Blackcat37
SILVER Star
So I have been a long time watcher on Mud but never had any desire to do my own thread until now. Both of my sons ages 9 and 7 finished up baseball and spring football last week. So I have some time to actually do some posting while not trying to play baby sitter at night to them and my three year old while my wife coaches. My kids love Landcruisers just as much as me and each will have one when they get older. In fact this build will be there first vehicle when they turn 16 since they are helping so much on it. We live in Northern California and have at least 20 40’s within 10 minutes of my home that my boys have located. They found a 1959 fj25 last year while driving down the road. I will attach some pictures of that because it was the first one I have seen in the wild.
So on to the project that I found over a year ago on Facebook marketplace. A local lady posted a picture of 77 Fj40 Crawler in rough shape for sale. I checked the pictures and saw a beautiful 65 Fj40 in the background. So of course I had to go see them both. After talking to this elderly lady who used to daily drove it while her kids were younger I knew one day I needed It to bring it back to life. This lady husband health was going downhill but he was big time in to cruisers. Infact she bought the house next door because he was crowding up their house with cruiser parts. It got so bad that they were not even able to walk in the back yard or anywhere in the house so she moved next door. So I offered to help them save as much as possible and clean up the property. It’s been about 2 years now but this Lady has become family to my kids and I. She has the biggest heart. After a year she finally told me that ”Nellie“ would be mine and agreed to sell it to me. I have had it home since November and the goal was to preserve the Patina of it. My good friend Georg Esterer went with me a few times over to her house and both of us thought It was original paint and just needed a polish. Well getting it home I quickly learned that it had been painted over. So I attempted to get rid of the bad paint job for weeks but the original paint was sanded down to far.
So rust repair and paint were going to be in the future. So I got to work.
So on to the project that I found over a year ago on Facebook marketplace. A local lady posted a picture of 77 Fj40 Crawler in rough shape for sale. I checked the pictures and saw a beautiful 65 Fj40 in the background. So of course I had to go see them both. After talking to this elderly lady who used to daily drove it while her kids were younger I knew one day I needed It to bring it back to life. This lady husband health was going downhill but he was big time in to cruisers. Infact she bought the house next door because he was crowding up their house with cruiser parts. It got so bad that they were not even able to walk in the back yard or anywhere in the house so she moved next door. So I offered to help them save as much as possible and clean up the property. It’s been about 2 years now but this Lady has become family to my kids and I. She has the biggest heart. After a year she finally told me that ”Nellie“ would be mine and agreed to sell it to me. I have had it home since November and the goal was to preserve the Patina of it. My good friend Georg Esterer went with me a few times over to her house and both of us thought It was original paint and just needed a polish. Well getting it home I quickly learned that it had been painted over. So I attempted to get rid of the bad paint job for weeks but the original paint was sanded down to far.
So rust repair and paint were going to be in the future. So I got to work.
