Valhalla Samurai

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Cool project.

Thanks Bob. Here's some more.
Next, I got the all the coolant lines built. The upper hose was the simplest despite having moved the radiator forward to accommodate the double pulley arrangement for power steering. I did luck out that it clears the P/S pulley by about ¼”. (I may make or trim the pulley for more clearance.) The lower hose was however more of a challenge. The inlet on the pump is 1 ¼” and the outlet on the radiator is 1 ¾”. The old hose I had used that was a section out of some other kind of hose was just not long enough. So I started from scratch by digging through all my used hose scraps. Three thing of note here; I used a 1 ½” PVC elbow for the 90, I put a section of hose on W/P inlet to increase its diameter and a heat gun was used to aid the stretching of the 1 ½” hose over the 1 ¾”radiator outlet. For the heater hoses I gained a water outlet in the back of the block that was used to hold one of the D Jet temp sensors. So I added a hose and a Sani-tee to bypass the heater core. I’m thinking this will create more circulation when the hot water valve is off as the bypass hole in the water pump is kind of small.
 

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I had some free time this weekend so I decided to figure out the connection between the go pedal and the throttle body. Along the way things kind of snowballed and I ended up tackling a few more items on the list of things for the MegaSquirt conversion. First, things were laid out with clamps and scraps of steel to see if the idea was doable by retaining the throttle cable that is original to the Zuki. After seeing that it was, the bracket to hold the accelerator cable above the throttle pivot whatchamacallit was made. Next, it looked like some reinforcement could be done by using the 2 screws that held the old cold start injector in the intake plenum. I had planned on using the hole from the discarded cold start injector to mount the IAT sensor but figured I could just drill and tap a hole in the reinforcement piece that would cover the hole. After it was all together, it was discovered that some material would need to be removed from the throttle pivot whatchamacallit for clearance. Then I got another burst of energy and decided to make the adapter for mounting the TPS to the throttle shaft. This is done by tearing apart the original D Jet TPS and drilling a couple holes for mounting screws and spacers in the mounting plate so a newer type TPS from a 1995 Volvo 850 can be mounted to it. The old TPS’s are on off switches and the newer style are potentiometers. MegaSquirt requires the potentiometer.
 

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Finaly back at it

So, I had got to the point where it'd start and run but, it did not run good at all.
Megasquirt is supposed to be able to use the tach signal from the -coil to run the injectors but the signal it was getting from my coil was "very dirty" so it was just dumpng a ton of fuel. I screwed around with half a dozen different combo's and configurations before throwing in the towel and just installed a crank trigger wheel with a hall effects sensor. Then it wouldn't start at all so I gave up. I sent the ECU back to Megasquirt to have them check it and they said it worked great as long as you didn't set the programming app. to "fuel only", which is what I am doing. I figured I'd work on it controlling the ignition after the fuel was working. Anyway, I changed the setting in the tuning app. and it still wouldn't run. So I rechecked the wiring on the hall effect sensor and whoa-la, I didn't hook it up correctly. So, I figured out the wiring and it started right up and has been running good in the shop ever since. I've yet to drive it as there are still some things left to do before I can.

The list from 2+ years ago
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How it's been sitting for a couple years
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36-1 Crank Trigger Wheel and sensor
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How it sits today

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The new list. To drive items marked with a star.
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I'm seeing you working on this wants me to get another one lol. I love my little samurais I've on the handful of them. Keep it up!!
 
I've not seen this thread so I went to the beginning.
Cool build. A friend of mine, Gary Hart, set the land speed record in a 53 Studebaker with a Mega Squirt setup in 2008 240 miles an hour.
 
Good one Bob! Let's see if we can keep it going.....I removed the yoke I made to lengthen the e-brake cable and shortened it up a bit so the e-brake will work. The Toyota and Suzuki axles have the same e-brake set up but, everything is a bit bigger on the Toyota axle. So, naturally there was a bunch of minor fabrication going on to get the primary cable from the Suzuki to work with the secondary cable on the Toyota axle I hung from the Jeep YJ springs beneath the Samurai.

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Next, I had ordered 2 more belts for the power steering because the 44" belt I thought would work was too short. I installed the 46.5" belt first and of course it was too long. So I put the 45.5" belt on and was able to get it tight enough but wish it was shorter as it's nearly at the end of it's adjustment. At least now I know the perfect size will be a 45 incher.

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Intermediate shaft

Behind the Volvo B20 engine is a rwd Volvo 4 speed. I believe it's called an M40.
Anyway, it works out good because as I'm sure many here know, Samurais have a divorced xfer case linked to the tranny via intermediate drive shaft. The PO that put this thing together made the intermediate shaft with a Volvo flange/yoke and u-joint on one end and a Samurai flange/yoke and u-joint on the other, it worked good but, it was a solid piece. So to remove it you had to loosen the xfer case mounts and wiggle it back a quarter inch. Kind of jankee to say the least. To make it more gooder, we grafted parts from a Landcruiser drive shaft spline onto the yokes. I wish I would of remembered to snap photo's of that, it was quite the adventure. Today I installed the new u-joints and now it's ready to install. I know it looks like heck but, we had it chucked in the lathe with an indicator on it while we welded it so it's withing a couple thousandths.

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Hub Bushings

A couple years ago I got a screaming deal on some 17" Steel wheels off a 2000 something Trail Blazer. They're 6 hole like Toyota so other than the center hole, they'd fit. We chucked them up in the CNC mill, found center and enlarged the holes to Toyota size, 4.2". Next, it was discovered the offset was different and they hit the tie rod end. So I got some 1" spacers for the front and rear. Next I noticed that when we milled out the center hole, we eliminated a sort of stand off surface from around one side of the lug nut mounting surface. So I removed all the lug studs from the spacers and cut a tenth off in the lathe leaving a ridge to compensate for the stand off material we cut off when we enlarged the holes. Then I'm watching Roadkill one night and Finnegan explains why wheel spacers can be a bad idea because when using them, any support gained from the wheel to hub relationship is lost and put solely on the lug nuts. Then I remember my friends Jeep with the adapters on the real wheels that were always coming loose. The next day I looked at the Zuki and see this is the exact scenario I have on the rear wheels. The fronts, not so much because of the 4WD hubs. So we made some bushings for the spacers. Last, the Toyota axles I put under the Samurai are "lug centric" The Trail Blazer wheels are "hub centric". Moral of the story, things are not always as they appear, like my screaming deal.[S

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Backed it out of the shop today and ran her around the block. Runs pretty good. Will still need some fine tuning though. Good news was the residual oil on the bottom of the oil pan ended up being a loose oil filter not a rear main. [cl
The forklift was sitting right there so I did the flex thing for the heck of it. Could have gone farther but, the wheel was ramming up into the fender.

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