his skills on.









And that was Tassie!

Were still planning on going back with LJ for a month next year if everything goes to plan!

Back to LJ..............

I got the Dobinsons +50mm suspension lift kit fitted.

I'm really pleased with the height and ride. The only thing I need to do is adjust the castor as I removed my drop boxes and put the suspension setup back to standard in order to fit the Dobinsons kit.











Auxiliary fuel tank next.....................

Fuel range is an issue when I go on trips and the 90 litre main tank just isnt enough.

Inside the back of LJ.







The drawers are really really deep, to the point where reaching items at the back can be difficult.





Loosing 300mm off the end of the drawers would give me enough room for another 90 litre tank.













Marked where it needed cutting.



Cut it.







This is the space the tank will fit in.



Drawers next.



I'm going to make some new drawer fronts as I want to move the locks up more.





I'm going to move the locks up higher so that they engage into a cut out into the ply top, rather than having them engage with pieces of metal that hang down, which occasionally things in the drawers catch on and jam the drawers.



I'm also going to move the stops which limit how far the drawers open to the sides rather than underneath the top. This should again make things less likely to jam.



Removed the locks.





Cut the end off.



Thats as far as I got on the drawers.

I'm picking up some alluminumised steel next week to make the fuel tank from.

I was thinking of starting to run on waste veg oil and even printed off some fliers.



I spoke to a few of the local takeaway food places and found that they are all currently selling their oil to a company which collects it. The prices fluctuate a bit like scrap metal, but on average they get 20 cents a litre.

They were all willing to sell to me though so long as I match or beat their current price.

But after giving it a lot of thought I've decided to leave it another year or 2 until I'm hopefully living up in Byron. I've got too much going on at the moment and dont have that much spare time.

The Astra let me down the other night for the first time in over 2 years!

I was pulling off briskly from a set of traffic lights.

went to put it in second and the stick snapped off in my hand and the car was then stuck in first gear!

I decided it wasnt worth calling a recovery truck as I was only about a 10 minute drive from home, although it took a while longer driving in 1st.

Got it home and jacked it up and had a look underneath.



Couldnt see anything so pulled the inside apart.



The plastic/nylon part that holds the stick had broken.



Cut some 50mm tube.



Cut a section out.



Cut the piece I cut out in half and welded the 2 pieces on.





Drilled a piece of 2mm and welded it on.





Drilled and bolted in position.

Stick back in and the car is fixed!

I've been practising my welding heaps.

I've been getting very frustrated with my welding lately as no matter what I tried I couldnt get the first weld, the root run, right.

But then I discovered the benefits of purging!

Which is running shielding gas through the inside of the pipe while welding.

Which fixed all the problems I had been experiencing.

I drilled and taped a hole in the bottom of my jig and fitted an air line fitting so I can plug a hose on and off easily.

I then fitted the correct ends onto a hose.

This worked well at TAFE where there are multiple gas regulators to connect my hose onto, but at home I only have one bottle and that runs the welder.

After going to a few welding supply shops and having them look at me very confused when I said I wanted to run 2 hoses off one bottle so I can weld and purge off 1 bottle I got the bits I needed.

This setup means I can purge at 6 litre per minute.

And run the welder at 12-15 litres per minute.

So all connected and ready to weld.

Previously my welds looked perfect on the outside but the inside looked like this.

But now when I purge they are perfect with a nice rounded profile!

So I'm putting in for the big test, which if I pass will make me a qualified TIG welder and will open all the doors to the high paid work I've been dreaming about.

TIG has without a doubt been the hardest skill I've ever tried to learn, nothing in carpentry even comes close! So it feels awesome to finally feel like I've got it!

I've been keen to finish my welder trolley so I can get it powdercoated.

I cut and bent some 40mm flat.

And welded one on each side.

And finally work, if you can call it that!

I went and gave my boss a hand on his farm for a few days.

Firstly we had to pick up his new cows.

Then after driving for a few hours back to the farm we could release them in their new field (or padock as they say in Australia.)

A big elm tree had come down across his section of river and he was keen to get it out and have it milled into timber.

We had his comp truck there with the tricked up Gigglepin winch on the front so decided to winch sections of it out of the river after I had cut the sections off the tree.

It was bloody dangerous balancing on the tree above the river chainsawing but all went to plan and soon we were winching sections out.

Until there was a loud twang and we snapped the winch rope.

We tied it back together and carried on.

The next section to come out was the better of the 2 pieces as it was the biggest.

This is the section I needed to cut next.

It cut OK, considering I was sat on the fallen tree with a leg dangling each side chain sawing across in front of me.

But when we were winching it out we dragged it through a European wasps nest and boy were they angry!

They were swarming all over the 6 wheel drive gaitor so we had to leave it for over an hour until they had calmed down a bit before we could retrieve it.

My boss showed me a huge gum tree near the main farm house that hes getting cut down as gum trees have a nasty habbit of randomly dropping branches.

Hes going to get it cut off level at about 4 meters off the ground.

Then he wants me to buld a 3 storey tree house out of hardwood complete with decks and verandhas and he wants it loosely basing on this bird box!

Back at work I finished the wire rack and got it powdercoated.

Fitted all the bars and bolted the castors on.

We bought an expensive sheet of alluminium 7 meters long x 1.5 meters wide x 5mm thick.

We then took it and got it bent.

This is going to be the hull of the air boat I'm building. We will mount a car engine high up in the back with a huge propeller on and if everything goes to plan it will propel us along.

And finally the top secret project that I've been designing and building for a while now.

I figured for those of you who havent been able to see it progress here:

http://www.landcruiserclub.net/forums/showthread.php/51513-Guiness-World-Record-Attempt

Its virtually finished now and is almost ready for the world record attempt. so heres a few pics.

This is my white board where my boss has written all my current jobs on.

He wants me to build him:

-A pizza oven out of steel.

-The huge tree house which will be all built at work in sections and will be very ornate.

-2 arched bridges out of steel to go over the stream/mote around his farm house.

-Finish the Jimny chassis project.

-And the air boat.

I've told him its going to be very difficult for me to leave and go off and earn my fortune if he keeps giving me all these exciting projects!

I've got a busy few months ahead.

Less than 2 months till I've got my big welding test which will hopefully make me a fully qualified TIG welder, so I need to practice heaps.

I'm off to Brisbane for a few days in a couple of weeks.

I've got a few 4wd trips planned before my Europe trip in July, and before then I need to finish the fuel tank and drawer system.

I also need to order all the new seals and pull the rear diff out and fix the leaking air locker.

I'd love to do the rear disc brake conversion but I think that will have to wait a while sadly.

 

[Pat]

Crikey,Ben I wonder that you've got the time to smell the roses.Pat

 

[Paddler Ed]

Looks good Ben!

Always interesting reading, and some interesting bits about TAS there. We went to Buchan caves when we were last down in Victoria in 2012; they're worth a visit as well, and the campsite next to them is quite nice (has proper showers and allows fires as there's a bit camp kitchen with an open fire , so may be bearable for winter time!)

 

[arthurpl]

Wow, just wow...

 

[clivehorridge]

Great update Ben, an interesting life you're living for sure!

 

[Ben]

Thanks guys.

Just working on an update!

 

[Ben]

Few Work Pics, Welder Trolley & Aux Fuel Tank.

Few work pics first.

I did a bit more on the alluminium hull of the air boat.

Cut some more 5mm alluminium.



I clamped them in position with a 3mm root gap to ensure maximum root penetration on the weld.







Welded both side and then ground the welds down.





Other side.

Sadly not nice neat TIG welds but instead dirty Foronious welds as TIG would take far too long on these big seams of weld.











Another little project I had was to build a new winch bumper for my bosses old comp truck as he had removed the 24volt Warn high mount winch and sold the old winch bumper.











I needed to repair the body where a section had been cut out to accommodate the old winch.





Cut a section out of an old one.









Welded in place and the welds ground down, ready for filler and paint.



I got my welder trolley back from the powdercoaters.



Bolted the casters back on.





Added the bottle chain and some rubber mat.



New bottle.



And refitted the welder and packs of filler rod.







Its the same shade of blue as the work bench so the 2 match quite nicely.



OK.............................

Back to LJ!

This week a favor was called in and I went to the huge factory/workshop of one of Melbourne's big 4x4 after market accessory companies. They specialise in long range fuel and water tanks, under vehicle guards, roll cages and roll cages and parts for Polaris ATV's.

They very kindly sold me an 8ft x 4ft sheet of 2mm thick alluminiumised steel for my fuel tank and let me use their huge guillotine and folder. They also sold me some of the bits I will need for the tank.

(Alluminiumised steel is steel that has a thin layer of alluminium on both sides which makes it very resistant to corrosion)

They had a awesome workshop which was really well setup and they have a lot of welders and fabricators working there.

I got home with the steel and yet another bottle of argon.



The folded alluminiumised steel.





I also got from them a meter of alluminiumised steel, 50mm filler neck pipe, flared at the end to accept a fuel cap boss and fuel cap.



Fuel cap boss.



It fits snugly into the flared pipe and I will most likely TIG it on.





I got what is the bottom of the tank onto the bench. One of the reasons I couldn't cut and fold it at my work is the shear size of it, at 1400mm long it is pretty big!



For a neater fit in the back of LJ and for maximum fuel storage the tank will need to be shaped to fit snugly over the wheel arches.

So the next job was to make some cardboard templates of the shape of the arches.





Interestingly the 2 arches are actually slightly different in shape.

I transferred the shape onto the steel.



Template of the other curve.











Thats as far as I got on the fabrication of the new tank.

But I've been shopping for parts for the build!

Now theres a few ways in which I could get the fuel in this auxiliary tank into the engine.

The absolute simplest way would be to have a tap at the bottom of the tank which when opened would gravity feed the fuel into the main tank.

This setup has some merits, especially the simplicity of it and the fact there is little to go wrong.

Another option that I spent some time considering was to use a switchable fuel solenoid. These are readily available on ebay Australia. Searching "Landcruiser fuel solenoid" brings up lots of solenoids which have one fuel line going in and 2 coming out, so you can switch electronically between the 2 fuel tanks.
Ideally you need 2 of these solenoids, 1 for the flow and one for the return line.

This is obviously a good setup hence why Toyota fitted it to all Australian spec 80's and also the 70 series models which had an aux tank.

I discounted this option as it is a more complex system which obviously has more that can go wrong, having an air lock can quickly stop a diesel and thats something that can easily happen when switching between tanks.

The other point is that I would have been using second hand solenoids with unknown mileage etc. and new ones I imagine would have been pretty expensive.

And the main reason cost! As I'm saving up for my month in Europe which is now only a few months away.

OK I've droned on enough now, heres what I'm doing..........................

A steel boss will be welded into the bottom of the tank with a brass fuel hose outlet screwed into it. This is how the fuel will leave the tank.



Next it will go through a cheap universal fuel filter.



OK it will be brand new clean diesel so it may not need filtering, but its a nice cheap bit of insurance to save the pump which is next inline.



The pump will pump the fuel from the new aux tank into the main, once the main tank has been run down.

It will be controlled by a carling switch mounted on the dash.



Another thing I will be adding which is not 100% necessary, but will give me something else to look at on the dash, is a fuel gauge for this new tank.

The gauge will be controlled by a sender unit.





The new gauge.



Which will be mounted in my dash pod where I've currently got a Piranha sticker, next to the boost and pyro gauges.





Mounting the carling switch has presented a slight issue in that I dont have any spaces left on my switch panel.



So I'm thinking of mounting it on the heater control where there is currently a switch blank.



Or below in place of one of the now redundant switches such as head light washers, rear wiper, or rear fog lights.



I'm hoping to do a bit more on the tank this weekend.

Once the tank is finished and fitted I can build another tank for water that will fit on top of this tank.

The water tank will be made from stainless steel and will measure 1430mm x 330mm x 50mm.

So to work out volume.............

1430 x 330 x 50 / 1000 = 23,596.

So just over 23 litres, which may not sound like a lot but typically for 3-4 days in the High Country thats more than enough for the 2 of us as its mainly just drinking and cooking as for washing we can just use the crystal clear mountain streams and rivers.

 

[Chas]

Cracking job Ben, that welder trolley looks great in the blue. How many litres does your extra fuel tank hold? or did I miss that in the read?

 

[Ben]

Thanks Chas.

No you didn't miss is, I dont actually know 100%.

The main section between the wheel arches is 1030mm x 330mm x 200mm which works out to almost 68 litres. On top of that I'd estimate maybe another 10-15 litres in the sections that are shaped over the arches.

So about 80-85 litres on top of the 90 litre main tank.

That should mean that for a trip to the High Country I can fill up in Melbourne where fuel is cheaper (currently about $1.25/64 pence per litre) and should have enough for my whole trip.

 

[Chas]

My extra tank is 60ltrs + the main 95ltrs? which gives me a total range of approx 550/600 miles, the extra weight makes the truck drive much better with the Dobinson springs.
The tank is just a header tank so extra gauges aren't necessary, when the standard gauge starts falling I know the header is empty.

 

[asheddie]

I'm keen to see how this tank turns out as I'm sure I'll need one with the V8 in my FJ70. your trolley looks great. I bought a commercial one and its crap! I need to make a trolley for my plasma cutter. is powder coating expensive?

 

[Ben]

Thanks.

No powdercoating is cheap!

Especially if you pay cash and dont need a receipt.

So is electro-plating, which you can do before you powdercoat for ultimate corrosion resistance.

The welding trolley cost me $25/£12.

 

[Gary820]

Nice work as always.

 

[Ben]

Thanks mate.

Did a bit more today. I couldn't spend all day on it as I had to weld bits of pipe together in preparation for the big TIG test.

First job was to cut out the tank to fit around the wheel arches.



The jigsaw worked well with a metal cutting blade.



Especially with the help of some cutting oil which looked and smelt suspiciously like cooking oil.











It fitted very snugly.









I used a red pen to mark which areas needed a slight trim.





With those areas trimmed it fitted perfectly.







As the fuel tank was going to follow the shape of the arches quite tightly I needed to get rid of the nuts that were sticking up from the arch extensions.





So I replaced them with counter sunk headed bolts.



Next I cut a cardboard template.



My intention was to cut and weld these sections on in steel and then uses the roller machine at tafe to make a curved section of steel to go over the wheel arches.



But the more I thought about it I decided that for the sake of about an extra 5 litres of fuel capacity each side, it really wasnt worth the complexity of it.





So I decided to just make the fuel tank fit between the wheel arches instead.



This will also mean I can mount my speakers in the side sections again and it will make mounting the fuel pump easier as I can bolt straight through these side sections.



I want to mount the fuel pump behind the drivers seat so it can easily be got to and be heard when its running which wont be that often.
The beauty of being able to get to it easily is that I can easily add a length of hose to the output side and pump fuel into another vehicle or fuel can if some one I'm with runs out of fuel.

So I marked the sections to cut off.





And cut them off.





By reducing the size of the main tank it meant that the section I'd cut and bent for the top was now too long.



So I would need to cut one of the ends off and re-bend it.



Cut.



With the end cut off I can now get it in the guillotine at work on Monday and trim the end off to my line. I also added a line where I need to fold it.



I'm going to add a baffle to the center of the tank which will help add a lot of strength to the tank but will also stop the fuel from rushing from one side of the vehicle to the other when on side slopes etc.

I marked where it needs cutting and folding.





I also need to make a flange to mount the fuel level sender and another 2 flanges for the filler pipe as I want it to bolt on and off.

I will get those bits machined at work this week and then it can all be welded together.

Once the tanks finished I will get it powdercoated and fitted and then start on the stainless steel water tank.

 

[Victor]

I dont really know if i should call you brave or stupid for putting a tank IN the cabin really. I understand you want more capacity and places to put it is sparse in a lj70 which is quite small..

BUT! What if you are in a crash and the tank starts to leak over you? I would certainly not want to become coated in diesel..

 

[Beau]

I dont really know if i should call you brave or stupid for putting a tank IN the cabin really. I understand you want more capacity and places to put it is sparse in a lj70 which is quite small..

BUT! What if you are in a crash and the tank starts to leak over you? I would certainly not want to become coated in diesel..

I would understand this point, if we were talking petrol, but diesel isn't as highly flammable. Plus if the tanks built well it'll be able to stand some abuse.