Hachirokuism

Awful post title, i know. Sorry but it's been a while since i updated this blog so my writing is a bit rusty. Apart from being transferred to another area of work (which is sadly getting me further from my hometown Jakarta), the bike is basically my main focus lately. Fear not, The Dog is still getting some love from the owner as you shall see in just a bit.

So far, The Dog is running AE86 LSD, a W58 gearbox conversion, RX7 front calipers and T3 bits which are all somewhat common in AE86 scene. Yesterday, my Charmant is getting even similar to a four-door Hachiroku with this finally reaching my doorsteps from Japan.

43-teeth ring gear and 10-teeth pinion for a T-series diff, giving me a 4.3 ratio. You know what car these gears come stock in? Exactly: AE86. Ever since i upgraded to a W58, i have wanted a final gear ratio increase to recoup the loss of acceleration from the box's taller ratio compared to T50. While a 4.778 ratio might give me even better acceleration, i don't think it's really necessary for a turbocharged daily driven car, hence a 4.3 was chosen. Besides, it's already quite an increase from the stock 3.909 ratio coming from 43:11 and much cheaper.

Here's the 10 teeth pinion..

and the ring gear..

Although both a 43-teeth 6.7 inch ring gear, the one from the 4.3 ratio has taller dimension compared to the 3.909 which is of course required to reach the smaller pinion gear diameter.

Here's the pinion gears side-by-side (commonly known as "gigi nanas" or "pineapple gear" here for obvious reason). The left one was the old 11 teeth pinion.

I had to replace one of the conical bearings and oil seal. Bearing number was M86610. Some shims with various thickness was needed as well to adjust the bearing's preload.

Last but not least is the backlash adjustment. There are some things better left to be handled by the expert and working on diff pumpkins are one of them. Seriously, i had no idea that gear to gear contact is such a delicate work!

After everything was put back together, a test drive was done and as expected, it accelerates much better and the rear wheels lock easier. Best of all, the whining is now gone. I guess the previous gear ratio was not adjusted properly and caused  the whining.

Brake and Reverse Light Switch

Fixed two minor problems yesterday. I'd been running The Dog without working brake and reverse lights. Apparently, it was the switches. Here's the replacements.

The connector on the reverse/back-up light switch.

The brake light switch was said to be shared by many Toyotas so you won't have any problem finding the replacement there. Locally, you can ask for Toyota Kijang's switch. I won't be surprised if the switch is shared with Corolla KE70 as well.

The reverse light switch part number is 84210-60021. I can't guarantee if this works with stock Charmant's T50 gearbox since i'm now running W58. It's said to be the same as KF40 Toyota Kijang, the Grand Extra trim to be exact. This switch should work with any G or W gearbox.

Moment of Truth

This project reached an important milestone yesterday. It was the time to see whether i'll have a functioning brand new LSD inside the RT182 Corona axle or just end up with US$1,000 worth of Cusco paper weight. Before we get to the main discussion, here's the latest situation under the hood.

That ugly strut bar you see there is custom made. I used 5mm iron strip plate and stacked two of them for the main bridge just to be sure on the strength. The strut mount uses only single layer. Cost me 10 bucks, not bad huh? Here's a view on the strut mount side.

Getting back to business, here's what kept me from doing the LSD conversion sooner.

It's unsurprisingly difficult finding LSD gear oil here in Lampung. I got those FK Pulse LSD Gear Oil in Jakarta. I'm pretty sure it's just that i haven't looked for it hard enough as with all those off road SUVs and 4-by-4s i see roaming everyday here, there's bound to be a local shop that sells LSD oils for those vehicles.

The Cusco LSD i have is the RS-type and set to 2-way although i can set it to 1.5-way whenever i feel like it later. Here's the 2-way cam ring gear profile, you can see the center pin here.

and here's the 1.5-way profile.

LSD conversion is not something to be done by many of us, me including. It's a long tedious process and could easily fill up the swear jar with 50 bucks worth of small changes if done by inexperienced individual. First you need to take off the drum brakes and pull both axles out which probably have locked themselves frozen to the center diff after years of no maintenance.

Then you unbolt the center diff from the axle housing, after you drain the oil.

With the pumpkin out and the ring gear disassembled, i can finally calculate my final gear ratio directly. Here i count 11 teeth pinion.

and here's a stamp on the ring gear telling me that it's 43 teeth.

So, my final gear is 43:11 = 3.909 after all. A bit disappointed that i was right and it wasn't at least 4.1 but 3.909 should do just fine.

Next, transfer the bearings to the new LSD piece and bolt up the ring gear. You should always use a cross-pattern when fastening the ring gear bolts. In fact, always use cross-pattern anytime you can. It's just good practice. Oh if you have the retained plates for the ring gear bolts from the old diff, you can throw them away as they can't be used on Cusco's LSD. Use some thread-locks just to be safe. Why didn't i change the bearings? Well, i should have honestly but the old ones should be good for another year at least.

The mechanic fastened the bolts to 9 kg/mm using this big-ass torque wrench.

After that comes the hard part of adjusting the bearings and lash so that the pinion sits perfectly to the ring gear, preventing that dreadful whining sound.

Obligatory baller pic.

Once done, reassemble everything back. Don't forget to fill up the oil. You'll be pouring at least 1.5 liters in before it overflows from the fill hole.

Don't get too excited yet and skid like there's no tomorrow when it's done. It's advised that you do the boring figure-8 break in procedure for at least 30 minutes. It's no fun, i can tell you that. What you do is basically you find an empty space like a parking lot and do a figure-8 a few times. You'll want to accelerate in first gear on the straight part and push the clutch down when you turn as narrow as possible. Below image from Kaaz website should be clear enough.

As i said, i was pretty relieved to see that everything went smooth on the conversion. All those hours spent researching on the internet has really paid off. Everything that could go wrong, didn't. As John "Hannibal" Smith would say, "I love it when a plan comes together!"

Back With A Bang

I'm back! My long-awaited work leave was finally approved and since last week, i got lots of things done to The Dog. Some of them were minors and shall be noted here for my record. The major ones will have their own dedicated post. So, without further ado, the following are the minor things i got done:

1. Rerouted Clutch Line near the Slave Cylinder

I wasn't lucky enough to have a JDM T50 bellhousing that has the clutch slave on the intake side so previously the clutch line went under the extractors before terminating at the slave cylinder. Should the exhaust decides to crack and fall, it'd take the clutch line with it. Now it's routed on the other side of the extractors, the same side as the slave cylinder. This was before:

No after shot but it should be obvious.

2. Studied my Megasquirt

Mine was built by someone else and he said it's 75% different from the original schematic. I called BS and decided to check it myself. Unsurprisingly it wasn't that much different. Indeed his MS schematic was not exact the copy of v2.2 from B&G's but only because he added some options such as secondary trigger input capability. Why bother doing this? I need to know if the options like boost controller and wideband lambda input shown on MS EFI websites are still applicable to mine to further plan the next step.

3. Picked up my Ultra Racing AE86 Fender Bars

Finally got the time to pick up this item i ordered months ago at the seller's workshop.

The plan is to take the car to a sprayshop and get these installed with the Ebay FMIC intercooler in one go since getting the fenders off to install these means the grill and front bumper is removed as well.

4. Alternator Rebuild

Opened my alternator and swapped the regulator with the spare from my 4A-C (which was already converted to internally regulated when i bought the car. Original Charmant is a stone age external cut-out system). I did this because previously the battery would lose it's charge overnight and i suspect it was a blown alternator. Later i found out it was only due to incorrect ignition key positioning. *sigh*

5. Bride Pros Installation

Custom brackets which still allow the stock seat to be put back.

6. Built a Junction Box for MS

The wiring on mine was previously a spaghetti carnage. I decided a junction box is best to solve this and make the engine bay neater. Here's the box in progress.

See the wire terminal strips? These are where the sensors, ignition and power wires will be connected. The relays will be housed inside the box to reduce engine bay clusterf*ck.

Here's the box in action. It's on the firewall next to the wiper motor. A DB25 serial cable connects the box to the MS.

Notice anything missing from the engine? Yes, i ditched the leak prone distributor and finally got the Ford EDIS kit running. There will be a dedicated post on how to do this later.

Below is the junction box terminal designation for my own record purpose should later i lost the labels on the box. You can ignore this.

7. Starter Motor Rebuild

Used the original starter motor that came with the 4A-C. It struggled to turn the engine on cold starts and, even worse, won't crank on hot starts. Previously i thought it was heat soak since the starter is unfortunately placed on the same side as the exhaust manifolds and so i made a custom heat cover from a thin steel plate. This didn't help. I also installed a relay before the starter solenoid line and this too yielded no success. I then thought it was normal for the 4A-C starter to struggle to crank a smallport 4A-GE considering the higher compression the starter motor has to fight. I was apparently wrong. After finding out that it was the starter solenoid dying and some soldering points on the starter were fried, the necessary actions were taken and now i'm confident the engine will crank on start ups anytime i do it. So, take a note here, a 4A-C starter motor has no problem mated to a high compression smallport 4A-GE. If you find similar problem, now at least you know what could be the culprit. By the way, the starter solenoid on the 4A-C starter is same as Hijet 1000's.

Stuff Are Pouring In

Took some of them just a week to be delivered while the others took more than three weeks.

Bought so many parts overseas and i still couldn't figure out how our customs calculate their duty and import tax. Government transparency, my ass.

Meanwhile, just bought these yesterday. RX7 Injector rebuild kit and a stainless steel braided clutch line since the one i'm currently running is aspiring to snap off from my slave cylinder.

So many stuff piling up back home, so little time to put them on The Dog. Don't start a project if you're hundreds of miles away from your car, believe me.

T-series Axle Fitment and Steering Links Renewal

Took the chance last weekend to get the Corona RT132 rear axle fitted. This is a T-series axle similar to Zenki AE86's axle. With this axle, i can then install my 2-way Cusco LSD.
As expected, the fitment work itself basically is an easy bolt-on job. Only problem came from my own mistake of forgetting to get the lateral (panhard) bar that came with the axle. I was under the impression that the lateral bars are interchangeable between my S-series originally from The Dog and T-series from the Corona. I was wrong apparently. I had to hunt for the matching lateral bar at the junkyard and luckily i finally got one. Here's the comparison.
Lower one is from my Charmant with red Prothane bushings. There's approximately an inch difference in length.

If you're doing the same conversion, don't forget to also get the e-brake cables that are attached to the rear brake pads. They are a pair for left and right, each of different lengths and also completely different from that of Charmant's.

Along with the rear axles, the 24mm rear wheel spacers were also put in place. I was relieved to see that 24mm is enough to push the wheel lips just outside the fender. Yes it would be better with 30mm but 24mm is enough for me.
A slight miss-communication prevented me to take important measurements on the axles when both were removed. I can't confirm whether the wheel track width is the same between both axles. Also i can't confirm whether the 4-link bracket positions are the same. It's not too late, i can have it measured with the T-series installed, only it will be a bit more challenging. All i learned yesterday was everything bolted up easily.

How about the propeller shaft? Well, the original propeller shaft from The Dog can be bolted on easily although the third member from a T-series is obviously longer. I read that i have to shorten the propshaft by 20mm to get the perfect fitment. I'll get right to it as soon as i can especially i have also planned to lower the stance. That would push the prop-shaft further into the T50 gearbox and increase the risk of bottoming the yoke to the gearbox shaft.

Other than being able to fit an AE86 LSD, another advantage of getting a T-series axle is the significant increase in drum brake diameter as shown here. The smaller drum is Charmant's original.

That's for the rear-end. As for the front-end, i managed to replace all steering links with new ones. Some, if not all, of my links were still in good condition but i decided to replace them anyway. Here's the new stuff.
A pair of rack-ends and outer tie-rods. Not seen here are the rack rubber boots and lower control arm ball-joints. Everything except the boots are identical to KE70's. The beauty of Toyota-Daihatsu interchangeability. Installing new steering links would require wheel alignment but i decided to wait until i can get the short stroke struts in.
Along with those steering link parts, i also bought some important parts for my short stroke and RX7 brake conversion. I will share the parts i bought in another post.

By the way, I WANT THESE.. lol
They're called heim joints (or rose joints or spherical rod ends, depending where you're from). They're the essential part of fabricating my own rose-jointed adjustable 4 links and panhard rod. T3 sells them for a whopping US$360 just for the 4 links. Panhard cost about US$135. If i can get my hands on these, i'll save a lot. Yes, the Prothane bushings would then be useless but i can always sell them to KE70 users.

Cusco LSD and Bride Pros Seat

My Cusco LSD has finally been delivered.. Glad to see that i got what i ordered: part number 130 L2. Now let's hope that it fits my Corona T130 axle.



Installing the LSD will have to wait until my engine starts. Will need to do more research on LSD oils, but most probably i'll go for Motul 90PA LSD Oil. I heard they perform well and help reduce LSD noise.

Meanwhile, just acquired my driver's seat today! Seeing that red Bride seats match my black Charmant on my photoshop wallpaper, i decided to get those. Recently, a used Bride Pros seat was for sale. I waited until the seller finally uploaded the pics and when i saw that it was red, i hurried made an appointment to see the item. Dad helped me check the item in Jakarta and with one quick glance, the seat was mine. One minor defect on the back but overall, the seat was in excellent condition.
Looks like someone beat me on the race to drifting.. Cute hat mom..
More pictures of the seat below.



Keeping my eye out for the passenger's seat. My target would be similar colored Bride seat, only this time will be recline-able. Red Bride Ergo II replica looks good and budget-friendly. Let's see if i can find green Takata safety harness to match.