TECH CONTEST: Cruiser Buildup...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Whats up guys... Sorry this is going to be a long one but I figured It might make for an entertaining post/thread and I have a lot of shit here to post up on. We'll see if I get it all up tonight otherwise it might take a few days... Anywhoo, basically about a year or two ago I stopped posting up a lot of the things I have done recently mostly because I didn't have the time and I never really had a single thread in the first place, just a few scattered ones... So, this is sort of something I have been meaning to do for some time, put it all into one thread and fill in the blanks.. If you guys have any questions let me know or post up here...

One thing is that even though I think pirate has changed a lot and is definetely slower now especially in this section and I would really like to put this onto 'mud I figured I'd do it here because I really owe you guys and pirate A LOT for the info I learned here... I really "built" this rig with your help and with a lot of information learned here and because of that this thread belongs here... There is NO way that my rig would remotely look like it does without pirate. Hell I'd still probably be open F+R, SUA, and with a weber on a 2F ; where I was before I got on here... So I wanted to thank you guys and really this $20 for a few years now was definetely, 120% worth it in every way...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Some of you might recall there was a thread about a random FJ55 that some idiot wanted to trade for a "jeep" and that this guy was in Stockton (Bay Area). Glo (someone actually close to the truck) put in dibs for it but even though I am all the way in Utah I sort of put in for it and was able to stike a deal for it. Cruiser actually belonged to Andy/Krusty Cruiser for some time and he wanted to build it, sold it to the guy I bought it from, even helped him install and engine into it, and the guy dropped the ball and was just looking to get rid of it. He wanted $1500 or a "Jeep" for it and I actually bought a beater old-burning Jeep Cherokee from a friend here for $800 and traded him...

I found this old pig in Morgan's photos of the truck when it belonged to Andy...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Looked pretty good and I thought "clean non running FJ55 from California" but it turned out it was under 200lbs (easily) of bondo and had been hit and was actually pretty damn rusty... But salvagable and what I am still driving today even though it looks like shit. This was I believe 2002 or 2003 in April when I picked it up. Here are some more before photos:

I shoulda known when I saw the bondo...

[dieselcruiserhead]

So I brought it home and was definetely living the broke college kid/ski bum lifestyle at the time so I started doing what I could afford at the time, mostly prep and bondo/any rust removal...

Ripping out the engine

[dieselcruiserhead]

Here is early body work that I did in my very low ceiling garage...
Looked pretty good here and got my hopes up early...

[dieselcruiserhead]

What I was in for (& what was underneath) bondo wise...




I also cleaned up the engine comparment once I got all that shit out of there. You can see the harness in place which actually somewhat worked well but didn't last too long before I completely rewired the cruiser...




If you look close you can see the OEM PS box and OEM brake master and booster, all of that would have to go eventually. I also thought this was going to take maybe three months when it took well over a year before it even moved under its own power...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Next, I found a cheap little shop in Heber City (the next little city over from us here) that I still rent and basicalyl have for some light storage and for the cruiser and mechanicing... By then I had acquired the 4BT out a bread van. Didn't know if it worked and sold a tow yard some sketchy lie about it "Being for the boyscouts" (when Berg posts up making fun if me it was his idea but it worked and I actually got the engine for only $250... But for what I believed was a "core..."


Next I did a real crude SOA using the stock rear axle (which actually had perches welded SOA on it, and I later found out it was a '69 coarse splined someone put under it (cruiser's a '71). I did the SOA largely in prep for the SOA article that appeared in Trails and is now on Woody's site, mostly because I hadn't done a cut & turn before though I had done a non c&T SOA on my former HJ60...

This is on BFG AT 35's (that I scored from Borg - thanks Borg) to get an idea of how tall it is,


Cut & Turn slightly too wide but it worked. Kurt W. lend me his Miller Matic which I had limited experience with but it worked...


I didn't do any lowering at this point mostly because I needed the lift to get the engine in and did't want to mess with springs until I had weight in the truck...


I used a Marlin histeer kit which I was pretty impressed with.. FJ60 power steering that only had the box in the time. FJ60 more or less bolts into a FJ55 with some drilling and ideally either frame shims/spacers or some frame work to keep it from tweaking...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Did a little more body work and discovered this little pleasant surprize under the back rear 60 lbs of bondo... Turned out it must have been hit, hard, I figured during the 70s or early 80s since it sat from 1984 on... But I was too stubbord to abandon so just kept trucking on and figured I'd fix later...


The transfer case I decided to use at the time was a 2.72:1 NP241 because there was a rare early (1988-1990) Dodge version that bolted to a NV4500 (took me a long time including going down to the tranny shop and actually sliding it on) before I figured it out. Input is 23 spline and has the "built in" "slip yoke eliminator. At first I wasnted to use a GM NV4500 with AA bellhousing (that I scored from Rugburn but eventually sold) and wanted a Dodge NP241 with a chevy input gear but that doesn't work. Search for NP241 on General 4x4 and you will see some long threads about it... At the time I wanted the cheapest out of package t-case and because it's not a "rock crawler" I didn't think I needed mad-low gearing... If I was smarter I would have used a 2.62 low range Dana 300 but didn't know at the time. But I am quite happy with the 241 actually and have had no issues...


NEat thing about it is has these strong 6 gear planets... Weakness is that it is chain driven and all aluminum but still a pretty strong and underrated t-case. HD version is what is in the Dodges. It is basically a beefy NP231 (what is in Jeeps)...


"exploded version"
Completely rebuilt once I went through it..

[dieselcruiserhead]

This seems like it was cooking along but took a while here, this is all a period of many many months but I was cookin along..

After figuring out my t case would basically have to be "stock" Dodge SD pass drop NP241, I abandoned the idea of getting a GM NV4500 which I am not so sure why I wanted in the first place other than stonger output spline count and easy of bolting to the 4BT which has a Chevy (**NOT sae #3) bolt pattern. I had no idea how much power or torque the 4BT would put out (I thought a lot more, including breakage, than it actually has/does even though its rated for nearly 400 ft/lbs of torque at current fuel settings). So I was worried dinky 1.2 ton 23 spines wouldn't cut it but they have so far... But the NV4500 bellhousing is dinky aluminum and uses a shitty internal slave so I used a AA plate adapter and a OEM 1972 Chevy cast iron SM465 bellhousing whcih I thought would have been "strongest" though I now hear they crack quite easily as well.. The Dodge SD NV4500 has the same input shaft as a chevy (10 spline) but is 1" longer and uses a .75" pilot tip instead of Chevy .69". So AA sends a pilot bushing that slides into your Chevy V8 flywheel but because I have my massive 4BT flywheel it didn't work. So I sourced the right bearing with the .75" ID but had to have the 4BT flywheel machined to accept it. You can see the larger bearing pressed into the flywheel, the OEM "chevy" 465 bearing, and the AA pilot bushing that didn't work... The flywheel is about 2.5" think and weighs an easy 100 lbs...



Here is the bellhousing (the cast iron on the right) that I chose to use instead of the AA aluminum bellhousing. Another reason for this (beside the AA aluminum being somewhat dinky and that I didn't have all the parts) was that the 4BT uses a massive 12" or 13" clutch and they barely fit with that thick ass flywheel, whereas the 465 setup was OEM behind the 4bts so I knew it would work...


The 4BT was an auto originally. I am definetely kind of a standard transmission guy and wanted the 4500 instead of an auto


Here is the massive flywheel and clutch attached.



I orded a fancy clutch using a fancy Cummins part number that was nearly $300 and what showed up was... A '68 - '98 Chevy 454 clutch. FYI for other people. Eventually I had to use a Wilwood 'high flow' 1-port Brake master (http://www.wilwood.com/Products/006-...VAMC/index.asp ) to move enough juice for it, using the OEM Toyota FJ60 era slave. Works fine and I'm used to it but its a stiff pedel even after break in. I would have used a 454 car clutch if I were to do it again...

Here is the complete drivetrain, kind of along bitch. Luckily its a wagon...
Cummins 4BT - Standard Duty Dodge NV4500 (23 spine) - 23 spine pass drop 1989 Dodge SD NP241

[dieselcruiserhead]

Here is the slave bracket I whipped up...


Diesels don't make adequate vacuum like gas engines so you have to come up with some sort of vacuum for brake assist, either a mechanical or electric pump, or hydroboost. I was sort of "scared" of hydroboost at first so I came up with this setup, using an electric 12V vaccuum compressor and this little switch to trun it off and on at 20 hg/in. It worked horribly though even though I embarrassingly drove it that was for easily 6 months with semi shitty brakes and all. Used an OEM FJ55 booster and Mini truck master which matched my front mini truck conversion and rear brakes (using a mini truck rear axle) perfectly even though its a cruiser:


Put in Volvo bucket seats from a 240 and build brackets that make them a bolt in...


Brackets for the seats:

[dieselcruiserhead]

Man this is taking a long time.. I'm gonna hit the sack tonight and will keep posting tomorrow, getting the engine in, experiementing with some Michelin XZL's, etc..

[Slowerthanu]

Your 55 is still my favorite.

one of my best buddies bought a 76.

[dieselcruiserhead]

Thanks Dan appreciated... Here is a little more for today, I didn't pay attention to the rules and see that we have so long...

Anyway, a neat thing about the engine was that I didn't if it would run... One night, texican style I had the engine hanging on the hoist, a can of diesel and a battery and started cranking and crankning and sure enough, the engine fired right up! I couldn't believe it, it had also been sitting for years and I figured it had maybe 70 or 80K miles on it...

So I was eager to get it in and see how it all fit. The motor mounts would have to be custom... You can see how tall the engine is here:


Once I got the engine in the drivetrain was too long for the dog house and for some reason I was sort of scared of the sheet metal work I was going ot have to do mostly because I was most scared of thin metal work than thick from the limited fab experience I had at the time. Once I got the drivetrain in, the truck was so tall that I could actually hang the engine in down low and there was enough room bettern the diff and the engine that it actually worked like this, but was ugly, real ugly...


and the material I was planning on using for the motor mounts, just regular old gussetted angle iron...


I came up with a pretty neat plan for the motor mounts I was going to use which was a set of 4 banger mini truck mounts I had lying around. But to beef them up I drilled some larger holes and put 1/4" grade 8 hardware through them and it actually worked great. If I were to do it again I'd use the liquid filled mounts that came with the engine but I stupidly left them in the truck and I couldn't find them for anywhere less than $250 each

[dieselcruiserhead]

I was going to link to the old thread but I moved the location of all of the images so they are all gone which is why I'm going through all of this again, using my red star this time...

Anywhoo, here are the mounts tacked in..


And how the engine sat in, relatibly low especially considering how deep it is..


and how close it was to the diff with engine weight, about 4"

[dieselcruiserhead]

I let it sit like that for about three weeks to a month and honestly it was pretty unacceptable and I was bummed because before then I had been doing everything "right." But with advice from Berg I ripped it out and proceeded to redo basically everything, the mounts, and build a correct doghouse and had to cut a notch in the firewall where the exhaust exited out because of the location of the turbo...



And the "box"


Here are photos of the new doghouse/tranny hump




Final product

[dieselcruiserhead]

Here are the much improved motor mounts, jack rice/medusa style using plates...



tacked in


drivers side


I had to extend the power steering box forward because of the new location of the engine. If I were smart I would have done the PS after I put the engine in but I needed to steer it while pushing it around... I moved it by cutting the shaft in half and using a tube with rosettes to increase strength. Has worked great...


& finally I beefed up and gussetted the crossmember and moved it up about two inches. This is something I am going to have to do again, unfortunately, because I switched transmission mounts and will need to modify if I put my Dana 300 in...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Here is how the engine sat/sits


and more recent minus some recent items like hydroboost... ..and paint

[dieselcruiserhead]

This was also an early fuel system I put based on a design Helocat was telling me about at Moab, aka a "surge tank" but in this case one that was always full so I could have fuel at odd angles...


Using two electric fuel pumps at the time and the OEM evaporator canister...
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attac...1&d=1131389744
You can also see the mini truck rear axle in the photo as well which I ran for about a year, bascially a bone stock mini truck axle that I modified to put a Taco e-locker in.

Eventually I scrapped this for a better design:

[dieselcruiserhead]

Next came major body work, sliders, replacing metal, etc...

For this there actually is a pretty good thread here:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showt...67#post2606867

Here are a couple good teaser pics:

[RustyNailJustin]

Holly crap this kicks ass!!!
I have been wanting to see a whole thread about you 4bt.
Whats the intercooler from? Looks like it fits perfect.
I knew you had done quite a bit of body work to your 55 but dam.

You are setting a high standard for upcoming threads!
Keep it rolling

[dieselcruiserhead]

Thanks Justin more tomorrow... I figure I'll keep this going for a few days because I actually have to get some work done and I am super busy and unfortunately this comes second...

[dieselcruiserhead]

OK guys here is the next round of body work and I think about the point where I stopped posting up a lot of the weird little things we were doing with the rig and some of the smaller mods. Here is a little more indepth body work as well...

Here is a better photo of what it looked like by this time... Still a little tall and not even remotely finish but definetely coming together...


My technique for that left rear corner was to replace the metal panel and cover with bondo. Proffitt & I traded website work for his website so the deal was a paint job... We were talking and for several months I kep saying "I'm gonna come on down" but never did and kept tidying things up on the truck. I also still had a lot of bodywork to do which I never ended up being remotely close to finishing by the time I got there.

Here is that back left corner with the metal cut out now:


Here is a closer up and you can see how much rot was in the truck. This is what really sucks about FJ55's in particular, even if they look good they fill up with rot just so easily it is not funny. This is why it is so hard to find a good clean FJ55, such as this one which I thought was clean but was not at all. But again being too dumb and stubborn I kept on truckin...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Following the chronology of my photographs here I thought I'd post up a random one, how I adapted my fat Cummins hose to the Land Cruiser radiator (which I eventually replaced with aluminum chevy). I made this out of exhaust pieces and sheet metal


Here was how I jimmied the sheet metal in place for this peice. Looking back at it I would have cut and exact piece and tacked it in place for a perfect fit but I did not and chose to rely on bondo instead...


Next I replaced the alternator with a high output. I learned somewhere online that the Cummins uses a simple Delco 55 amp old school alternator (forgot the designation but it is the one that everyone replaces with the older style harness). It is also three wire... So I started reading up on all of the threads on the internet and some here (they were limited at the time but there are many more here now, including some good info from -ass Butch/Texican ( ) about how to swap these out. I scored this locally from a guy on ebay, that an alternator builder cranked up to 120 amps, it's a CS130 or 144 (can't remember) but all that matters is that the ears are 180 degrees for these Cummins engines. I found out the original alternator was actually a marine spec and had a larger main shaft and needed a new pulley before I could mount it. I started pricing them out and a million guys wanted $50 for a new pulley but I went to the local Delco supplier and found this badass brass pulley with shim-type washer for $8 (seen in photos). I say today run away from these alternators and buy a reman with lifetime warantee for autozone or whereever, this one only lasted about 8 months but my autozone has been flawless. I now have a 140 amp cs144 from a '94 caprice for about $120 or something like that..

[dieselcruiserhead]

Here is a better photo of how my FJ60 powersteering ended up closer to final position. Only difference is the frame plates (I think 3/8 or something like that, on both sides) are burned in a little better. No shims or spacers or whatever they call them (OEM style that is on FJ60). I didn't do that because I was worried I wouldn't drill straight holes through my frame and didn't want to F-up the frame and this has held up awesome...

The hose routing is that the pump is a M-series pump that originally powered hydroboost that used an external reservior. I found this reservior from a mini truck worked perfect. I really wish I remember where I got all of this random shit but I remember finding it somewhere... Maybe the same mini truck I got my rear axle from...? You can also see the electric brake vaccuum pump up top, that no longer lives in the truck... It was also noisy, I bought it from a guy who ran an EV Honda that he built then parted out... Bought for $50, sold on ebay for $180 Path of the hoses was high pressure to FJ60 box, then low pressure return back to pump. And the hydroboost pump/reservoir has so many return ports that I had the reservior completely seperate. Today the hydroboost returns to the reservior before going back to the pump.


Here are a couple more photos. I sprug a leak around one of the ports on the pump and JB welded it up and its still holding great. I plan to replace the pump soon though with an $80 Napa part number...

From an email from the 4BT yahoogroup:

The NAPA part number is 20-8709. It is for the P series chevy vans and trucks with hydroboost. According to Saginaw, it has the highest volume and pressure of all the medium duty pumps they produce. It is a bolt on with no modifications other than presseing off the old gear and pressing on to the new pump. -James & Ciny Miley

[dieselcruiserhead]

On a funnier note I thought I'd post these pics about my first time brewing biodiesel at the time (again these photos are all in order). I am actualyl the director of the Utah Biodiesel Coop, in my spare time, which is a non profit...

This guy has brewed about 5000 gallons...

Here come the hippie comments ( )

Using this:


And here is our first batch. This is about 20 minutes into the process, the biodiesel on top and glyerol/byproduct on the bottom. Once properly seperated (sitting at least 8 hours) the top product is pretty clean. It is brewed for about $.70-$.80 a gallon, is better for your engiune, comes from farmers, better for the environment, yada yada...


Funny thing is this guy litterally lives on a hippie commune/farm in southern Utah called the Flyin' Zion in Springdale, just outside of Zion National park. He literally lives in an old school bus with his girlfriend, makes jewelry, 'spins fire' (Burning Man style), and that is his shower next to one of their outdoor ovens in this pic... Best part was all day long when we were there, seriously hot (mostly dirty hippie) chicks were stopping by all day, part of the routine I guess?