New to me ‘66 40 (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Feb 26, 2020
Threads
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Location
Beaverton, Oregon
Hello all. Picked up this old girl last weekend and looking forward to putting some work into it. Runs and drives a little rough, but I think a valve adjustment to start will go a long ways. Then a general tune up hopefully and I’ll drive it around town some.

I do live in Oregon however and it tends to rain here from time to time. My came to me missing the windshield wiper motors, arms, and blades. The motors seem few andfar between, but I’ve read a couple places which say there are some marine motors that are a good replacement for the OEM parts. Can anyone point me in the direction of where to find said components?

Future plans for the FJ are a Cummins 4BT and getting rid of the horrible yellow paint.

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Nice FJ40 (or just 40). The term FJ refers to the FJ Cruiser.

Welcome to Mud. Try the search function, I think you'll find what you're looking for.
 
Hello all. Picked up this old girl last weekend and looking forward to putting some work into it. Runs and drives a little rough, but I think a valve adjustment to start will go a long ways. Then a general tune up hopefully and I’ll drive it around town some.

I do live in Oregon however and it tends to rain here from time to time. My came to me missing the windshield wiper motors, arms, and blades. The motors seem few andfar between, but I’ve read a couple places which say there are some marine motors that are a good replacement for the OEM parts. Can anyone point me in the direction of where to find said components?

Future plans for the FJ are a Cummins 4BT and getting rid of the horrible yellow paint.

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I saw this one CL. Looks like a good 40 to start your build from.
 
Nice start! At least the bezel police can't come down on you.;)
 
Though you should ditch the chrome rings.:(
 
I saw this one CL. Looks like a good 40 to start your build from.

A buddy and I spent a good couple hours looking it over before I decided to buy it. Only a few rust spots that are going to need tended to, otherwise pretty solid. Came with the hard top too which was a huge selling point.
 
I'll be interested to see how you come along with your wiper motors and other such things. the wife and I have '67 and finding the proper parts for which have been difficult to say the least. i would like to do my best to restore it but for want of some basic safety features like a functioning horn, wipers and rearview mirror, i haven't driven it much. i might resort to making due with some non matching parts until i can get correct parts.

so keep us updated on your progress with your new 40 and congrats!
 
Got the valve adjustment job done today. All of the valves were pretty close but none were too tight. Rig clearly has not seen any highway time in a few years with the amount of moisture in the valves. Isn’t too bad though fortunately.

the bad part is that we checked the compression in the cylinders too, and that was not so good.
1-105
2-132
3-96
4-96
5-111
6-105
Not too thrilled about that but such is life. Will get the valves and pistons checked next.

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A buddy and I spent a good couple hours looking it over before I decided to buy it. Only a few rust spots that are going to need tended to, otherwise pretty solid. Came with the hard top too which was a huge selling point.
How do you like the fit of that soft top? I’m considering one as an alternative to having to deal with my hardtop.
 
How do you like the fit of that soft top? I’m considering one as an alternative to having to deal with my hardtop.

It seems to fit pretty well, not sure where the previous owner had it made. It does not seal over the corners of the windshield so defiantly would not want to use it in bad weather.

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It seems to fit pretty well, not sure where the previous owner had it made. It does not seal over the corners of the windshield so defiantly would not want to use it in bad weather.

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Thanks, my hardtop keeps most the wind and rain out so it probably wouldn’t be much different. Looks like you have spring green hiding under a repaint like mine.
 
Got a bunch of new/replacement parts this week for the 40.

Got new tie-rod ends as the originals are in pretty bad shape.

The cap and rotor were also in bad shape and not firing one of the cylinders so might as well upgrade that system. Picked up a Pertronix coil and ignition upgrade kit. The points were shot so might as well upgrade away from them. The guy I bought it from already replaced the plugs and wires so I'll just roll with those for now.

Picked up a set of LED headlights so I can actually see farther than the front bumper. Don't know how anyone drove after dark in 66 with those crappy original ones.

Finally picked up a set of windshield wiper kits from Speedway. Yes, I know they are not original, but I'm not dropping hundreds of dollars for OEM just to say they are factory. Planning on dropping a Cummins into this thing so obviously I'm not going to be an OEM guy.

Unfortunately I got a nasty wrist injury in training at work this week so I'm not going to be able to put in much work for a few weeks. Will get pictures of new parts installed when I'm able to.
 
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Are the rings required to hold the lights in? If so is there a good replacement you would suggest?

Unless the PO replaced the headlight buckets with something that isn't OEM, the chrome rings are not stock and not necessary. You still have the 4 holes for the OEM bezel to make it look like a proper FJ40.
 
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This weekend I drained the fluid from the axles to see how they looked. The rear axle was dirty but fine. Clearly had been changed at some point. The front axle however was pretty nasty. Not sure why the fluid was gray, if just from really being really old, or if there was some contaminate in it. Looks like water droplets but it was just air bubbles. Not sure how much works I’m going to put into the axle though. Want to get a disc brake swap done ASAP, so not wanting to put much money into this one.

I found a set of 40 axles from a‘76 with disc brakes, just waiting on the guy to decide how much he wants for them.

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No worries if you are eventually going to changing out the axles. Probably from condensation. As long as no big pieces fell out you should be good to go.

You'll like disk brakes on your 40 ;)
 
No worries if you are eventually going to changing out the axles. Probably from condensation. As long as no big pieces fell out you should be good to go.

You'll like disk brakes on your 40 ;)

Sadly at this point I haven't even really gotten to drive it yet with the drum brakes other that a couple test drives before I bought it. Has a bad distributor that I'm replacing with a Pertronix electronic system I need to install. Tried to install that this weekend too but with injured arm just couldn't get in there to get the parts in. Hopefully in the next couple weekends I can get it done and actually drive the thing!
 
It doesn't look like you got an answer to the wiper question. I've got a '67 and looked into replacing the tired wipers and even started to install a pair of marine units with stainless covers. Look like a very close match... except the wiring is backwards from what we have. The switch goes through the ground wire on the new one and through the hot wire on the old ones... I think I have that straight- but in any event it didn't work with the existing wiring setup, so I ended up repairing what I had. But it would've been nice to make the new ones work because they didn't act like they were about to keel over with exhaustion like the old ones.
 
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It doesn't look like you got an answer to the wiper question. I've got a '67 and looked into replacing the tired wipers and even started install a pair of marine units with stainless covers. Look like a very close match... except the wiring is backwards from what we have. The switch goes through the ground wire on the new one and through the hot wire on the new ones... I think I have that straight- but in any event it didn't work with the existing wiring setup, so I ended up repairing what I had. But it would've been nice to make the new ones work because they didn't act like they were about to keel over with exhaustion like the old ones.

I ended up ordering a set of the stainless wiper motors and switch from Speedway motors. They are a perfect fit into the factory mounting holes. I just need to finish wiring them up. The stainless model has a self park feature and can both be operated on a switch. Their cheaper model has to be operated independently on a switch on the housing.
 
Today I got the soft top removed so I can start prepping to put the hard top on with a new seal kit. Unfortunately, multiple screws are either broken off, of the internal but has spun off and I can’t get the bolts out. That includes one of the bolts that holds a mount for the soft top. Guess I’ll be pulling the dremel and doing some cutting. Also picked up some stainless bolts to get the roll bar put back in. Definitely a homemade one by the PO but will suffice for now.

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