Builds 1965 FJ45lv build up/resto thread

[buckroseau]

Had to work all weekend, but tried to get a couple things done Sat. evening and Sunday evening.

Saturday night I dumped a couple gallons of laquer thinner into the fuel tank along with about 8 handful's of white marble chip rocks. The white marble chip rocks we sold at the store for landscaping....they were heavy and sharp, ranging from 1/2" to 1". A few hours of shaking, tossing and turning the fuel tank around with those rocks and thinner inside and I had loosened up some serious rust.

Brought it to the car wash and turned the pressure washer loose through the fuel sender hole.....after a few gallons I dumped. I think that was some of the most vile and disgusting sh-t I have ever seen And I was suprised by how much came out. After more pressure washing, shaking and dumping the water started to look pretty clean. Took a little while to get all the rocks out, but after that rinsed it out with a couple gallons of gas.....actually looked pretty good in there. Should have did it months ago...bad move on my part.

Tonight got the tank back in and dumped a 5 gallons of gas in there. Going to get a high end filter tomorrow before I move on with that, although I think the stuff coming up is going to be minimial. Hooked up my speedo cable, also removed the brake M/C, have to get one of those ordered tomorrow, should have that Tuesday.

Matt

 

[AATLAS1X]

I believe you can have them tanked and replated/coated on the inside....This is common over here...

 

[Rat70Fj]

Why don't you try something a bit more modern on the M/C ie '86 or so Supra?

 

[buckroseau]

Why don't you try something a bit more modern on the M/C ie '86 or so Supra?

I kinda set everything up for a dual resevoir 79 FJ40 cylinder. Probably have to stick with that to make it easy I think?

Matt

 

[subzali]

Just a thought since I'm going through some booster/master cylinder issues myself: if you get the chance you might think about going with the single cylinder master due to it being more readily available (at least where I'm at). I've been kicking the idea around, plus if you did it it would make great tech for us who don't know enough about brakes to make the switch;p

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...First pic is of the wife and Kurt Williams from www.cruiseroutfitters.com in Utah. I believe Kurt was there on behalf of Utah/SLC for the SAE/mini baja competition this last weekend. Wife was pretty stoked to meet Kurt since we've spent a few bucks with him

2nd pic is of her trying her hand at a little rock crawling with a Polaris ranger.....she's got more rock crawling experience than me now

Matt

It was great meeting your wife, thanks for sending her my way, small world

 

[buckroseau]

Well, got a couple hours on the lv tonight, but at this point I'm spinning my wheels a bit

Been having trouble getting the motor to idle as I mentioned before, thinking because of all the crap that came up from the fuel tank. My mechanic buddy made the decision to pull the carb and take it apart tonight...holy-sh-t in the carb bat man

After a solid hour of verbal abuse and chastising from my mechanic buddy he made me feel about 2 feet tall, I had it coming I guess.... Carb is going into his shop tomorrow and being completely dis-assembled, cooked in his chemical oven and hopefully re-assembled tomorrow night. I was debating on even posting this because I feel so embaressed :whoops:

One good thing is that we did run it this evening for about 5 minutes and the fuel looked extremely good, so hopefully this will never happen again.

M/C should be here tomorrow, hopefully get that installed tomorrow night...along with the cleaned carb. Still trying to get this thing to go down the road....

Matt

 

[krzyabncanuck]

You know Matt, everyonce in awhile it is good for us. Now not too often mind you. So do not let it happen again. JK.

I do know what you are talking about in the tank though. I am hoping to salvage mine.

 

[buckroseau]

No major hurdles today and no pics this evening.....wasn't really anything worth taking pics of anyway.

Mechanic buddy brought the carb to work today and took it all apart, cooked it in his chemical sauce and then re-assembled the entire thing. He officially thinks I'm an idiot And unfortunetly I have to agree with him That thing was packed full of sh-t! Long story short, he got it all back together and it looks as good as new.

This evening we bolted it back on, which took about 5 minutes and fired it back up again. I'm running a high end fine micron filter prior to the fuel pump and a cheap clear one between the pump and carb. Fired it up and with some minor adjusting on my buddy's part, ran just like it did before As it was running we could see the fuel in the clear filter, looked extremely good, hopefully fuel tank problem solved. He let it idle for about 10 minutes, little tweaking here and there and then he jumped in it. Had it off the ground about 6" on the hoist, he shifted into gear and away it went. He had it up to about 45 mph on the speedo, oh that works perfect by the way, but it would shift into 3rd gear. He checked the fluid and it's low, so he's thinking that's why it's not shifting into third. Didn't have any Dexron III so couldn't test his theory....tomorrow night.

Brake Master Cylinder also showed up today, got that on. He brought out his air brake bleeder and that made short work of bleeding the brakes. We only bled the front brakes, I have new cylinders coming from CCOT and there not here yet, should be here this week? In any event, I have front brakes now

Sway bar kit from SOR showed up this evening probably toss that in tomorrow. Get the tranny fluid out there tomorrow night and see if that solves the shifting problem, he thinks it will. Might drive tomorrow night??

Matt

 

[Coolerman]

Totally different vehicle but exact same thing happened to me this weekend with my boat! It had sat in storage all last year due to my being so busy I could not find time to use it. It had been properly prepped for storage according to the manual so I figured I could just change the oil, drain the gas from the plastic tank, put in fresh gas, grease the gimbal and prop shaft and go. Well I did all that, she fired right up and me and the wife took off. After 10 minutes of slowly trying it out I felt comfortable enough to open her up and let her stretch her legs a bit. Great! Ran like a champ! WOT high speed turns on a glass smooth lake, it just doesn't get any better than that. Until the engine sputters and dies that is... Won't start back of course. I figured the Bosch fuel pump had crapped out AGAIN! (We are on the third one in as many years. )

We were about 2.5 miles from the ramp so we started paddling.... We won't tell on ourselves for forgetting the cell phone and the VHF antenna for the radio... About a mile into this I tried to start it and she fired right up! We found it would run for a few seconds then quit. Took a while but that got us back to the ramp a bit faster than paddling!

Anyway towed her home and started checking it out. Short story, fuel pump good but carb full of RUST!!! I have a PLASTIC tank! So where did the rust come from? The stupid water separating FUEL FILTER! When I spun it off the INSIDE of it was rusted badly. The rust of course went through the filter and pump straight to the carb.... See Pic... In hindsight I know I SHOULD have changed that filter when it was stored but one would think that the inside of a WATER separating filter would be made from stainless steel...

Anyway just thought I would share a simliar rust in carb story!

 

[krzyabncanuck]

Matt, Did you keep any of your wiring stuff from under the hood ? If so i need to pic your brain a bit.

 

[treerootCO]

I have the OE wiring and the FSM with the correct diagrams. Let me know what you need and I can take pics and scan the pages you need.

 

[buckroseau]

Pretty good night on the lv tonight, lot of work done and a pretty funny story to tell I think.....at least funny to tell now, but not funny at the time. I'll explain what got done on the lv and then the incident.......

Got home and blasted a couple TRE clamps I was short, sprayed them with the spray bomb and then proceeded to install my new SOR swaybar bushing kit. Got that done then installed the fuel sender back in the fuel tank. Before putting it back in I looked in there with a flashlight, fuel looked super clean, very happy with that. I un-hooked several portions of my wiring harness up front and re-routed it a little higher, just wasn't comfortable with it laying next to the head's as hot as this motor has been. Change fuel filters, both again to the high micron steel ones. Added a couple quarts of Dexron III, started, checked, added 2 more. 4 qts low.

Mechanic buddy shows up, jumps in and fires it up. 6" off the ground again on the hoist, shifts it into gear and goes. Hit all 5 gears just like it was supposed to, had it up to 65 mph on the hoist, even went into the overdrive. Lifted it back up and spent a good 45 minutes going over the entire under carriage again. Checking, double checking all nuts and bolts. Making sure nothing was hitting anything or against anything that was going to get hot. After all that it was time.......

Dropped it down and drove it out Slowly drove out to the asphalt rural county highway, buddy was driving at this time.....I was in the passenger seat with the camera and fire-extinguisher.....just in case?? Down the highway we went, went pretty good. My friend said it was shifting to soon into all the gears, but said that was no big deal, tranny needed to be adjusted. Got it up to about 55 to 60 mph, he even took his hands off the wheel, tracked down the highway just fine. After a few miles we pulled over just to look underneath the hood, make sure everything was ok. My buddy made a couple adjustments to the carb, few pics of him out there digging underneath the hood. So we turn around and were heading back and he says, "lets go a few more miles and see how it goes...." I didn't care, I was grinning from ear to ear at this point... So now here is the part that is funny I guess, or your going to really think I'm the villiage idiot now......


Just to set the scene here....I live in a very rural area. This particular county highway at 8:30 in the evening sees a car about every hour....needless to say there are never any cars. So were driving along about 45 to 50 mph talking and listening to noises. A vehicle is approaching from behind, no big deal, we figure there going to just pass anyway? We'll it's a county cop......I look behind and notice the light bar on top. Now your saying, "who cares?" Yea, but........No rear tailights.....no license plates.....no insurance.....(this is where you start refering to the villiage idiot part). Keep in mind, we usually don't see a car on this road, let alone a cop so when we left we weren't really that concerned about the things I just mentioned since we were going to just go out for a few minutes and come back.

So my buddy is quizzing me about all this stuff as he's driving thinking of all the tickets he's going to get. I just told him to pull over, he's going to stop us here pretty soon anyway.......so he pulls over on the next gravel road, cop pulls over also. We get out and I imeadiatly start explaining myself as he seems to be more interested in the vehicle. He's kinda looking over the lv as he's looking at me babbling, kinda smiles. I'm explaining why we don't have anything of these things, how it's the first time out, blah, blah, blah. He just smiles and says, "smells new, can smell that motor". He kinda looks it over and starts asking me a bunch of questions, what year, what is it, looks like a ton of work went into this? Well, long story short he lets me squirm for a while and says it's ok, but would like to follow me home, which I gladly agree to!! Ok, now here's where I really shoot myself in the foot........

There's a local Minnesota state patrol women who has kinda a rep are area for being an extreme hardass!! So, were talking and joking about this with him as were about to leave and I say....., "at least it wasn't Sylvia" (that being the female trooper hardass) And he the county cop says in a discerning look and voice, "your not making any points with me, that's my wife...."

Ok, now at this point I'm thinking of how many thousands of dollars that statement just cost me........he waits for a bit and kinda smiles again and says, "get in and lets go, getting dark"......woooo......dodge that bulllet.

So now were heading home and my friends in the passenger seat now laughing his ass off of how fricking stupid I am......, about a mile in , 45 mph per and all of a sudden....major death wobble!!!!! So I pull over on the shoulder and the cop pulls over and gets out.....said your tires were just wobbling back and forth, big time......We looked everything over, couldn't find anything wrong at the time. Get back in and keep going, but now at about 30 mph for another 4 miles, no problems at this speed. Turn off at the house, cop keeps going and waves.........Awesome law enforcement official for understanding our cruiser cause!!

Ok, back to lv.....got it back in the shop, checked all the lug nuts first.....maybe a couple needed to be re-torqued, but nothing that we thought would cause that. I grabbed the front tire and moved it back and forth as my buddy looked......then he saw it..... U-bolts were moving!! Not a lot, but they were loose. We had tightened them last year, but obviously not enough!!! Back up on the hoist and hit'm hard with the impact. Sucked them up a lot, they were pretty loose. So, were thinking that's what cause the death wobble?? At least for now, heading back out tomorrow night to try again so we'll see, but I believe that was it??

Well, thats the story for tonight, 10.2 miles on the lv and the first time I have ever seen it drive and driven in it.....last pic is of the cop following us home

Matt

 

[buckroseau]

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[buckroseau]

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[buckroseau]

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[buckroseau]

Matt, Did you keep any of your wiring stuff from under the hood ? If so i need to pic your brain a bit.

Darin,

I still have the factory harness..I did have to clip a couple ends off to adapt to my EZ21 harness, but for the most part it's there? You can pick my brain all you want, but I don't know if there's much to pick?

By the way on that carb stuff, I haven't forgot....the stuff is yours. I just have not had time to get out there and get it. Keep hounding me and if you really need it ASAP, let me know and I'll get after it!!

Thanks, Matt

 

[buckroseau]

Totally different vehicle but exact same thing happened to me this weekend with my boat!

Anyway just thought I would share a simliar rust in carb story!

Hey, appreciate the story...at least I'm not the only one

I kinda wish I had take a pic of the inside of my carb now.....not to make any less of your situation, but I think it would make you feel a lot better about yours ;p

Thanks, Matt

 

[Coolerman]

I wonder what the Vegas odds would have been on that cop car being on that road at that time AND the hardass cop being his WIFE! You are one lucky dude!

Too cool to see her on the road. Might want to start a new thread on possible causes of death wobble. Loose U-bolts is a good one. Oh btw, you are out of gas, your engine is running cold and your amp meter shows those headlights pulling some serious amps! Unless the battery was down a bit as well?