Bigfoot Stage 6

February 18, 2009 by admin

Operation Bigfoot – Stage 6

We now lowered the body back into position so that we could mount the auto shift assembly and transfer case lever through the floor cover.

The shift assembly is from an HJ60 auto (1988 model) with the gate and Tbar from a late model Commodore.

body in position

The body is full fibreglass (recycled of course).

recycled fibreglass body

The rear wheel arches had to be cut out to allow clearance for the larger tyres. Extended fibreglass flares (from OZ East at Noosa) were then fitted to the body. Now it is time to call the painter.

He will first paint the inside cabin area and the under body before the body is finally fitted to the chassis.

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Bigfoot Stage 5

February 18, 2009 by admin

Operation Bigfoot – Stage 5

Time to do some plumbing.

Power steering lines were made linking the original Chev power steering pump to the HJ60 Landcruiser steering box. While doing this, we installed an oil cooler (from GQ Nissan Patrol), and mounted it to the front of the chassis.

oil cooler

All the original brake lines were fitted. The fuel & return lines along with the fuel pump were from a Daihatsu Feroza, with some rebending & the pump mounted towards the rear of the chassis. Fuel tank used is from a Rodeo and mounted in the rear of the chassis behind the the diff.

fuel pump

By putting the tank here, we then eliminated having to use the original tank under the driver’s seat. We used a radiator and support out of an HJ47 Landcruiser. First the bottom tank was removed, and a top tank was fitted to the bottom which in turn had an auto cooling tube installed before refitting the bottom tank.

fuel tank

Auto cooling pipes were then made & installed.

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Bigfoot Stage 4

February 18, 2009 by admin

Operation Bigfoot – Stage 4

Now having all alterations finalised to the chassis we removed all parts from the chassis, sandblasted, painted and reassembled the BigfOOt. The next step was to fit the tailshafts.

sandblasted, painted and reassembled chassis

For the rear, we used an FJ73 rear shortened (tube length 100mm). For the front, not so easy. The sump on the Turbo 700 auto is wide, limiting clearance for the tailshaft location. To get around this problem, first we fitted a front transfer case output drive flange (from an HZJ75 Landcruiser), which allowed us to now use a Hilux front slip yoke & companion flange assembly. A Mitsubishi Pajero front tailshaft tube (500mm in length) was small enough in diameter to give us the required auto sump clearance.

We then welded an HJ75 companion flange to the diff end & installed the balanced tailshaft.

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Bigfoot Stage 3

February 18, 2009 by admin

Operation Bigfoot – Stage 3

The motor & transmission for this project is Chev 305 with centre port fuel injection coupled to a Turbo 700 Overdrive 4 Speed Auto.

Turbo 700 Overdrive 4 Speed Auto

A Marks 4X4 adaptor kit was then used to couple the transfer case assembly (from 88 Landcruiser) to the Turbo 700. The motor & transmission assembly was then aligned in the chassis.

Turbo 700 Overdrive 4 Speed Auto & Chassis

An HJ60 rear gearbox x/member was used (as it is 50mm wider than the 40#) to accommodate the spread in the chassis. The tailshaft (rear) alignment was checked & we proceeded to weld the rear gearbox x/member mount plates to the chassis. Front engine mounts were then fabricated to incorporate Holden/Chev engine mounts.

Care was taken in this step to ensure the front diff assembly had sufficient clearance with the engine sump.

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Bigfoot Stage 2

February 18, 2009 by admin

Operation Bigfoot – Stage 2

The next alteration to the chassis was to mount a 1983 FJ60 steering box. This required plating & spacer tubes to be fitted to the inside edge RH front section of the chassis. By using the 60# steering box allowed us to use FJ/HJ75# steering arms & drag links. We could now do away with the original steering damper, arms and drag links. The steering damper used is 60#/75# Landcruiser, which required us to relocate the fixed end to the chassis. For this we used the steering damper mount bracket from a 1982 HJ60 Landcruiser.

1983 FJ60 steering box mounted

The one problem with using the 60# steering box was it clashed with the position of the top front shocky towers. As we have fitted dual shockies, care had to be taken when remounting these to the chassis. The dual lower mount blocks fabricated and welded to the front diff housing all had to be carefully aligned before fixing to the chassis & diff housing.

lower mount blocks

The diff housing we selected to use was from a 1984-BJ42. By using a BJ42 rear diff housing we were now able to incorporate all the hand brake assembly from 84 Landcruiser 40#/60#/70# and the cable can only be from a BJ42. No transmission handbrake is required now.

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Bigfoot Stage 1

February 18, 2009 by admin

Operation Bigfoot – Stage 1

To start the project, we selected a FJ40 chassis (’78 vintage) from our recycled stock.

We removed all the spring hangers and proceeded to graft 40mm channel blocks in the position of the hangers. Our reason for this alteration was to gain extra ground clearance and allow us to use hangers and springs from a 1988 FJ73 Landcruiser.

40mm channel blocks added

The chassis had 50mm spacer blocks attached to the cab mount positions to lift the body off the chassis. We had to reposition the hangers because the centre bolt and length of the springs are different to the original FJ40 configuration. An extra shocky top mount pin was added to the rear crossmember to allow us to fit dual shockies to the rear.

50mm spacer links

dual shockies fitted to the rear

To accommodate the dual rear shockies we now had to put dual pins on the rear lower springs plates. We selected to use HJ75 plates which now allowed us to incorporate later model shockies with larger eyes.

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