Wimberosa's 40 project (1 Viewer)

[wimberosa]

Well.... I've been hesitant to create a build thread on this 40 because I knew it was going to take me years of slow increments.
Recently I've found myself with a proper shop and time to commit to it....so I've decided
to up the ante and document it.

This is a May 1979 build date. I picked this 40 up in 2017 and its been under sheds...in storage...and finally now in my newish shop.
It has rust cancer out the wazoo and originally I intended to install a Teseven tub (there are a bunch of posts on the stainless teseven tub
which I still own). However, I've now decided that I also want to salvage the original tub and try to get my welding skills up to par. The
intent is to gain some knowledge on metal working that I want to transfer over and also design/build an overland camper. The overland
is a future project.

Here are a few recap pointers to threads that I've posted over the years regarding this build.

The installation of the new leaf springs and bringing the frame up to speed.

What have you done to your Land Cruiser this week?

Finaly had some time in the shop to work on the floor.

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The installation of some new rims from racer65

What have you done to your Land Cruiser this week?

Uh oh...how did that happen??

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A method to rebuild the rear hinges on ambulance doors

What have you done to your Land Cruiser this week?

Ben flat out spraying all the tub and panels and piecing it all back together! All the hard work finally starting to pay off! Check my insta for more shots ect @1971fj40 What paint are you using? It looks like the Baige "Custom" Flat I am using.

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The move to the shop

What have you done to your Land Cruiser this week?

Into my new shop and moved the old tub onto the rig to refurb. I still have the teseven tub....but having a spare tub is "not a bad thing" (tm). A pic of the new shop... Yay! Normal cancer on the old tub...same old stuff....move along...move along. How many times have you seen this cut...

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The current task is working on the doors. Follow-up post coming shortly.

 

[wimberosa]

So I've currently welded in the outer face patches for all the doors. A couple of things
I've discovered about the CCOT patch panels which were previously purchased.

1) the rear ambulance patch panels are "spot" on with very little manipulation needed to fit correctly.
2) the front doors are NOT "spot" on. In particular the relief near the door edge is off by 1/3 of an inch. This led me to basically flattening the patch panel back out and re-bending it in the right spot. That did not save me any time.

I've been debating what to do about removing the paint down to metal. We do not have very good auto-body support services over here in the 4 corners (Durango Colo) and I'm
a) hesitant to have some mobile "dustless" blaster come and fill my yard with silica and paint dregs from the 40.
b) want to control the timing and be meticulous about the epoxy primer I'm going to apply
c) don't want to sand blast and risk excessive heat added to the metal.

So right now I'm experimenting with some Citristrip. What I'm seeing is that on the interior face of the doors strips well with citristrip. The exterior face however is taking multiple coatings and its much rougher sledding. I'm not sure if this is going to be the story on all the exterior / interior pieces but I may also experiment with Jasco. If I can find a dustless blaster that is NOT mobile I may also take parts to other locations.

Regarding leftover rust that is not hacked out....I'm treating with Krud Kutter Rust Remover and that seems to be working modestly ok. This is embedded rust but is not through the metal or causing any integrity issues. What I'm attempting to do is hack out everything bad and treat all the seams and minor rust areas in a diligent manner. Then I need to figure out how to really get an epoxy primer into all those areas.

TIPS ON HOW TO REALLY GET EPOXY PRIMER INTO HARD TO REACH PLACES IS MUCH APPRECIATED!

The current thought process is I'll mix up some epoxy primer and pour it into those seam cavities and swish it around. I'll also be spraying this with an HVLP gun. I'm currently in the process of pulling together a paint booth which I'll also post pictures of and how I intend to make that configurable and reuseable.

 

[wimberosa]

A few updates to follow on things I've tested and been working on.

Firstly, my attempt at "coating" the inside of my rear doors with epoxy primer semi-worked....but its insufficient. I closed up all the holes with painters tape and proceeded to pour excess primer into the door well. I then spent about 15 minutes rotating the door through various gyrations in an attempt to get the paint to every crevice. It DOES get into almost all the side joints but is an insufficient "full" coat on the inside of the door. The pic here of my doors "looks" like it got a good grey primer coat inside but close inspection proves otherwise.

At this point I think I need to investigate some kind of flexible wand attachment for the HVLP gun or go with one of those interior frame rattle cans. Suggestions welcome.... The Eastwood epoxy primer works well with a brush (when you can reach with a brush) on the inside of doors.

Note also as I mentioned before the rear door patch panels (both these doors got new bottoms) was spot on by cool cruisers. However...the front door patch panel reliefs is too shallow for a '79. I will post pics of that when I finish those doors. Note...that I also attempted to re-roll those panels to get better relief but just stretched it in an odd way.....so I had to start all over on the front doors....future post to follow.

Second pic is of my front bib. If I can claim I lucked out on anything.....its that "only" the lower 1.5" was rotted on this bib. So I was able to cut out the bottom 1.5 inches and replace without having to do bends for those oblong openings. The angle iron support was totally rotted as well so I fab'd a new one. This is just normal angle iron that I feathered (cut slots with grinder) along one side of the angle to bend.....then bent to match the old angle support and rewelded.

 

[wimberosa]

As also previously mentioned I tried stripping various parts with both Citri-Strip and Jasco Paint and epoxy remover. I can say without a doubt I would never do this again. Its a huge time waster and after multiple ..... multiple iterations I kinda got my doors stripped. Offhand I'd say that for a few small parts I might use citri-strip again....maybe. The citri-strip at least has a pleasant odor and it doesn't claim it will burn massive numbers of brain cells if you happen to breathe it. The jasco on the other hand is a little spooky with all the warnings (definitely use a good vapor proof mask). I think the jasco "might" take a bit more levels of paint off at once (as opposed to citri-strip) but with each its multiple gyrations to get down to meta.

So after doing the doors I found a good guy over in bayfield CO. that would do a wet blast at his location. This worked out much better. I got most of my extraneous pieces blasted which is a good thing. Apparently wet blasting below 50 deg F is a non-starter and we've headed below 50 for our winter.... So I got this in just in the nick of time.

Note...I hit these parts with Krud Kutter Rust remover and inhibitor and let it dry. That "should" keep these parts rust free for the next few months as I finish final prep and paint booth. More on that in next post.

 

[wimberosa]

An update on prep'ing for paint. As previously mentioned I plan on building some overland campers also in the future and wanted a paint booth that was more flexible and could be setup and taken down over and over again. What I decided to do was to initially try an open front booth and "panel-ize" the parts into 4x8' sides that I could bolt together quickly. I built 6 of these 4x8 panels using 6 studs per panel and simple eucaboard on the fronts. The eucaboard is about 15$ US at the big box store ... so a pretty cheap panel and more rigid if you use liquid nails + screws to attach it to the studs. The main piece to build however is the air extraction unit. I built a 4x8 extraction unit which is just a box with an interior draft area behind some wire and the filter. The fan is a vevor non-explosion fan motor that will sit outside the garage and pull thru some flex tube. The next update on the paint booth will be it set-up and an assessment on how it works.

Note that I can also turn this into a full booth in the future if I build another "input" unit. I intend to play with the restricting the extraction unit filter space at that point to see if I can easily produce a positive air pressure "full" booth.

All in all...6 panels gives me 12x8 booth and I put about 300$ US in material to build the booth and extraction unit. Hopefully I'll get many years of future use out of it.

 

[wimberosa]

So... In case anyone is using CCOT patch panels on front doors and you have a 1979 style door...there are a few things you
need to watch out for. Both the front and back patch panel for the door have a depth profile that doesn't exactly match the
door. The first picture I show here is of the back patch panel. The total depth of that panel (front of door to back of door) is short by > 1/4". So you should
be cutting the bottom back curved area of the door in order to match an area where the "green" arrow is in this photo. Do not assume you can
use the upper area in red to "match" the existing door. The front to back depth of that panel is just short and you'll end up having to patch in extra
steel or reform the panel to get the correct depth.

The second picture is of the front door edge profile. The lower piece of steel is what the actual factory edge looks like. The upper piece of steel is
the patch panel. So I ended up doing this patch TWICE because I couldn't make this blend well. The first time I did it...I was going to just
hack out a lower corner of my rotten door and patch in this panel (about 7" inch strip). After I did it that way I realized it was HIGHLY noticeable
that the profiles were different. I then ordered a new patch panel and redid the door again but this time just used the full patch panel and replaced
all the door bottom (even areas that didn't need new steel). When I did that...the profile difference was not nearly as noticeable (see third picture).

I tried various fix attempts (even re-rolling the panel with a bead roller) all to no avail. I'm happy with what I eventually ended up with.
Note: I do not believe this is a one-off panel profile issue. The first patch I did was from a set of patch panels I got back in 2018. The
second set of patch panels I reordered was from October of 2022. The patch panels were exactly the same from 2019 til 2022. So you
will probably see this issue if you use these panels. Note also...these doors have had no prior patches so I was matching up these panels
to factory doors and not previously hacked doors.

All in all it...the front doors are the biggest headache I've run into on this bodywork. Its tedious. I am very happy to at least have a supplier
of patch panels as opposed to having to build my own...so thanks to CCOT supply. This is just a heads up on patch panel differences.
Your mileage may vary.

 

[wimberosa]

On another front....if someone wants to see a variant of how to spend lots and lots of time fixing a back upper quarter panel...
I've got a rat hole for you. I had an old donor quarter panel that had the opposite rust signature from a quarter panel I wanted
to use. So I skinned the donor panel and hacked out two thirds of it to reuse. The first picture is what the inside of one of those
quarter panels looks like. The second pic is the current matchup (after tedious refilling holes and tidying things up). Will be welded tomorrow.

 

[wimberosa]

If you have the need (like I did) to replace the bottom section of your jump seats....here is an option to duplicate the raised panel
relief on the metal. I did this with 1) a bead roller and 2) an english wheel to pre-stretch. The first pic is the before situation
where I also needed to replace the back 1" round pipe and bottom. The PO had done some bad welding (looks like no shielding gas) and the
pipe itself was rotted. The bottom pan of the jump seat had seen better days.

In order to get the panel relief, I set my joggle dies as wide as I could get them and still have the edges touch. See second pic.
I then pre-stretched the metal along the black lines (3rd pic) with the wheel.. If you don't pre-stretch metal before bead rolling it...you get weird warpage.
Then follow your pattern for the raised panel relief with the roller....and booyah.....there it is!

The final pic is the end result welded in.

 

[wimberosa]

All new wiring on the rear harness (it was complete rags beforehand) and the backup light switch shorted and burned a wire all the way back to
the fuse box. The cab wiring harness is now retrofitted with some new wires and cleaned up.

Check out that "clean" fuse box! Thats an original box that was slime green but @Coolerman has a write up at

Cruiser Wiring

that is Brilliant in regard to getting these things cleaned. I also plan on hitting each connector with vinegar/baking soda protocol when it finally
gets hooked up. Thanks Mark!

On other fronts.....I'm now a huge fan of "shrinking disks". If you have some stretched metal (e.g. a high spot on a door) where excess metal
bulges...the protocol I'd head of was applying heat through a torch or uni-spotter and then quenching it with water (to shrink it back down). That
however seems to have a lot of vagary for me. However......using a shrinking disk on an angle grinder is like "an alien dropped in from another planet"
and gave me an almost foolproof and simple way to accomplish the same task. I'm sure others are very familiar with this tech but if you have this
problem you may want to check out Wray Schelin at proshaper.com. I have no connection to him or his site .... its just good stuff. He's got
a youtube video on using one of these things.

Public service announcement....your roll bar and dash pads have gotten fried by the sun and are crumbling. Go clean them up and SEM coat them with
Landau Black color. Mine look sweet again.

 

[B y r o n]

Some before and after pictures of the dash and roll bar pads would be nice.

 

[wimberosa]

Don't have any true "before" pictures but perhaps you can see whats going on here. The upper portion of the first picture is the "good" side
of one of my dash pads. These are the pads below the instrument panel on my 1979. You can see in the area below where the sun hits "the good side" that
its got a normal well-sealed plastic finish. The sun-bleached area though was starting to disentigrate some when you touched it. After I painted it with about 4
coats I got it stable and while not "smooth" like the non-sun bleached....its at least mostly unnoticeable unless you really knew what the original
looked like.

Granted that I don't have a well preserved specimen to compare, but that landau black SEM paint looks very close to what the backside and
lower non-sun bleached portions look like.

 

[newmexicokid]

Awesome work brother. I want to stop and see it next time I'm up from Gallup. Your metal work is really nice.

 

[wimberosa]

Awesome work brother. I want to stop and see it next time I'm up from Gallup. Your metal work is really nice.

Anytime. Just PM me. A dim student of youtube is all I am.

 

[ToyotaMatt]

your new fully loaded SNOW VERSION double tanks overflow and reservoir bottles set up has been shipped out

you just so happend to be the first outgoing order to get one of the limited edition cereal box prizes i conquered up too ! Look out for that in the box !


thanks ...

 

[wimberosa]

In case anyone wants color comparison pictures for using SEM Color Coat for plastic
paints. This is for my 1979. I am not saying these are perfect "stock matches" but they seemed likely
and "nice enough" given the old worn items I was working with. In the following picture.....

Medium Slate Grey - Heater Top and ashtray
Phantom White - Sun Visor
Landau Black - Roll bar pads, Dash trim, E-brake handle
Medium Grey - Seat belt receiver

Also most of these have some clear coat on it. I don't know why the ash-tray is showing so much gloss
off the clear coat.

 

[wimberosa]

Its definitely dragging me down.... This rear bed work is my least favorite of all the refurb. The vagaries of the panels and the uncertainty on tolerances is a bit spooky. Did I take enough measurements.....Why is this panel in a slight flux and will it matter.....questions .... questions. You get the thing apart and are wondering if it will ever fit again. I'm really going slow and looking at everything dozens of times. This rear side took me a solid 2 weeks of removal and remediation of rust on the bed sides and the panels are now back on but merely tacked. If you attempt this on the later year 40s....expect loads of surprises and 5x the time you thought

Also...a couple of things I had not realized is
1) you can have rust in the under-bed cross beams that causes bubbling/warping of the bed metal (heavy rust underneath).
The beam on the underside looked ok...but no bueno.
2) there is a stock sheet metal support angle at the head of the wheel well (underside before the well ramp) that cross back into the ribbed bed area.
Its to support that transition between seat area, wheel well, and ribbed bed. That thing traps rust and rots.

"Good thoughts...Only Good thoughts"....

 

[wimberosa]

If you decide to powder coat your air cleaner assembly, be aware that some years have a flapper with a rubberized tip in the fresh air intake nose (see pic with red arrow). Theres really no way of removing it unless you are willing to cut it out and re-weld. Which btw this thing has some of the thinnest metal on the whole 40. I did not remove this rubber flapper tip and instead opted to paint the bottom with regular engine black. The top did get powder coated as a separate unit. If you weld on this you have to set it to the bare minimum your welder can output.


This also btw uses @output shafts solution from

air cleaner gaskets?

I'm snorkeling the 60 and just got the reworked air cleaner assembly back from powder coat. the gaskets that go on top and bottom of the cleaner to seal in the element are NLA. Any suggestions on what to use? #5 in the SOR diagram. http://www.sor.com/cat012.sor

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for the NLA perimeter gasket.

That D shapped channel gasket can now be gotten off amazon in whatever length you want. Search for

Universal Rubber Car Auto Door Seal Weather Stripping, Self-Adhesive Hollow Sealing Strip for Noise Insulation,Adhesive D-Shape Door Seal 0.276" Height X 0.394" Width (5 feet)

​

 

[wimberosa]

I'd suspect many people approach odd angle patches in the same manner as I do. Not completely sure...cause I'm too lazy to go find out. But in general my rolling, hammer and dolly skills are pretty mediocre...so I just do the following.

1) build a template with a piece of cardboard.
2) template includes all bends and approximate sizes
3) toughest angles and bends (not 90 degrees) are feathered and cut so that individual sub-elements can be be bent and weld filled
4) fit to a metal piece...cut....fritter with it a lot....weld

So in general I think this is the easy way to do it if you don't have a ton of hammering skill. I'd encourage anyone just starting out
to dive right in and attempt this way first.

Here's an example of an odd template and pre-final weld insert.

 

[greenbeasty]

Great looking work!

 

[wimberosa]

I've completed my rear replacement with new sill, quarters and wheel wells. Here are the best of my measurements from my original 1979 tub for posterity. Just data for some future poor soul to be confused or helped by. Next up in the project is getting it all fenders, doors, etc. to fit back together with some missing welds and refinement.