1970 FJ40 newly aquired, need advice

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nilepoc

nilepoc

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Aug 11, 2006
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4
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Location
El Paso, TX
Website
www.nilepoc.com
1970 FJ40 newly acquired, need advice

Hello,

I have just assumed ownership of a 1970 FJ40. It is in a far from stock configuration, and I will be keeping it that way. My goal is to get it to a daily use friendly configuration while maintaining good offroad abilities. Right now it is in a rock crawler type setup according to the owner. (my step father)

It has a 350 chevy engine and a four speed chevy transmission. It also has power steering. The body is a little rough especially where it was modified for the chevy parts. Who knows what other rust is hiding under the diamond plate. It has a Rancho leaf springs giving it about two inches of lift.

I also was able to talk him out of a bunch of parts from another cruiser he has on the property.

A set of doors, with absolutely no hardware.
A tailgate
a spare tire rack for the passenger side (from what I can tell its old style, not the tube type, but a bolt on plate arragement))
a skid plate for the tranny area.
a spare under seat fuel tank.
rear bench seats, wipers and mechanicals
and a bunch of loose stuff I need to figure out what is what.
A hard top off of another similar aged vehicle, the fiberglass is in rough shape, but all the metal is there, minus a rear door.
An original gauge panel.
A set of more road worthy tires.
a spare set of axles, (not sure I want these, as they will be hard to bring along.

I am new to FJ40's, and what I would like to know from you all is.

What would you ask the seller of a vehicle so that you would better know how to service it once you got it back to your house? BTW I am towing it from New Mexico to Maryland this weekend. We are packing it up on saturday.

Here are some pictures.

Thank you in advance for all replies.

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BTW a friend has already informed me that the headlight grill is on upsidedown. :-)
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What I would do with any new truck (despite anything the PO says about it), is check and or change all fluids, brakes, steering, tyres, grease nipples, etc. Basically give it a thorough once over so that, 1: the rig is safe to drive and 2: you won't break or damage anything that could have been prvented through routine maintenance.

If something is out of your league mechanically wise get some help or have it done professionally. Somethings aren't worth the risk.

Get the thing driveable before looking at any mods, unless you already have a plan for the truck. A bit of time behind the wheel will enable you to see which things you can live with and which things are going make your kind of driving hard work, ie, gear ratio's, power steering ans such. You will soon figure out what needs to be modified/improved first.

Always remember to take anything the PO says with a grain of salt, but seeing as its your step father you should be OK, (or not, lol!!!), but it looks like its been sitting for a while things may have happened to the truck that he may not know about.

Good luck and it looks like your going to have alot of fun with it.
:cheers:
 
X 2

i never take what the po says even if they are family, change everything, fluids,hoses,belts, feul lines, tune up etc .... even though things may look ok. you don't want to be wheelin or out somewhere having a good and a $10 part or something goes out that was a easy change at home.


JUST MY .02 WORTH ..

AND WELCOME TO MUD ... :flipoff2:


CHEERS .. :beer:
 
"BTW a friend has already informed me that the headlight grill is on upsidedown." - yep, gonna need to flip that "bezel"

be sure to grab those axels even if it is a PITA - maybe use later or sell off. last picture looks like a hacked rattle can paint job on the drivers side??

you gotta lot of good stuff there the more I look at the pictures...
 
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Thanks for the helpful hints.

Its been great here, the engine started right up today, but it has a bit of a fuel leak.

I will try and get the spare set of axles home to Maryland, maybe I can trade them for something in the future.

Oh and a correction needs to be stated, It's a 1971 model. Tomorrow I should be posting a more stock FJ40 1971 model in the for sale section. I will put a bunch of pics up of it.
 
Congrats, and welcome to MUD!

Where will you be in Maryland?
 
Good score... Take good care of those doors. They go for big $$$$.

Welcome to the ih8mud. Might look into joining TLCA www.tlca.org

I noticed the Monza steering wheel.... Never seen one of those on a FJ40...
 
Felix said:
Congrats, and welcome to MUD!

Where will you be in Maryland?
Click to expand...

I will be in the south part of Baltimore, specifically Halethorpe.


About the monza steering wheel, I thought it a little strange as well. The PO says he liked it because it fit and it has tilt.

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keep an eye on that uhaul trailer, a guy on here lost two cruisers(the one he was driving and the one on the trailer) when "his" uhaul broke.

the doors are off a later year and some work will need to be done in order for them to work on your model year.




short of what might be hiding under teh DP, it looks to be to decent shape.
 
brian said:
keep an eye on that uhaul trailer, a guy on here lost two cruisers(the one he was driving and the one on the trailer) when "his" uhaul broke.
Click to expand...

You weren't lying, the pictures kind of speak for themselves. I checked the tires before leaving, but didn't see anything wrong. After 320 miles, just 4 miles into Oklahoma we had a flat on the trailer. why they don't include a spare I don't know.

I will give U-haul credit thought they had us back on the road in just over an hour. That made me happy, but pissed at the same time. A paradox.

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Nice looking 40.

Sorry about the flat, but props to U-Haul for fixing it. As for the pics, great lighting almost looks surreal.
 
wow, nice pics! It's shots like that that make me realise that one day I'm going to go to the states and drive the hell out of it!

Sux about the tyre though but if s**t didn't happen then there would be no stories to tell:)
 
Where did you get the Truck? From the scenery it looks like you picked it up in New Mexico or Colorado? There a quite a few good looking cruisers for sale here in New Mexico. .
 
Are you married / involved? Does your Wife /GF know what you are getting in to? It's called a money pit!. Good luck and welcome to MUDD!
 
:beer:
Colorado Boy-74-FJ40 said:
Are you married / involved? Does your Wife /GF know what you are getting in to? It's called a money pit!. Good luck and welcome to MUDD!
Click to expand...

Yes, you will find that it is indeed a money pit. So long that you make the commitment and get everything done at once before you register it. You have to let the anticipation of wanting to drive it until the project is completed.

Depending on the level of mod-restoration you want to complete, you can spend upwards of $20,000 to get it perfect. The end result will be a very capable 4x4 and also very unique.

Congrats on the purchase and enjoy. Although my project has been a money pit, it's been a lot of fun and an enjoyable learning experience. Enjoy!
 
UNO_RACING said:
Where did you get the Truck? From the scenery it looks like you picked it up in New Mexico or Colorado? There a quite a few good looking cruisers for sale here in New Mexico. .
Click to expand...

Yeah, I got it from Santa Fe out by the Bobcat Bite.


So how did we start todays travels? It started with, you guessed it a flat. This time I had to wait two hours for the nice Uhaul man to come to the rescue. The s***ty part is there was a Uhaul rental dealer six miles away, but they would not let me bring it to them without corporate approval. Bunch of crap if you ask me. This mechanic was nice though and helped me adjust the ride heigth of the trailer.


65192778.jpg


See the low tire, my wife was pissed. She really wants to get back in time to ride her horses on Wednsday. So the answer to the other posters question, is yes I am married, and yes she knows what she is in for. But I do not have the money pit hobby in our family, she wins with the horses. I may have 200 plus horses under the hood, she has 2 in the barn. One purchased less than a month ago. So we both have new rides.

Here is my wife with our greyhounds at a fuel stop this evening.

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And this horse, cost as much as I plan to put into my revamping of the cruiser project.

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