Early FJ40 Rock Crawler Gets a Refresh
Quarantine and being away from where i work on my rig has me posting on forums now. I've been meaning to make a thread to document progress since I had my first gen pickup in High School. Missed that so now I am getting a start on a thread for the 40. Background: This 40 has been in my family...
forum.ih8mud.com
In fall of 2016, a 1975 FJ40 that has been in my family since new was passed down to me. It was built into a wheeler in the 90's by my uncle. Kids and life got in the way of wheeling the last 20 years so my dad, my uncle, and other in their group stopped wheeling and working on their toys. When I picked up this cruiser it had not been turned over in almost 9 years, and not driven really in even longer.
First day getting it tuned up for the drive to my house.
Top off and a tune up later, had it out on some local trails.
I drove the cruiser for a few months and every day a new problem arose. When it came time to register in January of 2017, I put it on non op and parked it until spring 2019.
This is my first cruiser but I am no stranger to wrenching and working on Toyotas.
I parked it because I was mid way through another project. My project was my first truck which i bought in 2015. Here are some quick pics...
Pretty cookie cutter mini truck build. Duals, 5.29s, lockers, etc... The shining star of this truck was the 22r i had built. Still slow don't get me wrong, but this was my daily for a long time and I had just about ever goody you could throw at those things besides boost. I loved the look on Yosemite tourists faces when I would pass them on my way up the hill to work in my sketchy looking Toyota.
I sold the pickup in October 2018, and got back into working on the cruiser in early 2019. Started with a tune up, change some seals on the engine, trans, and tcase, and going through every bolt on the thing to make sure I wouldn't die on my first drives. By May my transfer case decided to eat a few teeth off the gears so that took some time to fix.
Since then I played with it in the hills a bit, did some snow wheeling, and then parked and started really going through it.
Im about one weekend of work away from finishing my complete re wire with an ez wire 21 kit. Pictures of that process are limited because I was initially trying to get it done in a weekend to go down to KOH (didnt make it). I do have lots of notes so if anybody goes that route and has questions feel free to message me.
I ditched the old broken Holley projection tbi on the 350 for an edelbrock q-jet thats been laying around the house. Keeping it simple and cheap for now since I'd like to ditch my oil soaked, smog era 350 for an ls style enging sometime by Summer 2021.
PRP daily driver suspension seats on the way.
Currently researching shock options to replace my worn rancho 9000
Also plan on building metaltech style tube fenders. My local trails are pretty tight and I like the look of the tube fenders. The factory fenders will not be going to waste though as my dad has a '76 Fj40 frame of restoration thats been on pause for 20 years, and it needs some fenders.
This build will always be evolving as I do not have a set in stone plan. I have friends pushing me to links and coilovers, but right now the only thing I want is to have my current setup fairly dialed and wheel this summer. I like to think of myself as a good driver but this current setup can still out wheel my driving capabilities. I know that I still have some learning to do. I have never been a fan of the idea going straight to a rig on tons, 40's, and coils, just because thats what you see on instagram. That is an appealing route though so who knows, by winter this year I could have this thing stripped down and I'll be messing with a link calculator.