[OinkOinker]

hey guys just picked up my pig yesterday! pretty good nick considering some of the jobs i have seen on these pages! The vitals are, it was born 1979, now she's almost 500,000 kms (320,000 miles???) old. recently had front hubs reco'd new bushes thrughout. i believe it to be to original drivetrain from front to back. Im pretty sure she was red before it was painted the current poo colour, (will probly restore her to the red colour) as i can see it coming thru in many places. will have many questions to follow as i have never taken on a job like this before. will be both fun and scary. hope to do her proud!
just a few pics

[OinkOinker]

im scared to start chipping away at this rust, anyone heard of Pandora and he/r box?


obligitory poser pic (more, many more to follow)



same here: not too sure how deep this will go..

[OinkOinker]

Attachment 254323
the above pic is one of my rear abmo style doors, piggy porn to some over in the states i believe.

seems its dropping the attachment to the bottom of the page...



this is inside (looking towards the rear, from inside tyre well) the LH, would be your drivers side my passengers side front qtr panel. this is the 'bad' one. from the out side the panel sits out further than the door would this be due to the fact that, that main support is rusted and not holdig the panel back in??



same qutar panel from the outside, not sure the pic really shows how far out it is sticking about 3mm (this is going to test me 5/32" ???)

[OinkOinker]

hah i felt like a right dumbass until i found the little handle in this pic to release the back seat bottom cushion. was dreading to thought of having to ask you guys :P



can anyone tell me weather these are the standard tools for a '55? they dont seem to sit up on the underside of teh seat where i asume they belong? they appear too big, possibly made by a PO?



all the rear seat belts coiled up under the rear seat, will eed to give these guys some TLC to try get them look reasonable again

[OinkOinker]

left side rear tower


right side rear tower


LPG tank, in the bloody way there takes up far too much room if u ask me, but the economy is soo much greater than running petrol.

[OinkOinker]

rust in the bottom of the LH rear ambo door


rust in the bottom of the RH rear ambo door in close to the hinge

same door just towards the centre of the door

[OinkOinker]

two pics above are of the same rust spot in behind the LH rear quarter panel, looking from under the sliders towards the wheel well.



Piggy sitting there at carlovers after her fist wash, HUGE difference in just washing the beauty, will cut and polish her, for some reason i think this is a good idea, the apint is shot! atleast it will get rid of the rust runs that are on the paint

[Sixty's Guy]

Hey mate, looks like you have yourself a project! I could be wrong but I thought that all FJ55's in Aus came out with the white/brown two tone paint job. Mine is all white but it was originally owned by the SES so I assumed that it was painted when it was purchased. I could be wrong though! Remember the old Telecom FJ55's? They were painted orange. I remember them driving around when I was a kid.

[OinkOinker]

really?? ok i have very little/no knowledge about these accept me likey :P they just look tough! you take a look at pic#9 i think? of the rear doors where the nuberplates are 'normally' bolted on, there is alot of paint peeled off and its red and a many other places you can see it coming thru, maybe it was a respray of better quality and is just sticking better :P

[stumpofj40]

nice pig, u planning on keeping it stocko or building it up somemore??

[OinkOinker]

plan was to get a little nuts with it, but my old man just bought a few 70's that i might molest, keep this stock. if legal hwere in aus might go a SOA but keep her close to stock? still deciding. :P

[stumpofj40]

yeh SOA would be great to have but unfortunately its not legal in QLD

[OinkOinker]

what about with engineering? im yet to even look into this at all. but makes sense over spendint alot of cash on lifting shit and having modded parts on the pig. rathe have an SOA set up with stock gear??? but thas just me :P

[stumpofj40]

Originally Posted by OinkOinker

what about with engineering? im yet to even look into this at all. but makes sense over spendint alot of cash on lifting **** and having modded parts on the pig. rathe have an SOA set up with stock gear??? but thas just me :P

a SOA setup with stock gear is not ideal, if you want to look at doing a proper setup you will want to consider things such as hy-steer and cut and turning the knuckles which could end up being more costly. not sure about engineering on a SOA setup but i know u cant register a car that has it in QLD unless it came like that out of the factory like on a hilux although i have even heard of people getting snapped for it on thier hilux's although its a stock setup!

[OinkOinker]

yeah i know of the hy-steer which i was planning on doing but the knuckles is still a bit of a mystery to me......?

[3jvj]

nice piggy!

Love the amby doors.

[hicruise55]

nice! about the same color I am gona paint mine!

[ruthless79]

looks like a good start i wish my piggy had ambie doors

[FineWynsFJ40]

Funny that you mentioned Pandora... My FJ40 is christened "Pandora's Box" as when I first opened her hood, all the evils came out!! Nice score!

Brian

[jrdizon]

Nice ride Oinker, That's a sweet project with the ambu doors. We both will be busy, keep up the work and update us frequently.
Regards,
Jon

[OinkOinker]

Small development, started a little bit of work on the pig the other day, started chipping some rust from the roof's rain gutters on the drivers side (right hand side in my neck of the woods) haven't got pics of this yet.

but i did also start to get the paint 'looking' a little better for now, grabbed some 600 wet n dry and cut n polish to the paint rear, i took a pic at the halfway point so you can see the difference, not much so far but its progress...

[fjdaveinoz]

Looks like its coming along nice. I love that colour. Id say she was an ex government fleet vehicle. They were generally repainted back to standard before going off to auction. Possibly owned by the firebrigade, or the PMG (the old Aust. Post) as their vehicles were red. It would be interesting to see what colour it is under the red. My guess - Brown.
Are you keeping the bullbar?

Dave

[nuclearlemon]

interesting info on the paint. wonder how many rigs down under are red under brown.

[OinkOinker]

Originally Posted by fjdaveinoz

Looks like its coming along nice. I love that colour. Id say she was an ex government fleet vehicle. They were generally repainted back to standard before going off to auction. Possibly owned by the firebrigade, or the PMG (the old Aust. Post) as their vehicles were red. It would be interesting to see what colour it is under the red. My guess - Brown.
Are you keeping the bullbar?

Dave

funny you shoudl say that, cos when looking at it in a few places it seemed the red was under the current colour, but over in other places??? this makes sense now... so you recon it was more than likely the terrible (but kinda loveable) colour it is now?

[OinkOinker]

not keeping the bumper in that particular form. getting a winch for her in the future, not sure if its the distant future or even more, but for now i think im going to cut it back to a small stockish looking unit? ideas comments welcome

[OinkOinker]

hey guys, as mentioned earlier i have started to nock out some of the rust out of the roof well i got back to this the last few days AND i got pics of my travels for your visual pleasure.

these are all of the front right rain gutter that runs down the windshield.






this scared me at first, but after looking at it and thinking about it, i should be able to get away with cutting an 'L' shape around the bottom courner and replacing it, dont think there is any curve to it?? keep you posted


would there be any adverse effects to removing the rain gutter?? the only problem i can see presenting itself is is when it is raining the rain may drip into the Pig if the window is open even a little?? another option i was entertaining is removing the gutter and trying to bend up a replacement?? im thinking that way as patching it will be very visible there?


Ps tell me if the pic size is ok or if i should resize it??? thanks guys

[OinkOinker]

few more, sorry that there not in any super organised order but at least there's something to look at






might bump up the resolution when taking pics next time, those first 2 were a bit slack sorry guys

[OinkOinker]

hey guys upon removing the rust on my Left rear courner of the roof i found this.... looking at it im thinking it was once a solid section?? can anyone confirm this??







im going to start a thread in reguards to a few options/ideas i have come up with, so wont ask too many Q's here

[OinkOinker]

fwee more pics of the rear courner on the left but both sides are pretty dead

[OinkOinker]

i ended up cutting the rain gutter out completly, have a few before pics but they're too big will try resize them and post soon.