Builds 1978 US Market FJ40 Factory Restoration (5 Viewers)

[whitey45]

Dallas, nice work as usual. I saw that you sold the 901 and was wondering why! Well I see you made a slight upgrade! Really the first modern aircooled 911. 3.6, power steering, coils, but still has that unmistakable 911 look and feel. I remember when these came out and finally got to drive one in the early 90’s when they were coming out of warranty! It was an amazing leap for porsche back then! I daily drove a 993 for 6 years, boy do I miss that car!!

 

[ToyotaMatt]

Excellent TECH , and attn to 1978 Details Dallas !

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[dmaddox]

A drunken and spazzing unicorn. Fitting!

 

[Ackcruisers]

Any progress updates?

 

[dmaddox]

Good morning, friends. While the project moves along, it is moving along slowly. Quite a bit of change going on in life. However - to provide an update I am working on doors at the moment. I purchased a set of doors from a vendor on here, and they turned out to be in about the exact same shape as my original doors. So, after paying for them and shipping them freight....I'm pretty much right back where I started.

Full of filler and fiberglass, I got started in stripping them down to investigate.

I started by taking apart all of the hardware and what window pieces were intact:

I noticed right away the whole outer skin was a sheet of filler......and the bottom completely stuffed with fiberglass and filler. I mean, look at that bottom left corner. I hope by now, you can all see why my love and dedication to Land Cruisers, specifically FJ40's is fading. Just worn out.

Here is what the door ACTUALLY looks like, with a sample of the filler in my hand:

Knowing how susceptible these doors are to warping and moving around, I wanted to only cut out what is/was necessary in having a solid remaining door. I also wanted to cut along the door in such a way that welding in a new piece would be easy to grind/massage into a seamless line. I decided to cut like so:

In the above photo - you can also see how weak the front of the door is....and I tried to poke and dig around on it to expose the rust - but keep in mind the skin is also warped from whatever life the door led anyway. So..../shrug....whats a guy supposed to do? Buy ebay doors? Risk another used set? Press forward I guess.

I had purchased from real steel a bottom door set that I set aside HOPING that these new doors would be as solid as advertised. So, at least I had some good steel to use. So I started to trim and fit the interior bottom of the door:

After an hour or so, I was able to massage it into place:

It should probably go without saying that there are physics at work here with the front skin and the rear/interior of the door. So, I am using some 1" square tubing to tack weld to the front/exterior of the door so that it forces the exterior panel completely straight.

The reason for this, is that when you disconnect the two panels, the exterior of the door wants to "buck tooth" out (for the lack of a better term) so much so that when I test fitted the door, the bottom edge was about 3/8" flared out. Thus, in employing 1" steel tubing in a vertical fashion, I'll force the exterior flat, so that when I tack those holes in the inside bottom trim pictured above, the door will be flat and then I can remove the 1" square tubing.

While not perfect, I am going to attempt to "run" with a proper seal and fill job on the exterior of the door. However, the more I see it sitting there, the more I don't like it. The weight of the project is a constant nag. What to do....how to fix it. How can I trust people when I am awaiting a part in the mail?

See in this photo the condition. I'll try to fill/weld any hole and keep heat out of it. You can see the layer of bondo on the door skin as well, yes? Direct to steel no less. So, while a bit "johnny raincloud" This is where I am at. If, in a rare occasion I have an hour or three to spare and I have the energy, I'll tinker on the FJ40. Otherwise, it remains a rash on my backside.

Until we meet again!

 

[Curtice]

Wow, nightmares from my door fight. And that is a lot of bondo. It looks like you only replaced the inner part of the door? Was the outer panel ok? All of my warping from welding came when patching on the outer piece.

 

[SteveH]

I think your technique of stabilizing the outer door face is good. You may just need to clamp the entire door (face down) to a very flat workbench as you weld. I would also make 5-6 small welds along your patch, and then unclamp the door and see where it's going (twisting), before you completely weld the patch seam.

Flat metal panels (in any application) are incredibly prone to doing what you are seeing.

 

[65swb45]

All I can say is I really hope your ‘light at the end of the tunnel‘ is at least as long and as bright as your time in the tunnel.

 

[dmaddox]

I finally found some time to get back to the front doors. In all seriousness, I never thought I'd be this 'stuck in the mud' with a car project. Body work, by far, seems to be the crux of any project I get myself into. This portion of the project is, as you all know, just the pits.

As I had mentioned before, I purchased these doors from a mud member which were supposed to be clean and near perfect. The more I dug into them, the more I am finding out they are hiding more than the current administration under the paint. Also frustrating as I am digging into them, is to find out that there are more options on the market today for a set of doors. The ship has sailed on beginning with a fresh or decent set, so I decided to just press on.

Getting back to work while dealing with house projects and the little German car, I needed to seal up the bottom of the driver door - the outside was spottable and given the heat/warping difficulties decided to leave it alone. The inside needed to be patched, however. In finishing the exterior of the driver door, I poked all around with a screwdriver to find any weak areas and filled it in with the welder:

Once that was done it was fairly easy to grind smooth to a point where the exterior of the door will turn out really nice.

On the other side of the firewall, Olive, our new Golden stood watch. At many other various points in this thread, you can see Lola, who we lost last year. I never was a "dog lover", but Lola broke me and when we lost her and I had to carry her away - I knew Olive would be inevitable. So, here she is.

Shown here, I am tacking in the new bottom area. The "ridge" of the Real Steel door bottom is more aggressive than the original door, so as I am spotting those areas in, I used a body hammer to tap/blend that ridge down. I guess the only real good news here, is that these are original Toyota doors.....and will have good steel in them.

While doing some yard work, I'd let it cool...go rake...come back, tack a few more....lather rinse repeat until it was all filled in. (I used weld through primer generously on the inside of the mating areas and will also fluid film the inside when all done.

Ground smooth, ready for additional paint removal/stripping and then epoxy primer, filler, and more fun.

Also, I am planning on removing the air injection rail, engine hooks to have them properly zinc coated. The gold rattle can is unbecoming of the level of detail I wanted here, and stick out in all of the wrong ways. I plan on properly addressing this in the weeks to come, when I get a small stack of things to drop off at the shop.

 

[reddog90]

Good lookin red dog.

 

[Broski]

Nice work and cute pup !!

 

[65swb45]

Back at the doors. I never thought I would ever get this backwards in an FJ40, but here we are. I purchased these doors from a mud member, as mentioned that were supposed to be clean and near perfect. Come to find out they are hiding more than the current administration under the paint.

It is also frustrating that there are more options on the market to day for a set of doors, but digging into that doesn't do much for my current situation.

The other problem with these doors is they were re-painted and worked on in an apparently humid area and not prepped, so there is surface rust all over the steel. Thus, the doors need to be completely stripped. Another annoyingly difficult job.

However, to seal up the bottom of the driver door - the outside was spottable and given the heat/warping difficulties decided to leave it alone. The inside needed to be patched however.

I poked all around with a screwdriver to find any weak areas and filled it in with the welder:

View attachment 2964685

Once that was done it was fairly easy to grind smooth to a point where the exterior of the door will turn out really nice.

On the other side of the firewall, Olive, our new Golden stood watch. At many other various points in this thread, you can see Lola, who we lost last year. I never was a "dog lover", but Lola broke me and when we lost her and I had to carry her away - I knew Olive would be inevitable. So, here she is.

View attachment 2964686

Tacking in the new bottom area. The "ridge" of the Real Steel door bottom is more aggressive than the original door, so as I am spotting those areas in, I used a body hammer to tap/blend that ridge down. I guess the only real good news here, is that these are original Toyota doors.....and will have good steel in them.

View attachment 2964690

While doing some yard work, I'd let it cool...go rake...come back, tack a few more....lather rinse repeat until it was all filled in. (I used weld through primer generously on the inside of the mating areas and will also fluid film the inside when all done.

View attachment 2964692

Ground smooth, ready for additional paint removal/stripping and then epoxy primer, filler, and more fun.

View attachment 2964693

Also, I am planning on removing the air injection rail, engine hooks to have them properly zinc coated. The gold rattle can is unbecoming of the level of detail I wanted here, and stick out in all of the wrong ways. I plan on properly addressing this in the weeks to come, when I get a small stack of things to drop off at the shop.

View attachment 2964694

You never learned to paragraph in school, did you?

Could have made multiple posts for your update. I don’t all the work you have to go through, but I your dog.

 

[dmaddox]

You never learned to paragraph in school, did you?

Could have made multiple posts for your update. I don’t all the work you have to go through, but I your dog.

Oh, I learned to paragraph all right.....but like chatting in my kitchen or garage, I prefer to just let it roll out as disorganized and grammatically incorrect as I had it stored on the brain shelf. Either way, I reorganized it for easier reading.

cheers.

 

[KeilOver]

Seemed easy to read initially. I've got a 78 and the lower door edge is a rusty mess, so this is great info for when/if I tackle that project. Our dog is named Olive too. Great name for a pup.

 

[TheHardWay]

Was wondering what happened to you - glad you haven't given up, Brother - I'm still rooting for you!

 

[Toyo_Judson]

There's only one word I can think of describe your journey for far... EPIC.

25 years and 75 pounds ago I used to rock climb. Epic wasn't a grand adventure, in fact it was a lot of bad stuff. I found this definition from the Climbing Glossary:

Epic:
A climbing (Land Cruiser) adventure in which abnormal events occur on such a routine basis that the feats undertaken to survive them come to seem routine as a consequence.

Love what you're doing and what you've accomplished so far... Keep fighting the good fight and lay off the sauerkraut! lol.

 

[whitey45]

When things are not going well, just jump in the little red car and buzz er up to 6700 rpm!

 

[dmaddox]

In that case.....!

Kidding aside, I have been having a lot of fun tuning and working on this 1993 964. I have rebuild the entire shifter setup with Rothsport and FD Motorsports, Steering wheel with a Momo Prototipo, 993 ignition, suspension work, steering work, etc.. ANYTHING but body work on the FJ40, essentially!

I am looking for that next "push" to get the body work done and the mustard flowing. Once I can get that done, I literally have everything else to hopefully just assemble now...like a giant model kit. I have told myself repeatedly throughout this project that "I"ll never go this deep into an FJ40 again!". That being said, it is hard to get one "right", even with this one I am doing, it won't be 100% 1978 Japanese. However, I am trying my best to get it there, 100% bone stock and as original as possible.

This 911 however? Not so much. One thing this 911 has in common with the Toyota; shifting from 2nd into 3rd at 6500rpm, pegging it to the floor . . .particularly around a bend, the old slogan "Oh, what a feeling."

 

[whitey45]

Nice tasteful mods Dallas, love the big retro fuchs! And great stance! Taking the kids to school in 10 minutes in my 996!

 

[cwags12]

That engine pic and the detailed thread tells me you'll never give up! X2 rooting for you