[AATLAS1X]

I think there should be a recap!

[fogblanket]

I still vote for this being a sticky at hte top of the 45 section. that way its easier to find. was there talk of someone pdf-ing it and breaking it into chapters??
Jason

[MDH33]

Chapter One was his Mustard FJ40, Chapter Two was the FJ45LV, Chapter Three hasn't been written... a LWB FJ45 truck??

[LXGXFJ]

I am still just amazed at the detail of work and talent that went into this resto. Thank you so much for taking the extra time to photograph and put into words all of the work that you (and your wife =o) and friends put into this work of art. I have only been watching it for a couple of months, but I went back to the beginning and scoured through it all. WOW... Matt, you are an inspiration to us all. Congratulations!!! I have been trying to find your Mustard FJ40 thread, but haven't found it yet. Please let me know where it is and put me down for a CD, DVD or PDF or whatever letter combination I can get my hands on of your projects.
Thanks again,
Stuart in Texas

[buckroseau]

Originally Posted by 74fj40

so i guess thats it huh?

probably not alot more updates coming. congradulations matt. that is TRULEY a work of art.

Oh, I think there will be more coming Just been pretty busy doing a few other things this summer....some fun, some not so fun Just not working to hard on the lv right now, but the little I do I keep posting pics. Probably hit it a little harder this fall again, I honestly think that I have at least another 100 hours to go with all the little stuff I still have to do.

Took me a week to reply because I was doing one of those fun things this summer, just walked in the door from a week at Airventure in Oshkosh, WI. Had a blast, but holy sh-t was it hot and humid standing out there in the sun on that asphalt

Figured I would post up a few pics of the many I took, but a couple I thought you guys might be interested in. 1st pic is of General Chuck Yeager out on the flight line on the wing of a P-51 mustang. I actually went to an hour and a half forum the day before where he kinda just talked about his life. The next day they kinda had an imprompt to thing out on the flight line with him....man is it interesting to listen to him.

2nd pic is of 2 P-51's mustangs, P-38 lighting and I think a F-16 doing a fly by, pretty cool to see two different worlds of aviation flying together like that. 3rd pic is just of a bunch of stearman's in the morning at about 6:30 a.m. Nothing special, just a few of the more than 12,000 airplanes that flew in, but thought they looked cool sitting there.

Last 1 is at an outdoor theater they have in the campground, they have an outdoor movie everynight and have usually someone that had something to do with the movie introduce it. Wed. night movie was Airforce one with Harrison Ford and he introduced it. Pic looks like crap in the dark, but about a 100 ft away. He was up there with this Ford motor guy for about 20 minutes talking, pretty funny, seemed like he had a few......

Anyway, I'll try to get back on that LV!!

Thanks, Matt

[buckroseau]

last crappy pic of Harrison Ford talking

[Coolerman]

Oh man! I was in Wisconsin all last week working and was in several towns close to Oshkosh but just could not make time to go to the air show. It was hard for us to find places to stay the night as they were all sold out! Friday while driving to yet another site we saw the Blue Angles pass overhead of us... I would give a lot for a ride with in one of those planes...

Did you get a chance to see some of the experimental aircraft there? Anything really new or interesting?

[Snook]

I was supposed to attend this airshow to check out RV-10, an homebuilt four adult seats with my buddy but he had to cancel our motorhome trip two weeks ago.

Then yesterday the news showed a tragic event where the RV-8 was sliced in rear by WW II Navy plane's prop on the taxiway on the airshow'slast day, killing the passenger. I understand that the Navy's cockpit is three times higher than RV-8 so it is a huge blind spot up front for Navy pilot.

Regards,

[buckroseau]

Haven't made any updates lately, still having to much fun this summer. But, few have asked for driving impressions of the lv and I definetely have one.

There was a car show this weekend in a town up here about 50 miles away. Kinda of a redneck carshow, lots of fun..i've gone the last few years. They roast a pig outside all day, beer and a burn out contest later in the afternoon on the state highway. At the end of the day towards the evening they have a big supper, hand out a few awards and have some more fun.......Anyway, what does this have to do with the lv...I loaded up all my Landcruiser junk and drove down there.

I wanted to take the lwb to show others more variations of the landcruiser, but also for motivation. The kinda motivation where people look at it and roll there eyes Say crap like, "that thing is junk, boy you got your work cut out for you or who in there right mind would fix this?".....Needless to say, I got lots of motivation. I hooked up my trailer and backed the lwb onto it. Reason I backed it on is that I didn't want to get to much tongue weight. Those parabolic springs supposedly with a 2" lift are damm near flat now under the just the weight of the vehicle.....so I was trying to keep the tongue weight to a minimum. Backed it on and got about 50 to 100lbs on there, as much as I thought was possible.

Started heading down my road, which is gravel for about a mile, no problems. Hit the highway and started speeding up. The lv had no problems with power pulling it, you could tell I had about 6500lbs behind me, but the engine had no problem pulling it upto speed. But, as soon as I started getting around 50 mph the ass end started getting that heavy trailer wag......For those of you who have pullled heavy loads, that trailer sway you get when you have a heavy load and you want to stop, but either you have no trailer brakes or there not applying enough. This was that same kind of sway, but I wasn't stopping. Almost like I didn't have enough tougue weight, which I believe I did. Seemed acceptable under 50, but if you started getting over that it got a little scary. I'm not really sure what the cause of this was? I think I had enough tougue weight, but maybe more would have been nice. With the parapolic springs I have, it can't handle the weight of the vehicle, let alone any trailer weight? Although this would suck because those springs were so expensive I am thinking of swapping them out? Not sure to what yet, but after 300+ miles those springs are about level with the world, so I think they have exceed there life span? This may not be the problem, but it might cure the trailer pulling problem and also get the lv back up and keep the wheels from bottoming out in the rear wheel wells.....even when there is no trailer behind it the wheels have bottomed out and the highway??

Anyway, few of you wanted a driving impression and this was one. So, figured I would post something about it and a few pics.....

Thanks, Matt

[buckroseau]

more

[buckroseau]

Last 2

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

Dang!

[orangefj45]

come awn matt, post up the LV burnout pics!!!

[orangefj45]

not sure what to tell you about towing with the waggy. the only towing i ever did with mine was going to SNt which is about a 250 mile trip. i towed a trailer with three dirt bikes down there and had no problems at all, but that was maybe 2000lbs at best on soa stock springs.

[Coolerman]

Cool pics. I love the roadster burnout!

I think that 50-100 lb on the tongue was a bit light for the amount of towed weight. 10% of the towed weight is the recommended tongue weight. With that much weight I would also use a weight distributing hitch with an anti-sway device and/or some way to level the load. Several companies make kits to install air bags on leaf sprung vehicles. Airing it up raises the rear when towing but does not interfer with daily driving when aired down. I have Air-Lift air bag springs on my Pathfinder.

[cooney]

I must have missed something. When and where did you get the LWB? Where's the resto thread?

[buckroseau]

Originally Posted by cooney

I must have missed something. When and where did you get the LWB? Where's the resto thread?

This link is the when and where.............

http://forum.ih8mud.com/fj45-owners-club/104821-3-days-3300-miles-later.html


As far as resto......still remains to be seen

Matt

[buckroseau]

Originally Posted by orangefj45

not sure what to tell you about towing with the waggy. the only towing i ever did with mine was going to SNt which is about a 250 mile trip. i towed a trailer with three dirt bikes down there and had no problems at all, but that was maybe 2000lbs at best on soa stock springs.

I pulled those jet skis's a month or so ago and it was absolutely perfect. But, that was only about 1000lbs?

I guess I thought it would do a little better, still thinking the springs are just to soft?

Thanks, Matt

[buckroseau]

Full night this evening on the lv, had an appointment with the wheel dyno guy. Spent a little over 3 hours up there this evening, just wanted to make sure I had the carb and motor set up right.....left with a little better running vehicle.

He started off testing the vacumm on the carb, did a little tweaking on some screws and got it where he wanted it. Then he moved onto the timing, he crawled underneath and painted some marks on the balancer. Had a fairly fancy timing light, he was all over the place with specific RPM's, while he had me ever so slightly turning the distributor. When he was all done I had never heard it idle that nice.

Then we got to the good stuff, running the lv on the dyno . He stood over on the passenger side next to the monitor with this remote in his hand telling me what to do. We had everything set up for testing at 60 mph, going for maxium usage at that speed. I could type a lot about the next 2 hours, but it mostly consisted of him resetting the computer and having me doing dyno run after run and changing the carb set up. He varied some of the runs, applying certain amounts of load and brake during the runs and how fast or slow I brought the lv upto speed.

He ended up changing the metering rods twice during the runs, but the drive home proved worth while. I noticed that the temp gauge was noticeably less. And since I don't have all my rubber grommets in the firewall yet I was noticing the heat before and after coming through the firewall.... considerably less now. The engine was fairly quiet before....but now it seemed a bit less? Not sure how that works, but just seemed like it was running a lot smoother. One spec. worth mentioning I guess is mph and rpm. RPM was 1700 at 60mph....nice and low on the rpm I thought.

Anyway, few pics of this evenings fun.

Matt

[buckroseau]

last 3

[greenfox]

I never thought I would see a 45LV on a Dyno

[green73]

Bet it was the first time the dyno guy had seen it too. The rest of the world for that matter.

[Rat70Fj]

I agree with the 10% of towed weight on the tongue. I've experienced too little tongue weight several times and it results in the tail wagging the dog. That was in 3/4 ton pickups. Not a pleasant experience.

[PabloCruise]

Originally Posted by buckroseau

Got about 8 hours in on the lv today, didn't try to hard, kinda all over the place today.

Got the lv out of the both and loaded up some more parts for paint and clear. Painted a bunch of wiper parts, parking brake parts and other misc. dash brackets black. Also cleared the steel steering column. Wife liked the color and the way it looked so much she wanted it left that way, so it got cleared.

Also took apart the dash and glove box door. I wasn't going to paint the speed head, but wanted to make sure it matched the glove box door so they both got fresh silver single stage ureathane.

Since I had the speedo apart I took the odometer apart. I'm sure this is probably illegal or something, but I thought it was appropriate

Started putting stuff back in the dash and firewall, pics should say it all. Hopefully it paint is dry tomorrow, more stuff should be back in, if not all.

Matt

Matt,

Your skillz are mad! This build thread is a-maz-ing!!!

I apologize in advance if I overlooked this detail, but I wonder what paint code you used for the glove box door? I have been looking for a current "live" code to order up for all the pieces Toyota painted T1434...

Edit - I found your above post on p. 58

[denis]

BTT this thread cannot stay on page 2

Matt, your energy and patience is incredible, and a great encouragement for many resto "in-progress" or wanabees. You just showed motivation and dedication -which any of us can have- are the keys. Great job.

If you don't mind me asking, how big is your paint booth, is it vented and heated ? If so : how ; if not : have you found it to be a problem ?
I'm in the middle of building some painting/blasting areas in my shop right now and could use some input

[buckroseau]

Originally Posted by denis

BTT this thread cannot stay on page 2

Matt, your energy and patience is incredible, and a great encouragement for many resto "in-progress" or wanabees. You just showed motivation and dedication -which any of us can have- are the keys. Great job.

If you don't mind me asking, how big is your paint booth, is it vented and heated ? If so : how ; if not : have you found it to be a problem ?
I'm in the middle of building some painting/blasting areas in my shop right now and could use some input

My paint booth is approx. 26' long x 16' wide and 9' high.

It is vented by a 40" belt driven 2 stage fan on the north side with a set of 40" aluminum louvers on the outside. On high I believe it draws approx. 6700 cfm, but don't quote me on that? On the other end on each side of the door I have approx. 24 sqare feet of intake air (filtered of course) to draw from.

Heating, using 4 - 8ft electric base board heaters, 2 on each side. Running from my main panel in the shed off a 50 amp 2 pole breaker to the booth with 6/3 wire. On the outside of the booth I have another box that the 6/3 wire runs into with 2 - 20 amp 2 pole breakers. Each of those breaker feeds 2 heaters through a set of relays that are set up with an adjustable thermostat on the outside of the booth next to the panel, with a remote probe that goes through the wall into the inside of the booth. Reason for this is that I did not want the relays inside the box clicking and turning on and off inside the booth. Not that the overspray would ignite and explode..............just never know

Problem? No, my booth works extremely well, even in the winter time. I sized the fan to pull air fast, but not so fast that it could suck the heat out of the booth within 10 seconds. The heaters are overkill for such a small area, but it allows it to recover extremely quickly and almost maintain a temp. even when the fan is running. If I spray an entire vehicle, it might get a tad hazy in there when I'm spraying gallons, but it clears out within 20 to 30 seconds as soon as I stop. If I'm spraying a full booth full of parts, usually no haze or overspray.

Hope this helps, Matt

[denis]

It does, many thanks

[merbesfield]

where did you buy the parts such as the fan and the louvers? i am in the process of building our booth as well, or should i say designing it.

[warrior_1515]

Matt,

Is your wife driving this vehicle as much as you thought/hoped?

Dave

[buckroseau]

Originally Posted by merbesfield

where did you buy the parts such as the fan and the louvers? i am in the process of building our booth as well, or should i say designing it.

I can't remember exactly where I got the fan? Not exactly sure what it as designed for....I know it is a 2 speed fan, belt driven and I believe 40". I also think my cost was around $300.

As far as the louvers, I got those through a company up here called Grainger. Wholesaler up here who deals mainly in heavy equipment. Set of aluminum louvers, I believe 40"?

Hope that kinda helps? Matt