Hello everyone, and thank you. I have been lurking a while but not owning a land cruiser I felt weird about joining. The good news is, I now own one. This site has been very helpful in my search and will be invaluable to my build.
The background story to this point is a little..... backwards I guess. About 2 years ago I was doing research on a new vehicle for my wife. I'm a bit of an old fashioned freak who cant stand throw away culture and I like how things were built long ago, when they built things to be better than the competition not just about pure profit. Back to the point, so we were looking at new vehicles and I was completely put off by them, everything we looked at seemed to me to have a 10 year life span at best, so I did some serious digging. I'm a bit of an audiophile so I've always been attracted to the quality of products coming out of Japan in the 1970's. I though "if I could just find vehicle for her that was built in Japan." Well low and behold a used LX 570 came available, I did my research and boom we bought it. The LX was 10 years old had 170k miles on it, it rode and looked like it could have been manufactured 2 years ago, I was and still am very impressed. I was so impressed that I started studying up on Land Cruisers and right away fell in love with the FJ40. Now, the one I have is a bit of a mutt as far as originality is concerned but I'm not looking to win car shows, just a fun ride that looks great. Here is what I know about my FJ
1971 Frame
1978 F2 Engine
1978 4 speed transmission
1978 front axle with disk breaks
Gozzard composite fiberglass tub, roof, sides, ambulance doors
Right now it is cygnus white but I'm planning on painting it fashion green as an homage to the VIN year and the frame, plus I think that colour looks great.
I just got her 2 weeks ago so I haven't had much time to really get much done but so far I've "restored" the gauge cluster and most of the knobs, I've painted the air intake, cleaned an inch of mudoilgunk off the engine and transmission (still lots of cleaning and detail work to do in the engine bay) I've removed the bib, bezel and wire mesh grill thing I guess you'd call it and pained that. Its starting to snow here so today was the last time until the spring I'll have her on the road, took my wife and daughter for a fun rip around town now she is up on jack stands and ready for me to figure out where to start lol.
p.s. Bezel was upside down when I bought it
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The background story to this point is a little..... backwards I guess. About 2 years ago I was doing research on a new vehicle for my wife. I'm a bit of an old fashioned freak who cant stand throw away culture and I like how things were built long ago, when they built things to be better than the competition not just about pure profit. Back to the point, so we were looking at new vehicles and I was completely put off by them, everything we looked at seemed to me to have a 10 year life span at best, so I did some serious digging. I'm a bit of an audiophile so I've always been attracted to the quality of products coming out of Japan in the 1970's. I though "if I could just find vehicle for her that was built in Japan." Well low and behold a used LX 570 came available, I did my research and boom we bought it. The LX was 10 years old had 170k miles on it, it rode and looked like it could have been manufactured 2 years ago, I was and still am very impressed. I was so impressed that I started studying up on Land Cruisers and right away fell in love with the FJ40. Now, the one I have is a bit of a mutt as far as originality is concerned but I'm not looking to win car shows, just a fun ride that looks great. Here is what I know about my FJ
1971 Frame
1978 F2 Engine
1978 4 speed transmission
1978 front axle with disk breaks
Gozzard composite fiberglass tub, roof, sides, ambulance doors
Right now it is cygnus white but I'm planning on painting it fashion green as an homage to the VIN year and the frame, plus I think that colour looks great.
I just got her 2 weeks ago so I haven't had much time to really get much done but so far I've "restored" the gauge cluster and most of the knobs, I've painted the air intake, cleaned an inch of mudoilgunk off the engine and transmission (still lots of cleaning and detail work to do in the engine bay) I've removed the bib, bezel and wire mesh grill thing I guess you'd call it and pained that. Its starting to snow here so today was the last time until the spring I'll have her on the road, took my wife and daughter for a fun rip around town now she is up on jack stands and ready for me to figure out where to start lol.
p.s. Bezel was upside down when I bought it