johnny.race

Right! More progress. I got the counterweights removed. Heavy fuckers. There were two of them weighing a total of just over 600kg. This is the 400kg one sitting on my cross country little arsed trolley I made for carrying heavy stuff across my metaled driveway. Handy as fuck. Made from Honda (or Nissan - can't remember) rear beam axles. One day I intend to own a tractor but until then this will have to do me. Clean as! Used engine degreaser followed by prolonged steam cleaning. Made a mess of my driveway but in a spot that gets used for nothing. Also thought ahead and placed a piece of scrap sheet down underneath to zero in on the leaks. So far i have identified 5 major leak spots and am setting about identifying in detail what needs tightening, replacing and or something else doing. This nek pic is a source of one of them. This yellow thing with all the hoses going into it. Does anyone know what it's called? The hoses are all from the hand control joy sticks. I have not got a manual and the online schematics I can find confuse the hell outta me. Anyone know the name of it? So I can further discuss with a local workshop what the best course of action might be. It's leaking around the end join between the end cap and the barrel of the body. This leak is one of my major ones that drip directly onto the rubber tracks then down onto the undercarriage which shits me.

This is my Komatsu Digger. It's a 3 tonner of (probably) 90's vintage and has done unknown hours. It's in worn/well used state, is still operable, does not use water or engine oil ... but does leak hydraulic fluid (and possibly diesel) underneath from places, has worn broken plastic covers, dented steel covers - and is in over all poor (unloved) condition. I have need of an excavator to do work on our little block. My intention is to fix/maintain/use and modify this machine to suit me and my needs. I have allocated a park space in another shed where this park. It has a lower roof than my workshop so in preparation for this I removed the ROP's. Our block is flat and I will not be getting up to anything freaky. It's not going back on. Nek trick will be removing the counterweights. Everything's fucking hard when there is only one of you and you're old. My intention is to strip this down as much as possible yet still keep it mobile. I want to be able to shift it outside so i can clean it to allow me to see what I'm actually fucking with in terms of leaks and broken things. Fuck me ... there are obviously tricks of the trade when it comes to fucking with these things. I have a question though. I want to rip all of the existing wiring out from this machine and replace it with a basic push button starting, and charging circuit. I would plan to incorporate the factory start/inhibitor switch with the addition of a main battery disconnect. Race car style. Fuck all but simple and reliable. I plan to run 3 mechanical gauges ... water temp, engine oil pressure and hydraulic oil temp. Everything else has sight glass or dip stick. Question ... do the hydraulics on something this old have any electrical sensors (or anything) that hook into the factory loom? I've looked and can't see anything. I have not got a manual, but i thought with something this old there'd be nothing like that. Anyone know? This project is slow time for me. I know what I want (a rat excavator, lol!) at the end of it - an older machine that is mechanically sound and reliable ... looks not so much.

Hi, if a pickup chassis is found to be rusty/cracked and it's easier to replace the entire frame with another same type/model ... does the vehicle have to undergo a cert inspection? If not - is there a form or something you fill in to say a replacement chassis has been fitted featuring a different chassis number? The rusty vehicle is live, the other is from something dead to the system. Ta.

I thought the most straight forward way would have been obtaining a pair of KUN26 non ABS axles and machining them to suit. There would be no welding involved, thus removing most any reason for cert rebuttal (is that the correct terminology?) due to your axles. To ensure you get what you're paying for supply the axles along with a new rotor and new small headed wheelstuds. Ask to see their press for removing bearings. If they don't have one but you see a BFH on the bench by a whole lot of wheelbearings - remove the bearings yourself. They'll be smacking them off for sure along with nicking the journal with a cut off wheel. This fucks the axle by giving you a start point for wheel separation. Giving them a side gear from out of a head would be good also. Tell them you want a better fit than stock since they are providing a new spline. Tell them you want minimal back cut after the spline - enough to allow a smooth as transition back to OEM shaft diameter. Basically you want them to know that you know what you are after. There is a shit-tonne of shitty work out there that you want no part of. Tell them you want maximum fillet left of the OEM fillet on the back side of the flange. Failure to insist on this will see you negate alot of the OEM strength they put into the original item. I can get a PCD of 110mm (I think if I remember right) on the factory 2WD fillet diameter size (without any machining) using NICE style small headed wheel studs. The 4WD fillet is way bigger and will need machining down but only so much as it needs to be. Good luck whichever way you decide to go.

The stock length of the shit loads of Surf axles I've seen is all the same at 720mm +-2mm long. The max length of axle you can get out of one of those with just straight resplining is 640mm. As mentioned previously - up to and including the entire length of 720mm is available if you chose to go the low hydrogen rod build up route.

No KUN16 is the 2WD version of the KUN26 which is the 4WD. Both models have the same width differential but different brake hub register diameters. When you purchase an axle from a wrecker it will not be stripped. it will come with the bearing housing still attached to the backing plate assembly. I didn't know 4WD bits sold aftermarket axles. You can't tell the difference unless you know what you're looking at with Howatts axles. The part that is different is that if you send down say a pair of LN85 axles for him to rework ... the brake hub register will come back filled with weld. He bores the flange for a press/shrinked on fit. Then welds the end for good measure. The axles themselves feature a slightly larger diameter than an OEM Hilux axle because they started life as a oh so fine piece of 4340 bar stock.

A 652mm long axle is a prick of a size to make unless you; use something like a KUN series axle or build up (with weld) an early style axle (at the pointy end) with a low hydrogen rod or similar. If you are of the type of dude that does not mind someone blazing away at the pointy end of your axle then near any of the early type of axle will suffice. Their length is sufficient to get a 652mm length out of the axle. Surf would probably be the most plentiful axle around as a core axle at a guess. But something like that. I can get a 68mm diameter brake register out of a Surf style axle with no blazing (to fill) of the brake register. It's a touch and go situation (like fucking close) but you can get a firm slide fit (no slop) if you are competent. If you aren't and you rip shit and bust your way in then you'll take too much off and the axle will be fucked without resorting to welding. Yuk. A side note ... there is a difference between tacking captive a hub ring on an axle flange as opposed to filling in the center. You just need to think your way through each operation because it's friggin' hard to put material back on an axle as opposed to taking it off. The no welding way is to use a non ABS KUN series (KUN26 I think) axle(s) They have the shaft length that will allow you to obtain the 652mm without any welding at all. The down side to using KUN stuff is these style of axles are still being wrecked by wreckers so you'll be paying wrecker prices for the cores. You could use 2WD axle cores but you'd be welding up the axle flanges. The upside to this is you start with a decent brake hub register to machine. You end up with a much nicer register to center the brake rotor. LN85 (or similar) if blazing up the pointy end or KUN16 (I think) if the no blazing option is chosen. A downside for you if using any KUN stuff though is that they use a later version of bearing holder. They look similar (very) but they are different. They take different bearings and feature different bearing offset. An upside for you is that even though the bearing holder is different than the earlier stuff - it will still work with your existing housing. Stay away from the Hiace KDH (I think they are called - but you can tell the housing if you know what you are looking at) These axles will not work with your housing and bearing holder. Their wheelbearings are different and ching but they are a very HD piece indeed. I've used these axles for guys before because they are plentiful at the commercial wreckers still. I'm not offering to do any axle rework just so you know. I'm out of it for awhile doing other stuff. Don't miss it one bit. Price wise ... I'd be charging between 500 - 700 for the machine work per axle, then there'd be the costs for the small headed wheelstuds you'd be needing and the new wheelbearings. One top of this is the wreckers cut for the KUN cores. So yeah. I've never built up axles with weld or had anything to do with machining any either although I know they do it in town though. I always thought Howatt was good value when a particular length axle was required proved unobtainable through normal methods. I've seen some of his work ... he used to build the extra long axles for stockcars running extreme diff center offset. I've seen because I was contracted to build the short side for these diffs. He cuts the flange off and axle and bores it for the press fit of a piece of 4340 bar stock that he has run a spline on. He gets the entire item hardened. The reason I never got into building the pointy end of axles up with weld is because I never found anyone that could explain convincingly how exposing the thinnest point of an axle to repeated extreme heat applications was any better than welding two bits of axle together. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I hope the attached blurb provides some insight for ya. Cheers.

I beg to differ brother ... it is my experience there are 2 different wheel bearings for the G series of the era you are talking about (I'm guessing 'up to circa 1998') and every factory G axle destined for a rear axle application featured a tapered down neck area between the shaft length and spline. The only difference (talking of the tapered down area) is the length and diameter. Just from the few I've seen.

Hello, what length axle do you want to end up with. Measure from the flange edge (hook the end of your tape measure over the edge/lip/end of the flange) to the end of the spline. It don't matter that you are measuring seemingly crooked sorta ... like you are measuring the hypotenuse - just measure it like explained. It's how I measure and it's so we can talk off the same sheet of paper. Nek question, what's it going into? How many wheel stud and what diameter brake hub register is it ... LN106/LN65 or KZ130 if its 6 stud or if it's 5 ... late model KUN upwards or the early type (for ex LN85/90 etc) Let me know and I might be able to help you out with identifying a suitable core or axle. In the just so you know category, sourcing then obtaining certain axle lengths is not cheap anymore neither is decent machine work. These axle don't grow in wreckers yards hardly at all now - as you're probably/or about to find out. Good luck.

Sorry bud, I put you wrong. I was out of the shed and after awhile they all start looking the same. Anyway this pic shows 2 x Hilux diff heads. The one on the l/h side is a LSD. The one on the right is a 4 Pinion. Both are 4 Pinion but only the LSD one has the frictions and steels. That's why the carrier is bigger/fatter (like meee!) This is the LSD one. See how close and minimal gap there is between the carrier and the bearing cap? Compared to this one which has a bigger gap because the carrier is smaller. Both have those windows in the housing making them look similar.

Oof, late to the party. That pic up in the first post is a 4 pinion/non LSD as correctly stated by those up above in the know. The LSD version is also a 4 pinion (which as alluded to above) but is a different (though sorta similar looking) carrier.

Decades ago I used to work at Motor Trucks Industries in Palmerston North. The Mack's and ERF's came into the country CKD. I used to work in the chassis side of the house. My foreman was always anal about the cleanliness of the inner and outer frame rails being before we riveted them together. He obviously knew something but I'd never even heard of the term 'Heave' back then. The chassis were put together wearing primer. This primer had been sanded down by a DA in places in order to get rid of the drill swarf (and sticking out bits) from when we used to drill the chassis to suit the customers required wheelbase. In hindsight, if both the inner and outer rails took a detour through the paint shop to get a decent coating of non porous paint prior to turning up at the chassis department - the potential for heave in those chassis' would be somewhat diminished I'm thinking.

@tortron Thanks man, excellent clip. Ta.

It's been done a million times but do you think I can get a concise answer of the way it is accomplished? Fuck me! Oh yeah, there is the fact I forget shit easy, haha. But is there anyone that can provide me clear advice on how to go about doing it please. Is it just a special flex plate or something ... my existing starter would still work with it et al. Help. Ta.

Oof! Haha! oh well. It looked to be a nice bit of kit. Flex? Maybe something cobbled up using double shear bracketry if I'm reading it right. But yeah, good to know bro. Cheers.