Building A Four Door FJ40 (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Feb 22, 2012
Threads
5
Messages
491
Location
Islamabad, Pakistan
To be honest, the inspiration for this build actually took place here, on this very site, a few months back. I'd taken delivery of a freshly-acquired '84 FJ40, and was pleased with it's macho good looks, and it's fairly well-kept state. Somehow, on a lark, I ended up seeing a proposed "Frankenstein" build for a 4 door FJ40 on one of the forums, on here. And I was immediately bitten by the bug.

My original plans for this vehicle (anyone ever noticed how quickly they get waylaid?) was to bring the vehicle to stock condition, add some decent tyres, a roll-cage, a soft top, and some comfy seats...and to basically use the FJ40 as a casual off-roader / open-topped hunting vehicle. Little did I know at that point, that it'd slowly evolve into the most colossal mind-f**k imaginable, and morph into something quite different from the plan I'd originally envisaged for it. It went from "stock" to a "single-cab pickup" to "king-cab pickup" to "quad-cab pickup" in just no time. Not that I had (or wanted, for that matter) any sort of rigid control on the way my mind was working. I mean...in gearheads from Karachi to Kansas...from Timbuktu to Texas...does "common sense" REALLY play much of a role in how we think and/or act?

In Pakistan, there's a tight-knit, wild-eyed, slack-jawed, drooling-mouthed assortment of off-road enthusiasts...who're absolutely stir-crazy about their rides. To cater for their tastes, we have an enormous pool of talented craftsmen, technicians, and (dare I say) artisans, who work in the most primitive conditions, and with the most rudimentary, most elementary tools to literally "create" our Toyotas and Jeeps and Mitsubishis and Nissans, by hand.

This is the story of how one such rig was crafted by hand in Pakistan.

Some of the things we've done to this beast are appended below:-

1) SOA.
2) Chassis lengthening.
3) Engine swap (2F to 1HZ, soon to be turbocharged and inter-cooled), with a 5-forward transmission.
4) Axle swap (Series 60).
5) 7:37 ratio differentials (soon to be air-locked).
6) Body lift and suspension lift.
7) Four door conversion (with full doors, piped "half-doors", a removable fiberglass hardtop roof, and a soft-top).
8) Addition of a pickup tub.
9) Air conditioning.
10) Power assisted steering.
11) Upright exhaust.
12) Fitting of a snorkel.
13) Recaro seats (front) and GMC seats (rear).
14) Roll cage.
15) Custom bumpers, front and rear (with a winch up front, and a pintle hook at the rear).
16) 15-42-15 Super Swamper TSL tyres.
17) Front disc brakes, rear drums, with a working handbrake.

You kind of get what I mean...right? :)

Anyhow...I'll try to get all the pictures of the rebuild thus far, in order, and arrange the chronology of how we went about it, in a few days. For now, though, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of how the rig currently looks.

Cheers.

Fouad.


By fouadhafeez at 2012-08-10


By fouadhafeez at 2012-08-10
 
I like........
 
That my Mudfriend is a MONSTER. Good job, can't wait for pic's. BRAVO. P.S. I want it.
 
I like........

That my Mudfriend is a MONSTER. Good job, can't wait for pic's. BRAVO. P.S. I want it.

Ta. It's still a bit of an ongoing project, which is why you won't see any paint on it, for a while. But then...smooth, shiny exteriors kinda besmirch the good name of the 40, don't they? :)
 
Very cool!

I'd get SOMETHING on that bare steel as soon as possible though. I'd hate to see your fine work go to waste!
 
Very cool!

I'd get SOMETHING on that bare steel as soon as possible though. I'd hate to see your fine work go to waste!
I'm planning on giving it a zinc oxide bath, along with some matte black primer, within the next couple of days, after we scrub away the patina of "burnt sienna orange" rust that's currently coating it. The finished paint, is going to go on, sometime in late September / early October, when the weather's still warm, but we're over with the rainy season, here.
 
Wheels & Tyres

I actually stumbled upon the Super Swampers completely by accident. As I'd mentioned earlier, "decent" offroad tyres were on the cards. I'd seen a few sets of BFG 33s, some Yokohama Geolanders (275/75/15), a set of Dunlop GrandTreks (275/70/15) and a set of Nittos (295/75/15). Amongst them, I'd pretty much made up my mind about the Nitto set, which came with a great set of rims, too.

I was actually going to purchase the wheels, when I received a call from a friend and casually mentioned that I was on the hunt for tyres. He mentioned that he'd seen a set of rather menacing looking wheels someplace, and I should give them a look-see. The rest, as they say...is history. I bought the wheels, without really pausing to think what the @#$% I was going to do with them. :)

The SOA idea evolved shortly thereafter...as did the idea of stretching the wheelbase (by 20 inches), adding a bit of a rear overhang (10 inches), along with the addition of Series 60 leaf springs (for better load-bearing and flexibility). Which is why, the very first thing we did, was to remove the body from the frame altogether, and get down and dirty with the underbelly, first off.

Pictures to give you an idea of how we went about this. It was a cold, rainy, miserable afternoon...and cold fingers do not make for ideal photo-snapping. Bear with me, nonetheless...

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whaooooo that is impressive. is it just the camra angle or are the tires realy that BIG. cool rig. what engine r u going to use to turn those wheels?
 
whaooooo that is impressive. is it just the camra angle or are the tires realy that BIG. cool rig. what engine r u going to use to turn those wheels?
I don't think it's just the camera angles...since those are 42 inch tyres. :) More than the engine itself, I think the changed ring-pinion setup within the diffs is what's going to propel the wheels. For now, we've settled on a 7:37 setup (giving a drive ratio of 5.28), which gives it more than ample power and take off. The downside to this is that in my neck of the woods, I won't be able to get Toyota diff locks installed, easily, since the only ones we have here are more suited to the 9:37 and 10:41 gear ratio setups.

The engine though, is a Toyota 1HZ (inline 6 cylinder diesel, 4.2L, currently producing 130 bhp), which I'm planning to add a turbocharger and intercooler setup to. These modifications should (theoretically, at least) bump up raw power to the 180-190 bhp range, or thereabouts.
 
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Loose Bolting The "Body" Back On

Pakistan's junk yards and second-hand spare parts shops, are a veritable smorgasbord of Cruiser parts. Or perhaps I should say "Toyota" parts, since in this area, when it comes to reliability, dependability, and availability...Toyota is very much King.

When we were done with preparing the rolling chassis, the next logical step was to bolt the body back onto the frame, in order to get all the body mods done. Taking advantage of the glut of readily-available body parts, some of the rusted body panels of my FJ40 were conveniently swapped (with a little additional cost) with some relatively newer, rust/dent free parts. Since I was as-yet-undecided as to what I wanted the beast to actually BE, we stuck to bolting on the nose, the firewall, the side panels, and the hood, etc. The bumpers, which I had plans to fabricate from scratch were also removed, as we went about preparing the "carcass" for the next step: resurrection!

Pictures...

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It was about this time, that we started to get somewhat of an idea about the actual dimensions of this beast. In the last picture, the tiny-looking thing conveniently parked beside the FJ40, is a high-roof, Mitsubishi Pajero Turbo Wagon!
 
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Procrastination

So...now, we were confronted with a bit of a dilemma.

The vehicle (by this time I'd decided I wanted to name it "Phantom") had been stretched by 30 odd inches. The Series 60 axles (3 inches wider, overall), along with the offset of the wheels (8.5 inches each), had widened it by about 20 inches. The SOA had added a good 9 inches, and the bigger wheels brought up an increase in ride height to the 16-18 inches range. A pretty big @#$%er to say the least. :)

The major concerns at this time, were a) The Powerplant...and b) The Body Style.

The latter, first. Initially I was inclined to making this a single-cabin pickup...which was quickly discarded for a king-cabin pickup (since I already had an FZJ79, which served admirably as a truck). Thence, I thought of making this a closed SUV, with four doors, and a cargo compartment (along the lines of a 45 LV)...which I also later on discarded since I already had a Range Rover (which fulfilled family expedition needs quite well). All this procrastination and indecision, was quite vexing...even while we searched for a powerplant.

In terms of engines...I'd always been a big believer in big, hefty (and yes...thirsty) petrol engines. So, my initial choice was very much centred around a big Toyota petrol engine (1FZ-FE 4.5L I6, 1UZ-FE VVTi 4.0L V8, or a 2UZ-FE 4.7L V8). It was with this thought in mind that I went about scouring the chop shops here, when I happened across this rather beautiful, dazzlingly-new 1HZ (4.2L I6) diesel engine.

In my line of work I'd driven this engine to pieces, in some 70 Series pickups, and in a couple of 80 Series SUVs. So I was pretty familiar with it. But it was the condition of the engine more than anything else, that made me choose it. I mean...it was virtually brand new...as if someone'd bought a diesel Toyota, and chosen to swap this engine with another, the very first day! Another thought was that owing to the extreme nature of the beast, a diesel (reducing dependence on wiring, electricals, etc) would be more reliable, and less temperamental than a petrol.

So...diesel it is. At the same time, while scouring through this site...I came across that thread I mentioned in the first post. I was immediately stricken by the idea of this being a twin-cab pickup, with removable "everything"...doors, roof, tub...in short, the works.

"About f***ing time, too"...were my fabricator / body specialist's words. :)
 
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Conceptualisation

Of the two pictures I'm posting here, the first was discovered on this very site. Some bloke had put this up, after having photoshopped the rear doors onto the body of a two door LWB. This served as the inspiration for my own bit of photoshopping, to create the second picture.

The original artist, if he wanders across this thread...Thanks, mate. :beer: . If you'd like to step up and be known, it'd be my pleasure. If you're an enthusiast (which I suspect you are), I hope you'll be pleased with how things have taken off from your initial work.

Anyhows...after the photoshopping thingamajig-whatchamacallit, the dimensions seemed to be pretty much in sync with what we had on ground (other than the huge wheels, and the abnormal height of the Phantom). So this is what we decided to go ahead with. Certain inbuilt design essentials I laid out before work started were:-

1) The vehicle should be capable of going "naked"...with removable doors, roof, tub, fold-down windshield, and mudguards.
2) We'd build both full doors, and piped "half-doors" simultaneously.
3) The tub would house the spare wheel (too large to accommodate elsewhere), hi-lift jack, some spare cans, toolbox, an upright exhaust, and its "stand" for the spare would also act as a rear "rollover bar", too.
4) The vehicle would have an inner "rollover cage" that would be the exact height as the rear one...and conform to the line of the top edge of the windshield, for added structural strength.
5) The side-step (since the beast was too bloody high to climb into unassisted) would also act as belly-sliders.
6) The fenders / mudguards would be broadened by about 3.5 inches, to go in harmony with the rest of the oversized dimensions.
7) Custom fender flares for the rear wheel arches, to complement the widened front end.

For all of this, a great deal of dependence was also placed on the Icon Series of four-door FJs, which, surprisingly enough, turned out to have an almost identical wheelbase (114 inches) to that of my rig.

The pictures I was speaking of...

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More stuff on the rebuild, when I manage to sort out the photos and videos and stuff.

:beer:
 
Very impressed. I'd like a side shot of the rig--curious on how the rear doors look. I might be inspired also...
 
This is a shot from the side, showing all four doors...but it was snapped before we took some remedial measures to move the rear wheels a little further back in the arches. In the photo (as you can see) the wheels are slightly off-centred towards the front. Now though, they sit dead-centre of the arches. Additionally, after plonking the engine inside, I found that the front end left much less clearance than I'd anticipated. Which is why we added longer shackles (and did a spring-flip at the rear). The ride is much more balanced now.



In addition, you might notice the rear doors are slightly narrower than the front ones, and that there's a channel that divides the wind-down sideglass from the fixed glass. The tapered shape of the door at the bottom half is responsible for that. A complete window wouldn't have gone down more than a few inches. :)
 
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Right...time for some non-tech talk, too.

Why a four door pickup?

Firstly, the spirit of challenge. What I wanted (when I originally set out) was to build something that was unmistakeably FJ40. Something hard, and uncompromising, and tough-as-nails...which would capture the spirit - the very essence - of this beast that we all love so much. At the same time, though, I also wanted it to be something that was centred around the family. Something which could accommodate the wife and our three kids in complete comfort, and be used to go virtually anywhere. Of course, as I type all of this out, my wife is peering over my shoulder at the words...and telling me she's never going to be caught seated in something as...gargantuan...as this rig. Ah well...nice try, Fouad. :)

The other thing was, creating a LWB closed cabin "SUV" would've meant that support for the roof would rule out the chance of it ever going topless and/or naked. That was a hard limit...since we all know that the 40 (and its owner) is happiest with muck and wind and sunshine and rain and hail and sleet and snow in the face. The options were to leave it as a MWB four door cabin, or to add a tub at the rear. This was also a bit of a no-brainer, too...since the spare couldn't possibly be mounted at the back of the closed cabin. Plus...all the bits and pieces we inevitably need; jacks and straps and chains and tools and other essential gear would've meant a trailer be fabbed, too. The clear solution to this was a pickup tub. NOT that I'm completely averse to building a Super Swamper wearing trailer at some point, too. :)

Finally, was the exhaust I'd planned. An upright, "chimney-stack" which would ensure that the Phantom (in tandem with a well-sealed snorkel) could wade through just about anything, that nature could throw in its way, by means of water obstacles. The upright, is located just behind the rear right side of the cabin, and the tub provides it the perfect space to be anchored.

And besides...most importantly...doesn't the pickup tub look nice? :)
 
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I think this is my favorite rig I have ever seen. I was wanting to find a nice stock FJ40 for a daily driver but now I want a quad cab like yours. That is a true work of art. I cant wait to see more. Thank You
 
Thanks for the side shot. I am curious where you got the rear doors. I can see remaking the bottom rear for the fender, but the window part is what intrigues me the most. The top front would have slanted back on a stock FJ40 door. Is it from something else?

I really like what you are doing. You have inspired me for the next project
 
Nice aesthetics on the rear doors, Fouad.
They look very much as the factory would've done, similar to the Brasilian Bandeirante.

You might want to look at reshaping the rear fenders with more of a drop towards the bottoms, so that they don't appear as so very wide.

I admire your impeccable English skills--bravo !

Good work !
 

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