Acerguy finally gets a truck!

Well, after sitting on the fence for three years I finally got a truck. She's a 2001 Hijet with about 71000km on it. Hi/Lo and Diff Lock. I've had it now for a few weeks and it's been a blast. Here are the pics.




^^^^^Note the MTT sticker. It was the first thing I did when I got it home!





I just put the new wheels/tires on today. It was actually quite a process. I took a LOT of careful measurements right after getting the truck and determined that a 5+2 backspaced rim would work. Well, there was a miscommunication with the vendor and when I got them I found that they actually had more like 5.5" of backspacing. Long story short, I ended up machining 10mm off of the lip.



And lo and behold...they worked!



I'm still going to machine some 5mm hub centric spacers for the front just to be safe plus there is a little bit of interference with the brake caliper. Currently they have two 1/2" flat washers behind each bolt. Oh, and yes I did redrill them for 4x100. There is still full thread engagement on the studs even with adding the small spacers.

I'm running the Deestone AG tires 23x8.5-12 in the front and 23x10.5-12 in the back. It's important to note that these tires are a LOT smaller than Carlisle All Trails...I have some of those on the front of my tractor to compare them to. This was just fine by me as one of my goals was to avoid lifting my truck if I could. So far I have ZERO rubbing. I also wanted to keep the whole truck as narrow as possible for some of the tight areas I work in (like my wood shed). I'm very pleased.

Thanks go to:
Rika at minitruckdealer.com
Rex at Midwest Motorsports in Cordell, OK.
Sheila at Kesha Enterprises, Inc for the shipping coordination.
Greg at GCT Wholesale for a good packaged deal on the mixed size tires.
Tate at Sevensprings Sales for the numerous emails regarding the rims.
Terry at Trax and Horns for being a great guy even though I didn't end up buying a truck from him.
And greg0187 for convincing me to hold out for a Hi/Lo tranny!

and some local friends who helped with the CNC work.

 

Bout time!!! lol

nice choice on tires! just hope that they dont rub on the insides!

 

Thanks guys.

Next up: front bumper/light bar/snow plow mount idea that I have. Then probably a new radio.

 

Can I get a Woot Woot! Looks great!

 

Just got in from the woods. I'm having to clear a little more around some of the trails as it's a bit wider than my tractor. So I got a truck so that I could widen the trails so that I could get a truck to widen the trails. Huh? Again, I'm thrilled that the new tires/wheels are working just as I hoped. To paraphrase "The A Team", I love it when a plan comes together. As previously noted though, these tires hum and rumble at anything above about 30kph. Which isn't a problem for me at all but might be for some.

 

Thanks! Yeah, I know I've been here a while but since I didn't have a truck I never did an introduction. Now that I think about it, it seems silly to have waited....

 

To be honest Terry, I'm not sure it's as nice as that one that you have. It's clean but it definitely had been used for something other than "hauling carpet". lol

 

Thanks, Dan! It's a hoot. Hopefully spending tomorrow hauling in firewood with it.

 

Distributor-Less Ignition System

 

Sorry I missed these posts. I actually wonder if it doesn't stand for Differential Lock uh.....something with an "I".

Status update.

-Still don't have a front bumper or plow yet but now that I have an insulated garage, I've started to look at that situation a bit.

-I did add some "helper springs" on the rear that I picked up for $25 at the local farm supply place. They seemed to work OK. Simple to install, not really worthy of a separate post.

-I think I may go ahead and do a little suspension lift. I have an assortment of springs from an earlier car project to play around with on the front and I have some material to do a simple shackle extension in the back

-I did manage to get some cracks on one of the wheels. This was entirely my fault as I was running the stock lug nuts without washers. I got cracks that radiated out from the points on the nuts. I've had to do some TIG welding to do some repairs on them essentially welding washers on permanently. So far it seems to be working.

It continues to run like a top and I have no complaints. This is my busy firewood gathering season as long as the snow is holding off so she's been getting workouts regularly.

 

UPDATE. Finally got a snow plow on Totoro (yes, it has a name)

I have been collecting various bits of random scrap steel over the years and I figured it was time to put it to use. Inspired by Ironraven's plow project, and after looking at the various options, I decided to go with the Eagle Plow setup. I liked the general design, the fact that they are made in North America, and the price. After a lot of online shopping, I ended up getting the plow one place and the plow mount at another. I got the 6' plow at Promark Offroad and the mount at North Star ATV. Since the plow stuff was 100% made in the USA, I really wanted to use a winch made here too. So I splurged and went with a Warn winch after emailing them and confirming that it was, in fact, made in the USA (I'm not stupid, I'm sure it's at least partially made of foreign parts). I got that from Rocky Mountain ATV & MC I decided to go with the synthetic rope. You offroad guys may say that I didn't get a big enough rating but it will never be used to pull the truck out of a mud hole. 90% of it will be lifting the plow up and the rest the occational dragging a brush pile or something. We'll see. Anyhow, on to the pictures.

Look! It's a pile of parts!


The winch.


First thing I need to do is to attach a bumper. I crawled around under the truck and figured that I could bolt directly to the frame rails. Alas, I don't have a welder at home so I needed to do a lot of bolt-on contruction. I welded what I needed to elsewhere. Here is the front bumper cover off and showing the front of the frame rails. I needed to cut off the plate on the front to get access to put a nut on the bolts.


Here are the holes in the frame rails.


Test fitting the 3x3 angle that I used with bolts. Nearly everything is Grade 8 BTW.


Cutting the 2x3 C-channel for the bumper itself.


Fast forward to test fitting the bumper mounts, with the bumper. The winch plate is welded directly to it and there is a light bar. Yeah, I'll probably kill the engine turning on the lights (Hella 500s). We'll see what happens when they get mounted up.


Next up, making a frame to mount the plow to and a push tube to transfer the load back to the truck frame. The key was I found a couple of nice holes back on the center portion of the frame that the lower A-arms connect to. Looks nice and solid. I figured a way to insert some "J" shaped 3/4" bolts into the holes. Here is the push tube. Note that I'll probably add some additional bracing arms to it before I paint everything up.


And showing where it mounts. Erm...not very easy to see. But if you crawl under your truck, perhaps you'll see something similar.


Here's everything all together. In the summer, I'll just run the bumper and winch. I'll add the frame and the push tube for winter. It only takes a few minutes to mount everything up.

 

A few more shots.




I still need to wire up the winch. Then I have to pull everything back off, paint everything, cut some holes in the bumper cover, and remount the whole mess. I'll post more when I get that all done.

 

Very nice. Yeah fupa, From what i've seen the Hijets havent changed much at all chasis wise over the years.

 

Thanks, guys. Used it on about 6" of very wet, heavy snow last night and it all worked fine. I'm going to try to get the winch hooked up today as we're expecting a little more snow tonight. I had called the manufacturer before I started regarding the height of the pivots (where the plow mounts to the frame and where it pivots up and down) and they told me 8" from the ground. My plan is to lift my truck so right now they sit about 7 1/2" off the ground which is actually way too low so the blade is not at a good angle. I'll see how it looks after I do the lift. I may still have to adjust the frame so that the pivots are a little higher.

 

Funny, when I'm actually plowing with it I can't even see the left side (angled towards the truck as shown). I could modify it to tuck it further under the truck I suppose. Funny because I thought the pictures of YOUR truck looked like the plow was a ways in front! This is the regular UTV mount and not the extra long one for UTV's with tracks.

I may eventually drive the truck up to my neighbors and weld the mounts that are currently bolted to the frame rails.

I made a little bit of progress on a mount for the winch relay and other things. Naturally I cut my one good piece of sheet steel that I had only to find my plan was a little off. Teach me to cut it out of cardboard first! Oh well. Now I'm hunting around the various recycling bins at work looking for material...

 

Yeah I was looking back over your latest setup and I don't think mine is that much further in front of the truck. Still, I might set it back a bit as it would give me a little more ground clearance for those (rare) times that I might have the plow mount on but have the actual plow off.