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1st gen Removable door hinges with quick release pins
Didn't get much done to the '89 this weekend, but hoping to get a few things knocked out this week. I did pick up another winch (for the '86 and planned front tube bumper I'll be fabricating) that'll need to be reworked but it's a little Warn MX6000 and should be more than enough for these little rigs and I thought a rig with a winch on the front would sell better.
I did however get some good pictures of the quick release door hinges I did for the '86 and a nice solution to bags of leaves piling up in the cowl. The Driver's side door dropped about an inch everytime you opened it and was a PITA to close. The bronze or brass bushings/bearings in the hinge were just completely shot and the hinge pin was already worn pretty badly. I had previously picked up a set of hinges at the junkyard and used those which led to the problem below, but ended up working out.
Before you even remove the hinges and get them all mixed up, it's EXTREMELY important to go ahead and label whether it's a Driver's/Passenger's side and upper/lower. I would suggest scribing or engraving a "DU" "DL" "PU" "PL" for Driver's Upper etc. into BOTH parts of the hinges as you pull them off. There are some very subtle differences in hole location and the way in which they mount to the doors, so it's a heck of a lot easier to keep everything together from the beginning. I did not and had the doors and each hinge on and off about 6-8 times trying to get them all matched back up correctly.
Having said that, start by grinding off the top and bottom cold riveted mushroom on the pin of the hinge.
Standard hinge
retaining mushroom that needs to be removed
ground off top starting to show the actual separation of the pin from the hinge
center section of the pin cut out to allow me to pound the heck out of it with a punch slightly easier. When using a punch and hammer to get what little short sections of the pin are left out of it, be careful not to distort / bend the bracket out of shape too badly (vise helps a lot) two parts of the hinge separated http://www.mcmaster.com/#2938t5/=13xrmvw
" />holes in the smaller bracket drilled out from stock to 7/16" to accommodate new stronger bushing/bearing McMaster part 2938T5 w/ 7/16" OD and 5/16" ID- ***DO NOT DRILL THE HINGE BRACKET THAT GOES TO THE BODY, JUST THE SECTION THAT GOES TO THE DOOR***
Hinges installed with 5/16" shaft Square security pin from Ace Hardware
These aren't quite as easy as some you may buy online, or anything that the Jeepsters do, but a nice cheap alternative to those things and a good little upgrade, especially if your doors are obviously starting to sag or the hinges are just completely worn out.
I also got really tired of pulling leaves out of the Cowl area as I was doing all of this. Obviously with the Cowl removed for the Raptor coating, I decided to get a small screen door repair kit and put some screen over the slots in the cowl where the leaves were falling through. I used a caulk gun and some standard Liquid nails and ran a small bead in between each of the openings and all the way around the outside of it (not TOO much as you don't want it squishing out into your screen, just enough to hold it). once the screen is cut and placed over the top, I just ran my fingers around each of the beads making sure the mesh was pressed down into the Liquid nails thoroughly in the center and all around the edges. I used the synthetic mesh because it was black, but I'm sure you could use the wire version if you wanted to and it might last a bit longer. (Sorry I didn't get any process shots) Then I painted the back flat black to match. Results Below.
quick look at what the bottom looked like finished up - you can see a few areas where I really pressed and squished the liquid nails into the mesh
Big Weekend. Dove season here in Texas, College football's first game, Birthday party for my cousin, and out of town visiting the folks. However, I got the MX6000 parts sandblasted and ready to prime, paint, and reassemble (although I'm still not sure what kind of screws they used and can't find ones that fit, so I may end up drilling them out and going with M6 or 1/4-20. They originally look like 10-24's, but the thread pitch is even wider than that). The winch might also require an order of hardware and minor parts from McMaster to replace a few bent tie rods and the hex drive shaft.
I'm also picking up eight 96' 2 7/8" diameter pipes with .2" wall tomorrow to potentially try and work on the bumpers (only costing me $50 for the pipe and should be more than enough to do the front, rear, and some nerf bars / rock sliders). I got some LED blinkers, reverse lights, and brake lights from www.superbrightleds.com as well as some cheap PIAA fog lights and some 6" Rally lights from ebay for the bumpers I'll be building so I'll have some sort of clue about the recesses, cutouts, and tab locations needed for those. I'm also picking up a passenger's side vent window and a set of SR5 bucket seats from a local parts guy in the morning that will match the rest of the grey interior I'll be putting back into the '86 - swapped over from the '89 of course. The original seats in the '89 were from a celica or something and just looked like garbage.
We'll see how much I can get done with the long weekend although there is a ton of other stuff going on.
The white you're seeing is oxidized aluminum salts. The radiator flush I used to clean out the oil ate the radiator from the inside out until it finally ate through the lower portion and started spewing white powder all over the front suspension. I've heard of this happening from electrolysis when your motor isn't properly ground and the coolant becomes charged, but I've got a 2 ga ground from the battery to the block to the body, a braided ground from the radiator to the block, and another on the head. My Friday was determined by chemistry, and that stupid bottle of radiator flush slowly but surely eating away at the aluminum in my radiator. Going to order a nice brass 3row and eat ramen for three weeks.
Light alloys hate alkalis, while ferrous metals are largely unaffected.
Lucky that the head is made with thicker material cross-section than the flimsy chinese radiator.
When I got this low range $100 aluminum radiator I thought it felt like a bunch of Burmese soda cans held together with love and compassion.....should have gone heavy and got the legitimate replacement.
flushed out the whole cooling system and literally pulled the thermostat and ran a water hose through the motor until it came out crystal clear. did the same to the heater lines (front and rear). Poured some OEM pink antifreeze and water mix back in and drove it to work this morning. My fear is that the corrosion might have eaten a pinhole in the bottom of the radiator. Basically I'm going to have to drive it this week like it is an just watch the temperature gauge like a hawk and keep filling it up everytime I stop. It's that, or pull the radiator out of the '86 and swap it in until I can order another one in. DEFINITELY going brass and copper on the next one.
also got a little bit of welding done on the '86 bumpers last week. still have more to do, and a test fit to check and make sure the winch plate and everything else lines up correctly, but I'll post pictures of that when I can.
new 3 Row Brass and copper radiator, new cap, new thermostat, and new Radiator shroud should be here this weekend. Also just about have the '86's winch back together, and may try to finish up welding the bumpers for it this weekend....or I may spend a day dove hunting....we'll see.
Got the new radiator installed without really any issues and there's just something nice about the weight and heft of an all brass/copper 3 row that fits perfectly. Ran a water hose through the entire engine to flush out whatever coolant was left and filled it up with fresh OEM pink. I replaced the thermostat and radiator cap as well. Also spent all day Saturday hunting and watching football.....so didn't get as much done, but was nice to have a day off.
Of course I can't seem to accomplish something without something else happening, so while on my back under the rig hooking up the lower hose, I realized both front CV boots are cracked and leaking. With new boots running $25 a piece (two per side....inner/outer)...looks like it may be worth the extra $10 just to replace both front axles at $60 a pop. Wouldn't mind trying to upgrade to some heavier duty axles while I'm at it, but haven't really found many options for the IFS guys as most of the aftermarket Chromoly stuff is for the Solid fronts. That'll have to wait until next week though as that 3 Row radiator kinda screwed up my budget.
Hoping to get the rest of the welding done on the '86 bumpers this week (probably going to be some late nights) so I can get them painted and installed. Also need to put in a headliner, and a new seal for the top before I bolt it down to make it leak proof before I do anything to the interior. I've got all of the windows removed and loose at the moment, so I think I may take them down to have them tinted so that whole "black beauty" murdered out look is more complete (guy said he'd cut me a heck of a deal for bringing them all in loose).
Keep working man, this is one of my all time favorite builds on the site. I just love the way you give so much attention to the littlest details. And BTW, your panels are SWEET!
Well, my girlfriend and buddy Duey came over and the three of us worked most of Saturday on the '86. Good music, good conversation, and more than a few ice cold beerz consumed before we all called it a day to go watch some football. Got the new headliner and foam in, interior cleaned up, rear carpet in, roll bar painted and ready to go in, new seals on the top done (needed before even attempting to put in the interior so there aren't ANY leaks), dash pulled and grey lower dash in place. I'm sure there's a ton of other stuff that also got done, but it escapes me at the moment. Felt like a very productive day which was good as it rained the rest of the weekend and should continue to for the next couple of days.
Other things left to do to the '86:
buy front seats from 4Runner House in Garland
New windshield (Hopefully 4Runner house has one)
New passenger's side 1/4 vent window (current one is acrylic)
tint all the windows (since they're currently out and it would be super easy)
Bumpers & Nerf Bars finished up - wire up lights and mount winch (almost finished with it)
Reinstall MAF and thermostat (pulled for mine)
new battery
Full Tune up - plugs, wires, cap/rotor, oil change, new coolant, check all other fluids and grease fittings
I'm planning on going down to the shop tonight to see if I can't finish up welding the new bumpers and nerf bars so we can get them painted and mounted sometime this week (and out of the back of my rig!) I was using my phone to stream music, so I didn't get any pictures, but I'll try to get some soon. Here's a little picture of what they look like now:
Swiss Cheese! however, the 1/2" plate brackets that slide into the frame rails and trailer hitch + Supports are solid, so I'll reuse those. The original bumpers were made for either/or the 4Runner or Pickups for the mass market and all of them had the license plate cutout. I don't need it on the 4Runner, so it'll get deleted and just be two bars going coast to coast. Haven't decided if I want to wrap the rear bumper around like the front does, but I'm sure I'll mock it up to see what that would look like.
I'm guessing Smittybilt used .075" or 14ga steel tubing for their original bumpers which isn't that thick especially when capped off with leaky plastic stoppers that end up trapping water inside the bumper and rusting it out. I'll be fully welding all of the tubing ends so it's completely closed off.
Front bumper doesn't look that bad in this pic, but it's toast. I do like how they used the front two body mounting points as extra mounting points.....going to have to steal that idea although mine will also have the winch plate that bolts to the four bolts in the front frame as well (where the hook and tow loop are currently mounted)
In contrast to Smittybilt's .075" tubing, I got 8 sticks of 8' oil well drill stem tubing that's roughly 5-6 gauge at almost 1/4" thick (.203-.220"). That should be enough for the front, rear, and nerf bars at only $50. Going to make some super beefy bumpers with the old school looks of the Smittybilts but with integrated LED blinkers and hawse fairlead.
Hmmmm....how to get a nice bent radius on 1/4" wall 3" tube without the machine they use to build battle ships? Maybe cut out pie wedges and then use a come-a-long to hand winch it? Can't believe that actually worked.
My cute little double cove pieces - I made these a little longer (spreading the bars slightly more apart) than the original Smittybilt's because I needed the space for the blinkers and hawse fairlead to sit flush
Pie wedges measured out and ready to cut (just used a 5" grinder - I'm sure there are easier and more precise ways
nothing beats a sparks selfie
Cut and ready to roll.....or bend rather
Hooked up a 2 ton hand winch or come-a-long (we have a bunch laying around my office from some old project
Clickety-Clack Clickety-Clack!
Welded up.....don't be making fun of my welds.....haven't done it in a long time and it's a public owned (and very poorly taken care of) welder used by a ton of inexperienced people. A wise man once told me you either get good at welding or you get good at grinding.
Smoothed up.....looks much better. Once it's covered in bedliner, you'll never even know it was sliced
1/4" Plate with weld nuts for fairlead
not quite finished as I still have to weld on the tabs for the lights as well as the oval openings for the blinkers, then I'll have to fab up the winch plate and see how it will all fit and bolt up to the rig. Guessing since the '86 isn't insured, inspected, or running at the moment.....I'll probably have to remove the bumper from mine and mock it up that way. I'm hoping the rear bumper will be a little easier and shouldn't need a mockup.
I subscribed long ago and recently PU a turbo 87 project. I will be reading this in its entirety. You are my idol. Attention to detail-Attention to detail-Attention to detail....
Being a procrastinator I draw inspiration from your response to setbacks. BTW its Star Treks 50th anniversary.
Got to the shop last night after work and found the Mig Welder was out of wire (welcome to public shops) so couldn't do any of the welding I needed to. However, you can't let something like that stop you from being productive, so I decided to pull off the front bumper of my rig and try to mock up the new pipe bumper for the '86 to see how this bad boy was going to mount to the frame and what kind of bracket / winch plate I needed to fabricate. I got the bumper as tight as possible with a little wiggle room for the winch and made sure everything was even right to left and that the bumper was centered and started cutting out some cardboard templates.
I didn't have the right jacks to jack up the bumper in multiple spots to get everything level and even, so I had to rest it on these wooden blocks and jack up the front end until it was close (obviously this messes up the angle). When I go to do the final weld (tacking on the brackets in place), I think I'm going to hang the bumper from an overhead gantry with the now infamous red ratcheting straps so I can get everything perfectly aligned, level, centered, etc. Please ignore the cutouts on the right....that was the first (failed) attempt at bending and required way too much welding / cutting / piecing together.
Despite my efforts to give it a few extra bends to allow a little more room for the winch, it's a little more forward than the original, but heck.....there's a winch in there!. Also, there will be a 1" tube support going from the lower winch plate bracket to the back of the vertical 3" tube over here on the side just to help support the weight and deflect impact (don't worry, it won't interfere with the tire as it will actually be in front of the inner fender or close to it)
I also widened the gap between the two bars from the original (in order to fit the blinkers and lights in - went with 2 1/4" in between bars versus the 1" or so originally), and was surprised to see that it's still up above the front of the frame. Not sure if I'll try to fit the valence back on as I think it looks better with more clearance. Might need a skid plate fabbed up though.
Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the cardboard templates I cut, trimmed, drilled, finalized, and then translated over to the metal, but that's how I figured out the brackets. Here is my "impromptu" design for the front winch plate that will be welded directly to the bumper. 28" wide, 1/2" bottom "C" shaped bracket rides below the front frame and bolts to the same holes that the original hooks bolted to (could even re-use the hooks if I got longer hardware). vertical plate mimics the "front frame re-enforcement plates" (shown with all the holes already cut out) you can buy and will bolt to the one I weld to the front of the frame (one was given to me by a buddy). Curved front piece rides on top of the vertical and slides 1/2" or so over the top of the front lower frame. Winch mounts to this via the 4 holes (already drilled) and it'll get welded almost centered on the lower tube of the bumper.
Quick little cutout piece for the LED gasket mounted blinkers to fit into
These will get welded in right here on both sides. I'm planning 4 for the back.....2 red tail light / blinkers and 2 white extra bright backup lights
Just to show you how tight the winch is under the grille at the height it'll be mounted to the plate (and to show it fits)
I'll do 3 of these 6" lights across the front (bought 4 for cheap off ebay - will leave one with the rig for an extra bulb / lens). Before anyone tells me to go with an LED bar, suck it....it's a 30 year old vehicle....I'm going old school kool.
And here's where I'll let you guys vote on which lights should go here......I like the oval ones and may put the fog lights below the winch plate underneath. The oval ones show above are projection driving lights (invented by PIAA) and now incorporated into most modern headlights and really throw light far out there . I'll probably wire these up with a switch that they can be "on", "off", or "on with high beams"
These are the projection ionic fog lights and they could go in this opening as well. I'll let you guys decide.
I left this opening and may even put an angled piece of metal behind it to scoop more air into the radiator as I've heard there are issues with these vehicles when you put a winch on the front or do anything that could potentially block air flow (rally lights, skid plate, winch, giant bumper made of heavy gauge steel, etc)
I won't even tell you guys that all that 1/2" plate (and all of the other pieces for that matter) was cutout with a 5 inch angle grinder and about 10 cutting wheels. We do have a plasma cutter up at the shop, but it's a tiny off brand one that trips the breaker and struggles with anything over 3/16". Sometimes you've just got to use what you've got. Sure there's an easier way, yeah, it'll be a lot more difficult doing the other way, but you can either pay through the nose for some shop to cut out all these with a laser or plasma (got the material for free), or just grab your trusty angle grinder and $30 worth of cutting wheels and a couple of hours later look like you stepped out of a coal mine when you're finished.
Got the Winch Plate / bumper mount welded up last night and man it's beefy. Like Arby's 5 for $5 on 1/2" plate steel beefy. Also got the other side of the bumper bends cleaned up and finished and ready for end caps (a friend of mine convinced me that if I wanted it to look "Finished" that I had to buy the 2 7/8" fence post weld on rounded caps, and so I ordered some at $1 a piece to be in by the weekend). Blinker plates are welded in as well and the only other thing I'll need to do is weld some simple light mounting tabs on soooooo.....minus a few holes to drill in some mounting supports, everything should be ready to mock up and weld in place.
Oftentimes, I like to start with the hardest things first , so the rest is downhill. The front bumper was definitely the hardest, and the Rear bumper should go fairly quickly as I'll be re-using the original frame rails and trailer hitch an simply welding on new tubes, probably only with a slight bend at the ends like the original Smittybilt. I had thought about trying to bend them 90 degrees and continue down the sides stopping at the fender well like the front does, but I'm not sure if that would just look stupid, or actually look decent. I may mock it up just to see.
Nerf bars should also go much quicker as they will just end in a 1/4" plate with 4 holes that will bolt through the frame rails.....nothing fancy at all.
Phone died before I could get any pictures, and I nearly cut off my thumb when my grinder binded up and kicked back while helping a friend with a totally different project. It wasn't too bad, got it patched up, and like Keanu says, "Pain is temporary, chicks dig scars, and glory lasts forever."
May have scored a deal on some super swampers and new rims for the '86 (31x9.5x15), but won't be able to get them until Tuesday. I've got a few days free this weekend, so hopefully I can finish up the front bumper and get the rear and rock sliders / nerf bars knocked out at some point.
08-29-2016, 09:11 AM
