Builds 1980 FJ40 Project (1 Viewer)

here we go...most of you dont know the story behind this little gem of a find and most will be sick to there stomach when i get done telling it...but i have decided to string you along with my project no matter how long it takes me...so to start

The rig itself is a 1980 FJ40 and was purchased by a gentlemen brand new for weekend toodling with the family...a few year ago he passed away leaving it to his daughter who left it sit it the garage until her son became of age to drive...once her son got his license she pulled it out of the garage and handed him the keys...a few weeks later this young lad of 16 while trying to impress his girlfriend got disracted (by what i didnt ask)swerved, narrowly hitting a car in downtown minneapolis, but unfortuantly he bounced it off of a cement bus bench and plowed it into a building...thats where i came across it...the lady that owned it heard of web site and had the smarts to know that somebody would be interested in it so she posted it there for someone to come get it...but didnt realize how valuable it was...she literally said com get it...2 of us where interested but i think if kemper (aka shreg) would have known exactly what it was he wouldnt have passed it on to me...so i contacted her with interest and asked her what se wanted for it...she wasnt kidding when she said come get it...but she was going to call one of them pick up you junk car places for $50 so she told me she would like to get that for it anyways....i about peed myself right there....i knew i better jump on this immediatly so the next day i hooked up the trailer and headed off to pick it up....on my way i got a phone call from her stating someone had just offered her $200 and now she wanted that much...i was alittle pissed cuz she was changing the deal on me as we went although it still sounded like i could recover my money if i parted it out so i continued down there to take a look at it...when i got there i just about peed myself again....the pix wont do it justice but the interior is immaculate and it only has 17900 miles on it....thats not a type O.......17900.......the rear sill is rotted a bit the rest is pretty good shape as far as rot....the drivers side floorboard also had some rot and buckeld whe he crashed....anyways i gave the lady her $200 still letting her believe that i was pissed for the change of price...so thats the story....

the restoration....now being that there is some rot to it and i will be having to make some repairs....im not going to do a factory resto...but something very close to it...with very little mods...the frame was hit pretty hard and the motor mounts broke and busted the bellhousing...i dont know what shape the engine is in as of yet but we will find out shortly...

so it begins...stick with me over the months or years to see the progress of this little gem of a rebuild...but be patient with me im a working family man with 2 business to run and lots of trail riding to do yet so it may be awhile before its done...here are the first pix...

and here is a few more






oh yea i just noticed the first series of pix do show rims and tires off of my 60 but i do have the the stock rims and hubcaps that may be going back on it...i almost sold them

I was going to ask about those rims.. are those auto locking hubs? Hard to tell from the pic on this dark monitor of mine, they almost look like drive flanges. Nice score! look forward to the buildup..

nakman said:

I was going to ask about those rims.. are those auto locking hubs? Hard to tell from the pic on this dark monitor of mine, they almost look like drive flanges. Nice score! look forward to the buildup..

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Those are always locked hub, this is how tehy came from the factory,

Nice score and very nice equipment to rebuild, at least you will not have to worry about the major equipment.

they are drive flanges...always locked....great for the trail less parts to break but you can imagine not so great for the road

the tires and rims were sold but he had a few chances to come get them and didnt pick them up...after about 4 months i decided i better keep them just in case i use them...i will see if i have a shot of them...i might be able to bring them back to life using a scrubie pad...one hubcap was damaged in the wreck but there was one on the spare


ha found one here is the spare...the drive tires arent as nice but close to it...

Nice score! If you're still pissed, I'll give you $250 and I'll haul away!

Congrats.

Good to see your doing something wit this truck. I have seen it close up, shes got a future, especially with Carl in control of her destiny.....

I found another set of rims They were on the Hornet..... My 69 is not far hehind.....

Nice!!!! I will also give you the $250....

Great story about the truck also... keep us informed on the resto

no no no...i will not take $250...maybe $300...ha just kidding...it was hard to pissed at her when i drove away with it on the trailer...although there was a title scare for a bit.....seeings how the original owner was deceased we had to come up with all kinds of extra paperwork to do the xfer and on top of it it was registered in wisconsin and im in minnesota...but after 3 trips to the DMV...i have a clear title

glad to hear you found some rims...and your sale of the hornet to mike...do you have a thread started somehwere on your 69?

fytattoo said:

glad to hear you found some rims...and your sale of the hornet to mike...do you have a thread started somehwere on your 69?

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One thing at a time, once boat season is over I will get it moving along. I have a build up thread over on MNTOY....

fytatoo are you going to keep that thread going on MNTOY?

i will do some updates but...i will probably do ost of it here...in fact im headed out there to start taking the front clip off right now

so we got the front clip off and the engine is ready to come out...the frame is pretty tweaked so we are discussing our options...i do have a few clean straight chasis's here but they are all 77' and older so we may have to do some scalping and transplanting...so far the engine is looking ok and it turns over easy...no block damage so far but we will find out more once its out, we ran out of steam today...here is a few pix of the tear down





oh yea and i got the passenger door to open and close no proble....the dent was holding the locking rod in the locked position

You are a brave person

Even though it is dented up bad it still looks pretty good

so we got the the front end tore off and we are ready to start tearing into the donor truck

you a a brave man to take on a job like that. That poor cruiser's frame looked really bad. Can't wait to see the rest of the build(back)up

couldnt do it without my dad...hes the man....he seems to think we will have it going down in the road in less then 3 weeks...then on to the body damage

less than 3 weeks to mate half frames...IMO doubtful but i've never done it and have little metalwork knowledge so i'm not the best source for that. If it can be done safely and properly then to that

really its not that difficult once the frame sections are prepared...its hard to see in the photo but the existing frame rail has a beveled edge ground into it so when welding you get full penetration...we will do the same thing with the donor front frame rails....once we have the engine pulled on the donor truck(it is only about 2 hours of work away) everything gets lined up,measured for squareness,checked again,clamped into place,checked again,tack welded into place, and rechecked...then weld it...welding it will take about 15 minutes...all you really need is good heavy duty welder and a guy that has been welding since the first FJ40 rolled of the production floor...sit back and have a beer while it cools a bit...pull a few more parts off of the donor truck like the motormounts and bellhousing...bolt them on and drop the engine back in...

feasibly it could have the engine back in it by the end of the weekend...i was giving it 3 weeks to make us look good if we can get it done sooner...but i have a business to run and broken collarbone on top of it...and my dad is getting backed up on working on harleys and he gets run down fast..well see though we have momentum on our side not to mention once we tear itno the donor truck it will be taking up 2 stalls in my workshop and i have a few things to do to my 60 before october..hehe

I know how that fills...I always feel horrible about taking up room in my friend's shop cause I can't do anything myself it seems. Although i'll finally be doing my SOA soon so happy. Good luck on that man lookin good