Builds 02/75 fj40 restoration

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Plenty of small stuff done over the past months. I finished refurbing the bib. Also bought the OEM headlight upgrade (81110-60P70). Door weatherstrip on the way from Cityracer and exterior stainless hinge hardware already here from Overland Metric.

I left the bezel in gray epoxy for now, kind of want to see how it looks as-is. It matches the wheel color pretty well.
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the OEM headlight kit came with the relays and wiring. I’m not sure what the intended routing is, but it seems like there is quite a bit of excess. I’ll probably just tuck it behind the bib.
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Getting a lot done lately. Have a question about rear wire harness clamps around the fuel tank and frame rail. The rear brake line uses these clamps that have a flat spot. Is that flat portion used for the rear harness along the frame rail? Here is the clamp in question.

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Need some help getting this 3f started. Here are the things I’ve done so far. Attaching some pictures of the coil/distributor/starter. It turns over, fuel is in the bowl, verified spark by pulling #1 plug. It’s made a few “pops” at the exhaust manifold, but I am not sure if this is excess fuel dumping out and igniting or if it’s actually trying to start.

-tried with and without choke
-added fuel directly to carburetor
-idle solenoid has power
-assume coil is working since I got spark at #1
- distributor was pointing at #4 plug at tdc

Any possibility of timing being too far off? Distributor has the little octane adjuster. Haven’t messed with that much.
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Fuel, spark, ground.

Air?

Vacuum may be a thing on a 3F, don’t know.
3FE won’t run with major vacuum leaks.

Hurry up with this thing.
Would confirmation of spark also be confirmation of ground? And to clarify, this the carbureted version of the 3f. Theres only a few vacuum ports: brake booster, PCV, carb base to distributor, and the intake gaskets are new. Seems like it might start briefly even with a vacuum leak. Going to start over with verification of TDC/timing tomorrow.
 
I reset the distributor and swapped out to a coil/resistor combo that would normally go with the 3f. Can someone take a look at the distributor internals and let me know which way I should rotate to get timing close. This is at TDC.

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That would be first guess. Look down the bore and see if it squirts gas down the bore as you open the throttle.
 
Well, the excitement was short lived. I hadn’t started it in a few weeks while trying to source some 3f carb parts. Went out to start it up again yesterday to find water in cylinder 2. I suspect it’s from a loose head bolt where a bracket was removed. Will head down the path of replacing the head gasket, but might try my luck at checking condition again with all the head bolts properly torqued. I never ran it long enough to get hot. I’m going to put fresh oil and water in it, start it up again and see what I got.

I did make some other progress in getting rear brakes assembled and the brake and clutch systems bled. Ready to drive, but….ugh.
 
With the head out, I tried to see if the low compression on #1 was due to valve seats. Poured a little mystery oil and let it set. Sure enough that cylinder leaked while the others held volume. Did some valve lapping and will check again. So far I’ve only done this to #1. Other cylinders were 150 or better, but #1 was only about 125-130.

Hoping a new head gasket and this will get things in good enough shape to run for a while. I think I’m going to expedite the install of the original 2f (or another later model flat piston 2f) and will move this head over so I can keep the 3f carb and manifolds.

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Turns out there was a crack in the head at #2. So, I’m going back to the original 2f. Finding a carb 3f head is a challenge and the whole reason I was using it was to expedite getting on the road. Here I am 15+ years later, so obviously no rush. I pulled the head on the old 2f and the cylinders look really good, head seems to be good. Will take both to the machine shop next week. One of my cam lobes is out of spec though.

What’s the best path forward for a 2f cam replacement? And, is it mandatory to replace lifters with a new cam?
 

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