The radiator has been leaking slightly lately so needs fixing.
So I drained the coolant.
And removed the rad.
I also want to replace both rad hoses and buy some more to carry as spares.
Another job I need to do on the huge list is to try and straighten the spindle on the rear swing away wheel carrier. Despite the fact that I used a proper spindle from the US and not just a trailer hub its still got bent.
I need to sort out the rear brakes so figured the wheels might aswell come off.
And the front aswell.
I wanted to remove the rock sliders next so I can weld some checkered plate onto them which I'm hoping will stop so much mud getting splashed up the sides of the truck when off road.
Another reason for removing the rock sliders is to replace the missing bolts from the bottom of the wing as its been flapping for a while now.
Removing the rock sliders involves unbolting the radius arms.
I'm going to take the sliders to work and weld the checkered plate onto them, the radiator to the place round the corner and the wheel to our tyre guy as its got a couple of punctures.
They needed cleaning first.
I spent a good half an hour lying under LJ trying to work out whats best to do with the suspension. I really want more flex and if i could stretch the wheelbase by a few inches I think that would help with stability and make it less twitchy on dirt roads and corrugations.
One idea I had was to make some drop boxes similar to what I made for the Jimny at work to push the axle forwards and down to correct the castor.
I would need to replace the castor correction bushes though but the old ones look pretty shot anyway.
But then I thought it might just be better to cut all the suspension mounts off and start again from scratch!
But I dont feel I've yet got the knowledge or confidence to redesign the suspension, so I started doing some research on IH8mud and pirate!
I read this which I found interesting:
Building a ‘quality’ suspension is a real art form, and sadly for most of those on ih8mud, that art is severely limited by leaf springs… you bolt them on, and you get what you get!
With a multi-link, you get the opportunity to play with important design factors like ride height, squat, roll axis, roll angle, and of course, suspension frequency.
Suspension frequency is the biggest factor in the ‘comfort’ of your ride. Some might describe a sports car as having a ‘harsh’ ride, but it is better described as a short frequency… it will cycle in about 0.7 seconds or less. While a Cadillac has a soft ride… it will cycle about 1.4 seconds or more. Suspension frequency is a major design decision, and choosing it will define the type of ride you end up with.
Suspension frequency derived by the relationship between the spring rate (how much weight your springs hold up) and the sprung weight of the vehicle.
In a vehicle with variable configurations, like I am planning on, the sprung weight could be different from weekend to weekend, or month to month, depending on where I am gong and how I have the truck loaded. I can vary the weight of the truck by almost 1.4 megagrams with all my gear, roof top tents, and removable tops and doors. Air Springs have adjustable spring rates, so that as my vehicle loading changes, I can adjust the spring rate (the amount of air in the bag), and return my ‘Suspension Frequency’ back to it’s designed level, so the ride is hopefully consistent, despite how the truck is loaded.
The other factor is that with a Roof Top Tent, Air bags provide the opportunity to level the truck a small amount to level the tent, if needed.
So it will probably take me a few months to work out how I'm going to do the suspension and whether I go for a 3 link, 4 link or 5 link, and whether I go for shocks and springs or coilovers!
LJ will probably be off the road for the next few months as the list of jobs and things I want to do is huge and getting bigger! I need to start on the bodywork soon as I want to get the respray done but I guess really i should get all the mechanicals done first!
So it will probably take me a few months to work out how I'm going to do the suspension and whether I go for a 3 link, 4 link or 5 link, and whether I go for shocks and springs or coilovers!
LJ will probably be off the road for the next few months as the list of jobs and things I want to do is huge and getting bigger! I need to start on the bodywork soon as I want to get the respray done but I guess really i should get all the mechanicals done first!
There's some bits there in that article that if you play around with the fork on your mountain bike you'll be able to replicate; that part where they're talking about the difference between the sports car and the Cadillac is (in mountain biking) referred to as rebound damping; slower is more comfortable, faster is a bit harder. That's adjusted outside of the spring rate (which is the compression speed) as that is not always adjustable, but can be via the pre-load. When setting up mountain bike suspension there is a recommendation to have some sag which allows for negative travel; ie the wheel to be pushed downwards into the small depression rather than relying on compression to take it all out. On the GF's Giant the back end is set at about 25% sag, whilst my bikes are set about 10% but that's because I have so little travel I want all I can get.
Now any more detail than that I can't help you with, but I do know some guys who are very good at suspension, but they do road cars rather than 4x4's...
As I'm writing this I'm beginning to think I need to do some work on the back end of the 4Runner after fitting the lifted springs....
It's interesting because most of my suspension knowledge comes from mountain biking, so I can understand the steel codes etc.
Have a read of this (lovely) document as it gives you some ideas as to what the design requirements are for ADR/Engineering approval; not sure you'll go down that route in VIC as you don't have annual inspections...
I did the final job I needed to do on the white Suzuki, fitting a piece of checkered plate over the back of the dash to cover the open cavity that was left by removing the windscreen surround.
I bent a piece last week and then sent it for powder coating.
I then drove it onto the back of a truck and wrapped the cab with a tarp to keep the seats dry and off it went to its new owner in NSW.
The Jimny was on the hoist so I finished fitting the castor correction drop boxes that I made last week.
The rock sliders off LJ were looking a bit shitty with flaking paint and rust coming through so I dropped them off at the shot blaster and picked them up at lunch time.
I will get the checkered plate cut and welded on and then send them to be electro plated and then powder coated.
I dropped the radiator off this morning to be fixed and picked it up this afternoon. Had an interesting chat with the guy who was telling me that alluminium rads arnt great for off road vehicles as they tend to flex and crack. He was also telling me that putting too much concentrated coolant in the system is bad as it can clog up the system so its much better to stick to the instructions on the bottle rather than going 80% coolant which is what I was running.
I asked him where my rad was leaking and he said it was where the bottom hose attaches, he said maybe your old hose is quite hard and not very flexible and driving off road has strained it, or you've pulled the hose too hard when trying to remove it.
I've got another long weekend this weekend as Friday is a public holiday so hoping to get heaps done on LJ this weekend. I need to put some more lights up in the garage so I can do work in the evenings, so will try and buy some this weekend.
I've got three 5ft versions of these in my garage, the tubes are a straight replacement for the fluorescent ones using the existing fitting, they give a great light, better than the fluorescent and they will last much longer;
We've discovered LED household light bulb replacements. The standard filament bulb here lasts about 3 months and thus are a PITA.
The previous technical alternative was these low consumption mini-fourescent thingies which were low consumption because they emitted no light! Drove me nuts eventually.
Now, an equivalent 100W LED bulb uses 10 W, and is bright!
Also rated at 30,000 hours But I can't imagine getting 3 years plus out of them We'll see.
I'm now quite close to the CBD and the only dates we have to worry about shops closing are Good Friday and Christmas day!
Its almost like being back in the UK!
That said for me thats the only advantage of living in the city! I'd much rather be out in the countryside away from all the traffic, congestion and people but oh well, wont be forever!
there is a suspention calculation program on the web, 4 bar linkage calculator v3.0, google it and you will find many places to download it from.
It's based on Excel en easy to work with. give it a go
but keep up the good work , love reading your thread
My final practical exam is welding 2 pieces of pipe together, these both need to be machined down to ensure good root penetration.
So I brought some pipe home from TAFE and took it to work and put it on the lathe.
This is a jig I made to help clamp and hold the 2 pieces of pipe together while I weld them.
For the final exam I will have to weld 2 pieces together in the vertical position and 2 in the horizontal position and I am not allowed to move them once there clamped.
After tacking the pipes in 3 places it then gets a root weld all the way around, this then gets ground down slightly, then another seem of weld goes round called the hot pass, then finally there is 2 capping runs. Once finished I can only have 2mm of raised weld inside and out.
This was after my root pass.
My tutor said the penetration was very good and that for my first attempt at the pipe I had done well.
I then ground down the weld.
And got it back on the jig for the next pass.
I found out that I'd actually taken the wrong pipe and that I should have used a smaller sized pipe and that the bigger pipe is for the MIG test. But the other bits I've got will come in for that when I do it after TIG.
This is the TIG pipe next to the MIG pipe.
So tonight I did some more machining this time with the smaller pipe.
machined to 60 degrees.
In my jig ready for next Wednesday night at TAFE.
Tonight I also got my rock sliders welded up ready for electro plating and powder coating.
I had to drill some 3mm holes in the enclosed sections so that they dont explode when they get electro plated (same as galvanizing.)
Already some rusty water had started leaking out which I can only presume built up inside the sliders from condensation.
I then got the checkered plate cut and welded on.
So The sliders are now ready for electro plating next week.
I picked up a new aerial out of the show room as I snapped mine closing the garage door last week.
I had to install a false floor and one of our fridge slides in a customers car today.
The customer wanted his 60 litre fridge fitting and one of our battery trays which I welded up.
I cut some ply.
I cut it to match the contour of the bed liner to ensure a nice fit.
I'm interested in the floor; I want to do something similar for the 4Runner, but raised up with a small drawer underneath so I can stash the socket set, Tirfor and cable, snatch and anything else of that sort of thickness (80mm or so) I can't go much deeper as Delz'll never reach in otherwise!
Well... it's parked up just outside my window at the moment, waiting for me to write an assignment about why: a) NSW really stands for Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong, b) TAS and the NT get so much money from the Government....
Yep it now has a properly failed HG... it's definitely failed when it leaves a 45cm x 200cm patch of coolant behind... the good news is that it fired OUT of the engine, and not into the oil or cylinder bore (at the moment...) FNB Chris has been in touch, so I'll ring him on Monday and get some prices on a VRS kit from him, and then get the spare heads refurb'd next week and hopefully fitted next weekend. Means I can reset the timing properly and whole load of other horrible jobs that need doing on it, but have been put whilst I'm waiting for the HG to go... new spark plugs, HT leads, vacuum hoses etc.
The thinking for the drawer's frame is 100mm cable tray, 125mm tops, like Andy has in his HiLux build; 2 drawers side by side, uses one length of tray perfectly (but I can't remember the dimensions at the moment...) but at the moment it's not got much further than that...
Melbourne is now getting cold and it wont be hot again till December.
I cant wait to move to Northern NSW/Queensland!
I want to be able to wear shorts all year round!
Friday was a cold morning!
And in an uninsulated house you really feel it!
But when I got outside to start working on LJ I was greeted by clear blue skys and sunshine. So not all bad!
I've decided to get the rear bumper and swing away wheel carrier shot blasted, electoplated and powder coated.
I've had it on the back of LJ for a few years now and its been great but there are a few issues I want to fix and improvements I want to make.
I want to modify it so that I can open the small rear door to get recovery gear and/or beer out of the fridge without having to swing the wheel carrier open first.
Sadly it wasnt just a case of altering the diagonal section of the carrier, the wheel also needed moving over.
I guessed by about 20mm.
One of the issues I want to fix is the bent pivot pin that is causing the spare wheel to lean backwards.
Another issue is that the stop I welded on has been digging into the arm of the carrier. So that will be getting cut off and re-designed.
I also spotted a few cracks on one of my welds. This is because when I built the carrier I didnt know about the importance of root penetration. Had I have known about this I would have made sure the edges to be weld had been ground back on a 45 degree angle, so that when the welds are then ground back smooth and flush plenty of weld with good penetration is left behind.
So I needed to remove the carrier so I could fix and modify it.
With the carrier removed it was easy to see how bent the pivot pin is. My plan is to heat the pin up till its glowing bright red with the oxy torch, then bend it back into shape. Then heat up again till its glowing again and then quench it in oil to harden it. I'm hoping then it wont bend again.
Cut the carrier up.
I hoped moving the wheel over 20mm would be enough for the tyre to clear the rear door.
A bit of rusty water came out so obviously condensation had been building up inside the sealed sections.
It would mean changing the angle of one of the diagonal sections which would mean visually it wouldnt look as good as he 2 sections being the same angle but it wont really be visible unless the carrier is swung open and I decided I could live with that for the benefit of being able to open the little door with the carrier closed.
I cleaned all the old welds up with a flap wheel disc in the grinder.
Id decided I may aswell lower the spare down slightly as I've never hit it when dropping off rock ledges and obviously the lower I can get it the lower my center of gravity which should make the truck more stable.
I decided to drop it 50mm.
I ground all the edges back to ensure good root penetration.
I also ground out where the crack was ready to be welded.
As the welding rods havent been used for over a year I knew there was a good chance they would be damp as they absorb moisture out of the air.
So I brought them in and put them in the oven for 20 mins at 200 degrees to dry them out.
I layed the carrier out on the floor and worked the angles out for the diagonal section that needed cutting.
To prevent condensation from building up inside the carrier and so I can get it electroplated I drilled holes at different points to link all the sections together. These holes will be covered once its welded together.
I then fired up the trusty ARC which hasnt been used for well over a year! The now perfectly dry rods worked beautifully!
First I needed to weld the grooves where I'd found the cracks.
I thought I may have to warm the rods up on a piece of scrap but as the rods were so dry and still warm from the oven they started welding as soon as the rod scratched the surface.
I got the grooves welded and ground down and then assembled the carrier on the floor and tack welded it all together.
Put it back on.
I will alter the latch so that it doesnt stick up later once I get it to work.
Put the spare on.
Bugger! The door still hit the tyre.
I took the carrier back off and cut through all my tacks.
Decided to take another 20mm off so marked where to cut.
Then ground all the old tack welds off.
Tack welded the upright section back on and bolted it back on the car ready for testing.
This time the door cleared beautifully.
And I'm now able to access my recovery drawer!
So I took it back off and tack welded the other section on.
These are the sections removed, should make LJ a few grams lighter!
I decided to remove the bumper next.
I gave it a good clean so its ready to go in the Astra to be taken to work for fully welding and then the shot blasting, electro plating and powder coating.
Next I decided to pull the bull bar and winch tray off.
The end of the winch drum is meant to have a cover on it to keep mud and crap out, mine was missing when I bought the winch.
This broken one shows you what it should look like.
I made one out of alluminium a while ago but never got round to fitting it.
On my last 4wd trip the roll pin fell out of the bit connecting my winch hook to my rope, so I decided to replace it with a high tensile bolt with nyloc nut.
The garage was starting to get rather full with parts from LJ now all over the place!
I wanted to start on the bodywork next and had decided to try and fix some of the dents.
On the last 4wd trip I put a dent in the panel next to the fuel cap.
I removed the back lights.
I wanted to try and remove the dents but decided it would be better if I could try and push them out from the other side, this meant I needed to remove the fridge and drawer system from the back.
Fridge needed to come out first.
Because of the design of the fridge slide there isnt anywhere to attach the power cable to, and due to the movement of the fridge slide the power cable needs a lot of slack to allow it to drop fully. This had meant that the power lead had become damaged.
So I got the auto electrician at work to source me a heavy duty cable that should work perfectly. I might also drill some holes in the side of the fridge slide to allow me to cable tie the power cable neatly to the side of it.
Fridge out.
Fridge slide out.
Took more stuff out.
I've decided the drawers are a bit too heavy really and that the 3mm alluminium there made from is massively over kill.
The runners are made of alluminium that is too thin as the one runner has become damaged from the weight of the drawer.
So I'd like to make some new drawer boxes with thicker alluminium or even steel box section runners. I'm thinking cable tray for the drawer with a ply wood base maybe.
The actual drawer frame is and has been perfect!
Got it all unbolted and out.
And I could now get the side panels out and start pushing dents out!
I started removing the horrible rubber flares.
Mirrors next.
Snorkel off next.
I marked where the bottom of the snorkels its as I want to replicate the square side repeater cut out a bit lower down so I can re-mount the side repeater below the snorkel.
Wipers off.
Side repeater and LC badge off next.
I decided I needed a panel beating set to knock the dents out so started looking on ebay. I found a cheap set and spotted that the seller has a warehouse open 7 days a week and it was only a 20 minute drive away so off I went.
I got there and found a huge hardware shop selling every tool you can imagine and all from China!
OK some of it was cheap crap made of monkey metal but there were also a lot of quality tools for a bit more than the really cheap stuff. I was very tempted to buy this diesel cylinder pressure test kit.
But more on that later..........................
I did buy though........
A panel beating set.
A hollow punch set. Normally these are used for making bolt holes in paper gaskets but I use them when making cardboard templates of things at work and I need to add bolt holes.
Some pincers! We use these at work when fitting axle breather kits to crimp the hose clamp in place.
And a set with some handy little hook tools in.
Complete with dodgy translations!
Anyway....................
Back to LJ.
I've decided to try and replace the passenger door because its just too rusty and dented!
I tried knocking the dents out from the inside of the door but its not really possible.
OK so I wanted to try and remove the dents on the C pillars. These dents occurred years ago when I was driving hard off road and for a while without a rear bumper.
Doing stuff like this in deep ruts:
And this:
I'd never even bothered trying to remove them before but I decided if I'm re-spraying the whole truck I might aswell get it looking perfect!
I was pleased with how well they came out.
This is what I used for theses dents in the C pillars.
Its difficult to get the dents to show up in pics clearly, but once I'd finished pushing the dents out the C pillars looked a lot better, so only a small amount of filler will be needed to make them perfect again.
The rear arches need some work as the tyre has obviously caught them at some point and bent them and cracked the filler.
But I think I have found the ideal solution to my bent rear arches and horrible rubber flares!
Craig inspired me in his thread below to use the tops of 44 gallon oil drums and weld them back to the inner arch so they end up being very strong, especially with the nice rolled edge on them.
In order to do the re-spray the club stickers are going to have to come off.
Next I got to use my air sander which I purchased from Aldi nearly a year ago.
Sanded the filler on the bottom of the rear door.
And sanded the paint off on the C pillars ready for filling.
Had to do a tiny bit of body reshaping as I had a few high spots when I put the straight edge on the panel.
The filler I have is a few years old so I decided to buy some fresh stuff as I want it to be perfect.
I needed to remove the rear brake shoes that need replacing.
As the new ones I bought are missing the little pins that normally come fixed to the shoes.
They dont seem to want to knock out so I will take them with me when I take the new ones back and if they cant supply me with new shoes they can re-line my old ones.
Back to the body work....................
There were a few small dents in the passenger side wing that I wanted to fill.
So I sanded the paint off.
And filled them.
I imagine the bodywork might be quite a lengthy process of filling, sanding, filling, sanding until its perfect but if it takes a month or so thats fine.
So I'm making progress but theres heaps still to do!
I love having the new garage its awesome!
Almost forgot.....................
The 1KZ-T engine in LJ has done over 200,000 miles now and although it starts perfectly every time, uses no oil or coolant, doesnt smoke excessively and sounds OK I some times wonder just how healthy my engine is, and with a huge Simpson Desert trip later this year I need to know.
Now the best way to find out what condition the engine is really in without stripping it all down is to do a compression test on each cylinder and refer back to the specs in the factory service manual.
So I was very tempted to buy the one in the Chinese tool shop for $80 but decided as I didnt need it immediately I'd wait and see if I could find it cheaper else where.
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he had a supplier who owed him a favour.
But I can't imagine getting 3 years plus out of them 
