Hello, meet Elsie.

[hairy_apple]

Finally got all the gaskets and stuff for the new motor, dropped the head off at the machine shop last week, tomorrow hopefully I'll do all the block gaskets and get it ready. Once the head comes back, put the head back on, get the flywheel surfaced and install it and the clutch.. attach the transmission and Tcase... and slide the whole thing into place. I have decided to attach the manifolds and accessories back onto the engine while it's in the frame, so if there is anything interfering I can not find it while the engine is hanging from the cherry picker.

I am hoping to get the head back before the end of the week, and maybe this weekend if I can get help, install the engine!

 

[redthies]

Putting it back to original will earn you points with the LC gods, but to most would be a step backwards. I’m not sure which camp I’m in. V8s are nice, but original gets my vote. Will you be dropping down to a more 2F friendly tire etc a# well, or gearing way down?

 

[hairy_apple]

It's not really going to be "original" since it will be a 3FE injection set up on the 2F. I will be keeping the 35s, and maybe even going up to 37s, I may regear, we'll see how things are overall once I have the 5 speed an gears in the case. If I need it I will regear for sure.


Today, was a bad day. Head has cracks all over. Exhaust valves are all junk.. it's a mess. I am going to have to find a good 3FE head. Crap.

 

[hairy_apple]

Finally got a new head, and got it machined and put on the block. Moving forward again!

 

[hairy_apple]

Got the manifolds on, and started putting together the flywheel, bellhousing, and clutch this weekend. Tonight once my wife is home from work, we are going to try to mate the transmission and transfer case and then the whole thing will be ready to install. I have to repair a few things on the cruiser it's self, and then we should be ready to install the drivetrain next weekend. Once it's in, I need to build a rear crossmember, have drivelines made, fuel lines, and do the wiring which will really be the hardest part of this whole thing. I am really hoping to have the cruiser running by May or so, in time for summer. I am a little sad that this month, I've owned it for 17 years, and next month, the cruiser turns 50, and it's in pieces for both of those things! Oh well, I guess a brand new shiny heart transplant is a good 50th birthday present.

 

[hairy_apple]

A few random pictures from this weekends fun....
My wife turning the engine over so I can torque the clutch down.
I used the bread trick to get the bearing out. Made my day, I'd never done it before, had read about it, knew about it for a long time. I didn't have a puller, and thought.. why not... and it worked great. At 2 slices of bread per clutch I do in my lifetime, I don't ever see the bread adding up to more then the puller costs. And.. got ready to mate the transmission to the motor... and.. something is missing... damn it. Took a drive to Valley Hybrids yesterday and Georg hooked me up with the missing throwout bearing collar thing and the clips. Not sure if I never had it, or like so many things, it got misplaced since it was all taken apart years ago. Either way, tonight we should have it all mated up and ready to go in.


I need to fix the floorboards and the transmission tunnel bolts. Almost all of the stripped or broke, so I'm just going to go buy some nuts and bolts and washers, weld the washers to the nuts, and weld that to the floor of the cruiser under and make new captive nuts for all of it. It's going to be a pain in the butt, but it's needed. I also have a damaged spot on the floor... it got cut and mangled for some reason... one of those stupid things I did when I was 17 and have no idea now why I cut the floorboard there... maybe something to do with the twin stick. I don't know, but I will repair it before I put the engine in while I can still climb under it easy.

Then crossmember for the rear, and start fuel lines and drivelines. I have a bad feeling I will need to turn my rear axle up and point it at the transfer case, we didn't do that when we did the SOA years and years ago, but I think with the even shorter drivelines, it's going to need it. I'll do a CV too for sure.

Getting closer.

 

[hairy_apple]

Got the motor in! BIG stuff going on... big stuff. At this point, I need to get a crossmember built. As much as I am trying to use as much OEM stuff as I could, the rubber chunk for the transmission mount is $200 and there is no way I'm paying that for a hunk of rubber with some bolts in it. I managed to find a china one on rockauto for $30. Much better. So while I wait for the brown truck, I will start working on plumbing and all the other stuff that has to happen.

Starting with, the gas pedal. Seems simple enough, you need to run the 3FE cable, and so it makes sense to run the whole pedal that's set up for the cable. Only... it sounds simple to put a pedal from an FJ80 into an FJ40... but it's not. I had to cut the pivot shaft off, and move it up and to the other side of the pedal. I had to heat and bent the pedal in 3 places to get it to line up correctly. And then I had to use the FJ40 bracket on the FJ80 pivot shaft. Amazingly, it all worked perfect first test fit. So I finished welding it and hooked it all up. Eventually I'll buy the FJ62 hand throttle and install that too, but that's something to worry about after it's running.

 

[hairy_apple]

Next I got all the plumbing figured out. I blocked off the extra thermostat line. I may use it someday for a heat exchanger. I had to make an ugly reducer to fit the 3FE heater hoses to the 2F water pump. It's ugly. I am going to paint it black and hopefully it's less glaring.

The other big issue I ran into, is my PS pump. It fits on the bracket fine, and will work there, however, I wasn't able to swing it out as far as I had planned, and so the lid is blocked by the York compressor mount. I ended up ordering a Saganaw pump that uses a remote reservoir, and an 80's Toyota pickup remote reservoir. Silly, yeah, but I like the idea of this install more or less looking like Toyota could have done it if they kept building FJ40's into the early 90s.

Right now, I'm hung up a bit waiting for parts, and trying to figure out the fuel lines... I've never done an EFI swap to a carburetor vehicle before. I am going to go to Sacramento tomorrow to some hot rod shops and see if I can't find fuel fittings that fit the fuel rail, and just make custom lines for it. I had put about 30 seconds of thought into using steel braided lines, or just rubber EFI lines, but the high pressure and rubber lines scares me. And it would look less factory.