drooartz

I sealed the back third of the frame, springs, and axle with Corroseal. There are many different rust converters on the market and a variety of opinions about them, but I have been very pleased with Corroseal. I used it on my FJ55’s frame and...

I’ve done an unsynchronized tractor as well, many, many years ago. I’ll admit that I didn’t try a clutchless downshift in the 40, as my rev matching skills are not as good.

Once on the pavement I decided to see if I could upshift without the clutch. Turns out that’s actually not hard to do on a 40 so got it into 4th and home I went. Good job! Real men can do this, as well as shift unsynchronized tractor...

From here, it was a cannonball run to find the next place to stay for the night. We left Atlantic City in the rain and headed south. We were hoping to find a spot to camp in the totally unknown (at least to us) Granite Mountains, but the rain...

So the burn ban which was now in place was very limiting. We learned that a Stage 1 ban in Wyoming means that fires are allowed only in developed campgrounds, which are not really our style. However, we found some good middle ground: these canvas...

I had yesterday (Labor Day here in the USA) off, and decided it was time to get outside for a while. Fired up Otis and headed to a trailhead near my house. Took a nice 6 mile hike with good views of some of the early changing colors here. I still...

Otis came with a few boxes of random parts. Some cool stuff including: rebuilt starter trouble light and the little blue vinyl bag original touchup paint original style jack (unfortunately not working) extra set of the long jack handles carb...

Next, I plan to thoroughly scrub the entire underside using Scotch-Brite pads, scrub brushes, and plenty of degreaser. I’ll likely need to repeat this process a couple of times to ensure the undercarriage and inner frame rails are spotless...

40+45+40 😍

All done

Blood sacrifice usually necessary at some point for a successful project!

Yep. I screwed up, literally. All good now! Had to get up and take care of it or I wouldn't sleep well. Haha

Finally got around to taking the hard water spots off the windows. Some 0000 steel wool, blue magic metal polish and lots of elbow grease! I also did a quick pass on the inside to make them crystal clear. Well worth all the work!

I've been procrastinating on this repair for a while now, partly because I hate doing things twice. When I bought this 40, it had a nasty tear in the right fender. I hammered it back into shape and then welded it up, but unfortunately I got a...

This is the first time I have ever used Rusty (or any FJ40) to pull something. I know this was a pretty light load, but man... he did great. I couldn't even tell there was anything back there. It was super satisfying for me to be using this 40...

I overlooked this place. Did the loop in cades cove when my nephew visited a few weeks ago. No top + windshield down. Saw some bear cubs playing and tons of deer.

800km round trip to the cabin

After 30 years playing with old cars/trucks/motorcycles I’ve finally got a reasonable handle on what I like and what I do. Like a Land Cruiser, I’m slow but I get there eventually. :D

I'm glad you have clearly defined goals :)

I agree. And while I didn’t buy this 40 because it had a charming name, the fact that it has a charming name was part of the picture. :)

Looks nice. I follow seafair in than changing ship names is bad luck so Otis it is in my book. I'm guessing some moderator will magically assign the build badge.

This will be the build thread/documentation (not sure how I get the “Builds” tag) for my new-to-me 1976 FJ40 named Otis. The truck was named by the previous to the previous owner, and it fits so the name happily will stay. I bought Otis from...

I've had issues with my wipers since I got it running. Initially, it worked kinda sorta, but it froze up hard on route 66. I got it working, but the drivers side taper has been stripped out, resulting in some flop. Fixed it today with a beer can...

Yes I like that shade of blue also.

Yup! At least my toes could be cool. I like the color as well. When I was on the hunt I wasn’t that fussed about the color one way or another, but am happy it turned out the way it did. My other 2 old cars are both white (unintentionally) so it’s...