1968 FJ40 Build in Colombia

[jtoro]

1968 FJ40 Build in Colombia (Update Engine is on the frame!!!)

It´s about time I started my own thread to share back what I have learned here.

This rig was bought initially as a tow truck for an ATV but it ended up becoming my main toy (the ATV was sold because I never rode it again .

The car was bought in May 2007. As I said, my only purpose for this car was using it (and probably abusing too) as a tow truck, but when I got it, some things had to be fixed for it to be a safe vehicle.

I started wandering around the internet and found mud, what a BIIIIG MISTAKE lol. Even though I've always liked wrenching and working on cars, Toyotas were not my biggest love, but after seeing some beautiful rigs and projects here, the list of things that I wanted to fix before I started using it as a tow rig grew from changing the brake fluid and some minor details to a complete frame off rebuid.

This is what I got

Nice "eyelids"

Looked like a nice beginning, little or no aparent rust, engine working ok, the wife even thought it was a good idea

 

[jtoro]

The part of the country where I live is full of mountains. The car was bought in a small town 40 miles from my home and when I bought I had to drive it all the way home. 10 minutes after driving I started to think that it was not such a good idea. The steering had almost one complete turn of free play, brakes barely worked, going uphill the car sounded like it was going to explode in 2 gear but in 3rd it would not move and try to stall, the heat inside was unbearable and the gears whined like hell.

This trip stressed me terribly, I thought I would never get home.

When I read about someone thinking of buying an FJ and driving it 100 or more miles, I feel sincerely worried for them.

But finally I got home, my legs were shaking!!!!

A closer look to the engine bay reveals that I am not such a good buyer:

Mazda 626 Carburetor

Water still leaking after a day of being turned off!!

 

[jtoro]

So, the small list started growing.

My first target was getting a car that could tow my ATV, that meant:

1. Functional Brakes
2. Steering had to be fixed
3. Carburetor had to be replaced
4. I wanted to isolate the terrible heat that the engine produced inside, remember this is a tropical country and even though I live in the mountains, we do get 80s all year round.

That was about it, so I started reading and reading and reading. The fun part was finding out that all my troubles were common to most of us, mainly the stupid belief that with two or three weekends of beer and wrenching and a few bucks we will end up with a perfectly working FJ40.

The bad part is when you learn to read the dates on the posts of people who are rebuilding their car and find out that it takes forever. Another bad part is that you guys can always go to a junkyard and find thousands of parts. Cars here are so expensive they never end in a junkyard and used parts are hard to find and most of the "donors" that you use, don´t even exist here.

Well, no more complaining, I could have chosen another way of spending my money and spare time but I surely am happy with what this car has taken from me. }

So the "quick fix" started, first of all with the brakes. Our alternative to minitruck conversion is the Toyota 70 Series conversion, that is a direct bolt on. After looking everywhere, I finally found a good pair of complete knuckles and made the swap.

This is what I started with, these were the ORIGINAL drums:

After removing everything, cleaning and replacing the seals:

and installing the knuckles and the rest of the stuff:

This looks like a 20 minute job, but believe me, it isn´t.

It takes about

Thanks for reading....

 

[JohnnyC]

do you have any better pics of the carpet and the mud flaps?

nice looking rig

 

[jtoro]

Thanks, It will look nicer if I ever finish.


The mudflaps are realatively inexpensive and easy to find here in Colombia, I personally don't like them and removed them asap.

Carpet in the back

Carpet in front

More mudflaps

 

[pb4ugo]

Nice rig. 6 beers for the whole job or is that for just 1 side? I must drink too much!!!

 

[jtoro]

Nope, those are the ones I drank getting the tools ready

 

[addicted56]

Hello Juan,

I drove the FJ43 for the first time since it left 2 weekends ago when I flew home for my sisters wedding in Oregon. Fun Fun Fun.

You need to show everyone the 1FZ swap. You talk about your 626 Carb on your car. I'm sure many people here in the US would love to see that the 1FZ still came with a Carb down there. I had no idea and the pictures you sent me lookied like you did one heck of a job.

Enjoy driving it in the mountains and hopefully your wife has changed her mind and now enjoys the reliable rig.

Thanks again and good luck on your project/disease.
Jason

By the way as they say "this thread is worthless without MORE pictures )

 

[Volcano cruiser]

Colombia was where I fell in love with cruisers, i.e. caught the disease. I saw 40s everywhere from Huila to Antioquia to Norte Santander. Very rarely rusted out but sometimes down at the heels and overflowing with coffee and fruit and beans. I decided that any rig that could still working at its original purpose 30 years later was strong enough for me. It looks great.

P.S.
I´m headed back to the U.S. and some places there require mud flaps... I might be hitting you up for a set if I have to have some those might be the ticket.

 

[jtoro]

Volcanocruser, anything that you need, please ask.

Well, continuing with the story, I must make clear that I´m posting only the parts that were final on the car. If I have learned something with this project is that you sould never make temporary fixes, or invest money halfway in the sense that you do something in the meantime, because you end up loosing all your time and money.

Be very clear on what you want, and don´t compromise for less because sooner or later, you end going all the way and watching your money and time going donwn the ...

Well, enough on cheap advise. Today Im posting one of the mods that I´ve liked the most.

The engine was a perfectly running F, with a Mazda 626 Carb that nobody could make it idle correctly, or pass the smog test or go uphill, or downhill....

So, my first biiiiig mistake, I decided that it was a pitty to throw the engine away and started trying to make it work nice again, first I installed a Weber 32/36, some improvement but still not a nice drive, so I repaired the distributor, installed electronic points and things got better but then I thought that the 3 speed was too short in second and to long in third (remember, mountains) so I bought a 70 series gearbox and made the swap. Things got better but, still not what I wanted, so down the toilet with all those investments (the fun I had will never be lost, I have to recognize that), and I bought a 1FZ-F engine.

Nope, I didn´t forget to put the E after 1FZ-F, we did get that engine with a carburetor, in models between 93 and 95, until it became mandatory to comply with some emissions law.

The swap is relatively simple, I´m not a pro, I like wrenching but I had never done an engine swap or even seen one. Mud helped me a LOT, thanks all for posting pictures and their stories.

First, removing the old engine, eeeeasy.

Take off the front, radiator all electrical, water and gas hoses and pull...... (Remember to take off the gearbox first, or at least that is what I did because I didn't want to move all that weight around).

Then, put the new engine on.... Easy again

And, sit back and relax....

Engine in place

Sounds easy and even though it is not hard, the part that made me doubt the most was the alignment of the engine because I had read a lot on driveshaft problems and vibrations. The most important part, from my point of view, is measuring, measuring and measuring. Be sure that both driveshafts are completely aligned, be sure that the engine will not hit the firewall or the floor (bigger gearbox made it a little troublesome for me) and be sure that you will have space for the fan (mechanical or electric). On my case, the 1FZ-F engine is loooong and I had to use an electrical fan because the oem wouldnt fit and because it is slightly to the right right of the engine and it would not cover the narrow radiator that fits on the oem supports.

In the last pic, you will see that the engine is very close to the third member, in fact, it was less than an inch, that led me to another mod that will be posted later. You can also see that I put two strips of masking tape at perfect 90 degrees with the crossmember to use as a visual guide for centering the engine on the front.

Thanks for reading.

 

[jtoro]

When I finished the engine swap, all the mechanical parts that needed to be fixed, were done. I had new brakes, new power steering, new engine and gearbox new suspension (sorry no pics but I installed Series 70 springs under the axle. I got them curved so the distance between the ends of the new springs was exactly the same as the oem ones, which allowed me to get a nice shackle angle.

Teardown began on december 2009.

This is how it looked the last week it was running....

Then, after two days of hitting my knucles against any imaginable part of the frame and body, I had a bunch of parts, a lot of mess and no FJ!!!!

Midway between a car and a pile of stuff., Sometimes I worry if I will remember how to put it back together.

Then, frame goes to the sandblaster

These guys must live short, very little protection, a lot of noise and dust. Third world,

Frame and axles repainted....

Two months later (I only get a chance to work on the truck on weekends), I had a beautiful frame and axles with new springs and all new bolts. Time to start with the body.

I stripped the old paint with paint remover because I was afraid of warping the metal with our "highly specialized sandblasters". What a pain...

Well, I have an advise for newbies, if you are planning on getting to the bare metal, do take into account flash rust. All these parts were left in the garage for a month or two and when I was going to apply primer, it was all surface rusted, and had to sand for hours. So, if you strip, just before considering it a day, spray some primer on and dont leave the metal unprotected,. it will save you a lot of time.

 

[addicted56]

Juan,

I'm loving the build and enjoy all of the insight and pictures. That 1FZ-F swap is the coolest thing I have seen in an FJ40. I should have had you ship up the necessary parts for my current build to do the same.

Keep em comming!

 

[BJ44V]

Great looking work and a nice cruiser to start with. Definitely going to keep an eye on this build.

 

[valeriano]

Very nice job!
I'm waiting to see were it will end.
Probably a very good looking FJ.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[jtoro]

Thanks all you guys for the positive comments. This weekend, if we don have bad weather, I should be painting the truck. In the meantime, some pics on the surface preparation.

First, my 0,000002 cents. Surface prepping is a real pain, not only in the butt, but in your hands, elbows, shoulders, back, legs and soul. Good surface preparation, according to the experts is the one and only factor for a good looking paint job, especially now with all these modern paints that shine no matter what.

From a very good post in the paint section, a lot of youtube and "saintgoogle", I decided to go this way:

First, clean, clean again and spray primer. In my case, I had to sand everything again. I used 100p grit first and then 220p grit before cleaning and painting.

It looked like this

So you would say, good, you are ready to paint.

Well, no. After these three layers of epoxy primer, I sanded with 320p grit on a small block after lightly spraying the whole surface with cheap matte black paint (it dries very fast and makes a nice contrast with the yellow primer). Now you start to see that things aren't so cool,

Bare metal looks beautiful

Then you primer and block and find......

So you say to yourself, this is peanuts, a little bondo here and there and Im ready for paint. But life for a googlexpert isnt as easy as the internet, look what I got after repeating the cycle for three times.

Those parts where you see the bare metal are high spots, the places where you see the black shadow are low spots, so that means you still have a long way to go. It took forever, and when I thought I was finished, I read that for a good flat surface you need to use huge sanding blocks, not the small ones. So I resanded an indicator coat after thinking that I was finished and man, I almost cried.

My humble advise, use huge blocks from the beginning.

I read a lot on the grits of sanding paper, for me, this is what worked (I hope I didnt make a huge mistake and if someone thinks this is wrong, please correct me so others dont repeat my mistake)

After applying the bondo, I used 100p grit to remove the coarseness, not to get the surface flat because the scratches will keep showing.
Then, with 220p grit, you sand in an X motion, this is very important to avoid digging into the bondo and making waves
When you think you are ready, spray the indicator coat and use 320p, this will show minor details. I found out that the backing has to be as hard as possible, when I used soft backing on the sanding board, the surface will not be flat because the sandpaper adapts to the imperfections and doesnt flatten them.

When I finished, I repainted everything with primer again (read somewhere that it is better not to paint on top of bondo because the chemicals are sucked by it and it will show in the near future.

When I finished this, I sanded again with 320p and covered all with a high build primer that will cover the inevitable scratches and borders between bondo and metal

So this is how it looks now, just before sanding with 600p

This weekend, a new indicator coat will be applied (I know that expert painters dont do this, but I have found that it is the only way I can be sure that I have sanded enough and everywhere.

After that, clean, clean, clean and paint. I hope I do get a good weather and in such case, I will post pictures of a renewed blue fj40.

Thanks for reading

 

[Wayneraintree]

great commitment to doing the best job possible! It'll be worth it in the end..... whenever that is

 

[KY Longhunter]

Wow, lots of work. Doing an excellent job !

What color will you go with ?

 

[Walton]

Great job, and thanks for posting.

 

[jtoro]

Color

Wow, lots of work. Doing an excellent job !

What color will you go with ?

This was one of the most difficult questions I made myself during the last two years!!!

This was the first time in my life that I could have a car with exactly the color I wanted, so this makes things hard. You normally have to adapt to what the dealer has but in this case I could even get a color that no one else had.

I found a place in the web where they have all the formulas for Wanda Paint on the original Toyota colors, so I started testing....

I even tried matte sky blue, looks perfect but once it gets a scratch, nothing besides painting will clear it.

Finally, I decided to go Sky Blue (Color Code T854).

This weekend the weather was average and I got to paint, the whole tub, the back part of the windshield, insides of fenders and doors and some other small parts.

First, I would like to show what the indicator layer does. In the pictures, you can see what seems to be a perfectly smooth surface, to the eye and to the hand. When you start sanding, you see that it really isn´t so smooth. My 2 cents, use the indicator layer, it does mean a lot of work but the smile after the final result will show two more teeth!!!

Hope this gives you an idea.

Thanks for reading.

 

[jtoro]

Blue is a hard color to get in a picture, specially if it is a cellphone and the lights are white. All these picutres were taken at the same time, with the same cellphone and all the paint came from the same container, I know the color is exactly the same in all the painted parts, forgive my pictures.

This is what I acomplished this weekend.

These are after applying the first coat (color coat)

No shine, but very easy to apply. Almost impossible to get orange peel or runs at this stage.


Then, 3 layers of clear coat.

Thanks for reading. I still have to paint the fenders, the outside of the hood and all the small pieces. Hopefuly next week.