Builds 1st FJ40, '76 - SMOKEY - Puttin’ her Back Together (2 Viewers)

[Vae Victus]

Update 1:
Got the intake/exhaust manifold machined, Remflex gasket purchased, both installed with new studs and nuts. Looks solid. Machine shop failed to spot face the faces where the nuts and washers tighten down the split surfaces between the aluminum intake and the cast iron exhaust, but I think the Remflex will account for any differences there (enough for this tractor engine to work just fine).

 

[Vae Victus]

Update 2:
Cleaned out the garage of parts not being used now (to storage), to create enough room to move the body and rotisserie in to re start the metal work! First time in 3 years I've been able to work on the body (it's finally time).

Avoided being stung by a huge wasp nest under the cover that I removed (somehow by the grace of God).

 

[Vae Victus]

Update 3:

Began the body work again. You can see the unfinished fuel floor pan.... That's first.

 

[Jdc1]

Good to see you moving forward again.

 

[Vae Victus]

Good to see you moving forward again.

Thanks, yes, been working on the '70 vehicle to get it running. Really want to drive a 40! My patience has run out after 5 years.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

It has been so long since I’ve seen a picture of the tub I forgot what a cool burgundy-purple your truck is.

You should like the remflex gasket. I am running two on my 350. Beefy!

 

[Vae Victus]

It has been so long since I’ve seen a picture of the tub I forgot what a cool burgundy-purple your truck is.

You should like the remflex gasket. I am running two on my 350. Beefy!

Yea, that should totally be a stock TLC color

 

[oldschool4wheeling]

Who knew your garage was that big!!

Oh and uh one other thing.... lets move the card board from underneath your "Cool Burgundy-Purple" body, cause I wouldn't want any flames when the sparks start to fly!

Weld, weld, weld, weld, weld, and on and on.... then grind and GGRRRIIIINNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDD some more!

 

[Vae Victus]

Oh come on - that cardboard works great to catch all those little sparky things.

 

[Vae Victus]

Very happy to report that I have received my rebuilt and modified wiring harnesses from @Coolerman! Thank you, fantastic work!

 

[Vae Victus]

Working slowly on things on the truck. Adding parts to the frame and engine, and doing body work at the same time. Not much time to do work, but I'm enjoying what time I do have.

I just worked to clean up my carb insulator. I'm a little bummed that the plastic has a flaw in it where it was hit. I originally thought that this mounted with the metal on top, but now realize that the flawed side will be showing.

 

[Vae Victus]

Also repaired this shield that goes below the battery tray. Lots of stress fractures and cracks due to the fact that this has all the load on the two mounting holes.

 

[Vae Victus]

So I repaired and reinforced all the breaks, cut out the cracks and rewelded those. I left some reinforcing weld material around the holes to try and stop this from happening again in the future. Paint pics are not final, still has some sand and paint to happen but this is buried in the engine bay, so I doesn't have to be factory (and with my skills it never will be). Still, good practice for me on detailed welding repair of thin metal.

 

[Vae Victus]

Continued to work on the floor pan. Had to remove the supports under the passenger and driver side in prep for replacing the driver's floor pan completely. Also want to get behind EVERY panel seam in the truck and clean, paint, protect it before paint.

 

[oldschool4wheeling]

Good work!! Your finished work looks great!!

 

[Vae Victus]

After spending about 25 hours working on this floor pan, I finally wrapped up the replacement. Why so long you ask for an area that is really not visible? Besides the fact that I'm pretty anal, I'm using this to learn. I decided to treat it like it needed to be as close to perfect as possible.

This was a great learning ground as I mentioned before because it was in such poor shape. I ran into further issues with the support beam that is to the right of the floor pan in the photos, and had to remove it/cut it out. I had accidentally welded it to the floor metal in spots, plus the metal under that support needed to go, so I just cut it all out and replaced the floor pan metal under it.

I have also just purchased the Swag OffRoad Finger Press Brake so that I can make my own support to replace the boogered up one, since new is not available. Updates on that once I get it.



I did learn several things that I was able to apply during the process that helped me and made a better end result. Much of this stuff has probably been written about, but no one seems to really cover it all in their videos which I've looked at extensively, so I thought I'd share. Use with caution, this is my own experience.

1. Weld on the visible side. Try to do your spot welding from the visible side if you have the option. The back side of the welds is often not evenly penetrated and makes for an ugly final product. Even if you use a backer for the welds, it is rough.

2. Use a backer for the welds. I found a magnetic copper spot weld backer device that has been VERY handy in doing all these spot welds on some very thin (and in many places too thin) material. This little device has saved countless hours and saved my sanity! This little thing is genius, and with the good magnet and thumb screw, gets pretty tight on the back of your weld area.

When the weld DOES blow through, and it will at times, it is no longer a stress inducing moment. Now, I just shrug and keep spot welding away with the backer firmly in place absorbing the heat and making a quick project of filling in the gap that was just created. Just be sure to stop if you reach beyond the edge of the backer. At that point, stop, cool down the weld, grind down the mess but leave a good solid base to continue the weld on, and start again after you move the back to cover the weak area.
(I'm not affiliated with any of these products, just passing this on: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VHZHBO)


3. Air grinders and Roloc are your friend - I've been able to be much more precise with my grinding when using a 2" Roloc disc on my air tool grinder vs using an electric with a 4" or larger, thick, zirc disc. I was able to grind down just the spot welds themselves to make the flush without losing a bunch of base metal. The smaller lighter air tool and a fresh 3M 2" Green Corps disc (https://www.amazon.com/3M-01396-Green-Corps-Roloc/dp/B00HSCLM6E) works really well. I do notice that once the outer 3mm of the edge wears down, it is much harder to target the correct area. I then use the slightly worn discs to cut down on all the main spot weld bulk, and switch out to a new disc to do the final detail grinding of the last 1/2mm to get it to blend in.

I did some cleanup of the finished metal with some 2" fiber type "Roloc" discs. I went from a coarse fiber disc down to a medium fiber disc, but really stopped there as the medium did some good, but body fill, primer and paint will hide most of these imperfections.


4. The weld process -weld, cool, tap (or tap, cool), grind. I found that it was helpful to do the spot weld, grab a damp rag and cool down the sheet metal around the weld (and inevitably the weld itself), and then using a body hammer and dolly, tap the weld a couple times to release the stress. It may be better to tap then cool, but I was trying to minimize warping and get it cooled quickly. I would then grind only after doing a series of welds so that I could concentrate on one process at a time. i would jump around to weld in different areas in order to be able to use the backer without other welds being in the way of getting the backer flat (and if you are not cooling the welds, in order to avoid too much heat soak in the same area).


5. Hammer and dollying - I didn't do much of this, but the floor needed a lot of it. I did some but the body man will probably do more. The condition of the floor pan itself left a lot of little waves and divots in the final product. I could spend a lot of time on this part but left it for the body man to make quick work of if he felt it needs it.


6. Filling small imperfections. When I had small divots or canyons as you would call them, in between areas that had spot welds but could not grind flat due to a lack of material, or just a flaw on the front or back side, I was trying to put a spot weld on that divot and then grind it down. Often enough, since I could not easily locate it on the other side of the panel to put a backer, I'd burn through. But, I had an epiphany and started to drill tiny holes where the imperfections were. This allowed me to get a full penetration spot weld where the weak area was, and it allowed me to easily place the backer on the back side (always on the back side, since I'd already drilled the hole), which improved the process even more since, as I said above, you want to always weld on the presentation side if you can help it.

8. Butt clamps are very helpful - I was recommended this type of butt clamp, and they work pretty well. It requires about an 1/16" gap for the blade of the clamp to poke through, but they tighten down well and make using dissimilar thickness metal very easy to line up. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YF5F9A2/)

 

[Vae Victus]

Here are some photos for those of you who really care about the details of replacing sheet metal.

After letting this sit for almost 2 years.... it looked ugly and needed about another 50% of the welding done. I was wondering if it would ever look fairly finished.

I mean, come on, that's just ugly!!

 

[Vae Victus]

But, we finally got it there after much filling and slow grinding.

 

[Vae Victus]

Received the finger press brake from Swag Off-road. Assembled and put to use to make both front for pan support brackets. It took 3 tries to make a good one. First one was usable after I hammered it a bit narrower. Second was complete fail. 3rd was pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

These are done in 16 ga steel as OEM. 16 ga is surprisingly strong, especially when bent.

Swag off-road makes good products

First attempt was too wide. You can see in the second photo below that I used a bit of hammer persuasion to narrow it enough to allow the body mount bracket to fit for welding.

Third attempt (for the driver's side support) was much better. I learned where to make the bends, how far to bend it, how to stack angle iron in the bed of the brake to get sharper/smaller radius bends, how to use the body hammer to finish the part.

Dang Harbor Freight press is very sloppy. Makes bending with any precision hopeless. At least the metal is forgiving.

 

[Vae Victus]

Also got to visit with @oldschool4wheeling and his just completed paint job. Haven't seen a newly painted truck in about 3 years so it was nice to get an up close look and lots of pictures as well as advice and tips from Doug as he is putting his back together.

Man, look at that shine