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1971 Body/Chassis FSM

1971-74 F Engine FSM

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Front Heater Fun

Everyone who owns a Cruiser knows what a front heater should look like right? Well I got to poking around on the web and kept seeing pictures of strange under hood blower motors and under dash heaters in other FJ40's. I got to wondering why they had a different heater than what I had. I mean there was no blower under my hood nor was there any duct work under my dash! Yet when I turned on the heater I had hot air blowing out. Well anyway here is what is currently in my Cruiser: As you can see it's not OEM ... Damn PO's ...

Front View

Fig. 1

Front View

Left side

Fig. 2

Left Side

Right Side

Fig. 3

Right Side

When I finally determined that the 1st owner of the truck had, for what ever reason, stripped out all the OEM heater stuff and hand made what you see I was puzzled as to why. Maybe he wanted more leg room under the dash? He did a good job of making this thing and it does work OK but there is no fresh air intake for it. Yeah yeah I know there are so many holes in my Cruiser, who needs a fresh air intake, right? Well I wanted this to be put back more or less stock, so I started looking for heater parts. I scored my first part on E-Bay. A heater blower motor and housing from a 1970 FJ40. The ad said the low speed did not work which from my research I knew was an open blower resistor. In anticipation of winning the part I ordered a 1 Ohm replacement resistor from Allied Electronics.

My First Score

Fig. 4

The 'New' Blower

Bottom

Fig. 5

Bottom Shot

When I got the heater it was exactly as pictured. It worked but was a bit rusty, very dirty, and as expected, the resistor was open. I started pulling it apart to de-rust it and rebuild it.

I put the main housing in the de-rust tank after removing all the rubber parts, and started taking the motor apart. The brushes looked OK, though the commutator was lightly scored. I'll add these parts to the de-rust tank later.

Done De-Rusting 1

Fig. 6

De-Rusted 1

De-Rusted 2

Fig. 7

De-Rusted 2

OEM Sticker!

Fig. 8

OEM Sticker!

Fig's 6,7,8 show the heater housing after 4 days of de-rusting. There were 3 layers of paint, the bottom one a gloss black. The top two bubbled right off but the OEM coat stuck in a couple of places. The last pic shows the OEM sticker someone had painted over.

Same Housing?

Fig. 9

Same Housing?

Same Housing 2

Fig. 10

Same Housing 2

Inside Hard to Clean

Fig. 11

Inside Hard to Clean

No Screen

Fig. 12

No Screen

Amazing what five minutes with a wire wheel on a drill can do to a part after it has gone through the de-rust tank! This is one piece that needs a sand blaster cabinet. The inside is very hard to clean with my current set up using wire wheels. I removed the two screws holding the flop door in place, and removed the door. It still had a piece of foam attached to it. I put the flop door in the de-rust tank overnight, then cleaned it up with the wire wheel. I sat it aside for later coating, and new foam. I ended up using the sand blaster to clean the inside prior to powder coating.

Bearing

Fig. 13

Top Motor Cover/Bearing

 

Now I could start on the motor housing. The bottom bearing looked OK, but the oil felt was dry. I pressed out the bearing with a screwdriver as I don't think putting it in the de-rust tank would do it any good! See Fig. 13. The plate was added to the de-rust tank.

Motor

Fig. 14

Brushes/Motor

Bit of Scoring

Fig. 15

Bit of Scoring

Bottom Motor Hosing

Fig. 16

Bottom Motor Housing

Bottom Outside

Fig. 17

Bottom Outside

The motor and brush assembly appeared clean, and the brushes still have 1/2 their length. However, the commutator was scored pretty deep, and needed attention. See Fig. 15. The motor housing was added to the de-rust tank after removing the bearing. Fig. 16 shows the bottom housing with parts labeled, and Fig. 17 shows the housing outside before putting in the tank.

Armature

Fig. 18

Armature in Chuck

Next I started working on the brushes and commutator. When you take this apart, be aware of the small bearing shims on the motor shafts! They must go back in the same place in order to maintain the bearing end play! In order to get the scoring out of the commutator, I chucked the armature shaft into a drill that was clamped in a vice. See Fig. 18. I ran the drill at low RPM and used a commutator dressing stone to dress the scoring out. (You can also use fine 400 grit sand paper.) Be careful to keep the commutator moving at all times so you don't create flat spots on it! I followed this with some 1000 grit sand paper, and then blew out all the dust.

Now I could address the brushes themselves. I used a flap wheel on a Dremel tool to square up the brushes and remove all the scoring. Fig. 19 shows the left brush after dressing and the right brush to be done. Notice the right brush has a very concave face?

Brushes

Fig. 19

Dressed Brush

I set all the internal motor parts aside and tackled the motor end housings. They contained an oiling felt that looked to be made of white felt. I looked on the web and found references to felt being used as an insulation, and was supposedly good to 1000 degrees. So... I coated the smaller cap with StarDust Silver powder, and popped it in the oven at 400 degrees for 12 minutes. Fig. 20 shows the outside of the cap. Looks good right? Well, see Fig. 21 for what happened to the felt ... It just turned to ash. I guess this was cotton felt, not fiberglass felt? I removed all I could get, blew it out, then considered drilling out the rivets and taking it apart to replace the felt. After realizing that the rivets also held the bearing retainers in place I decided to just replace the felt without that step. I found some green 'pool table' felt at a craft store and using a large washer as a template I cut out two pieces and worked them in under the bearing retainer clips. Then I used the smaller scrap pieces, and worked them into the spaces in between. Next I applied 30 weight motor oil. For those that may not know, the felt holds a lot of oil and through wicking (capillary action), it keeps the bearing lubricated for a LONG time. See Fig. 22.

Outside After Powder

Fig. 20

Cover Powder Coated

Burned Felt

Fig. 21

Burned Felt

New Felt

Fig. 22

New Felt

Since the next part to be powder coated was the main housing, I had to fix one thing that was bugging me about it. The OEM resistor for low speed is no longer available, and the replacement resistors available from Mouser and other places are a tad longer, and won't fit into the factory brackets. I decided to fix this problem. First I drilled out the spot welds holding the OEM brackets. See Fig. 23. I then welded up the olds holes Fig. 24, moved the brackets back, and to the left, Fig. 25 then welded them in their new location. Fig. 26 shows the new resistor I got from Allied Electronics. Ohmite Part# L50J1RO It 's a 1 ohm, 50 watt resistor. Fig. 27 shows it mounted in place.

Old Removed

Fig. 23

Old Removed

Holes welded up

Fig. 24

Holes welded up

New Location

Fig. 25

New Location

New Resistor

 

Fig. 26

New Resistor

New Resistor in new place

Fig. 27

New Resistor in new place

 

I decided to coat the main blower housing gloss black. This piece was a pain in the ass to get coated properly! There are so many angles, and interior places to coat that I had to do it twice to get it halfway right. Anyway Fig. 28 shows the final results of all the hard work.

 

Fig. 28

Finished!

All Done and assembled

 

Heater Duct

Another E-Bay Find

Fig. 29

Duct Top

Bottom

Fig. 30

Duct Bottom

 

Plastic Paint

Fig. 31

Plastic Paint

All Purty

Fig. 32

All Cleaned and Painted

The next piece I scored on E-Bay, was the front heater duct. As you can see from the above pics (Fig. 29-30), it was dirty, the brackets were rusted, and someone had cut it with a saw at some point it it's life. I removed all the brackets, placed them in the de-rust tank, then cleaned the housing. Next I used some JB Weld to repair the cut place in the housing. After sanding that down I sanded the whole thing just to rough it up a bit then applied two coats of clear Dupli-Color Adhesion Promoter then three coats of black Dupli-Color Bumper/Trim paint. It came out looking brand new! After de-rusting the brackets, I powder coated them with StarDust Silver and reattached them. Big difference between Fig. 30 and 32!

Front Heater Box

I finally acquired a front heater box! I went to a TLCA club meeting 8/27/2006, and Jamie, one of our members, had a box out of a 1974. I have determined that it is actually a 73. Here are some before shots of it.

Front

Fig. 33

Front

Right Side

Fig. 34

Right Side

Back Side

Fig. 35

Back Side

Left Side

Fig. 36

Left Side

Top Side

Fig. 37

Top Side

Bottom Side

Fig. 38

Bottom Side

Before

It is missing some screws, the flap is frozen with rust, the foam seal is gone, and the knob is missing for the defrost. I have ordered a kit to replace the foam and screws from aatlas1x@aol.com. I also got the OEM replica stickers from him. See pic of rebuild kit below...

Rebuild Kit

 

Disassembly

JIS

Fig. 39

JIS Screwdrivers

Left Side Off

Fig. 40

Left Side Off

Core out

Fig. 41

Core out

Pheeeeuuuuwwww!

Fig. 42

Pheeeeuuuuwwww!

 

  1. Remove the six phillips screws from the heater box. I wanted to mention something I just found out. Japanese 'Phillips' screws should be removed with a JIS screwdriver NOT a #2 Phillips. There IS a difference! I ordered a set of JIS screwdrivers from Central Hobbies and they are a quality tool! They fit the metric screw heads perfectly. See Fig. 39 for a pic of the screwdrivers.
  2. Gently pry the left side cover off. There should be a molded foam rubber piece glued into the end cover that acts as the shock absorber for the core. You can now see the core. See Fig. 40.
  3. Grasp the core gently and wiggle it out of the box. Another molded end piece may come with it. If not there should be one glued into the box. See Fig . 41. If your box does not have these you will need to make something to protect the core from shock. You can also see the defrost flap now. If you removed all the screws you should be able to remove it also.
  4. Fig. 42 shows what many years of use, and a mouse nest or two can do to your heater core! This one was totally clogged. Believe it or not there is a two bulb fluorescent light on behind the core!

Core Cleaning

At this point, I put all the pieces into the de-rust tank and started cleaning the heater core. First I sprayed water through the back to dislodge the majority of the crud, then sprayed it down with a detergent solution, and let it soak for a while. More water through the back then a soft bristled brush to remove more stuff. Repeat till satisfied! Once I had it mostly clean I put on  my gloves and mixed up a solution of Muriatic Acid and water. I used a funnel and filled the heater core with this solution, and let it soak for several hours. A LOT of hardened crud came out when I poured the solution out. I poured the acid from the core through a coffee filter so I could reuse it. I flushed the core out several times with the solution until stuff quit coming out then flushed it thoroughly with water. I used my compressor to pressure test it to 15 psi and found no leaks. See Fig. 43 for the cleaned heater core. Now you can see the light shining through!

Cleaned Heater Core

Fig. 43

Cleaned Heater Core

Repairing the diverter handle

Missing Lever

Fig. 44

Missing Lever

Fabbed Piece

Fig. 45

Fabbed Piece

Welded, ground, blasted

Fig. 46

Welded, ground, blasted

 

Now the observant among you may have noticed the missing lever in Fig. 36 & 44? Well I looked on the web, and found some pics of what it was supposed to look like and made one from 16ga. See Fig. 45. It took three attempts to get the settings correct on the welder! Anyway it turned out well. See Fig. 46. Anybody have a heater knob they want to part with?

Powder Coating

Cleaned Blasted

Fig. 44

Cleaned Blasted

Ready for Oven

Fig. 45

Ready for Oven

Podwer Coated

Fig. 46

Nice!

 

Fig. 47

 

 

Fig. 48

 

 

Fig. 49

 

OK, now that the parts were de-rusted, I took a drill mounted wire brush and tried to remove the remaining crud.  That did not work so I put it in the sand blaster that I recently acquired. That did the trick! See Fig. 44.

I wiped all surfaces down with acetone and powder coated the entire box assembly with Star Dust Silver powder. See Fig. 45-46.

I replaced all the screws with the ones I got in the rebuild kit, then replaced the defroster divert door foam. Last I put on the sticker I got from AATALS1X.  See Fig. 47-49.

 

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