Builds 1965 FJ40, What Have I Gotten Myself Into? (1 Viewer)

[Krondor]

1965 FJ40, What Have I Gotten Myself Into?


It all started a few years ago in Africa. I was fresh out of high school and ready to explore the world. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life so I said, "fxxx it, let’s go to Africa". Anyways, I found a group called African Venture, which allowed me to have the experience of a lifetime. As I arrived in Nairobi, our guide, Charles pulled up in this strange vehicle…. Being the ignorant American that I was, I took one look and said, That’s a pretty sweet Land Rover…. Immediately I was corrected and told,” this girl is no rover…. She is a Land CRUISER”. As I got to know the sweet 70 series over the next couple months, I knew that I had to own one.

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I knew Toyota was a great brand since I owned a ’00 Toyota Tundra. It has been an awesome vehicle and super reliable. But I had no idea that Toyota offered their reliability with such awesome and rugged off-road abilities... When I returned to the states, I started looking up Land Cruisers. I started doing a little research about Land Cruiser history and was awestruck by the FJ40. It was THE quintessential off road vehicle. Simple but elegant. Raw and powerful. This vehicle was the land cruiser that I wanted… no scratch that… Needed!! But I had to wait. I was in college at the time and didn’t have time/space/money for this majestic machine.

After graduating, I got my first job as an engineer. I would spend my breaks looking through craigslist for FJ40s. In May of 2017… I stumbled upon not just one FJ40… but 2 FJ40s! It was only a few hours away. I was stoked. I left work early and called the guy. I pulled the cash out of the bank and called up every friend I knew with a trailer. The soonest I could get to the FJs was Friday… It was only Monday… s***. So I waited… and waited… It was the longest week of my life. Come Friday, we pulled up in Georgia , after a three hour drive, to the sellers place. There they were. Rusted, and broken, and not running. But they were soon to be mine!

They were mine.​

More to come. Restoration/restomod build.

 

[Pighead]

The soonest I could get to the FJs was Friday…

1) Stop calling it an FJ.
B) Flip that bezel.
III) Welcome (flipoff2)

 

[samatulich]

Welcome. More pictures please. With two cruisers, this forum and some motivation you’ll have a running forty soon enough. Enjoy.

 

[Krondor]

1. Where to start

This thread starts out back in April 2017. I have been working on it for over a year now. It is filled with learning experiences, mistakes, winning moments, and wrong doings. There will be things you like, and things you do not like. Here is my story.

Here I am unloading the Land Cruiser into my tiny single car garage. It would be a challenge rebuilding the vehicle here but it is all I had. I initially thought that this was a 1966 Toyota Land Cruiser. If you look closely, the turn signals are wrong, the fender aprons are wrong, and the bezel is upside down.

When turning the vehicle around, I learned that the hard top was from a later year, along with the ambulance doors. This was a Franken FJ40. Where would I even start? What should I do?

I also received a room full of parts. Some of the parts were from the ’66, other parts were from the ’70, and some of the parts came off who knows what. I organized them as best as I could in my office. Hopefully I would be able to go through these and find what I needed.

The ’66 is considered more of an early FJ40 and I didn’t want to mess it up too much. Would I become the dreaded previous owner?... But it was not in good enough shape to do a full on restoration. It was missing pieces; I later found out that the front axle was from a later year; the rear axle had disc brakes; many of the electronic components were missing. On the other hand, I learned that I had a matching frame number to the VIN and the 1F 135 Engine looked to be original. s***. The trifecta. I started to lean more towards a restoration. The biggest problem with that was the potential cost. A note to the purists. If you are expecting a full restoration. Turn away now. I tried to do my best with keeping it more original but I wanted to keep the disc brakes and add power steering.

Remember when I said I thought it was a ’66. That was solely based upon the brass title tag. I noticed that the side vent was absent. This was added in ’66. There were a few other oddities, which kept me up at night too. Looking up the vin number, I learned that the vehicle was built in March or April of ’65.



So I had a 1965 Toyota Land Cruiser, a room full of parts, a small garage stuffed full with a Land Cruiser. Where would I start?.... More to come.

 

[Krondor]

2. The Body.

I decided that I had to start somewhere. I figured the body was as good a place as any. So, I started by dismantling the cruiser. You can see by the picture, I had a ton of room to work in.

When I stuck a magnet to the side panels, it wouldn’t stick. That gave me a bad feeling. Low and behold, BODY FILLER!

I found the best way to remove large amounts of body filler.

Step 1. Heat area with map gas or a propane torch.

Step 2. Use old chisel and peel layers off

Step 3. Sand remaining filler.

The body filler was thick here. The previous owner must have been in an accident, which partially crumpled the rear end. The fix… Body filler. You can see the crumpled area in the next picture.

I started sanding the floor down next. It was a little dented but overall in decent shape.

More sanding…


After a few days of sanding, I thought to myself, “There has to be a better way of doing this”. I called up my friend Brian, who has a larger shop and has repaired vehicles in the past. He said that the easiest way would be to chemical strip and power wash the paint away. This would prevent the body panels from being sanded too thin and warping from the heat. So I loaded the body in the bed of my truck with a little help from my friends.

More to come...

 

[toomanytoyzz]

Get it media blasted. You will never be able to chemically strip it 100% down to bare metal yourself. If you paying to have it chemically dipped that will take everything off, but one disadvantage to that is it takes EVERYTHING off leaving exposed bare metal in areas you will not be able to get primer and paint to which will eventually cause the panels to rust much quicker. I have gotten too many vehicles to think of media blasted and feel this is the best way to start a resto project.

Fab up a cart to put it on or a rotisserie when you get it back. I know room is tight considering you have a one car garage, but having something to move the body around on makes restoring it so much simpler. Maybe your buddy can spare some room at his shop to store some things while you get the body done. This will be the most time consuming aspect of your resto, and is usually where projects get abandoned.

Here is a couple pics of a cart and rotisserie I made for my current FJ40 project and my '77 Ford Bronco. The '77 Bronco pic was when I dropped it off at the media blasters.

Keep the pics coming. We love Cruiser porn around here.

 

[Krondor]

@toomanytoyzz
I appriciate the comment. I have already finished up the body last fall. I chemical stripped it, power washed it, then sanded by hand. I didn't chemical dip it. I brushed on air craft stripper and stripped it by hand. Much more time consuming but it worked. I will go into detail on this on the next post.

 

[Krondor]

The body was fairly easy to unload myself… with the help of a forklift…

The body was in pretty good shape. There was little rust and the areas that had rust would be easy enough to repair. I started by painting on a thick layer of aircraft paint stripper. This stuff would eat away at latex gloves so it had to be good stuff. I would wait around 15 minutes between coats, suit up, then blast away the remaining stripper.

The power washer was an industrial, high heat, kerosene powered washer. It would peel layers of paint away like nothing else.

After power washing and stirpping the body, it was time to sand blast and sand.

 

[Krondor]

 

[ferg]

Ok kid, I hate to tell you this, buuut, that 'room full of parts' is only just the begining of a forever search/stash of spares and headaches. Have fun!

 

[Krondor]

Next up, replacing the dented, rotted, and hole filled wheel wells.

A spot weld cutter helped greatly to remove the fender wells.
Fender wells removed. (part of me wishes I kept the original wheel wells and reapired them but oh well. it has been done.

On top of owning a forklift, Brian also owns a vehicle lift. This helped a lot with the bodywork.

First order of business: Squaring up the body then replacing the rear sill.

Temporary braces were added to keep the body square.

 

[Krondor]

The rear sill was in need of replacement. The previous owner attempted to braze in a new sill once the old one started to rot away.

Cutting out the old rear sill.

 

[Krondor]

The rear quarter panels were in ok shape except for all the dents and holes and rust… So I decided that they should be replaced. I made a foam template of the curve and sheared 16 GA sheet metal to replace them.

Next up, making them round.

I used a press brake to form the 90 degree angle.

Replacement Metal sections formed.

 

[Krondor]

Clamping the new sections in for tracing and replacement. The pins holding the sheet metal on are called clecos. They are mainly used in the aircraft repair business and work great for sheet metal.

Starting to weld it in.

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[Krondor]

Forgot to take a few pictures in between but I have the new rear sill installed. I went with a later ambulance door style but the ambulance doors will probably not go on this vehicle.

Now squaring up the back. Notice the non sketchy bottle jack with 2x4...

Now is the time to get it perfect.

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[Krondor]

This was one of my first time TIG welding. I didn’t use any filler since I would just have to grind it off. I filled the rest of the welds in with MIG.

Notice all of the holes where I blew out the steel. Those would be filled back up with MIG.

Slowly starting to get better.

Now is the fun part. Blending.

Filling holes and blending.

 

[Krondor]

Tools of the trade. My millermatic 180 and Brian’s Miller Syncrowave.

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Pulled a Tom Sawyer on these guys… Grinding is fun!

More grinding.

Smooth.​

 

[Krondor]

New wheel wells courtesy of Real Steel.

Drivers side is done. Now onto the passenger side.

 

[Krondor]

Rear metal work done.​

 

[bwalker16527]

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Rear metal work done.​

Looks good.