Chris-

Why not tip those shocks in, instead of verticle?

Also, did you get some rubber to isolate that radiator? The brackets are great, but that thing is waaaay too tight. It will probably destroy itself.

Lookin' good.
Michael

I wanted to get the most dampening out of the shocks and you're supposed to mount them vertical. As you tip them they become less and less effective. I put some rubber on part of the radiator mount and I'll keep checking the radiator to see if I have to add more once I get driving.

Built some front bumps and shockmounts. The tried and tested ford tower would not work because clearance between my steering shaft and shock body was too tight. I was just going to buy some shock hoops from trail-gear seeing as they were only $50 but I wanted them right away as they were holding up the rest of the project.

So I made a friend with a guy who had a bender near me and he bent me some U's out of 1.75x.120 HREW.

Cut some tabs with a holesaw and welded them on. The tabs being offset (rather than straight down) like this gets the shock tilted in a little bit out of the way of the tires on compression, and more importantly lets you put in the bolt. Ask me how I know that...



Not having a notcher I did a little freestyle notching with the vice and angle grinder.


Welded on some supports. They are tilted to match the axle and so both legs of the hoop are the same length.




This was proabbly my best weld on the tube. Definetly a little learing curve welding on something curved. (I tried some exhaust before but this was the first time on something structural) I found myself getting lazy on some parts and keeping my hands stationary and just follwing the curve with the wire. I think forcing yourself to follow the curve is the hardest part.




Found a use for the discs I cut out earlier. You can also see my flamboyant bumpstop. (from early montero)


Not much left of that inner fender.



Found out how to mount the front of my cab without using the stock mounts. I made brackets out of 16ga. and the bushings are old exhaust donuts. Not pictured is a crossbar I made out of 1x1x 1/32 that ties L&R sides together over the radiator. The front is still a little flimsy but it will do for now. The fenders will add some stiffness. I can always go back later and add more tabs. just so glad I didn't have to reuse the front body mounts. (thanks for the idea bansil)




2nd Gen power steering resivoir. This thing is the bomb. Built in screen and gasketed in case you roll over, ha ha. Nice upgrade from an older unit. FYI the small port on the res is around 3/8 which is the same as the Toyota box output. I used a 3/8 in/out cooler to make plumbing easy also. The res big port is about 5/8 which matches my GM pump input.

The pressure line was reused from the orignial GM 3.1. I just viced and beat it into the right shape I wanted. The box side is 10mm x 1.25 inverted flare and the pump side is 10mm x 1.25 O-ring.

Another FYI for 3800 swappers is this pump's inlet tube is a press fit into the pump. In stock form it is pointed forward but I put it into a vice and hammered it until it spun towards the driver's side.

The bracket is from the evap canister mount.

2nd Gen power steering resivoir. This thing is the bomb. Built in screen and gasketed in case you roll over, ha ha. Nice upgrade from an older unit.

Just a FYI for anyone else looking for one of these. Except for the 2.8, using the GM pump with the integrated resivoir, Isuzu has been using this resivoir on the 4 bangers since at least 88.

Michael

I'm 99% sure I am just going to rewire this truck. Not from scratch but pretty close. The stock harness has been stripped of all fuel injection and emissions circuits, A/C, ABS, most of the display circuits and warning lights and a few lighting circuits. The engine harness is a alsmost done and I'm going to keep it seperate from the rest of the wiring. So many connectors have like 6 wires sticking out of them when they orignially housed 10-15. Many of the relays and fuse slots are not used. A lot of the scraps left over are making it confusing to understand how it will go back together. Plus I'm putting my battery in the bed.



What I'm thinking is reinstalling the heating system completely except for the dash ducts and leaving the heating in defrost mode only. That will give me access to the dash and steering column support bars to attach a 7x11 piece of thin aluminum sheet to which I can remount all the fuses and relays in one consolidated place. Then I can throw a piece of lexan over it to protect it from water and dirt etc.



Even though this sounds like a lot of unnecessary work, I think it might be easier to go through the circuits one by one laying down new wires and connectors versus trying to decrypt the stock harness. There are pretty much shorter paths for everything I am reinstalling anyway and I'd like to use some weatherpack connectors.



Anyone have any sources for relay and fuse panels, the kinds where a common hot busbar runs behind that you can seperate? I was looking at waytechwire.com and another site for supplies.



Also anyone know where you can bu like 25 foot spools of primary and crosslink wire, a lot of the mail order places are like 100ft minimum and don't cary a loit of colors. Any comments? good idea, bad idea? I think sometimes the easiest way to do things you don't fully understand is just to start from scratch-- hoping that wil be the right move here as it has been for other facets of the project.

front brake lines.

I used a combination of straight lengths of 3/16 line from the parts store and a 20' roll of 3/16 tubing from www.inlinetube.com. The cheap summitracing proportioning valve ($35), a 3/8"-24 T fitting, a few 3/8"-24 fittings for the t fitting and prop valve and scavenged a few 10mmx1.0 metric brake fittings from my old lines.

I found it was so much easier to use the straight tubing and bend it to fit than the coiled tubing. Also noticed flaring takes a ton of patience to get right and where possible I used a factory flared section, at least on one end..

The front brake lines are 94 nissan 240ZX front brake lines that are about 24" long and have a female m10x1.0 fitting onboth ends. Since I cut down the factory dust shields, I needed to build another caliper brake line bracket. used a 3.5"x1.5" piece of 16 ga. the hose goes through a 5/8" hole and secured with the clip. The other end is secured with the upper caliper bolt. I think this is the best mounting for these lines. The alternative is using the caliper mounting bolt and if you have to remove it on the trail you could bend the line. I also saw guys mount them from the steering arm, and like the caliper mounting bolt, that might get in the way when you have to remove the arm.

I need to add more brake line clips and maybe some springs to hold the rubber hose.






Oil filter relocation kit. The hose is mcmaster p/n 54765K23, high pressure 300psi buna-N rubber designed for oil transport at high temps. I might get some hydraulic lines made at some point but these will work fine for now.

Started working on the electrical. I put all the relays and power distribution into a 8x16x2" aluminum project box that is getting mounted to my dash support bar. 4ga wire comes in off the battery which is mounted behind the driver's seat, to a 100amp auto reset breaker. Two mini-fuse blocks hold 20 fuses and tab mounted relays are in the upper right hand corner. I only need 3 relays so the rest are extras for now. The little bundles of wires are: always hot, hot in ACC and ON, and hot in ON and START.

I need 3 terminal post things or something to make them all connect to. I have a few screw-in type terminal strips and I was thinking of using one side to connect the wires, and the other I could piggy back every terminal together then only need one lead powering the strip. But in that situation, the terminal connected to the power lead would have to support all the power and these strips are only rated to 20A. Does anyone know of some thing that would work in this application?

Are you talking about the screw terminal strips being rated for 20 amps? I would think that would be 20 amps per circuit. I *think* you're talking about jumpering one side together to form a common bus, right? If so, that 20 amp rating doesn't really apply since that's per circuit. So you'd need to figure out a way for the jumpers to carry a heavier load. Or am I totally off base here and you're not talking about what I described above? Some electronics shops even sell metal jumpers that you can create a common bus with. And they do make a single bus screw terminal like the one you have pictured, they're just kind of hard to come by, I don't even remember where it was that I saw them.

Yeah but wouldn't the jumper wires need to be of the same guage as the "feed" wire since the jumpers are going to carry the whole load? Plus that would be hokey I think I am just going to solder them all to one 10 guage wire and not even use anything.

mounted batt behind driver's seat. reused ground cable. The little tab was already there to ground something, so I just made it the cab ground. Welded a bolt to the cab.


(-) cable grounds frame using another bolt welded. i just twisted the cable to keep it out of harms way.


Those are 1/2" emt conduit straps wrappped in elec tape with self tapping screws. Cheap and works


This 1' cable grounds engine block.



This is the megasquirt relay/powerboard. It is designed for people who need fuel pump relay circuits (like on a carb conversion), and/or those who replace their entire wiring harness. It is also used to simplify the wiring runs as each sensor has its own little screw terminal to a common ground. This is part of the reason I ripped the stock relay box. Most of the stock box's functionality is contained here. Main, and fuel pump fuses and relays. They say you can mount it as-is but I think the guy who said that did not drive his little british car through the woods. So I used a radioshack project box.

All my efi wires are going through a grommet holder thing that will be welded to the evaporator core bulkhead. All other wires will go through the lower hole, the evaporator drip port thing.




I need a permanent solution for this. For now I took the stock throttle cable eyelet, cut the end off and welded the eye to a nut I drilled and tapped to make a set screw to hold the cable. I need to find one that can be swaged on or make one more sturdy. If you know where I can get small cable eyelets let me know. I shortened the throttle cable about 1 foot also.



The JB weld B.S. was not working out as it was sagging too much before drying. My idea was to get a machinist turn me a sleeve that is 3.5" OD (the id of my rubber elbow) and about 3.3" ID, which would slip over the end of TB. I almost told a machinist to make me one at the hourly rate when I found my solution online for $1.99. It is one inch of 3.5"OD aluminum tubing, 3.3 ID. Onlinemetals.com. No minimum orders. Cool company if you need a small order.



I used some plumbers epoxy for smoothing it out. Anyone use this stuff before? I read about it online. I'm assuming a light coat then dry overnight, sand then reapply until it is a nice even surface. This should give me a strong even round surface to clamp my intake to.



This is kind of where I'm going with the dash. I'm going to try some acrylic sheet. Anyone use it before for a dash? i was thinking if it gets really scratched up when cutting pieces out, i could paint it. The power box will have to get a piece also (seperate).