Thread: The 85 Classic

Dougal,

how are you lubricating your adapter shaft - any chance of fretting like the input shaft/gear in the LT230?

Re your rumble. Clutching at straws but have you checked your adapter with a dial while on box but before connected to LT230. I recall you said spline group not quite central?

Originally Posted by Judo

Solid updates with lots of photos.

I assume you're using the LT77 because it came with the Rangie? Have you driven an LT85? How does it compare? I find my LT85 fairly agricultural compared to my R380 in the Disco. Not sure whether short and long sticks have much to do with it either?

Why was the handbrake fouling? Is this due to a custom set up, or could others have this problem also?

The gearbox is the Isuzu MSA 5 speed. It just uses the tail housing of the LT77 as part of the adapters to bolt to the LT230. I haven't driven a LT85 or R380 unfortunately.

This total setup has been monkeyed with by soo many people over the years that I don't know what is stock or not. This setup was also quite rare as it was only the rangies that got the LT230 and long stick gearbox. Which is only 1984-1985. They got the short-stick setup with a different handbrake position (and presumably cable hand-brake) in 1986.

You can see in this picture a 3" thick aluminium block on the back of the Isuzu gearbox, the tail-housing from the old LT77 gearbox bolts to the back of that.

Originally Posted by workingonit

Dougal,

how are you lubricating your adapter shaft - any chance of fretting like the input shaft/gear in the LT230?

Originally Posted by workingonit

Re your rumble. Clutching at straws but have you checked your adapter with a dial while on box but before connected to LT230. I recall you said spline group not quite central?

Having discarded that extra bearing, the shaft is now free to float between the LT230 input splines and the MSA output splines. So the small eccentricity in the shaft (heat treating distortion and MSA spline spark eroding) isn't a problem. The housing alignment is known good, this vehicle has done well over the 350,000km on the clock and has never chewed an input shaft or LT230 splines.

I believe my problem is a result of these three things.
1. A turbo that produces a lot more boost down low than stock.
2. A very light (factory) flywheel for the size and torque of the engine. Isuzu flywheels are around half the weight of a cummins 4BT.
3. A longer driveline with more backlash.

I plan an increase to the flywheel weigth (#2) which may be able to reduce the size of the torque pulses and shift the resonant frequency down low enough in the rpm range that I'll never get it in 4th or 5th gears.
Which will be needed, because I have plans to make #1 even worse.

I managed to kill my work car (short in the ECU) so this rangie has been back in daily service since a few weeks back. Engine work (and flywheel inertia ring) is on hold until further notice. I may try to retorque the head once I get that nissan pile out my garage.

But I did buy a "genuine MHI" TD04HL-19T compressor wheel with the intent of seeing if it can be modified to fit in my T25 turbo.
The ebay seller sent me a kind of dodgy clearly cheap knock-off 19T wheel (no original packaging, poor quality finish on the blades, massive cuts for balancing). I've been offered a 2/3 discount if I keep it, so may as well risk butchering a cheap wheel as a good one.

Geometry wise the 19T wheel has slightly less dish in the superback compared to a T28 wheel (last hybrid), but wider tips and a longer body. If I can successfully drill it out to fit the 6mm shaft then the housing mods are certainly possible.

The T25-19T hybrid (if successful) will have a slightly smaller turbine than a TD04HL-19T and a less efficient turbine. But it will bolt straight up and that's a huge saving in work right now.
Performance wise I'm expecting ~23psi by 2000rpm (a few psi more than now), still with no intercooler this compressor should be able to do 30psi to whatever rev limit my ears can stand.
Essentially it should do better than the T25-T28 hybrid I ran in all situations. Particularly down low where it shouldn't surge.

Originally Posted by Dougal

I managed to kill my work car (short in the ECU) so this rangie has been back in daily service since a few weeks back. Engine work (and flywheel inertia ring) is on hold until further notice. I may try to retorque the head once I get that nissan pile out my garage.

But I did buy a "genuine MHI" TD04HL-19T compressor wheel with the intent of seeing if it can be modified to fit in my T25 turbo.
The ebay seller sent me a kind of dodgy clearly cheap knock-off 19T wheel (no original packaging, poor quality finish on the blades, massive cuts for balancing). I've been offered a 2/3 discount if I keep it, so may as well risk butchering a cheap wheel as a good one.

Geometry wise the 19T wheel has slightly less dish in the superback compared to a T28 wheel (last hybrid), but wider tips and a longer body. If I can successfully drill it out to fit the 6mm shaft then the housing mods are certainly possible.

The T25-19T hybrid (if successful) will have a slightly smaller turbine than a TD04HL-19T and a less efficient turbine. But it will bolt straight up and that's a huge saving in work right now.
Performance wise I'm expecting ~23psi by 2000rpm (a few psi more than now), still with no intercooler this compressor should be able to do 30psi to whatever rev limit my ears can stand.
Essentially it should do better than the T25-T28 hybrid I ran in all situations. Particularly down low where it shouldn't surge.

dirlling the hole concentric will be the hard part however im sure you will think of an accurate way of doing so...will be interesting how it goes for you.

It's done almost 2000km driving since the transfercase repair. That has held up brilliantly. But the head-gasket hasn't.

350km of open-road driving, 3 litres of water required in the radiator, water out the overflow every time I looked.

I don't have the time for a full rebuild with factory sleeves, the strip down, measure, order, wait and reinstall is off the cards until the V8 rangie is doing better than 20 litres/100km. Seriously considering a 300tdi in that one.
I'll do just the head-gasket for on the 4BD1T in the new year and deal with the rest some other time.

Originally Posted by Dougal

...Seriously considering a 300tdi in that one.
...

Don't do it! - fit a 4JB1T instead...

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Don't do it! - fit a 4JB1T instead...

To much work and cost unfortunately. That vehicle will be sold on and I'll never recover 4jb1t conversion costs. But I can more than recover 300tdi conversion costs.
Noone is buying v8's here but the diesels are still selling well over $5k. I'll also be able to use it without being bankrupted in the mean time.

I do understand the weaknesses.