LJ70 Build Thread!

[stumog]

thanks ben bit of a surprise as it looks olot bigger then that. I am going to do mine in 25mm and was thinking if that would be to small and i was thinking of 2.0mm wall but do you think its too thin? maybe i should go to 3mm ?

I am going to put my RTT on it and want it pretty strong but also light enough to take off by myself.
stu

 

[Ben]

2mm might flex a little bit. I was thinking of bending one large rectangle shape in the 20mm tube, with maybe 1 or 2 tubes in the middle going left to right and then I was going to weld mesh in/across to keep the weight down and obviously stop stuff from falling through.

 

[stumog]

I am thinking of doing a large rectangle with 7 bars in the middle and then 8 across but the cross bars would be drilled with a 25mm hole saw then set into the long bars. abit like the saftey devcies roofrack.
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?safe...QcMCw&iact=rc&dur=561&page=2&start=26&ndsp=34

A bit like that picture but with more bracing may be twice as much still have the 8 legs. not sure if it might end up to heavy with the 3mm tube will have to find out the weight. it works out to be 33m of tube

stu

 

[stumog]

found out the saftey devices ones are 26mm so i would gues they are 25mm tube but they say thin wall?? any guess what that would be i am concerned that the 3mm wall would be to heavey to use.
stu

 

[Ben]

I had to do some work on the 60 today.



The studs that hold the half shafts/free wheeling hubs on on Toyotas must be a weak point! First Michael sheared them all off on his 80, then I did the same in my 70 and then my boss did the same on the 60, all within a month of each other.

In every instance the hub's have been written off, in my case so was the free wheeling hub.

So I had to fit a new hub + some of the super strength studs that I've fitted to LJ.









Lifetime no questions asked guarantee on the studs.



After work I made a start on the rad cowl. First job was to guillotine the 2mm steel to size.



Then it was over to the break press to fold it.







Marked the center that needed cutting out.



Jigsawed it out.





Then I shot home to see if it was right.

Ridiculously hot again today, 4th day in a row above 40!





Took some measurements.



I realized I'd screwed up.

I should have made it overall 545mm wide, but I stupidly didnt read my piece of paper properly and instead added 545 to the other measurements.

So I'd made it too wide but rather than starting again I decided to cut and fix what I had.



Bandsaw first.



Then onto the guillotine.





Clamped the side back into place.



Welded.



One side done I needed to alter the other side.



Back to the bandsaw.



Followed by the guillotine.



Clamped in place.



All tacked together.





Next I marked, center punched and drilled 2 of the mounting holes.





I cut 2 strips on the guillotine to cap the top and bottom.




Next I looked at the bottom mounts.





I cut 2 strips for the bottom mounts.



Bent it on the little manual folder.







Marked and drilled the mounting holes.



I brought all the bits home for more trial fitting.



Had to remove the viscous fan to get the cowl in position.





The bottom needs adjusting as it was hitting the bottom rad hose.





The top will also need cutting out around the hose.



The engine is at an angle to the radiator. At the top of the cowl the edge of the fan blade is just inside the cowl.


But looking up from underneath almost all of the fan blade is inside the cowl. Hopefully this wont matter.



I marked the cowl with all the adjustments that are needed and tomorrow I will take it back to work and get it finished.



At 7pm it was still a crazy 40 degrees and wont drop below 30 all night!



One more day of above 40 tomorrow then were getting a cool change and the weekend and all next week will be mid 20's and sunny!

I noticed earlier this thread is getting a crazy amount of views, over 100 non-members viewing it earlier!



Anyway, back to LJ................................

So I've got a week until the 3 day 4wd trip to the High Country and I've still got loads to do. Need to get the rad cowl finished and fitted and pray it fixes the overheating issue.

Fit the fridge slide when it gets here and finish wiring the power for the fridge.

Fix the water jerry can holder down and add the straps to keep them in place.

Source and fit new rear brake shoes and get the 35's fitted to the back.

Source and fit a FWH.

Sort the mud flaps out, I want to make quick release ones that I can remove completely when going off road but I'm not sure I will have time, so I may need to just fit a new one the same as the one that is currently fitted which got badly torn on the last trip.

Think thats everything.

 

[Ben]

found out the saftey devices ones are 26mm so i would gues they are 25mm tube but they say thin wall?? any guess what that would be i am concerned that the 3mm wall would be too heavy to use.
stu

Yeah 3mm would be very heavy!

Sorry Stu made a mistake earlier about how thick the tube is.



So the tube I'm thinking of using is very thin!

 

[stumog]

just did some sums with regard to weight my design uses 33m of tube which if i make it from 3mm would weigh 54kgs 2mm 37.44kg and 1.5mm 28.67kgs. so i think i will be going thinner to be fair do you think the 1.5mm is strong enough then as i have been thinking of 2mm.

stu

 

[Ben]

I am thinking of doing a large rectangle with 7 bars in the middle and then 8 across but the cross bars would be drilled with a 25mm hole saw then set into the long bars. abit like the saftey devcies roofrack.
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?safe...QcMCw&iact=rc&dur=561&page=2&start=26&ndsp=34

A bit like that picture but with more bracing may be twice as much still have the 8 legs. not sure if it might end up to heavy with the 3mm tube will have to find out the weight. it works out to be 33m of tube

stu

Thats a lot! Personally I'd want to make a rack as simple and light as possible, while obviously not sacrificing strength too much.

If you know how many meters of tube and what size tube you want to use you should be able to work out the weight.

 

[stumog]

see my post above for the weights

 

[Gav Peter]

I was going to suggest 1.5mm wall would be sufficient as I was reading but you seem to have arrived there on your own guys

Stu, with regard to your RTT, why not just use roof bars & fit a small crate on the rest of the roof? Just yacking out loud

 

[stumog]

hi Gav thinking about that but i need it to open out side ways as i am not sure if i am keeping the faox wing yet and wanted to have as much surfacve area to have the rtt on. I have some roof bars i could try it on first.
plus i fancey making some thing as well. i dont really want to have anything over the sun roof.
Stu

 

[Jon Wildsmith]

you don't have to use the same thickness for the whole rack

 

[Victor]

For your tyre balancing acts i'd reccomend you use balancing sand. I have it in my 35" creepy crawlers, no problem going 80-90km/h.. If the vehicle have been standing still for a longer period it might be a bit bumpy/shaky at first, but as soon as the sand get's static and sticks to the tyre where it needs to it's all good

 

[Chris]

Liquid tyre goo works every time and has the benefit of sealing holes. I have it in everything. My 37's were un drivable. 500ml of goo in each and I can do motorway speeds.

 

[Trevor]

I was having a think about mud flaps and wheel arch extensions for another truck I was looking at, have been toying with the idea of countersunk neodymium magnets screwed through and into the mudflap material. These magnets are pretty strong and not very expensive. So how about magnetic on and off mudflaps?

 

[Ben]

Thanks guys.

Stu, I think 2mm would certainly be stronger, but how much stronger is hard to say. The 1.6mm tube I'm thinking of using seems reasonably strong. Ideally I would use something bigger, maybe 25mm with a 2/2.5mm wall. But weve got loads of the 20mm in the workshop so will be cheaper and easier for me to just use that.

Hadn't thought of putting liquid in the tyres to help with the balancing, but thinking about it we had a guy come to one of our 4wd club meetings and demonstrate a tyre product he was selling. He banged a screwdriver into a tyre and instantly air started rushing out. He then rolled the tyre around and as the bit with the hole came back to the top it was totally sealed.

I don't plan on keeping these tyres long otherwise I would be doing it, but certainly with the new 35" BFG's I will.

Trevor thats an interesting idea. I like it! Thinking outside the box mate.

I'm going to give it some thought, but yeah sounds good!

 

[Ben]

I took the rad cowl to work today for the alterations/to finish it.

Wanted to trim the bottom off.





Wanted to cut out around the hoses.





Tack welded in the top.





And the bottom.





Cut out for the hose.







I put all the bits in the Astra and took them home so I could test fit the new cowl back on LJ, I also wanted to mark where the 2 bottom brackets needed to be.



Bolted the cowl in place.







It cleared the bottom hose nicely.



But the top needed a bit more cutting out.





Fitted the viscous fan to check for clearance.



Needed a bit more cutting out.



Came back to work and got it on the bench ready for the alterations.



Cut some more out.



Started welding it all together. It didn't need welding continuesly all the way round, but I thought I would anyway as it wasn't costing anything and I had time.

I welded it in sections to prevent it from distorting from the heat.





Added the bottom brackets.



Cleaned it up with a flap wheel disc in the grinder, wiped all the metal clean with thinners and sprayed it black.





On the way home I stopped at the Toyota wreckers which is a 2 minute drive from work and bought a FWH and then went to the brake place and picked up some new shoes.





Australian made!



Got the rad cowl and viscous fan fitted.





Decided to fit the FWH first.







Almost forgot..........................

I had a delivery today!

The box weighed 35kg!







Looks like great quality but I wasn't expecting it to be so heavy!

I think because its designed to also take a generator or tool box it has to be strong. Its rated to take 200kg! To put that into prospective I'm just under 90kg, so it will take 2 of me + the fridge, slide out and drop down!

Anyway I'm going to Erin's beach house now and all being well I will be home on Sunday at some point and will fit the brake shoes and 35"s, and bolt the fridge slide and jerry can holders in place. Then I can test drive LJ and see if she is still over heating.

Then next weekend is the 3 day High Country trip.

 

[Ben]

Mudflaps

Following on from Trevs' idea of using magnets to hold my mudflaps on I've been doing some searching and there's a company in America making them for big trucks.

http://www.magneticmudflaps.com/MMF_Magnetic_Mud_Flaps/Home.html

I was thinking of buying some of these:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/20pcs-St...Electrical_Test_Equipment&hash=item27c957e1bc

And then simply bolting a row of these to the top of a mudflap.

The idea being that I can then remove them completely when venturing offroad to prevent them getting damaged which seems to keep happening to my fixed ones, even after they've been clipped up out of the way using the chains that I've got fitted.

I like the magnet idea as its simple and means I wont have to have bolts sticking out/threaded holes to get full of mud to have some detachable ones using wingnuts for example which was my previous idea.

I just hope the magnets will be strong enough to stop the madflaps from blowing off when I'm doing 100kmh.

 

[Ben]

This is awesome!



Lots of Toyota LJ70/KZJ70's and a nice 79 series driven by the Venezuelan team.

I want to enter one year!

And to prove you don't need a ridiculously expensive truck to compete and win.........................

2012 was won by a Russian team in a little Suzkui Jimny with its original 1300cc petrol engine!

They had a Gigglepin winch and 38" tyres but there standard things to have in a comp like this.

 

[Ben]

I got home and re-fitted the old brake shoes as the new ones arnt the correct ones, and fitted the 35"s on to LJ.



We then went for a test drive to see if the viscous fan and cowl have fixed the overheating issue.

Spotted the Toyota in front had added some horns and a fork to the edges of their Toyota badge to make it look like a devil.





I drove LJ hard and we were doing over 110kmh at times, yet the temp stayed nice and low.





We drove for 40 mins and all was going well temp wise. We arrived at Toolangi State forest and I aired down.



Dropped them down to 25psi.



Rockey is my favorite local track! The pics don't really do it justice for how steep and rocky it is, but the video should.











Both lockers in and low 1st gear. The temp was also staying nice and low despite all the hard work LJ was doing getting up the hill.





This is the hardest bit.





Erin jumped out at this point and walked ahead to film me coming up.



Once up I let Erin have a go as she still hadn't ever driven LJ.



The temp was still nice and low as we made our way out of the forest and headed for home.







So I'm really really pleased that the overheating issue appears to be fixed!

It will make the 3 day High Country trip next weekend much more enjoyable! Especially as its going to be a warm weekend with temps in the 30's.

I need to cook dinner now, but then I want to assemble the drop down fridge slide so i can pick up some suitable bolts tomorrow to bolt it down with.



Still a few bits and pieces to do on LJ before next weekends trip but shes getting there.