Varg In Jeep's Clothing

Holy crap!! What a great idea. I'm loading that into the long term idea pipeline.

 

Just sayin':

 

Just to be hunk outside the box, instead of a primary bump top what about airbags? Infinitely adjustable.

 

Sorry, just saw this.
I had air bags ordered when I was building this. They never showed up, I cancelled the order, I never revisited it. I might go down that road some day.

 

A few weekends ago, my GF and I took the jeep camping with us. We planned on taking a long drive in the mountains on Saturday to see where the snow levels were at.

Around 8 miles from camp, I noticed the voltmeter was only reading around 10.5V. I pulled over to check the belt and jiggle wires. The belt was fine, wires looked good; the alternator must’ve just died. I hit the battery cutoff switch just to make sure the gauge wasn’t the culprit, and it died instantly. I made it back to camp and pulled the DS fender to expose the alternator and removed it.
Here is one of the greatest alternator designs in history: Ask yourself what are the three main causes of alternator failure? Bearings, brushes, and the voltage regulator. This design has two of those parts in one easy-to remove package! The brushes and regulator are held in the back with two screws.



I pulled that piece out and could see immediately what the issue was. One of the two brushes was very short and didn’t have a shiny contact surface because it could no longer reach the shaft.



I grabbed a torch, a screwdriver, and the abrasive strip from a box of matches. I heated the screwdriver and held it against the soldered post on the back of the short brush while pushing hard. It slowly moved down about 1/16”. I used the strip from the matchbox to clean all of the contact surfaces. I put it back together, and we had power!

The rest of the day was fun, but I was having issues with the fan clutch not kicking on like normal. By the middle of the trip, it wasn’t kicking on at all. The clutch was dead. Luckily we were were up in snow by that point, and every 1/2 mile or so I’d stop and pack the radiator with snow to keep the temps reasonable until we got back out onto the road.

When I got home, I ordered a new brush/regulator, and I opted for the factory replacement “tropical” fan clutch ($30 premium) that is supposed to come on at lower temps. They showed up on Tuesday and I got them installed yesterday.

Here’s the old worn out module



VS the new one (it was $35)



New clutch VS old one



We’re heading out again this weekend, I’ll give a report next week on how the “tropical” clutch works!

 

It's always somethin'.

 

So, just what is this "greatest alternator in history"?

 

It’s a Bosch unit that came with the ‘87 Volvo engine. 80 amp.

Front and rear bearings for it are also available on Rockauto for around $11 each.

 

Thx. FWIW, Bosch alternators on T1N Sprinters have a similar feature.

 

Update: the alternator works as it’s supposed to, and the fan… oh man, the fan! It’s very apparent now that the old clutch was never operating correctly, and slowly got worse until failure. This new one works flawlessly. It comes on at 200-205° and kicks back off at 185° like clockwork, regardless of rpm. Super happy with this jeep.

Next up is the front brakes. New pads and rotors are needed, and my research is showing that it’s a mix/match of parts from different eras of Toyota trucks.

 

Like that alternator. Here is a 100 amp (???..Listed as 80 but specs say 100 ) unit based on your 1987 Volvo application. Not that the 80 wouldn't be sufficient for winching. Just asking. Might have to put one of these on Buford.
Looks like the same design???

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=6676728&cc=1288357&pt=2412&jsn=449

 

My interest is peaked as well, Bosch says on the website they make universal 80 amp and 120 amp versions of this alternator. Bosch brand however is $$$

 

Looks the same to me. I know they didn’t change much over the years.

 

My ‘77 VW Scirocco lost the charging system about 8 hours into a 16 hour trip back in the early 1980’s. Same issue with the brushes worn short (after about 180,000 miles). Under an overpass in a driving rainstorm outside Richmond, VA, I notched the plastic brushholder with a diagonal cutters to allow a little more “reach” for the wire. After pushstarting the car, it was charging again, getting me home. Those Bosch alternators are still one of my favorites with the easy-change brush holder/voltage regulator.
-Donny

 

I think the 80 amp with a dual battery set up would be fine for jeeping/winching.

 

I’ve done some pretty hard/long pulls with my setup (single battery) and never had an issue.

 

Woohoo!! Arrived three days early!

 

X2

 

Ever since I got this on the road, the front brakes have been on my mind. They’ve been really good, just not spectacular. And knowing that the day would come when I’d have to address the small issues by doing a complete replacement of all the axle’s brake components without truly knowing what the existing parts came from originally… I was low-key dreading it.

There were two main issues. Under hard braking, the rear would break free just a hair sooner than the front. The way my system is designed, a proportioning valve isn’t really feasible, so I was going to first try a more aggressive pad. The other issue was that it had developed a pull to the right. I’d assumed this was due to oil on the pads, but I found that to not be the case.



All I knew about these brakes was that they were 4-piston calipers with solid rotors. All the research I did said that it should have single-piston calipers. One of the new guys at work is a Toyota truck guru, and he gave me a starting point. He said the rotors were most likely from an ‘85, and the calipers were from a later IFS truck.

I hopped on Rockauto and ordered what I thought it needed.

Nothing was right.

Starting with the rotors, the studs had to be pressed out to separate the hub.



The new ones had tiny lug holes that needed to be drilled out to accept the old studs, and the hubs had two bolts that (redundantly) lock the rotor to the hub - those needed drilled too.



Now the calipers… the old ones had a design I’ve never seen before. The pistons in the caliper were asymmetrical. One set of pistons were 1 1/2” OD, and the other was 1 1/8” OD.



You’d think that would make the pads wear unevenly? Guess what…



Since my setup uses banjo fittings instead of the standard flared fittings, I had to use my high-tech sanding disc to machine a flat, square surface at the fitting for the copper washers to seal. (Left = before, right = after.)




I bolted the new caliper in place and thought it was strange that I had to trim the dust shield to get it to fit. I got everything assembled and had an “Oh ” moment.



Note the huge gap between the rotor and outboard pad. These calipers are for a much thicker (vented) rotor. I ground the pad material off the old plates and tried using them as shims, and that is when I realized the size difference in these calipers. they’re not only thicker, but longer too, with bigger pads, so my shims wouldn’t work. I had to make new ones out of plate steel.

It was then that I realized my wheel won’t fit with that caliper. I had to make a 1/4” spacer to move the whole caliper inboard.



This made my brake hose and banjo fitting interfere with the steering arm, so that needed to be clearanced.

16 hours of headaches, frustrations and setbacks, I finally got one side assembled.



I did the math, and all in all, the caliper pistons have 21% bigger pistons, and the pads have 11% more surface area.

With all of the tricky parts figured out, and custom parts already made, the other side only took two hours.


Here’s one of those cool, “ why didn’t I think of this earlier?” ideas…

This Toyota axle uses transmission-style snap rings inside the hub. They are a major headache to use snap ring pliers from the side. I filed these grooves in them to make it a piece of cake.








So how do the brakes work?

Incredibly well.

All four tires lock up equally on dry pavement with a slight bias to the front, which is getting stronger the more I drive it. Should be perfect on gravel. Plus, there’s no hint of the jeep pulling to one side or the other; the wheel doesn’t budge when you let go and slam on the brakes.

Big headache, but a major win!

And now I have all of the part numbers for future reference.