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A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build (BellyDoc)

582K views 1K replies 170 participants last post by  glideraz 
#1 ·
My plan had been to wait quite a while, storing up photos as I went... then start a thread about this and meter in the pictures over several days ... making it look like I was really fast at fabrication.

That's a stupid idea.

There are a couple of reasons why.

First of all, I owe a debt of gratitude to several of the good friends I've made here on these FJ Cruiser Forums just to have gotten this far and learned this much already. Failure to acknowledge this, and to pretend that I was able to quickly whip together a crawler based on my own merits as a garage fabricator would represent the extreme of selfishness and false pretense.

Second, there are many people who are as curious as I am, who are as enthusiastic as I am, but who either lack means or drive to launch into an ill-conceived plan such as this one... and to those I can offer the most valuable service of reporting the unedited and painful (and often expensive) truths that I learn along the way. For some it will be useful information that will help them avoid pitfalls that I find... the hard way. For others it might be the vicarious thrill of watching someone else suffer needlessly for their entertainment. After all, people love a good reality-TV show. This may be no different.

Lastly, and this may (or may not) come as a shock to some on here who have read my posts... I have a habit of typing, and typing a LOT. Therefore, I can think of nothing better than to keep a running narrative of my project, both physical and mental aspects... even if there are NO forum members that choose to read it.

If I *don't* type it here, I'll likely try to explain these thoughts to my wife, my daughters, my dog, my residents, my professional colleagues or anyone else who happens to get unfortunately cornered by me when my mind is locked into project mode.

In order to avoid that potential social suicide, I choose instead to start this thread now, rather than to wait.
 
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#2 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Very cool Jon. Let's get started! :D

btw, shouldn't this be in member build up area?
 
#3 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Some of you may have been aware that I crashed my FJ Cruiser on the freeway.

Totally my fault.

EARLY in the morning (even for me).

I changed lanes to the left because of a wide load on my right.

The lane that I changed INTO came to a screetching halt.

I did not.

Nobody was hurt, but I managed to CRUSH the rear end of a Kia minivan, plow it out of the way and STILL ram a small gray car in front of it.

When it came to rest, the FJC had stalled, been pushed into neutral, and started right up to drive to the side of the road.

No airbags deployed. I barely felt it.

The Kia was DESTROYED!!!!

Kia vs. FJC = FJC wins BIG TIME.

(note to self: ARB bumpers ROCK!)

I was mildly miffed that the brakes seemed so wimpy when I tried to stomp on them. They seemed so touchy in traffic when I was going slower, before. Why were they different?

My conclusion is that had just obtained my introduction to "antilock brakes".

I parked my FJC at a body shop for almost a month while they tapped it back into shape. I basically needed fenders and a bumper.

In the mean time, I started thinking... why not start a new 4x4 project? I have been thinking about building a dedicated crawler for YEARS. Of course the mechanical wherewithall to do this is COMPLETELY beyond my current skills or experience, but I'm clever and resourceful. I'm doggedly persistant, and now that I'm done with my surgical training, I actually have an income that would support such a project.

This is *why* I stayed in school... right? :D

I had been looking for a pre 84 Toyota mini truck so that I wouldn't have to solid axle swap it. I was basically thinking: crawl box, birfield upgrades, big tires, tube cage... and I'm good to go.

That's when I put "Toyota" into the search mechanism on craigslist.com.

I realized that I had one of two choices. Either I buy something for cheap that is unbelievable crap and drag it home where I could work on it, or else I could pay a bit more for something that would limp home under it's own power, but then in working on it, I'd basically destroy what value it had left... so all I'd be getting extra for the additional money would have been not begging some buddy to help me tow it.

That's when I came across an ad for a 69 FJ40 that had been languishing on the list through 3 price reductions. It was down to the same price as mini trucks that would have required being lifted onto a flat trailer with a forklift.

It had the magic word "runs".

I switched my plans.

Time to build an FJ40 - based rock crawler.

How do you do that?

Simple.

Start by buying the FJ40.

Figure the rest out as you go along.
 
#5 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

It's too bad you could not make Pismo last weekend. There would be plenty of inspirations to a FJ40 build. I think they would be great crawlers. Nice foundation to start. So exciting. This is in the plans in the future for me as well. I too wondered about getting a early solid axle Toyota pickup or 4Runner. Have thought about Suzukis too. Strengthen it, gear it up, and the rest is fairly straight forward. Subscribed to this thread. Please post pics as soon as you can :).
 
#7 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

subscribing to this.....
 
#8 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

I still think this should be in "build up". It's not a FJC, but it is a FJ!
 
#9 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

So... I went ahead and did the deal. I was able to get the thing rolling and drive it home. I had friends follow me just in case.

The only thing I really cared about was the frame. The frame was STRAIGHT and was impressively rust free. The body was a little beaten, but wait till I get through with it!

Here's a picture of what I had when it got to my driveway:



This is already after the first modification.

There had been a horrifying hard top on it. The meth-head that owned it previous to the guy I bought it from, decided that it would be cool to try to make it into a hard top bikini style... almost like the FJ45 pickup truck. He chopped the hard top in the middle and glued the ends back together with a strip of fiberglass. I tossed that thing immediately. It was worthless.

Then I got underneath and took a serious look at the engine.

Major parts were missing.

No cover on the bottom of the bellhousing.

The e-brake cable was dangling.

There appeared to be less than the total number of connections intended to end at the transfer case.

An MGD beer cap sealed the clutch master cylinder.

JB Weld closed off the end of some piece of tubing I couldn't even identify.

The transmission was not the original 3 speed on the column... it had been replaced with a 3-on-the-floor which had necessitated a cut-through in the tranny hump.

My first goal was already going out the window.

I had thought it would be kinda fun to base the project off of near original parts... put a crawl box in between the existing transmission and transfer case... use the F engine...

No go.

I started talking to Sean (Sean K. - who recently decided no longer to participate in forum chatter... it's ok, I still call him at work at least twice a day with ideas or questions...)

Sean suggested several things.

First off, the transfer case is weak. If I wanted to stay with that FJ40 configuration, I should upgrade to the Orion which is a stronger iron case that won't break in half under crawl conditions.

Next, the axles would be maxed by crawler sized tires... also strongly consider upgrades.

Things rapidly mushroomed from there.

The FJ40 has an oddball arrangement of parts relative to many things we see nowadays. In most 4x4 vehicles we see now, the engine crankshaft is in the middle of the vehicle, followed by a transmission, in the middle of the vehicle, followed by a transfer case also in the middle of the vehicle. The transfer case splits the output from the powerplant into a rear drive shaft and a front driveshaft. The rear driveshaft continues down the midline of the vehicle. The front driveshaft is either on the right or the left side of center. The rear differential housing is on center. The front differential housing is off center.

In the FJC, you can't really see that so much because the clamshell housing for the differential is hidden up on top of a crossmember and behind some skid plates, but it's there, on the left side (driver's side). On any solid axle setup, it's readily apparent.

The original FJ40 plan was completely different.

Instead of having a midline driveshaft to the rear axle, the transfer case offsets BOTH the front and rear driveshafts to the passenger's side. Both of the differential housings are offset.

This meant that if I were to retain the original transfer case or a stronger clone, I'd be forced to use either FJ40 axles or some other type of axle that also had offset front AND rear differentials... perhaps from a larger Land Cruiser like an FJ80.

At the same time, I was looking at the engine and transmission issues.

I wanted a GREAT crawl ratio. This meant a dual case crawl box as far as I knew, but inside a vehicle with a stock 90 inch wheelbase, that could be a problem! There could literally be not enough room to bolt these parts together.

That's ok. Everyone seems to agree that 90" is WAY too short a wheelbase for AZ rock crawling. I only improve things if I start to splay apart the axles... so I shouldn't let that stop me from putting together the transmission system that I dream of.

...but what to drive it??

The problem with the original F series engine - although it is a marvel of longevity (this one should have been dead long ago), is that it's a carburated engine. This poses two problems for a crawler, according to my homework.

First off, carburated engines idle with low fuel and low air intake, and then increrase both proportionally with throttle opening. They have very low power at low throttle, and high power at high throttle. A crawler needs to have good power even at low RPM.

Secondly, a problem with carburated engines is that they were naively designed to run UPRIGHT and they don't necessarily fare very well when tipped on their sides or steeply stood on end. This can be a problem when the plan is for the engine to be put in some pretty awkward positions and the absolutely COUNT on its performance, once there.

The solution to both these problems is fuel injection. Fuel injected engines perform better at low speed, AND they do better in off-camber positions.

The problem is that I don't know THING ONE about working on engines, let alone fuel injected ones.

I found it only mildly reassuring that many people swap fuel injected Chevy engines into FJ40's, however, the party line is that it's do-able even if you don't know how to deal with the fine points of fuel injection, because the little computer thingie does most of that for you... as long as you wire it in correctly.

So... since I decided to go with ginormous tires, I decided to upgrade to 1-ton axles which are compatible with a standard centered rear driveshaft design and an offset front axle. I was then able to use more readily available parts like the Atlas transfer case which packs more gear reduction into less distance, anyhow... improving the control I have on the length of the powertrain from engine to driveshaft.
 
#1,101 ·
Mate I have to say, I have been following this thread for quite a while now from Australia and I am blown away by your work. Very informative and I have learnt alot reading all 110 pages. Cant wait to see the finished product.

Just popped back to the first page, things have changed a little since then haven't they. I can see a firewall still in use (modified but still there), but thats about it. lol.

Here's a picture of what I had when it got to my driveway:



 
#10 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

All the deficiencies aside, the body looks really good. So are you leaning towards a Chevy engine? This isn't a restoration so it really opens up the possibilities.
 
#11 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Ok... so here's some more pictures.

Having settled on 1 ton axles, and an Atlas 4 speed transfer case, I started looking at transmissions. There was a lot to learn.

Meanwhile, while I was looking for Chevy 350 engines for the swap, I learned that the LS1 was a Chevy 350 with an aluminum block and had a rep for doing quite well in rock crawlers.

Dan (Pumbaa) pointed me back to craigslist.com where I instantly pounced on this:



It actually cost more than the car, but it also looks nicer.

I wanted a really GREAT transmission, and I was looking for a few things other than raw strength. I wanted a sickly low granny gear. I wanted overdrive (in case I had the fantasy that I could be driving this home-build on the highways along side you and your family...) and I wanted it to mate nicely with the Chevy 350 LS1 engine and with the Atlas 4 speed without any space-wasting adapters.

I chose the NV4500.

Although it's a little longer than a number of other tranny choices, it bolts directly to an Advance Adapters bellhousing which bolts directly to the LS1. The Atlas bolts directly to it. By not having several inches of intervening adapter plate, I think I'm ending up breaking even on powertrain length, but having better mechanics.

Here's my new tranny:



I called the guys at NV4500 Transmissions - Adapters - NV4500 Conversion Kits | NV4500.COM and wouldn't you know it, as soon as they found out that I was young, stupid and willing to spend lots of money, they were SUPER helpful in that regard!

They were able to help me string together the parts from engine to clutch to bellhousing to tranny to t-case with no adapters. I rewarded them with a fat order. They returned the favor with a reasonable discount.
 
#12 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

BD, I didn't know about the crash, and it sounds like there were no serious injuries, thank goodness. The new 40 looks like an excellent project. I mean if it was already ready to go, where would all the fun of the buildup be? I wish I had the funds, the garage, and the TIME to start such a project. Have fun and keep us up to date as the new 40 take shape. Tim
 
#14 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Sweetness Jon! Rawwrrrr!!! All that power and reduction box. Are you going to reinforce the body? It's a shame this is buried in "off topic".
 
#16 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Sweetness Jon! Rawwrrrr!!! All that power and reduction box. Are you going to reinforce the body? It's a shame this is buried in "off topic".
MAN you're good... I couldn't have PAID for a better segue...

So...

Then it came time to actually start building something!

A couple of weekends back, I got the thing over to a friend's uncle's yard and ripped it down to the frame (mostly). I put the tub and the body panels off to the side (behind a decrepit ice-cream truck and next to an abandoned hotrod project) and I drove home with the frame on a flat trailer.

It then went to several sessions of wire wheel, grinder, and plama cutter to get the old paint off as well as some riveted-on things like shock towers, steering brackets and old engine mounts.

Plasma cutters are COOL. :D

Rivets are tougher than they look... :mofo:

What was left was steel in startlingly good condition! There's a little rust inside, but NOT MUCH!









As you look along the frame rails, you can see where the inner and outer halves of the frame are riveted together. I'm going to stitch weld along those edges in order to distribute the stress. i'm also going to plate over the inside everywhere there's going to be a structural component like a crossmember or mount.

The rear portion from the tube-crossmember back is going to be chopped and replaced. I was going to box it in with plate steel, but now I have to get it to clear the links I'm planning in back, so I'm just going to replace it with rectangular tube steel.

Everything is contingent on the position of the engine, transmission and transfer case. The rear axle is going to move back substantially (over a foot) while the front axle will only move up a couple of inches.

The existing cross member will be replaced by a heavy duty version that will accept the lower links near the center. I'll cut out the existing cross member AFTER I cut the tail end off and replace it.

First I have to get the engine mounts done and commit to a set of positions for everything else!
 
#15 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Ok...

I didn't take pictures of my axles yet, but I did acquire them...

or almost did.

Actually I screwed up.

Based on Sean's recommendations to go 1-ton, I was looking Dana 60 front axle. I was hunting for a high pinion, driver's side differential, "kingpin" style. This basicaly makes it from a Ford F350 between some different years (that I have in my notebook - but I'm to lazy to re-lookup now). I started hunting in my usual overzealous way. I searched the internet, I searched the county, I searched the state.

If you can find one of these, they're flippin' expensive!!

I found a junk guy in town who said he'd get me one for 1100.

He did, but then when I took it home, it turned out that I hadn't paid attention to the difference between the kingpin design and the ball joint type.

I had the wrong one!! $#!+!!! I just found out last week.

The thing is freakin' HEAVY. The guy promises to make good on the swap, but I'm not relishing the thought of taking it back. It's languishing in my driveway, waiting for the call to come and swap it at the yard.

I did, however, find the CORRECT rear axle. This is another 1-ton. It's from a Dodge full sized pickup. It's the Dana 70U (slightly beefed up 60). Oddly enough, front axles are wider than rear axles. Did you know that? I didn't know that. The D60 in front and the D70 in back are fairly closely matched in track width (1/2" difference as opposed to a few inches of difference if I had gone with a rear D60). When I pull this apart, I'll put it back together with a disc brake kit.

 
#17 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Jon, just baiting you to give out more info. This is great stuff. I'm salivating here.
 
#18 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

... and now we're up to date!

I've taken off a few days to make some forward progress on this thing, and it looks like I'm going to get the engine mounted soon.

I have a nice Centerforce clutch I'm trying to figure out how to put on before I get the engine mounted, and I put the new flywheel on today. It's heavier to make the low end more stable without stalls:



I've kinda sorta figured out where the engine is supposed to go.

I *think* it goes here:



I got ahold of a Camaro/Firebird radiator, shroud and fan (2 actually, its a dual fan setup) and I *think* I can fab a bracket that will hold it in place, but it's too tall right now. I may actually cut down into the frame to seat it lower. I LIKE that it's the radiator that's supposed to cool the LS1 and I'm not re-engineering something else to do the job. Cutting notches and plating them in forward of the front shock mounts and suspension seems pretty benign to me... unless of course I rip the front off my rig when I go to winch myself out of a hole!



Next, I'll post the engine mount saga.

...it's already a saga.
 
#19 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Jon, why did you have to do this! I spent years building vehicles and was finally at peace with the FJ being almost done. You have just excited the beast in me to build a pre FJ FJ. Looks great. Way to go!:bananahump-slvrathl :)happy for you. :( sad I don't have one.:bananahump-slvrathl Excited to see the result.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

Jon, what a great project!. I will be watching the prgress of this build with baited breath. Sean is a great guy and full of great advice and knowledge about rock crawlers. It is a shame that he left us, I was hoping to convince him to come back. Anyways, this is going to be a great build I too agree with Tony, it dosn't need to be buried in an OT area. I'm moving into the member build area. This is an FJ, so it rightly deserves it's own place in the build section. :)
 
#22 ·
Re: A Fool and his Money: my FJ40 build

This is an FJ, so it rightly deserves it's own place in the build section. :)
Absolutely. And, what a build-up it's going to be!!

In spite of my frequent "purist" (and seemingly snobbish) attitudes towards not molesting vintage FJ's, in my opinion, you have selected the perfect (donor truck) candidate, as well as, the ideal elements, components and concept for an awesome FJ40 rock-crawler conversion. With that being said, and my perceived knowledge of your abilities, talents and a healthy affliction of OCD, I hereby grant you a special waiver to continue with this superb project. ;)

I will not only be following your build-up with extreme enthusiasm and cheering you on from 2150 miles away, but I also expect (request) to see your labor of love in-person the next time I'm out in AZ visiting the folks.

Good luck, Jon. (And, please let me know if I can be of any assistance from afar.) You're off to a perfect start, and keep the progress reports rolling in!! :bigthumb: :bigthumb:
 
#21 ·
Subscribed ;)
 
#25 ·
The saga continued today on multiple fronts.

I tried valiantly but in vain to make my milling/drilling machine mill some steel plate. It's way too flexy despite a few hours of attempted rigidification. (Yes, I *know* that's not a word, but the stupidity of trying to seriously do this is perfectly captured by the made up terminology!) In the end, I got to the point that I was doing a pretty darn good job with the plasma cutter and a well placed straight edge fastened down with a C-clamp.

The milling/drilling machine is still a reasonably precise drill press with calibrated ways, so I was able to get the hole pattern for the engine mounting plates right on the money.

I won't tell you how many parts I scrapped while getting the use of the plasma cutter dialed in!

The design of the engine mount is dirt simple. A number of examples of crawlers that I've seen (including Sean's, one at 4 Wheeler's Supply, and a well published build on Pirate4x4.com) all use the same principle. A plate is bolted to the side of the engine and a piece of (square or round) tube is welded to that, extending outward to the frame. At the frame end, the tube has a welded T-end with a urethane bushing in it. A bracket on the frame holds a bolt that goes through the bushing. Unlike the standard car-type mount where the weight of the engine is resting on rubber bumpers which sit on shelves inside the car frame, this design is equally strong right side up, upside down or laying sideways... a reassuring feature!

Added benefit - no-brainer build up! It's like tree house carpentry, but with metal.

The mounting points on the LS1 are an array of holes on the underside of the 45 degree outer surface of the "V" shaped engine block. The holes are evenly spaced and the dimensions are published in the manual. Once I cut and drilled 3/16" plate to size, I bolted it to the engine block and lowered it into position. I measured off the distance to the frame and picked an appropriate length for the legs of the mounting bracket system. I cut 2 six-inchers out of 2x2 3/16 wall tube.

The urethane bushings came as a weld-in bushing setup from 4Wheelers. They have 2 sizes. I chose the 1.75" tube version since I'm welding it into 2x2 square stock. If I'd gone with 1.5" tube, I'd have had to figure out what to do with the gaping holes on either side.

Next, I had to figure out how to nicely notch the heavy wall square tube.

I used to have a functional Harbor Freight Tools tubing notcher, but it didn't last very long. The principle was that a piece of tube could be held in the fixture while a drill drove an appropriately sized hole-saw into the metal in order to cut the appropriate profile notch.

Why not just put an appropriate sized hole saw in the milling/drilling machine? Sure!

Well, that worked about as well as the earlier milling effort. The hole saw bogged down, and when I went to a lower speed, the machine still flexed. When I cut slower, the chuck fell off it's taper... It was a total fiasco!

In frustration, I took the partially notched part over to the welding table and freehanded the notch with the plasma cutter...

Perfect! ...cleaned it up with the grinder and bevelled the edges. It was good to go.

The next one I just traced the shape of the circle with a sharpie and freehanded it with the plasma cutter. The first one cost me HOURS... the second one MINUTES.

Plasma cutters are COOL. :D

I tacked them together and beat them square before finalizing:





On other fronts, I got some frame reinforcing done (no pictures yet - to be appended to tomorrows batch of pics with the engine bolting in...) and I went to the yard where the body parts are sitting and got some measurements which were reassuring in terms of engine fitment.

I did a substantial amount of phone time regarding my need for a different front axle, and I figured out the clutch assembly, the transmision and the bellhousing which arrived in so many random crates with no diagrams or instructions... but lots of parts in baggies! I'm glad I spent the phone time, because I learned a lot. For example, I almost greased a no-grease pilot bushing, I almost UNNECCESSARILY replaced a part on the tranny with an equivalent one and I finally figured out what some of the rubber dohickies were for that came in my shipments.

I still haven't figured out what 2 steel rings are that came in one of the bags. They're slender material (2-3 millimeter cross section) and form circles about 3 or 4 inches in diameter... the proportions of O-rings, but they're metal. They look like they're made of rolled up thin stainless steel sheetmetal. If I can't figure them out, I guess I can give them to my girls and tell them that they're bracelets! :D
 
#26 ·
Keep it coming Jon. This is a build up-from the ground up!
 
#27 ·
Ok... I've made some progress today.

I finally managed to sneeze some of the iron filings out of my nose! :D

Despite my best efforts at hand and face washing, though, I"m afraid my wife will discover that I've ruined the downstairs bathroom hand towel with black stuff that didn't come free with hand cleaner, soap and water.

I tossed it in the laundry... maybe it'll come clean and she'll never know.


Today, I committed to an engine position.

This has been a really big deal for a number of reasons.

First off, the tranny and the transfer case are really long, so the farther forward I go with engine/tranny/transfer case, the more room I have for a rear drive shaft. Also, if I'm not careful, the shifters are going to end up behind the driver's seat.

Unfortunately, too far forward, and there's no room for a radiator.

I bought a radiator that "goes" with the LS1 in the Chevy Camaro and Pontiac Firebird, but I'm having second thoughts about using it. That it's too wide, I can work with... that it's too TALL is going to be a bigger problem. If I fab notches in the frame deep enough to seat it FULLY behind the radiator panel, then it will basically be all the way through the front frame rail. I'm probably going to go cutsom on the radiator.

This means I have no idea how much room I need in front of the engine! I gave it as much as I could and said, "screw it... it's time to mount the engine."

This morning, I stitch welded together the halves of the riveted frame rails. The outer wall C-channel material is 3/16" and the inner wall C-channel material is 1/8" and fits inside the outer. Rivets on top and bottom fix them together. I wanted better distribution of support so I ran beads along the edges.

Although I had carefully wire-wheeled all the paint off of the OUTSIDE where I was going to weld, there was no way I could get between the plates and clear out the groove. I just had to suck that part up. Most of the welds went just fine, but occassionally I'd get into some snap crackle and pop that would splash weld metal back on me. OUCH!! When I flipped up my hood, I found that there were flames eminating from the groove ahead of my weld and dense gray smoke filled the garage.

I'm pretty sure I just carved about 2 years off the end of my life.

I looked over my work... some of it was ok, some of it was a little on the snotty looking side... overall not my best but plenty servicable. It was HARD to do the out-of-position welds on the BOTTOM edge of the frame.

Here was my nicest looking weld of the day:



Once done with stitch-welds, I proceeded on to the engine mounting project. I jockeyed the engine back and forth with the tape measure out, numerous times. I started to realize that I had NO FIRM GRASP on what straight, square or plumb meant in reference to the frame! I measured from the frame to the garage floor in several places and was reassured that the frame ran reasonably parallel to the floor as a starting point (plus or minus about a 1/16", actually... and within the warpage of the edges of the beaten, riveted, welded metal). I dropped a level on it and it was pretty close, side to side (bubble between the lines everywhere and centering it perfectly required less than an 1/8" of shimming everywhere I checked. That meant I could use the garage FLOOR as a measuring point.

I decided to fix the mounting points at a height relative to the ground. Since the frame was really really close to flat, the engine would be really really close to correctly aligned to the frame. I used the front cross member as a longitudinal reference point and picked a spot 18.5" back from there to mount to the frame. I marked the spots on both sides with a Sharpie pen and then used every T-square type tool I had to verify that the points where dead-on across from eachother and square to the frame. LUCKY for me, the frame rails run parallel through where the engine is supposed to be, while they flare out after that at some bastard angle that I have yet to determine.

My original plan had been to overlay a plate of 3/16" material over the inside aspect of the frame on both sides, where the mounts were going to lock in.

However, silly me... I made my MOUNTS TOO LONG for that! :mofo:

I had measured the space between the frame rails and I had worried that my welds might be less than perfect. I reasoned that the mounts that went on the engine would be largely put in tension and compression (relatively gentle forces on welds) while the mounting tabs on the frame would be placed in shear (a much more aggressive way to product-test the weld!). Therefore, I wanted to have the SHORTEST LEVER on the weld being put in shear and the longer lever could be given to the tension/compression part. I made the engine mounts long enough to get "close" to the frame rails so that my mounting tabs wouldn't have to stick out very far.

I got *REAL* close!

If the overall space between the frame rails is about 24.5" ... the width of my assembled engine+mounts is 24 and a quarter! There's no better than 1/8" clearance on either side.

Great! ... nice short tabs! :)

However, now I can't box in that part of the frame with 3/16" material to accept the engine mounts!

D'OH! :(

My choices, as I saw them, were:

1) scrap the mounts, modify or make new ones (fat chance!)

2) weld the tabs directly to the 1/8" inner wall material (yeahright!!)

3) use a gusset with a notch to accept the mount (too much fab work)

4) just cut out the inner wall and replace it with 3/16" mounted FLUSH.

Number 4 seemed the most plausible to me, plus I could use the plasma cutter some more!

I chose a segment of the inner wall of the frame which included 3 of the pre-existing cut-outs and I fashioned a mock up plate out of cardboard. As I did, I realized that had I not gone with this technique, I'd have been welding the 3/16" material ON TO the 1/8" material. I wouldn't have been able to weld it to the stronger stuff on the OUTSIDE of the frame, because the inner wall bulges too much (no - not like the FJC aprons ... it's just made that way).

I cut out the shape on both sides of the frame and then shaped two plates to fit inside. With a whole lot of cutting and grinding, they eventually inset nicely and sat flush. I tacked them down and welded them in place.

I brought the engine back in and repositioned it, only to find that I had wire-wheeled my marking points off when I cleaned up my welds!

D'OH! :cowsmile:

After figuring it ALL out again, I got the engine back into its intended position.

After reading as much as I could and calling a few people who know things not in books, I determined that the LS1 engine does NOT need to be mounted at an angle, although it will tolerate one. Some engines apparently benefit from a down-slant in order to get the oil sump to drain TOWARD the pump mechanism.

I figured that this engine is going to spend a LOT of time at odd angles anyhow, so that part doesn't matter.

What matters is that I'm battling with a really short rear driveline and the more pre-angle I can put on it, the less the CV joint will have to suffer through... but the more I down-angle it at the front, the lower the transfer case will end up being at the other end!

So I gave it a hair of down tilt, just for fun. I can't measure the angle with my tools, but I can guestimate by trigonometry and a bubble level that it's about TAN(0.125/19.5)=1.1 degrees.

Unfortunately, the front end of the frame RISES UP AND OVER the front axle. This isn't a flaw, but it is a challenge when I'm trying to figure out where and how to mount the tabs which will accept the engine mounts! Given where the engine ended up, the mounting had to be different in the front and back on each side.

I had bought a stack of 4 pre-made tabs when i was at 4 Wheeler's Supply (I also saw that they've premanufactured another bracket I'll need when it comes time for my disc brake conversion in the rear end! ... that's for later.) I had hoped that having premade tabs would save me some time. It did, but not much in the larger scheme of things.

Finalizing the tabs took a bit more effort, and then I tacked them in place using the engine and it's mounts hanging from the cherry picker as a template. I lifted the engine back out, tapped the tabs square to the frame with a hammer, and finalized the welds.

Here's what it looks like with my inset reinforcing panel and the mounting tabs in place:





Here's how the engine mounts go on the side of the V-8 engine block. Notice the black urethane insert that should let it wiggle a little:



Then I jockeyed the engine back in place and stabbed the bolt on the driver's side:



Unfortunately, the other side doesn't stab so cleanly. I could crush the frame together with a come-along and MAKE it stab, but that's the WRONG ANSWER! I don't want this under tension ALL THE time. I'm going to ream the 1/2" holes with a 9/16" bit and if it looks like I need more, I'll mount with washers between the fastener and the tab.

I'm not too worried about that since the ENGINE doesn't actually pull the car forward, it just TWISTS in place. The grade-8 bolt in the hole will only see shear force... no "out-pull" tension. If it did, I might worry about having a washer resisting the force.

I'm beat.

I was going to go back down there and assemble the clutch tonight, but I think I'll do that first thing in the morning!

Here's my FJC supervising my engine alignment:

 
#28 ·
You're making really good progress. How do you find time for work? :)

That engine is beautiful. The welds are are really nice too.

Bellydoc said:
I figured that this engine is going to spend a LOT of time at odd angles anyhow, so that part doesn't matter.
Lol! :D
 
#29 ·
You're making really good progress. How do you find time for work? :)

That engine is beautiful. The welds are are really nice too.



Lol! :D

I took this week off for nothing else but to get this project *really* started. There is going to be a lull in the activity after that till next month when I've got another week planned, which I hope will be dedicated to tearing down and starting to rebuild the rear axle. I'll be learning all about doing gears.

Thanks to my dutiful nature at work, I forgot to use my vacation this year... now I have to use it up really quick before January!
 
#30 ·
Better get cracking on this project. Can't keep us waiting for an entire month can you? :D. I know what you mean about vacation time. Better use it or lose it!
 
#33 ·
Consider a Chevy 350 engine swap to make a "Chevota". You could have fuel injection, more horsepower and less weight. There are lots of support sources for this maneuver. Downey Offroad's catalog is a GREAT source of info and parts.
 
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