'76 FJ40 Build Thread (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Jul 9, 2013
Threads
4
Messages
40
Location
Bentonville, AR
I've been lurking on MUD for a couple years and finally sold another project, so now I have some cash and decided it's time to get the 40 looking good. It's a '76 FJ40 with the original 2F, transmission and xfer case, gears and all that. Pretty much stock with a 4" OME lift and 33x12.50 tires. A PO added power steering, electronic ignition, and a Weber carb. I don't have any issues mechanically, and that was what was important when I bought it. I've seen 40s so boogered up mechanically I wouldn't trust it to go down the street. I have an aftermarket soft top and doors, so no hard top, and no real hard doors. I have four hard doors, but they're rotted at the bottom and will need rebuilt. I drove the heck out of the thing for two years and figured I could enjoy it now and always do the body work later. I pretty much use it for top off summertime cruising and some light trail running. I'm not building a hardcore crawler or anything, so my goal is to make it look good, make sure it's structurally sound, and still have a capable rig when I need it. The goal here is not 100% factory original, but I did want to start this thread so I have a place to look back at what I did and ask some questions. The folks on MUD have been nothing but helpful in the past, so I bought a silver star and here we go.

I just started the tear down tonight. I pulled the jump seats, roll bar, drivers seat, and the storage tailgate a PO added. Hope to get the passenger seat and tuffy box out soon so I can remove the Herculiner a PO put in. I got the Herculiner removed from the rear of the 40, and from under the drivers seat. It had un-adhered from the metal a while back, so I was a bit nervous at what I was going to find. You really shouldn't be able to remove it in two hours with nothing more than a pocket knife. Metal prep apparently wasn't a consideration when it was put in. I can already tell I have a lot of rust worms, so I've called in some help with the patching and welding. I can do it, but other folks can do it better, so I'm going to take the assistant role. Looks like the rear sill can possibly be saved, but I need a new rear bed and some patching under the driver's seat. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. I've seen 40s in a whole lot worse shape, and after I get this thing patched, get the rust removed, and get it re-rhino lined, I should be good to go for many years to come. I think I'm going to go with 14ga diamond floor plate for the bed. I'll cut out enough to just get rid of the ribs so it all looks the same, and after I get it re-lined it should look good and perform well for me. Not sure what I'm putting under the drivers seat yet.

The rear quarter panels are pretty much all bondo, so I'll order some new ones to re-skin those with. Metal Tech has a pretty decent price on them. The bondo was put on pretty thick and is cracking and falling out. There's also quite a bit of bondo in the front fenders, so I'll order them as well. Probably from SOR.

After the body work comes all the little stuff like getting the speedometer working again. Not that anyone ever got a speeding ticket in a 40, but it is nice to know how fast you're going. LED light upgrades for the dash, re-doing the steering wheel since the PO obviously didn't put on all the parts. I don't have a horn, and the turn signals don't cancel unless you do it manually. I'm planning on cutting the speakers into the side of my tuffy box since I really don't store anything in there anyway. Two 6" rounds on the side and maybe a vertically mounted 6x9 on the back. Depends on how much room I have in there. I'll probably have to save my pennies again for a real paint job, but I can at lest make it all the same color. It's just a rattlecan paint job on it now.

That's where I am now. I'll see how much of the plan I follow and how much changes mid stream. I'm sure I'll get a case of the "while we're here...s", so this should be interesting. I've attached some pics for whoever is interested, and I'm looking forward to getting to work.

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Looking good ! At least you have a solid base to start your resto!

I love your custom driver's seat!:cheers:
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Thanks. I had to be quick moving it back into the garage or I would have wound up on my wife's Facebook page.
 
So I finally got a little time to get back in the garage today. My LEDs came in for the dash lights, so I thought I'd put them in. They're 10 LED units, so I was expecting quite a bit more brightness. With the aftermarket gauges, it makes a HUGE difference. There's a comparison picture attached. A pack of 10 cost a whopping five bucks off Ebay, so I figured even if it didn't make a huge difference, no harm no foul. Having a little trouble getting them to work in the stock gauge cluster, though. I haven't really dug into it yet, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. They'll flicker on for just a split second, so I'm wondering if the stock light holder is making enough contact with the circuit board. The incandescents work, but they're still dimmer than I think they should be, even though the 40 is world renowned for dim dash lights. I cleaned it good with electronics cleaner, but still can't get them to light up reliably.

I got the passenger seat, tuffy box, and gas tank out tonight and started removing the rest of the old Herculiner. I guess when it was installed, they started prepping on the passenger side because it was stuck down a lot better than the rest of the truck. Finally got it, though, and the metal actually looks good. There are a couple holes to patch, but nothing too major. I'll be spending the weekend running a wire wheel, then we'll start on the body patching and welding next week.

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Been a while since I had a chance to post. I got the bed patched in. I was able to just weld it up and didn't have to replace it. That's good since I pulled the front fenders off last night and they are trashed. Got a new set on order from CCOT and they should be here tomorrow. The bottom of the fenders by the running boards were all bondo. I mean ALL bondo. Bad enough that the PO covered the rusted out spots on the bottom with aluminum tape and bondo'd over the top of it just to make it look good. The years of dirt hid it pretty well, so it was a nice surprise when I got to really looking hard. I brushed the bed as well as I could with a wire wheel, then coated the whole thing with POR-15. I'd heard good things about it, and it seems to have adhered really well. After paint, I'll take it in and have it Rhino Lined. I didn't worry too much about grinding the welds completely flat since the Rhino Lining is going to be extra thick and textured. The front drivers pan was starting to rust pretty bad under the old bed liner, but I was able to weld up the few small holes, and it doesn't seem to be any worse for wear.

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Finally got it down to my buddy's shop and started the process of stripping the paint and taking all the body panels apart. Mostly used sandpaper and a DA, but the paint on the hood was so thick the DA wouldn't hardly touch it. I cheated and bought a bottle of Aircraft Stripper. That stuff is awesome. Just don't get it on you and make sure you're well ventilated. You can definitely smell the ammonia. After sanding as much as I could, I started to take the body panels off so I could finish sanding them separately on a bench. I'm really impressed that this rig is in as good of shape as it is. The PO already cut the rear fender wells, so I guess I'll go ahead and order some new fender flares. I had hoped to get away without them, but even though they did a nice cut, I think it would look funny now without them. I have a little more surface rust from under the old flares to sand down and treat, but nothing major at all. I discovered the passenger running board didn't have a support under it, so thanks to the MUD classifieds, I have one of those coming in the next few days as well. Surprisingly enough, there was only one small dent in the rear drivers side rear quarter panel, but the PO went absolutely crazy with bondo. Bad enough it was well over 1/8" thick and was chipping and falling out. I was able to sand all of it off and it looks fine, so I'll just take a body dolly to it and straighten it instead of having to replace it. Nice to get a good surprise once in a while. It's the bare spot in the next picture. To cover that little dent, the bondo went from the front of the fender cut all the way to the hole for the marker light on the rear. The rear sill wings are still in good shape, so a good cleaning and a good layer of undercoating should keep it good for years to come. The rest of the bondo should be nothing to worry about. Aside from the couple problem bondo areas that are being replaced, there is very little in the whole rig.

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Now to finish sanding and bring all the control knobs home for a refresh. The rest of it is hand sanding, and I'm here to tell you, that sucks. I found myself thinking a new windshield frame can't be that expensive. My fingerprints are about gone. Hopefully soon it will be time to actually start painting. She's needing a bath pretty badly right now, so in the next few days I'll hook up the pressure washer and see what I can do.
 
Cool, another '76 build. Mine is a 7/76 build date. Which reminds me, maybe I should get off my butt and get to work......:meh:
 
I've been working on it for a few more weeks now, so I figured I'd go ahead and post an update or two since it's been so long.

I got the rims and side steps painted. Actually not really painted, but I used the Duplicolor spray on bed liner. That stuff works great, is easy to apply, and I think it really adds to the look.
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I also masked off and painted the inner fender wells with the same stuff. The fenders had to be ordered new. The old ones were so bad that I didn't notice until we took them apart that some PO had covered over rust holes with foil tape and put bondo over the top of the foil tape. Fenders were trashed, so I ordered from CCOT. They looked good when they came in, and once we started putting it back together, they required some minor fitting to make it work. They did forget to punch one hole for the apron on the drivers side, but I can remedy that easy enough.

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After that came primer. Up until now, I did all the body work and sanding, but I had a buddy of mine physically squirt the paint on. That's an art, and I haven't practiced enough to do it reliably without runs. We used a Nason 2K urethane primer. It covered really well and sanded down like glass. It was a little more expensive than other brands, but I can't argue with the results.

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Then we ripped off all the masking and re-did it with fresh for paint.
 
Then came time for paint. When I decided I was going to paint it, my wife immediately got on Pinterest and started looking at all the FJ40 pictures on there. If you haven't joined, I highly recommend it for some good cruiser porn. The one that caught my eye was competition orange. The only thing I didn't like about it was all the trim and wheels were either chrome or aluminum. That was when I decided to go with the bed liner black. We didn't have access to a proper paint booth, so we just sealed up the doors as best we could and sprayed the floor down with water to keep the dust down. It worked out well. The finish came out smooth, just a little bit of overspray to sand down. Spending an afternoon with some 1500 grit sandpaper and a buffing machine should have the thing ready to roll out of the shop for the first time in a couple months. I know some of the purists aren't going to approve of the color, but I think this thing will stand out, and there won't be another one like it around here.

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Last night we started putting it all back together. The fenders I ordered from CCOT came with a free stainless steel bolt kit, so that was nice to replace all the bolts. Only problem is, the bolts I got are grade nothing. The old rusted ones I took out are grade 5. That's definitely something I will be looking at in the future if I decide to order any more bolt kits. For most of the thru bolts with a nut on the back, I just went to Tractor Supply and bought some in bulk. They're SAE instead of metric, but you can get grade 5 or even grade 8 for about four bucks a pound, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than ordering the exact right bolt.

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And yes, I masked it back off and painted the hood release black.

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That's it for now. Gotta finish getting it put together, the I should be off to the rhino liners place for the interior. Hoping to get that done next week, then I can finally start with gas tank, seats, roll bar, etc.

I have a spare tire carrier from 4plus that is supposed to deliver today. If you have a need for one, I highly recommend them. Dave was great to work with, he built the thing in the time he said he was going to, and it's delivering just about the time I had hoped. The thought of hanging the stock spare tire carrier back off the body made my stomach turn, so I was glad Dave was around and could help me out.
 
Figured I'd post an update. I got it pretty well put back together. The CCOT fenders worked out pretty well. Only minor modifications and minimal swearing to get them to fit. I was able to spray some of the interior pieces with the bedliner I've used to paint everything else, and I think they came out really well. For the control knobs, I took some white acrylic paint, painted over the letters, then wiped it off with a damp cloth. after it dried, I touched it with some sand paper, and I think they came out pretty well, too.

The fender flares are new bushwhackers from CCOT. Since a PO had already cut the rear quarters, I figured I'd go ahead and put the flares back. They send little self tapping screws to install the flares with, but I decided to go ahead and pop rivet them on, then paint the rivet heads.

Not positive yet what I'm going to do with the TOYOTA emblem on the front grille.

Rhino Lining is set for next week, then I can finish it off with the new badges and all the small stuff. Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Can't wait to be able to put this thing back on the road!

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Flare basically mocked up before the permanent installation.

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Finally got it all put back together, got it out of the shop, and got to drive it some before it got too cold. I had to put the soft top back on today. Just figured I'd post the last few pictures and close out the thread.

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Rhino Lining complete and rear bench mounted. The one from CCOT was pretty expensive, but it fits perfectly, and with the brackets that came with it, it took about 30 minutes to have the seat and belts mounted.

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New badging for the rear, and a spare tire carrier from 4Plus.

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Back Home

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Rear View.

I'm sure it will never actually be done, but at least the major work is over and she's back on the road.
 
Great job.....I'm in the throes of doing some resto on my tan 76. Are your front seats the Corbeau's? Tell me about the speakers on the roll bar!
 
Sorry it took so long. The seats are Corbeau. Love them. They're about as comfortable as a 40 gets. The speakers on the roll bar are just 6x9s. A PO had attached them with self tapping screws. I probably wouldn't have done that since I don't like drilling holes in the roll bar, but since it was already there, I re-mounted them there.
 

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