Well,
The past few weeks have made this project grow into a restoration. I have had this 40 for about 2 years now and have been trying to get it running better ever since. I picked up a carburated 3f for a really good price and planned to drop it in and go. So i got the new-er engine home and began to pull the front end apart. It was all going well until i realized the PO had welded the driver side fender bracket to the frame. At this point, I decided that there were too many half-a$$ repairs to just leave it alone. Along with the welded fender, there is a 5/8 socket being used for a spacer on the alternator bracket, a trailer harness used for the rear lights, heavy gauge wire used to hold various lines/wires to the frame rails, and a thick layer of epoxy resin used to blend a driver floor panel into the tranny hump.
Anyway, here is a shot of when I purchased it. Looks pretty good right? Plenty of work hiding under that shell. It came with a set of factory wheels that i put some 33x10.5 bfgs on right after I got it home.... it looked great. I planned to drive it like this for a few years, then do the restoration. In the meantime, I added some mini truck discs and purchased a bunch of small parts. So here we are two years later and its coming apart....very quickly.
I am not sure what I want to do with the 3f now, but I think the plan is to do very little with it. I will probably get the fj apart and put back together. At that point I think I will use the 3f as a temporary engine while the 2f is being refurbished.
Anyway, Im sure my plans will change again. I will update as I progress.
The past few weeks have made this project grow into a restoration. I have had this 40 for about 2 years now and have been trying to get it running better ever since. I picked up a carburated 3f for a really good price and planned to drop it in and go. So i got the new-er engine home and began to pull the front end apart. It was all going well until i realized the PO had welded the driver side fender bracket to the frame. At this point, I decided that there were too many half-a$$ repairs to just leave it alone. Along with the welded fender, there is a 5/8 socket being used for a spacer on the alternator bracket, a trailer harness used for the rear lights, heavy gauge wire used to hold various lines/wires to the frame rails, and a thick layer of epoxy resin used to blend a driver floor panel into the tranny hump.
Anyway, here is a shot of when I purchased it. Looks pretty good right? Plenty of work hiding under that shell. It came with a set of factory wheels that i put some 33x10.5 bfgs on right after I got it home.... it looked great. I planned to drive it like this for a few years, then do the restoration. In the meantime, I added some mini truck discs and purchased a bunch of small parts. So here we are two years later and its coming apart....very quickly.
I am not sure what I want to do with the 3f now, but I think the plan is to do very little with it. I will probably get the fj apart and put back together. At that point I think I will use the 3f as a temporary engine while the 2f is being refurbished.
Anyway, Im sure my plans will change again. I will update as I progress.
I will probably start with the frame and then move on to some sheet metal replacement. Everything looks to be in great shape except for the drivers floor pan over to the edge of the gas tank depression. This rust seems odd to me. I dont have the typical rot at the sill and on the rockers, floor pans only. Anyway, any bad sheetmetal will be replaced with new. Not sure where I will purchase from yet. 
