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IT BEGINS [1990 SWB Trooper Project]

137K views 103 replies 11 participants last post by  aidan7777 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi, long time lurker here! This forum has gotten me out of a jam more times than i can count. Wiring diagrams, workshop manuals, and all sorts of general tips and tricks on the care and feeding of these rather enigmatic horseless carriages have allowed me to keep mine from being melted down into washing machines for quite a while, so i figured i'd pay my dues by making my first post the start of a project thread! :D

I'll start off with a bit of introduction. My name is Aidan, I'm 18 years old as of the time of writing, I live in Australia, and this is the car that taught me just how bloody cool older machines can be, as well as how much of an albatross they can be around your neck.

Throughout this thread, I will document my progress in restoring this car back into good conditon, my opinions and grievances on different design choices made in its construction, and every useful discovery that i may make about it. (like how late model first gens share a lot of parts with the better known TF rodeo, or that a bit of corrosion on the little orange diode box underneath the dash can stop your engine from running more than a couple seconds)

I'll be using 'port' and 'starboard' to describe the opposing sides of the car, because the 'drivers side' is different here in australia, and because it too is a hole in the[you have heard the rest of this joke before]

Here's my story.

It all started when I was 13, my parents had just moved up to a rural property accessible only by a couple of rather treacherous dirt roads, and we were on the lookout for a good 4x4 that could get us up to the shops if the rain, snow, or any other kind of disturbance made our road untraversable via front wheel drive. being the little car nut of the household, my dad had me help him research what kind of car we'd be buying.

Initially i was set on looking for a little suzuki samurai(sierra in AU), but my dad had doubts about owning something that was built during his rock n' roll days, and the seller we were trying to contact didn't even bother to answer his bloody phone. :x

And then during a subsequent search for a more 'usual' brand, i found this thing. rebuilt engine, current registration, nice amount of ride height, only 384,000 kilometres on the clock, Dad and i thought nothing could possibly go wrong.

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Damn it
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This is now what's left of it, an end result of something that started in november 2018, long after my parents had separated. my dad was in a bad financial state, and he lived too close to the supermarket to warrant paying through the nose for registration and fuel for this thing every year, so we decided he'd hand it over to me the day the registration expired (i loved the thing to death and hated seeing how the salty atmosphere at his place was dissolving it like a soluble asprin). and it's been sitting in my endshed's naughty corner ever since. :(

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(Portside wheel well)

Possibly not an entirely unjustified situation, considering the many problems i have to fix.

Both footwells have undergone a 'flintstones conversion', It drips oil front and back(possibly because my bad PCV valve f'ed up the half moon seals), the radiator started leaking coolant after we neglected to add antifreeze, and it froze (what are the odds), the drip rails are mostly made out of bondo, the steering box leaks :evil:, the front starboard brake caliper was seized up so bad i had to take an angle grinder to the guide pins to get it off, the front brake lines show cracks if you bend them tight, the handbrake doesn't work very well because my rear pads are worn far past the groove, my rotors look like they belong on top of a record player, the bottoms of both my fenders have rotten away from dirt packing behind them, i did a dodgy paintjob when i was 'fixing' some of the rust with bondo to get it past rego for one last time, and i didn't prep my surfaces(which is why it looks the way it does), it doesn't idle properly(bad IAC), the previous owners have left a lot of wiring which they've ever so thoughtfully spliced into different colours along their lengths, the differential makes whirring noises, synchromesh on first gear is completely gone(to the point i don't know if the MUA-5 ever had it in the first place), and fifth gear makes a really cool cooing sound for as long as you're in it.

Gonna be one hell of a first car.

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See below for some more shock horror!
 
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#2 · (Edited by Moderator)
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#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
..But all is not lost! I've been on and off an awesome automotive restoration class!

Here's a piece i made at their shop a few months back compared to the old rotten bit. Gonna need to hit this with some deoxidine when it comes time to paint it.
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Ditto for the other side. Fits a lot better this time around, but still quite unfinished.
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Interior stripped out for welding. don't want flammable cloth seats sitting a stones throw away from a MIG gun.
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Here i'm bashing out the hardened, crusty remains of what used to be a rubber mat with a flathead and mallet. I hope that isn't bare steel under there.
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Ditto on the other side.
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Next thing i'll have to do is figure out how to get rid of the big rubber mat stuck to the firewall, but I think that can come later, as i'm anxiously awaiting a large order of parts to show up at the post office. (new rotors all around, front brake lines, new radiator, new windscreen rubber, seal kit for the steering box, exhaust manifold and oil pan gaskets..)
I might order some specialty parts from JLEMOND when the exchange rate gets a little more favourable. Both my back sliding window rubbers are completely shot, both smoking window rubbers are gone, and a 'jerry cam' sounds like a whole lot of fun.

I'll keep you guys posted when i get back to working on this thing. The cold is keeping me out of the garage, and the postal service seems to be having some delays at the moment, perhaps they're overlogged with idiots ordering toilet paper by the container.

Until then, feel free to ask me anything you want! whether it be about me, the car, or my plans for the impending apocalypse the papers are prophesying about, go right on ahead!
 

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#4 ·
Wow, you are undertaking a rather large project. This will be a fun one to follow along with. One reason being I have an 89 RS which is Isuzu's short WB 2 door, only imported into the states in 1989. I have to say one thing though. Crawl under in the rear and make sure the frame rails are intact especially where the shocks attach. Get a screwdriver and see if it will poke threw the frame. You don't want to do extensive body work only to find the frame needs repair as well. The short WB 89 Trooper, as we call them, came with 4.77 gearing, with all the rest came with 4.56 gears. Would be interesting as to which one yours has. Woops, posting mistake. This is an 85 2 door LWB. OK, found the pic of the 89 Short WB. It's the first one
 

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#6 · (Edited by Moderator)
@itsmehb:
Thanks for the reminder, i did just as you said and went full 'nightmare on elm driveway' with the biggest screwdriver in my kit. I think you'll be glad to hear that my frame is SOLID as a rock! The rot is practically localized to the body, with maybe the exception of a small hole in my radiator mount. We don't use road salt here in australia, so that may be a reason why.

Being rather ignorant of my car's specific options, I wouldn't exactly know what my final drive ratio is. Perhaps these pictures may be of use?

Here's a couple of my differential.
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(Most the oil on the floor here is from my power steering box! :evil:)
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Beautfiul specimen you've got there. I see it has a painted grille. Was that a particularly common option for troopers? The chrome on my grille is flaking off, and i'm thinking of either getting it re-chromed, or simply painting it a 'stock' colour of sorts.

Next thing i'll be doing is some welding! my parts came in today, and i might as well get to it while i have the wheels off.

@Enemigo:
Proper rust repair is a rather involved process. While the welding is easy enough to pick up (in the case of MIG welding, it's simply a case of starting off with a tack weld, then making a series of additional tack welds across your weld seam with a 'push' angle, making sure to intersect your previous tack halfway to prevent burn-through.), the equipment required to shape the sheetmetal can be prohibitively expensive to buy. Definitely a lot more than a couple fenders at a wreckers yard if you don't plan on doing any further work.

While some rudimentary shaping can be done with hand bending, vise grips, or hammers over a sharp edge, you're going to at LEAST need a proper sheetmetal bender(preferably with interchangable radiused jaws), something better than tin snips for cutting, flat-faced body hammers, hand and vise mounted dollies(a small anvil can suffice for one of those), and maybe even an oxy-acetylene rig to do something like the bottom of a quarter panel. A better option might be to attend an auto restoration/bodywork class which lets you bring in your own workpieces. (mine lets you take in your whole car if it doesn't drip oil) They'll have all the equipment and steel on standby, as well as teachers you can ask questions to anytime, providing they don't have too much on their plate.

But considering my own bodyworking toolkit is rather pitiful at the moment, i might be able to show you a couple things that can be done without specialized equipment.
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#8 ·
First of all, congratulations on your project. It will keep you out of trouble. That's because you will spend all of your free time working on it! I look forward to the updates. I have a 91 Trooper with some body rust. I plan on running it until it rots away. At 62 I have no desire to learn bodywork. Well I do but I have other body parts issues. Mainly my own body.
I also want to congratulate you on your grasp of writing a great post. So many younger folks seem to of lost the ability to write a readable post. Lack of the ability to punctuate and capitalize their writings. Charge on!!
 
#9 ·
I painted my grill and bumpers with graphite wheel paint. Used that on the 85 as well. Just my choice. Your vin plate shows lots of option codes. I have no way of sorting them out, but do know the G80 option is the LSD option for the rear diff. Good to have. May need a special lube for the LSD rear. Check that out when you get to it. The diffs all look the same and the gearing can be swapped for diff. ratios. I'll second Hess's comment on your maturity. Seems you have your head on straight.
 
#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
I think you might be taking that back when i'm done with this thing! I decided to head out into the garage today to see if i could get the rotors off, and as it turns out, Isuzu has made it especially troublesome to do what should be a simple job. I consulted the workshop manual i got from member iamamonstertruck's download link, and..

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Oh, the humanity! I'm definitely going to have to just focus on rust patches for now. at least until i get a pin socket for the hub nut(already have a torque wrench), some grease, perhaps a couple new sets of wheel bearings(front starboard clunks when i shake it & sounds rough when i spin the wheel, portside's probably on the way out too), and a GOOD pair of snap ring pliers for that horrible circlip!

I was not expecting to have to pull a whole hub assembly in order to change a measly brake rotor, but speaking from the perspective of someone who hasn't yet changed one himself, I don't suppose I have a lot of room to talk. Bright side of that design is that it's a good way to remind the shop monkeys to at least re-grease those bloody tapered roller bearings in the same interval rotors need changing. Gotta remember to get my fingers on the c*rclip when it clears the shaft, too.

I said it once, and i'll say it again. This is gonna be one hell of a first car! :lol:
 

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#12 ·
I sure hope so. as long as setting the preload for those bearings doesn't require much more than a pin socket, I think I might be okay.

Handling small, vital parts in my rather disorganized workshop makes me particularly anxious.
 
#13 · (Edited by Moderator)
After having a ridiculously hard time finding replacement guide pins for my brake calipers(and suspecting the little hellions were machined from unicorn horn), i finally made my first order from rockauto.com! I think i oughta make a point of ordering from there more often, as they had all the little 'specialty' parts for my trooper i otherwise wouldn't find anywhere else.(such as the guide pin boots)

I must tell you, aussie retailers are a pack of scalping crooks! The parts store i telephoned for quotes couldn't give me slide pins. wanted 140 DOLLARS(!!!) for a single-caliper rebuild kit, and 65 for a set of rear brake pads! (rockauto had them for 40) Ridiculous.

Anyway, i figured i might as well spend some time getting busy while i wait.

First, i removed the headliner. part to make the correction of the hatchet job the previous 10 owners did on the wiring, part because it was drying up and cracking around the seams, part because it was a flammable, and part because it had black MOLD underneath it!

Here are a few pictures i took, just incase you may be interested in what lies behind a trooper's headliner.
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This was not an easy thing to do. taking those roof handles out turned out to be a very tricky job. One of the screws stripped out so badly that i had to drill the head off.
Judging by the poor fit they had on a #2 phillips, the 'squarish' shape of the cruciform heads, and where this car was made. I have reason to believe that these are not phillips head screws, but JIS. If anybody has any experience with using JIS screwdrivers on the cruciform screws in these cars, do let me know, as this information could save someone else from going through my hassle.
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The headliner is held up by a bunch of curved bars fed through loops sewn into the vinyl. They have eye shaped clips crimped into the end that keep them locked firm in their respective mounting holes. Pull down and out to remove them, making not sure not to twist the soft metal bar in the process.
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I plan on eventually replacing those bits of recycled shag carpet with some proper dynamat. The insulation on this car is a joke. heat from the engine radiates into the interior, it becomes a rolling sauna when you park it in the sun, and once you exceed 80 km/h, the road and drivetrain noise gets to a degree where intelligible conversation with your passengers risks losing your voice.

The brown stuff looks to be the remnants of some kind of fish oil. there's a hole drilled in my starboard B pillar which has it caked all around. Thanks for nothing, previous owners.
(They even drilled a couple huge holes in my A pillar for an antenna! patching that up will be a horrendous chore.)

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Here i have tied my MIG gas bottle to the wheel. I am hopeless at tying knots, so figuring out how to rig this up took far longer than it should have. The main thing is it no longer poses a threat of being knocked over and rocketing into both my shins.

And here is the very first weld!
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I'm getting used to MIG welding again after a long hiatus, and the settings are still not second nature to me. (i initially learned through stick welding, only had to worry about amperage with that.)
Left side was a little cold, right side had lots of trouble with blow-through because my fitup wasn't very good. Bottom was the one that went best for me.

I might need to turn up my voltage and weld with a steeper 'angle of attack' so the weld puddle grows more into the leading edge of my bead instead of pooling and blowing through.

After closer inspection, i did find out that this rust has penetrated a little deeper than i originally thought. including a small spot in the rain channel underneath the hood vents. Is there a way to make access to that a little easier? or am i going to have to get a little more radical with the rat-tail makita?

Makes you really think about how easy the 'classic muscle' guys got it. They can build themselves a whole new car outta aftermarket parts alone, yet here we are with an aftermarket that looks to be drifting dangerously close to the likes of the trabant, or the wartburg 311. no prefabricated patch panels, weatherstripping's hard to get, and searching by make and model gives you very little in the way of repair parts, so you are forced to order them by diameter, standard designation(like the ones etched onto bearing races), part number, or searching for a similarly equipped car. (My new radiator was listed for a rodeo, and i remember finding the IAC listed for some kind of early '90s honda.)

Stay tuned for updates!
 

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#14 · (Edited by Moderator)
Well, people. I just got back from the hardware store today with a fresh bottle of argon-mix. I learned the hard way why you're supposed to close your bottles after you're done with them.. :evil:

Before i get back to it, i figure i might as well show you guys a couple shots of this car going under the knife. (or should i say, cutting disc?!)

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Rust went a little further in than i thought. but the good news is i found nothing at all in the rain channel. As the old masters say, laying siege to the tinworm means cutting your way in, and welding your way out.
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And here's my starboard footwell ready to be welded back up. I have a patch all ready to go for this one.
The portside is much more egregious in terms of rust, and requires a little patching on the lip of my floorpan in order to ensure an even surface for my hand-formed patch to butt against.

I have a couple tools due to arrive in the mail next week, being a nice set of c*rclip pliers from knipex, and a wheel hub wrench for my car! The listing said it was for a rodeo, OR an isuzu D-MAX. but further research seems to show that the Isuzu D-MAX uses the exact same hubs seen in the old trooper, or rodeo. Normally i'd say 'if it aint broke don't fix it' or something in that vein, but I think it's a STUPID design! :confused2:

Alongside my big welding project, I will also be trying to remove my upper oil pan without an engine hoist, so stay tuned in for that.
 

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#15 · (Edited by Moderator)
Here's a quick update on what i've done so far!

I've installed a brand new exhaust manifold gasket, as well as a complete set of studs and nuts. The studs appear to be coated in some form of chromate conversion coating, while the nuts seem to just be chrome plated. I had to go on the wild goose chase of the century for these guys!

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I spent a crazy amount of time driving up, down, and all around town visiting every single auto parts store in it, and nobody but a mechanic's workshop could get me what i wanted! They didn't sell crush washers for my brake banjo bolts, they didn't sell manifold studs, NOBODY sold a replacement seal for my brake master cylinder cap. and that wasn't even the craziest part of my quest!

One of the stores i visited was locked up like fort knox. oil drums infront of the doors, red tape markings all over the concrete, little white table infront of a side door, and a cardboard sign telling me i had to enquire over the PHONE for service! I'm 18. The fellow who tended to me after i called him via my own god-given vocal cords looked about 60. Isn't phoning over speaking distance supposed to be 'my' gig? :lol:

What a time to be alive!

..And no. he didn't have what i wanted either. He came out the side door, and his eyes were threatening to pop out of his skull, the guy did NOT want to stay outside for more than a few seconds at a time, and kept our conversation very hurried and terse to fulfill that. It was like he thought the whole street was afire!

But digressions aside, these studs are pretty nice. I think they should hold up for a good long time.
I even took it upon myself to chase all their respective threads with an M8 starter tap, taking multiple passes until i could smoothly thread the stud all the way in by hand. (if you can't move a thread by hand, it's either dirty or bad)

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I'd also say that if you try to undo an exhaust manifold nut and the stud comes with it, you should probably take that as a hint. :D

I also made my very first patch on the wheel wells. I'm still trying to get my settings dialled in.

For some reason my welding goes far better in the flat position than it does in the horizontal and overhead positions.. perhaps i still have to tweak a couple of things, perhaps i just need more practice. (this WAS my first time welding overhead, mind you!)

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Bead had almost full penetration through the base metal, though. so i can't complain too much.

Here's my portside all prepared for the new piece. I'll be welding this sucker up tomorrow! 8)
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And here's a section of rust i ground out of the very edge of my floorpan. Make sure your heater core hose is on tight, gentlemen!
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#17 ·
I continually admire your work! I rarely go outside right now, when I do it is for a required errand like food. In my area of Nevada there have only been about a dozen cases and most have survived. It amazes me on how normal things are. Lots of traffic and the stores are busy, only about half use masks and gloves. Parts stores are open as well as repair shops. Most small businesses are closes as well as the casinos. Seems only the giants are open and doing business. Like Walmart and the grocery stores.
My first experiences with welding are the same. Flat down I was pretty good. Vertical was not so good and overhead just sucked. I first welded with a stick and many years later moved over to mig, that went real nice. I haven't welded now for many years and I probably would be horrible as I have aged some and my hand trembles a little bit.
I enjoy reading your posts and look forward to them. I noticed you have a header on your engine. That is a good thing. I look forward to reading more of your post and struggles with your Isuzu.
 
#18 ·
I gotta say that stick is a lot easier to set up, I too started off running 1/8th 6013 over T joints, but good luck running those guys over 18 gauge steel!
I think my problem is that i'm either running too cold(possibly from turning it down some after blowing through, something that can be caused by not letting the metal cool down between tacks), not holding the arc long enough for the puddle to fan out, or just neglecting to prepare my ground surfaces properly. Tomorrow'll have us see if the job goes any better or not, the port-side wheel well puts me in a much more comfortable position to run the required 'push' angle for sheetmetal welding, and my last job finished with some better settings than it started with.

Always wondered if those were extractors.. I gotta say that the trooper is the very first four-cylinder i've ever seen that sounds good with a glasspack muffler. Try that on a smaller four-pot, you'll sound like you got a weed whacker under the hood!

You can count on seeing many many more of these posts in the future! This thing's gonna put me to work for quite a while, and i figure a lot of people on the planet are looking for some quality entertainment in the midst of the so-called apocalypse, so hey! let's rock n'roll! 8)
 
#19 ·
I'd just like to tune in with another very quick update, i didn't feel like handling a camera with greasy hands, so i didn't take any pictures this time around.

The welding on the portside patch panel was an absolute farce. either it'd blow right through, or i'd get a tall, narrow bead that hardly penetrated at all. Oh well, as they say, a grinder and paint makes me the welder i ain't! :D
(on another note, i could try welding off to the side of the gap between the patch and the rest of the body. perfect fitup with only a 5 inch rat tail grinder is a pipe dream.)

With the recent arrival of my brand new set of knipex snap ring pliers, i decided i'd give my horribly bruised ego a little break from the welding and start working on taking off my front hubs.
@Enemigo was right, this ISN'T so bad! You just undo all the bolts, take out the snap ring, then you can just wiggle the hubs off the shaft.

..Although, be sure you don't damage the bronze ring that interfaces the steel spline ring with the 'helix' on the back of the selector knob. It's got a couple of tabs that sit between a couple of the spline ring's pairs of teeth, and you have to line those tabs up with the part of the outer hub's spline that has a void to make clearance for those tabs.

Because if you don't, and you try to whack it home with the heel of your hand, you will bend the ring, and then you're going to be in a whole new WORLD of hurt!
Flattening it out with a hammer isn't such a big deal, but what IS a big deal is getting THAT HORRIBLE RETAINING SPRING BACK ON THE GEAR!!!!! ARGGGHHH!!!

I worked well into the night trying to thread that awful thing back through the ring and spline. I recieved many cuts, I invented several new swear words, and I came to the conclusion that one of the things they do to you at guantanamo bay is hand you all the pieces of one of these hubs, and then force you to reassemble it.. :evil:

If you want to open one of these things up, heed my warning! Do NOT separate that bronze ring from the spline unless it is in need of repair! And if that is the case, buy yourself a catering sized bottle of whiskey, so you can forget about the nightmare you've just signed up for!

And here's another word of warning, If you want to separate the selector knobs from the hub face, beware of the detent!
There's a very small ball bearing right underneath the arrow. and it has a spring behind it. (GASP!) Work on the floor or over a nice large tub, or else it will roll off your table and ping away to a place it will never be found again. when you put it back, hold it in place with some grease.

Disgressions aside, I eventually won the fight! I got everything put back together quite nicely, I blasted all the old grease out of the hubs with a copious amount of rags and brakleen, replaced it all with a generous amount of fresh hi-temp wheel bearing grease, and learned in and out how these hubs are assembled.

But Unfortunately, this victory came with the discovery of yet another thing i have to warn you guys about. I lifted the hubs off the axles, wiped away all the grease around the retaining ring, and i found something EVIL underneath!
Some ham fisted fool has already stripped the retaining ring screws for me. And you wanna know why?

The one screw in there that wasn't stripped had a little dot next to the cruciform.. That means THAT THESE ARE NOT PHILLIPS HEAD SCREWS!!!!

THESE ARE JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) SCREWS WHICH REQUIRE A PROPER JIS SCREWDRIVER. THERE IS NO CHANCE IN H-E(DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS) THAT YOU'RE GOING TO UNDO THEM WITH A PHILLIPS!

HONDA BRAKE ROTOR SCREWS ARE ALSO THE SAME STORY. IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE CRUCIFORM SCREWS ON JAPANESE EQUIPMENT, IT IS MORE THAN LIKELY THAT YOU ARE USING THE COMPLETE WRONG TOOL FOR THE JOB!

Do yourself a favour, people! Buy a set of JIS screwdrivers, and a couple of GOOD snap ring pliers of internal, and external models. Hunting around for replacement circlips after you've mangled them with your screwdriver, and constant going to war with stripped out screws will eat away both your time, and your enjoyment of your project in very short order.

There is a consolation to JIS screws, though. They are very resistant to stripping when used with the correct driver, to the point you can snap the head off the fastener if you get too cavalier with the driver. I say that's a sign of a well designed fastener, though, because in the absence of anti-sieze, things inevitably turn recalcitrant!

I have just ordered a set of these screwdrivers, and will get back to you all when they arrive, or when i get back into the welding. :D
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
This just in!

I just recieved my new screwdriver set today, and as it turns out..

We have a positive ID on the JIS screws, everybody!
These wheel bearing retaining screws came out with absolutely no trouble at all.
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The other side was a little trickier, as the screws on that side were the ones that had been badly stripped out. but thankfully, the screwdriver set i ordered had a little impact driver mechanism in the handles. Put the tip into the worst offender, gave the striking end a nice sharp rapping, and it eventually worked its way out.

I then proceeded to test the fit of these screwdrivers on the rest of the cruciform screws dotted around the car, and they both fit them far better than my phillips set, AND successfully loosened every one with zero damage! Even the long-standing ones came out with a nice resounding click.

This proves that all the cruciform screws in an isuzu trooper are JIS. not phillips. If you're reading this, i beseech you to start spreading the word! There's a lot of people who are gonna be saved a lot of time with the right tools in their hands.

You should also think about putting some money aside for a set of these JIS drivers yourself. VESSEL makes this very nice set for a rather decent price (okay, 60-70 dollars, but how much is your time and frustration worth?)
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By the way, i'm not going to be welding for a little while. my welds on the portside wheel well have been going awful, i'm spending more time filling in blow through than i am actually running a bead(or attempting to at least), and as a result i've been getting frustrated every time i had to pick up a welding gun. so rather than risk killing my enthusiasm for this project, i decided i'd take a little break.

Hope you're doing alright out there, everybody.
 

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#22 ·
Certainly not, I'm doing it the way you're supposed to, which is where you run a bunch of overlapping tack welds over the seam. I'm just used to calling finished weldments 'beads'. Suppose it's a holdover from all the stick welding i was doing.

My problem is that no matter how low i set the machine, i either blow right through in less than a second, or my weld piles up and doesn't fan out like it's supposed to. It could be a problem with my fitup, i might've not cut far enough into the rust, or it could be because i bought a crap ground clamp and my settings aren't staying consistent as a result. I'll try both clamping my ground wire direct to the spot i ground off with a C clamp, and dragging my wire across the gap so i can get my initial tack weld in place.

The filler metal of the tacks is usually a lot thicker than the panel, and allows you to maintain your weld as a result, but getting it to that point without immediately blowing through has been an absolute nightmare. I think i might just cut this botched patch out and start anew with a larger one.
 
#23 ·
Sometimes it is best to move to another part of the vehicle when frustrated. Gives you time to think about it and come up with a better plan.
 
#24 ·
I had actually never heard of the JIS screwdriver, keep in mind I am self taught and what I picked up from others. So after doing a little research I found this set and order it. I really like the impact ability. I too had struggled with those darn little screws and even the ones on the front fenders. This same set on Amazon was a bit over 100 bucks and that put it way out of my price range. I did a little Google and found the same set at this site.
https://www.nationaltoolwarehouse.com/S ... T980MIXEVA

Also the comments on this brand have been very good.
 
#25 ·
aidan7777 said:
Certainly not, I'm doing it the way you're supposed to, which is where you run a bunch of overlapping tack welds over the seam. I'm just used to calling finished weldments 'beads'. Suppose it's a holdover from all the stick welding i was doing.

My problem is that no matter how low i set the machine, i either blow right through in less than a second, or my weld piles up and doesn't fan out like it's supposed to. It could be a problem with my fitup, i might've not cut far enough into the rust, or it could be because i bought a crap ground clamp and my settings aren't staying consistent as a result. I'll try both clamping my ground wire direct to the spot i ground off with a C clamp, and dragging my wire across the gap so i can get my initial tack weld in place.
Right after I posted I remembered you came up in a body shop and already knew everything I said. I don't remember what welder you are using. What size wire are you running? If you're running .030 or .035, I'd probably styop down to .023 and try that. Also, are you running on 220v?
 
#26 ·
I had actually never heard of the JIS screwdriver, keep in mind I am self taught and what I picked up from others. So after doing a little research I found this set and order it. I really like the impact ability. I too had struggled with those darn little screws and even the ones on the front fenders. This same set on Amazon was a bit over 100 bucks and that put it way out of my price range. I did a little Google and found the same set at this site.
https://www.nationaltoolwarehouse.com/S ... T980MIXEVA

Never heard of them either. Through the years fasteners are changing, keeping us on our toes trying to get the proper tools. I remember reed and prince screws, tri wing fasteners ( aviation darlings), star screws, and several others along the way. Thinking there was an English one that was somewhere between metric and standard also.
 
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