Toyota Diesel into 2A Shorty

My dad had a IIa LWB for a while.
My favourite car, and what got me into LR too.
Originally had a 6cyl that continually burned valves, and dad had it converted to a Toyota 6cyl diesel.
Bloody atrocious thing it turned out to be.
used to breathe heavily and fill the cabin with diesel/kero like eye burning smoke.
Screamed it's head off at 80k/h, gearing wasn't updated to make better use of the additional low down grunt.
As I remember it, 3lt 6cyl, apparently out of a forklift.
Bodge artist that did the conversion cut the front cross member turned it upside down and siliconed the steering relay to what remained of the chassis!
Unfortunately I was driving(then about 18-19yo) and coming to a turn under the west gate bridge when the car went dead straight! :bat:
Steering had just enough bite to get me home(2klms) at about 20 k/h. I only had to negotiate one RH 90° turn, and if it made it through that I was home and hosed.
Dad went off his nut, blaming me .. till I showed him the awesome (non)weld job the useless engine converter chap had done!
Turned out it was much worse than what I thought which was the relay hanging by a wire thread. The entire front chassis, forward of the cross member, spring hanger and all, had to be cut, braced and re welded.

I much preferred driving it when it had the much smoother 6cyl engine. I knew and still know zero about LR/engines back then, but dad reckons that 6cyl HAD TO GO!
Nothing but troubles according to him.
Funny tho, in the end the motor that gave him more trouble than any other have been both his Toyota diesels.
The 6cyl in the IIa seized, and his 60 Series 4.2 non turbo VX Cruiser just became uneconomical due to oil consumption and leaking!
But he'll defend their reliability till he's blue in the face .. won't believe a word of a reliable landrover engine [bighmmm]

Anyhow. enjoy your new ride.

Hello Going Bush,

Thank you for posting up the photographs of the B engine and for putting the arrows and labels pointing at the pertinent parts. Also, for clarifying the position of the engine number between cylinders 3 and 4; plus the side casting of "B".

Thank you Arthur, Rich, and Yarnmaster for your insight in driving these vehicles. The previous owner of my latest acquisition is a lady of the land who is in her late 70s. Yes, she did more than just drive it to church on Sundays - it was running when it was parked too. Hmmm

Oh well another dark sleep is just about here; so that must mean a day closer to getting the vehicle home [smilebigeye]

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hello All,

I am pretty sure that I mentioned earlier in this thread the patience is a hard won virtue- with me it is anyway.

A colleague just happens to have a 200 Series Toyota Landcruiser. Their husband was back home after coming back from the mines - drive in - drive out. So after we picked up a car trailer we went into the hills and picked up Teddy. With the bartering system still being active here I helped my colleague's spouse by giving them a hand with their boat. So it was dark by the time I got back home to where Teddy is happily parked now.

Today I bought a decent length of fuel line, numerous hose clamps and various fittings - just in case.

I poured diesel into Teddy's very dry diesel tank. I looked pensively at the ground below the tank and .... there were diesel leaks!

Following Going Bush's advice and photographs I began using the priming pump. It became pretty obvious that if there are seals or o-rings in the manual primer pump they had vacated the premises a long time ago. I then fell back on to the auxiliary electric fuel circuit that a previous owner had installed in one of my other diesel Land Rovers.

I initially bypassed the hand primer with a length of the new fuel hose and made a by-pass system so that one branch could be pressurised by the electric pump. Alternatively, the diesel could be drawn from the fuel tank once the system had been bled and the engine was running by itself.

The old electric fuel pump from my other Land Rover has sat idle for a couple of years and its performance was not overly impressive. I decided to give the pump a ago and I cracked open the bleeder bolt. I left the electric pump ticking over while I took the dogs for a walk in the paddock. Upon my return there was a constant trickle of diesel. I snipped the bleeder bolt closed and since the diesel tank, the fuel filter and all the lines had been left dry by the previous owner - I cracked open the injector nuts until they had diesel flowing out of them too. Next thing I turned the key and after some shaking and shuddering the engine sprung to life and commenced ticking over at very steady idle.

Since it was dark by then I left the engine running while I cleaned and put away my tools. The next challenge was to work out how to turn the diesel off. Being an older diesel it had a pull out knob which controlled the shut-off cable. During the pick up I did not think about asking the previous owner's son about what switch, lever or knob does what. Moving the throttle cable the opposite of its normal acceleration movement only resulted in slowing the engine down to a very slow pulse - not a complete stop. So I went inside the cab and shone the torch around in places I had not checked before in the daylight. This torchlight search resulted in my finding some switches and a knob tucked in a recess just to the right-hand side of the heater unit. The switches when flicked appeared to do absolutely nothing. The black knob I hoped would be able to be pulled towards me. After a tentative bit of experimentation and while listening for possible disasters looming at my operating a control I know nothing about .... the engine stopped in a very civilised manner.

While I was cleaning my tools I kept the engine ticking away. Previously, I had turned off the electric auxiliary pump and the engine was drawing its own fuel and did not miss a beat.

With the electrical loom being like a snake's nest, I had found at a wire that tested out as having power on regardless of whether the ignition was turned on or off. This wire was coiled around the fuel pipe and constantly live! It is now feeding the power into the toggle switch that I use to turn the auxiliary fuel pump on and off. Just in case there are more of these constantly live wires lurking in Teddy I am going to grab a torch and go out and disconnect the new battery.

Earlier in the day I had tried fitting a N70ZZ into the battery compartment however it was way too large. The previous owner who shoe-horned the Toyota diesel into the Shortie had to grind some of the metal from the battery holder otherwise the fins of the alternator would chew into it. This meant I had to get a battery the same dimensions of the battery I used to run on the Series 3 four cylinder 2.25 litre diesel - a "56" Century battery with 550 crank. I scoped the range of batteries on display at a local car parts place and I bought a 660 crank battery that had the same dimensions as the old Series 3 Land Rover battery. With this sized battery there is some free space between the alternator's fins and the battery.

Now that I know that Teddy starts and runs I will be off to the car parts place and get new oils and filters. Next after that is to sort out the clutch hydraulics - then scope out the brakes. Neither brakes or clutch currently work.

I will take photographs and collect engine and chassis numbers tomorrow, and post them up.

Disappointingly, the camera did not work during Teddy's pick up so there are no photographs of the auspicious event.

Well that it is it for now. I might just have to start the motor again and let it run for a while before disconnecting the battery.

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hello All,

I am back from the dark and the battery is recharging after it having a hard first day. Another of tomorrow's tasks will be to chase the glow plug circuit and find out which switch controls it. I started the engine before I disconnected the battery and it was not an easy cold start without glow plugs.

I checked the radiator overflow bottle and I was very surprised at how clean the green coolant was. I had intended dropping the coolant and replacing it tomorrow. The engine oil definitely needs replacing.

Once I write down the engine number I will start tracking down a parts manual so I can order the parts the manual primer needs. There is only a small amount of space between the engine and the sides of the engine bay which means the manual primer has to be access from the radiator side. There is no room to extend an arm straight down onto the priming pump's head. Hopefully there is enough clearance for the priming pump to be able to come off to be repaired.

The great thing is that I can just walk outside, go through a couple of gates and I am able to have a squiz at Teddy. Who knows tomorrow night Teddy may be sitting in the house paddock where the Land Rovers which run and stop under their own power are parked. You know the vehicles where their engine runs, the gears, clutch and brakes work.

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hello All,

I just had a squiz on eBay and if the B Series engine fitted to a Dyna is similar to the Landcruiser; then it looks like the manual priming pump is a complete unit. The old one screws off and a new complete unit screws in. Or there is a choice of replacing "O" rings and restoring the old unit.

I will have to check the engine number and do some more research to be able to sort out what engine I definitely have fitted - tomorrow.

After consulting the Oracle ... Wikipedia it describes how Toyota B series engines were fitted to:

Land Cruiser 40
Dyna 3rd, 4th, 5th generation
Toyoace 5th generation
Daihatsu Delta V9/V12-series
1978-19?? Hino Ranger 2 (V10)

Accessed May 19, 2018 from, Toyota B engine - Wikipedia
Kind Regards
Lionel

Congrats, you didn't mention if you warmed the glow plugs before starting . if you started without the glow plugs you got a ripper engine there. These normally need a bit of pre heat.

because your inlet manifold has a horizontal air inlet , rather than vertical in a cruiser, I'll wager its from a forward control/ underseat location , which means Coaster / Dyna or Delta .

the lift primer pump should unscrew and be substituted for another from a B / 3B , maybe even a H / 2H (6 cylinder version) will fit

TOYOTA LANDCRUISER B 2B 3B DIESEL FUEL PRIMER PUMP BJ40 BJ42 BJ73 BJ74 | eBay

Great find Lionel.

I met a bloke who had an early Range Rover with the same motor. Maybe someone in Qld was doing conversions.

I should have bought that Rangy, was only about $3k.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by goingbush

Congrats, you didn't mention if you warmed the glow plugs before starting . if you started without the glow plugs you got a ripper engine there. These normally need a bit of pre heat.

because your inlet manifold has a horizontal air inlet , rather than vertical in a cruiser, I'll wager its from a forward control/ underseat location , which means Coaster / Dyna or Delta .

the lift primer pump should unscrew and be substituted for another from a B / 3B , maybe even a H / 2H (6 cylinder version) will fit

TOYOTA LANDCRUISER B 2B 3B DIESEL FUEL PRIMER PUMP BJ40 BJ42 BJ73 BJ74 | eBay

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Hello Going Bush,

I reckon I can safely say I got the engine started without glow-plugs. The main reason for this confidence became obvious when I lifted the bonnet so I could fill up the dry clutch reservoir. While I waited to see if there was any fluid pouring out of the much fixed by epoxy-resin tin reservoir I looked over the motor. There is a thin metal rail that joins the glow-plugs together. It terminates near the firewall with a connection point from which a blue wire emerges. The other end of the blue wire is finished off as an eyelet fitting - so it can be bolted down onto something. I followed the wire I traced it back to where it is laying down on top of a recess that runs parallel with the glow-plug rail. I found that the wire is not connected to anything at all. It looks like it has been this way for a long time too.

Having found the engine number I did some midnight internet searching. There is a webs-forum where a bloke has developed an engine serial number decoder and other people have contributed. All the serial numbers were 7 digits long starting with 029. The web-writer's engine number is 0294407 mine is 0299706 - yes a difference of 5299. However, it lets me know that having a serial identification made up of all numbers and no letters was not a mistake when I looked at it last night. The web-writer notes his engine build date as July 1979. While being far from definitive it least it gives me a ball park figure that my engine could have been made in either late 1979 or 1980 - as a guestimate.

The website is B-series & H-series landcruiser Engine-Serial-Number/VIN-Number thread | IH8MUD Forum

Of well off to play with the clutch hydraulics - wonder how much fluid is left in the tin?

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hello All,

I had a closer look at the 109 that came fitted with a 2.25 litre diesel as standard. The previous owner had installed an extra fuel tank and it was mounted under the passenger seat. On the wall of the seat-box he mounted a lever operated tap that all was installed with feeds from each tank. The auxiliary electric fuel pump allowed fuel to be transferred between tanks. The auxiliary pump was established as a bypass system so that the engine could draw fuel without the extra pump being used.

I got some more of Teddy's story the farmer converted the Land Rover to the Toyota diesel and it became his wife's car. The car was kept in the family for a while than it was sold to a "young fella". After some travels the young fella upgraded to a new Defender and offered to sell the vehicle back to the farming family and they bought it back. While the young fella had the vehicle he took out the extra fuel tank tank that had been installed under the passenger seat. Once I can source another tank I will set the system up like is in my 109 diesel.

The thing is - are Land Rover fuel tanks a standard size between Series 2A and Series 3? Also, are fuel tanks the same size between short wheel base and long wheel base? My spare tanks are all Series 3 and out of long wheel bases.

Well I am off to bleed a clutch. If that does not work I will be off to replace the master and slave cylinder - then off to bleed a clutch. I will leave the new master and slave cylinder up in the house - since I am an optimist - teehee.

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hello All,

Apparently there was another alternative - what under the influence of gravity did not show up as even the slightest of drips turns into a constant stream once the pressure bleeder is attached and pumped up. There is a hole in the bottom of the reservoir. Hence, it being bone dry when I first inspected it last week. I do have a plastic reservoir that I had unsuccessfully attempted to fit on my Series 3 diesel. However, the thread on the nut that screws to the bottom of the reservoir must be Imperial and the new reservoir's thread is Metric.

No clutch and brake parts places are open on a Sunday so I cannot go into town and buy spare parts. Namely, a new length of pipe to which I can fit a Metric hex nut to the reservoir end. Then still have an Imperial thread going into the clutch master cylinder. Bugger - looks like the inaugural drive is off the agenda for this weekend.

I will go into town and buy some oil and filters. At least I will get the engine oil changed.

Interestingly, I could not fit the new plastic reservoir to my Series 3 because the original part had the outlet branching off at a right angle horizontally towards the bottom of the tank. My replacement had the outlet positioned vertically from the dead centre of the bottom of the tank and it featured a very long thread. No matter how I tried to adjust it the top of the reservoir always fouled the bonnet when it was closed.

Apart from the thread miss-match the reservoir that I bought for the Series 3 would fit quite well in the 2A because the tin reservoir had its outlet coming out vertically from the dead centre at the bottom of the tank too. Them's the breaks I suppose!

Kind Regards
Lionel