CruisinFJ60's 82 BJ42

[CruisinFJ60]

Ok well i was gonna post this in the "what have you done this week" thread but instead i decided to whore my truck out some and give it its own thread to be able to better keep up with what i have done and will continue to do while owning her.



guess ill start.

I acquired this pretty decent little 82 BJ42 from a mud member up in Indiana for trade of my Harley Davidson Dyna Wide Glide it was an even trade cept for the fact i had to drive 1,000 miles 1 way to go and pick it up. Borrowed a trailer jumped in my truck and headed off, made the trip in right under 48 hours and a little over 2,000 miles.

anyhow to move forward, i took delivery 8-8-09 and that is where the pictures will begin.

1.) first time i saw it as the P.O. drove up.
2.) loaded and ready to rock
3.) look i can see it behind me! LOL

 

[CruisinFJ60]

1,2,3.) stopped to snap a couple of pics in the back roads of Indiana

 

[CruisinFJ60]

1.) yup factory diesel gotta love it.
2,3.) summer trim, no doors.

as my daily driver a little shade is important in the brutal texas sun and heat, also i dont currently have a place to keep the top when off so thats part of the reason as well.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

1.) registered and got my personalized plates
2,3.) all cleaned up with tire bling.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

last 3 of it being cleaned up November 25 2009

 

[CruisinFJ60]

this brings us to yesterday when i decided to do something about how low it sat in the rear as the tires would hit the tub across dips in the road and of course when i went it flexes any out back as can be seen by the paint missing on the rear of the tub (partially due to a s***ty and impropper prep job of the paint on all of the alum peices).

i noticed the rear spring packs looked a little thin and upon closer inspection it was obvious someone removed 2 of the rear leafs by the grooves rubbed into the springs by the missing leafs. one was the long one under the main leaf and the other was the one 2 sizes down from that. they were replaced by one thick leaf the same length as the smallest of the pack.

I scored a set of nice FJ62 spring and decided id give it a shot at replacing them with the 62 springs. so i did...

now i know the 62 spring are longer but didnt know by how much so i measured them out and then measured the ones on the truck and they were about the same length within 1/4", now remember the 42 springs were almost perfectly flat due to the weight and missing leafs and the 62 springs were carrying no weight. I knew they would flatten some but didnt know how much or how far the shackle angle would be altered. well only way to find out is to do it. now since i have an 82 the bushings and spring pins are the same so it is a bolt in affair.

well got the one side bolted in and set weight on it to see that it moved my wheelbase back about 2 inches and had the rear shackle sitting at about an 80* angle as i wanted to just see what would happen and didnt want to fool with moving perches and what not at this time.

so out came the spring and i pulled it apart as well as the 42 spring i pulled from the 62 rear spring the 2 leafs that closest matched the length of the 2 missing leafs in the 42 pack and added them back into place and bolted it all back together and installed the spring back under the truck. snugged it up and put weight on it... success it raised it up about an inch or so, that would work well enough for now.

now i have what looks to be the MAF SR kit up front installed by one of the p.o.'s and it raises the front and looks tacky with the huge drop down of the front spring hanger also combine this with the 2 missing leafs on the rear springs it sat quite un level and bothered me more than anything.

so here are the shots i took today after playing with the spring packs a little.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

with these 2 you can see the difference shiny tires (1.) is before not shiny (2.) is after taken this morning.

that inch or so plus the added spring rate made all the difference in the world many of the dips and things by my house i used to have to take pretty slow to keep the rears from rubbing now i can take at pretty good speed with no issues. i measured it out and i think the front sits around 1/2" higher than the rear still according to wheel well opening above tire and the front fenders which i can accept due to the long hangers of the kit up front. i plan on removing the front ghetto bolt on hangers and doing a normal much lower profile weld on spring hanger.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

sometime last month i decided to fix a busted battery hold down, the passenger side battery hold down had rusted in half in the middle so i decided to just do a quick fix for the time being. grabbed me a bolt i had laying around cut out the rusted center and went to weld the bolt in. damn mig ran out of wire to i fired up the ancient but still functioning arc welder and burned it in that way, came out a lottle sloppy from less control but its good enough for me painted it orange just cause and bolted it on.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

while taking the pictures in post #6 i decided to go ahead and put on the much less rusted License plate holder i got from a way more than generous member here on mud who also owns an FJ60 and a BJ42 as well. (thank you sooo much yet again!!)

well anyhow while doing that i wrapped up some of the wires for the real lp light with electrical tape and got them routed properly so i didnt have to worry about closing the door on them anymore as well.

holder looks much better and the wiring also looks much cleaner.

here are the pics that led to the next post...

 

[CruisinFJ60]

well then i remembered i had a dome light that didnt work and thought it would be nice if it did so i decided to mess with it some and see what was up. (this brings us to what i was originally gonna post in the "what have you done" thread that i started this thread with)
I knew the wires at the front of the top were severed so before reconnecting them i checked the voltage, well i didnt have any. after looking a little deeper i found the 2 severed wires sitting with a couple of other random unknowns down by the driver side kick panel.
I i knew they surely had to go through the window frame somehow but didnt know how or even if the rest of the wires were low enough to be able to reconnect, so i started digging around...
pulled everything from the glovebox to look at the couple of random wires to see if there was anything there (nope nothing important) pulled my non working radio out and saw a plug unplugged and plugged it back in, not sure what it went to but it was 2 solid blue with red same as wiper has goin to it. then i decided that in order to get to the window frame i needed to fold it down but to do that i had to get the top high enough to do so.
so i unbolted the top half of the ambi doors, pulled the bolts for the top out and propped it up with peices of wood right behind the front doors in order to raise the front enough to fold down the window.
folded down the window and noticed that there were 4 blue wires with red running to wiper motor area not sure if the one i connected was to this as well or what they worked fine before and the same now so who knows. anyhow found 2 of the random wires with no power were coming down from the window frame and at some point were tied into it but not connected to the power wires for the top.
well the two original wires were long enough to reach the cut portions at the bottom of the frame to i tied them back together. my lower window gasket was also not sitting correctly and i had noticed water dripping in on me from time to time in the rain so i aligned it and hoped for the best. the folded the window back up into place.
i had removed the gauge cluster during this process for additional room to get my hands in there and also my dash lights were really dim and hard to see so i wanted to make sure all the little rubber condoms were off of the bulbs and to make sure none were burned out. (all were off and none burned out, kinda sucks)
anyhow got the top back on and in place and only had 1 random bastard wire to attend to, traced it to the battery it wasnt doing anything but looking tacky so i removed it and it is much much MUCH cleaner under the dash with no hanging wires and things that dont go to anything.

all in all i felt like i got alot done even tho it isnt really much but working alone it was time consuming.
AND most importantly my dome light now works as it should comes on and off with both doors now.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

1.) not so much rust rear LP holder with 12V bulbs on a 24V truck...
2.) can you guess which bulb i replaced with a 12V bulb...

 

[CruisinFJ60]

Fooled with the truck some more today, was sitting around bored and decided to pull the rear seat from my truck.

The PO. had installed a Jeep YJ backseat as he had a kid or 2 with car seats and wanted to take em in the truck, anyhow me being single with no kids and having yet to have more than 1 friend ride with me, i figured id pull it out and if someone rides with me they can use the jump seats. when i have kids ill address it at that time. To also add to my reasoning i like to be able to take my pit with me when i go wheeling he is always in the 60 and id like to have him in the 40 and with the backseat i had to have him crawl over the front into the back seat usually stepping all over whatever i had in the center console and him being 90lbs he can be a little awkward.

anyhow thats why and here are some pics.

oh by the way the rear bench is a little dirty but should clean up decent, so if someone is interested shoot me a pm.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

i also took this opportunity to grab the water hose and hose the mud out of the back of it from when i went wheeling a while back. i have an aqaulu tub so no worries bout rust. i have a floor mat will put back in once i know it is good and dry tomorrow.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

ok well today i was really feelin the need to get out and do something, anything. so i decided to hop in the 40 and go and see if a creek was down low enough to cross the creek (last time it was around 4 feet deep), also this was a good time to see how the rear springs would do off road.

i was comin down this road pretty quick and this was a new to me trail section it was pretty rough ahead so i hit the brakes and she slid sideways, thought the angle was a good one to start the pictures.

unfortunatly i didnt have my camera on me so these are all cell phone pics and the lighting really makes that obvious.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

keep in mind these are stocks spring and i have ZERO lift other than the little the SR added up front. im running 33x10.50-15 BFG Mud Terrain KM's

right now i have no lockers either front or rear and in this particular section it was enough that when goin slow my forward motion was stopped (i purposely hit it like that to see how far it would get so i had some idea of flex / capability without any lockers.)

1.) i spun RF and LR so i got out to look it over to see angles and other junk. I was slightly amused to see the RF all over the bump stop and rear at a decent amount of droop. (stock suspension) doesnt even begin to compare to how the 60 sits right now
2.) just another angle
3.) the LF bumpstop is missing... so im pretty sure the tire would not have tucked this far if the bump stop was there still... tire actually went and got into the roll bar bolts on these itty bitty 33's.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

1.) was checking out a creek and thought this looked cool.
2.) just another angle
3.) standing in the trickling creek that was prolly 4 foot last time i was here. one of the things i was wanting to see, this is a good sign.

 

[EldarKinSlayer]

I am incredibly jealous of your BJ not to mention the weather LOL

 

[CruisinFJ60]

hey thanks i appreciate it!
I love drivin this thing, glad i finally got me one. I have alot of plans and high hopes for this rig over the years to come, some things will take longer than others but thats half the fun.

as for the weather it doesnt get to bad down here, i just dont like how gloomy it seems to always be dring winter, but i guess thats the same pretty much everywhere.

 

[CruisinFJ60]

these dont really count for anything i did, but i want to add em anyway.

1.) we got some snow (in Fort Worth, Texas no less) on Christmas eve
2.) we actually got 3 inches that day as well but i took these before it was that deep.
3.) more

 

[CruisinFJ60]

The next day on Christmas everything was pretty much all melted and we were left with a bunch of mud. So a buddy of mine and I decided to go out him in his FJ62 me in my BJ42.

these are the results, took these today as it was to dark when we went out to take any.


Thats all for now, thanks for watching.