I'm pleased to announce that the compressor replacement seems to have worked so far. I wish I had been able to get in a week earlier and avoid a couple of long, hot trips on the weekend, but Wednesday was the earliest I could get an appointment. AC is expensive - I'm probably in over $1,000 after diagnosis, getting a compressor, and having it installed. But without it I end up not driving for a lot of the dry part of the year. I received my previously mentioned latch pads a few days ago. They are a dealer part according to the bag, but I still have no idea what the part number is. There are several sellers on Yahoo Auctions that have them. Here they are with the better-looking old one on the truck (the other side has a piece of plastic tubing I crammed in there to stop the rattle): The existing one was pretty smashed up. Installed, they made a HUGE difference. I didn't think the passenger side had much rattle before, but now the bed might as well be welded shut. I go over bumps and there's only a solid thump instead of a clatter. The replacement cost me $40 - $50 because I made bad choices with Yahoo Auctions, but it was worth every penny.
I've been thinking about some kind of locking storage under the bed, since there is so little in the cab. I want to carry things like straps and jumper cables all the time if possible in order to have them on hand. The available space is so tiny I didn't have good luck finding one in North America. I have been keeping my eye on Yahoo Auctions, but the only toolboxes that came up were for later Hijets (apparently). A while back I bought the 1997 dealer accessories brochure when it came up, just for fun. It included a picture of the S1XX toolbox in place between the cab and the battery box on the left side of the truck. I eventually noticed that the lid looked exactly the same as the S2XX toolboxes that I kept seeing at auction. Sure enough, one of the ads had both dimensions and pictures of the mounting instructions. The size would fit and the mounting location on the frame looked right. I felt confident in ordering one on speculation for $125 shipped and modifying it if need be. I received a nice Daihatsu box with the instructions on top. My expectations were exceeded: the first page says the box is for model year 2004 and up, BUT further in there are special instructions for S100P trucks like mine without side steps! This is in fact exactly the same toolbox save for the colour as far as I can tell (many later trucks seem to be silver).
There was a good hour and a half of assembly to install the box. I had to put lots of rubber protecting strips on the brackets before installing them over the truck's frame rails. The brackets have two adjustable pieces that pinch the top flange of the rail at the right and left (of the truck), and are to be placed 250 mm apart. They don't actually wrap around the bottom of the frame, so there aren't any clearance problems with the engine undershield. The box itself screws to the brackets through its back. I left everything loose until I had started all of the screws, and then moved everything around a little to maximise the clearance between the toolbox and the battery cover. There's a bulge in the truck frame towards the front of the vehicle that keeps the box from sitting too far forward...it's pretty tight, but that's what the catalogue picture shows (to be fair, it does show an uncovered battery!).
There are a bunch of sealing foam strips that go on the inside of the door to 'seal' it (the instructions warn multiple times that the box isn't watertight and not to put anything you care about in it, which doesn't inspire confidence). The key lock comes with Daihatsu keys that look like valet keys, for those who are old enough to remember those! The door has one-sided hinges that slide on and off just like the drop sides of the bed, which finishes installation. The warning sticker on the box tells you not to put more than 10 kg in it and to check the screws for looseness regularly. There is actually plenty of clearance for the door to operate and not rattle against the battery cover or bodywork, but it's pretty tight. The battery cover needs a small screwdriver to open the plastic rivets and access the battery, so I may need to keep a tiny right-angle screwdriver on hand or be unable to jump start the vehicle! There is ANOTHER sticker that comes with the box to warn you against dropping the bed sides with the latch handle out. It jabs the box cover if you do. That's a little bit of a bummer, since the handle is loose and immediately hangs open when the bed side starts to drop. I may need to see how annoying that becomes. All in all, I'm pretty happy. It's not the toughest box I've ever seen and apparently not very watertight, but it will resist light fingers a little bit and keep some equipment out of the cab. It holds four ratchet straps and my ancient jumper cables just fine. I haven't really driven around with it loaded, so I'll have to see how much rattling I hear. It may need a little rubber mat in the bottom.
I have the same problem. The rattling sound…Missing those tubes on all four clamps. I never found those little pads on Yahoo Auctions. What search term did you use? Thnx in advance.
They don't seem to have a name that everyone can agree on, but searching for 'あおり' (which is what the drop sides are called) within Hijet parts seems to bring them up if you look through the results. Here is one of the listings that has them. There seem to be more listings for the front two or the rear two, but I held out for all four.
Last week the seven-year-old battery in the truck was finally done in by the arrival of freezing weather. Cranking got slower...and slower...and slower...until it wouldn't. And it rebuffed any attempts to charge it back up. I looked for a more-or-less exact replacement, to fit the existing clamp and with JIS battery posts instead of the larger SAE ones, but I couldn't get one. I ordered two different units, one from Canada and one from an International dealer, only to have both orders cancelled. The latter was because they couldn't find a shipper for it, so I considered a three-hour drive to Vancouver, BC to pick it up. I decided to bite the bullet and get an AGM Prius battery instead. I had a bad experience with an old fashioned flooded lead-acid battery leaking and ruining the all the plated parts in an engine compartment before. The Toyota dealer actually had the best price on something in stock. It has the terminals reversed, but there is enough slack to fasten them anyway. Getting the tightening wrench around the back to tighten the bolts is a little tricky. As you can see, the stock clamp is too short. I bought some steel rod and sheet to make a new one the right length. I started with the tricky u-bend. I bent it 90 degrees in the vice, and then took it past 90 degrees with some small 'cheater' pipes. They also help keep the rod straight outside of the area where I want the bend to be. I finished in the vice with a piece of iron strap between the sides of the bend. This straightened out the rod where some of the bend had gotten away from me and brought the sides parallel.
I cut the 'tail' to length with a hacksaw (it's pretty hard to make a bend and have the ends come out a certain length), and then put the simple right angle bend in the other end. I cut it off to length as well and then filed some relief in the corner to keep it from slipping out of the hole. The original clamp seems to have the same thing. I then cut out a sheet metal blank for the little L-bracket thingy and bent it over in the vice using a hammer. Again, I cut and filed it to size after making the bend. I took both parts out to the truck to set the position of the L-bracket. It's not really aligned with anything else on the rod, but it has to sit nicely on the corner of the battery. I had some 3M Strip-caulk from fifteen years ago that worked in a pinch to hold it in position long enough to weld.
The original clamp isn't just painted, but seems to have some kind of rubberised coating. I decided to try Plasti-Dip for the first time. Because of the length, I had to construct a special dipping vat instead of using the can itself. It was not straightforward. I ended up making several tries to get something that wasn't covered with drips and clumps. I actually added some toluene solvent I had lying around to try to thin the stuff down a little. I think this had been sitting on the shelf for a while. It really is important to dip it SLOWLY so that the surface tension of the Plasti-Dip helps to draw the excess off the part. It still ended up looking like a globby mess. Next time I might try an aerosol can instead of 'dipping'. I assumed I was going to have to strip the part and try again the next day, but the Plasti-Dip shrank and levelled out a little after curing. I decided to just leave it be and install it. When doing so I confirmed my fear that removing and installing the battery cover is very difficult with the toolbox installed. There's almost no access to the press fastener on the left. Hopefully I don't have to get to the battery very often from now on. I literally get startled by the cranking speed now. I didn't realise how bad it was all this time, even during the summer! This will stand me in good stead when I install the work light for the back, which I need badly. Half the year it's dark after work when I want to do things, and I can't see in the truck bed or where I'm unloading.
