1969 FJ Land Cruiser Getting Rebuilt From The Ground Up (1 Viewer)

[Troy Rogers]

In August of 2017, we received a call from a call dealer out of Las Cruces, NM regarding a Land Cruiser that he wanted to rebuild from the ground up. Seeing as we are about 6 hours away from him in Snowflake, AZ, we were honored that he chose us here at Metal Mayhem, to do his paint, body, and overall restoration work on his project for him. Once it was delivered to our shop we saw that this project was going to need some long hours of general restoration as it rust and damage on the body. Upon first diagnosis of the vehicle, we decided that the following repairs/services were needed: fitment of top, weld holes, rear cam mounts, bed liner floor, and underneath body, roll cage, body work, tear down, frame prep, mechanical labor, wiring installation, interior and trim, paint time, as per estimate or as needed and is necessary. We are still working on it, and have a goal set to have it ready to show off early June of 2018. Here are the pictures of the Land Cruiser when it first came in. More pictures will be taken soon and will be uploaded so you can check the status of our build. Let us know what you think! We are very pleased with our progress on it!

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[Troy Rogers]

 

[mattressking]

Wait...so that's what it looks like currently and you want to put it in a show June 2?

Is this on discovery channel?

 

[Troy Rogers]

Those are the pictures of it when it came in August of last year, we have done lots of work to it since then. This June is when we want to have it completed, will upload pictures as soon as I get them taken of where it sits now. We are not on Discovery Channel, but we do have a Facebook page, and an Instagram page. I'll upload the links if you would like to check our pages out.

Metal Mayhem Custom & Collision

Metal Mayhem Auto Body (@metalmayhemaz) • Instagram photos and videos

 

[1969 ToyotaFJ40]

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[1969 ToyotaFJ40]

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[1969FJ]

All I can say, IS WOW ! Thanks for this information, it helps.

 

[SteveH]

This story should probably should be placed under the Classifieds > 'bad sellers' section, as appropriate.

 

[toomanytoyzz]

I am only going by what I have seen in the crappy pics and have read from "The Toyota Dealer" guy.

I think we need to see more pics of the "shoddy" work you are referring to. I can't say that is enough to say it needs $10k plus of work to fix the issues. I've been involved with "independent inspectors" in the past and they can be snake oil salesman as well. If you hire them chances are they are gonna side with you. If the resto shop hires them chances are they will gonna side with the shop.

With that said, if the shop hit you with a $50k bill plus the parts you supplied then they are indeed crooks, and the quality of work is really a mute point (salt to the wound) in all of this. You basically got bamboozled for WAY more than double the original estimate. How could the resto shop ever justify that to you if they never notified you of any sort of change order which would inevitably wind up being in the ballpark of one and a half times the original estimate????? That's really the hardest pill for me to swallow in this entire story.

BUT on the other hand you said you have been in the auto business for almost twenty years. I'm guessing in your 20 years experience you'd be hard pressed to find a shop to restore this rig for under $20k in this day and age unless it was in fact subpar work being done. Sort of the "you get what you pay for" theory needs to be applied here IMO.

Hopefully the resto shop replies back. I'd really like to hear what they have to say.

 

[Living in the Past]

I would be interested in the whole story on the dealer chose who was going to restore this FJ40. OP made it show he was contacted. I live in AZ and have never heard of them. Snowflake is a small rural. Would also be interested in what he was looking for in a restore. Was this for personal use or something to display on the showroom floor. Doesn't look like it was very modified for off road and certainly moved further away from stock. Looks like a 3/69-9/69 build date.

 

[1969 ToyotaFJ40]

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[1969 ToyotaFJ40]

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[1969 ToyotaFJ40]

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[Living in the Past]

Since the thread created to cover this restore really had no content have to ask were those hard top sides replaced or repaired. In the Southwest would have sourced good used one rather than attempt repairs. Bad part about new paint is not being sure what it could be hiding.