Builds 1969 FJ40 Father / Son Build (2 Viewers)

[royal cake]

Chipping away one thing at a time. Got the headlight assemblies cleaned up and installed- I always hate removing the plating when I don’t have to but with rust you have to get rid of it. Sandblasted these and painted; I guess they don’t look too bad. Replaced the gasket and put in some new hardware

 

[royal cake]

I also got the wiring harness in, which was a big deal. So far so good; but I haven’t gotten to everything yet. Apparently the 3 prong heater switch and blower motor connectors are NLA so I soldered mine on. I’m terrible at soldering.

 

[royal cake]

And in the middle of it all I’m driving myself crazy trying to find the hood spear piece… I know I have it somewhere.

 

[royal cake]

Took a break from focusing on the electrical yesterday and installed my front bumper. This is probably the first piece I bought for the truck, back when the Bakersfield rally was at the Toyota dealer. I knew nothing about what I was getting into except that I needed a bumper. Haha.
I had it powdered coated a while ago when I had my wheels done. I gave up finding the early style bumper gussets and used the readily available layer model wider ones.
I’m contemplating another location for the front license plate since the stock bracket seems to be just hanging out in the wind. Haven’t decided yet.

 

[royal cake]

Back to electrical, I took apart my Low horn and cleaned up the rust (sorry don’t have a “final” picture).

Resealed the gasketed flanges with RTV and tested it out. Still works!
Looks like I only have the Low and not the High horn. Do any folks just run one?

 

[royal cake]

Final project for today was cleaning up the fender placard. Took some steel wool to it then taped and painted. Then hit the high spots with a sanding block. It’s not perfect but an improvement. Sprayed a clear coat over it to protect it a while.

 

[royal cake]

I wish this were on the road already. My Tacoma blew at head gasket at 200k miles. Gonna drop it off tomorrow and I guess ride a bike around…

 

[royal cake]

Got some subharnesses in the mail (thanks @Coolerman !)and got back to electrical work.
I’ve spent a surprisingly long time looking for a replacement headlight dust cover. Anyone know of a handy universal replacement for these? There are a lot of dust covers on Amazon, not sure if they’re for these 7” bulbs.

 

[locklaw]

Got some subharnesses in the mail (thanks @Coolerman !)and got back to electrical work.
I’ve spent a surprisingly long time looking for a replacement headlight dust cover. Anyone know of a handy universal replacement for these? There are a lot of dust covers on Amazon, not sure if they’re for these 7” bulbs.

View attachment 3384644

Any more modern Toyota using an H4 type halogen bulb should have a quality dust cover for you. The aftermarket stuff is often nasty.

 

[royal cake]

Any more modern Toyota using an H4 type halogen bulb should have a quality dust cover for you. The aftermarket stuff is often nasty.

Thanks! Why didn’t I even think to check my Tacoma. I’ll do that.

 

[royal cake]

Going to throw another question out there as electrical is not my forte...
In doing some research it looks like the Toyota replacement relay 81980-32010 is a substitute for the original cans, and I now have that wired in. I also have a connection under the dash for the hazard relay - can I use another 81980-32010 here as well?

 

[royal cake]

Been busy wrapping up wiring. I pretty much just have the rear end left then I’m close to being able to start it.
I’ve got a couple holes I forgot to fill in the dash but I may want to put some other stuff in there anyway.
Speaking of that; has anyone doing a USB charger socket that fits in the cigarette lighter hole? They make tons of them but they all seem to big of a diameter. I think the hole is around 22 mm.

 

[royal cake]

I ended up going with a DIN style socket. It seems stout. Can then plug in a DIN style charger

Cliff Top® 12-24v Universal Female Hella(Din) Socket (Alloy) https://a.co/d/bmK2Syp

(couple extra holes in the dash I didn’t fill; will have to put something there)
Also got to work on cleaning up the reflectors. Just going to paint the bezels and polish out the lenses. Luckily I have them all and the front gaskets are still good.
For the gauge cluster I was having trouble getting good grounds to the lights. I ended up soldering ground wires to each housing, which worked. Now I see that my high beam light is super hard to see through the blue cover…

 

[royal cake]

So Mark @65swb45 i forgot the truck had that overdrive unit in it when I bought it. So the rear driveshaft is a shorty.
When I fit up the front driveshaft, there’s about 1.5” spacing to being compressed (first picture). Too much?
the rear spacing measured about an inch shorter than the front. I fit up the front driveshaft in the rear and as expected was much more compressed, very little gap (second picture).
Looks like at the least I’ll need to source a rear.

 

[royal cake]

Well tonight was a roller coaster.
Decided to attempt to fire up the motor for the first time. Got some fresh gas, made sure I had oil (with some zinc additive for break in), coolant, etc. Filled the carb half full and had some gas leaking out of the sight glass. Found out the over plate was not compressing it. Studied it a while and ended up flipping the plate around since it wasn’t perfectly flat and that did the trick at least for now.
Showtime and turned it over and over and nothing. I knew I had gas so I pulled a plug and grounded it and no spark.
Scratched my head for a long time and proceeded to start troubleshooting. Put a grounded spark plug on the high output line and intermittently touched the negative side of the coil to ground as many have suggested it and I got spark. So that was good.
Pulled my distributor cap and stared at it for ages then checked the points gap- it was as large as the Grand Canyon.
Set the points, put it all back together and VROOM!
Fired up nicely and runs decently smooth. At a constant increased speed I feel like I can detect a “miss” but could be imagining it.

What it won’t do is idle with my foot off the pedal. What should I look at first- could it be as simple as the idle screw?

 

[Green Bean]

Good job! A few random ideas: Hook up a vacuum gauge and check your vacuum while tuning. Check timing with vacuum. Check that fuel cutoff solenoid is hooked up to switched 12v and functioning properly.

 

[royal cake]

Good job! A few random ideas: Hook up a vacuum gauge and check your vacuum while tuning. Check timing with vacuum. Check that fuel cutoff solenoid is hooked up to switched 12v and functioning properly.

Thanks!
Yeah solenoid is working with key on.
I didn’t mention an important observation but vacuum seemed opposite of what I understood. At high rpm the vacuum was very low, but at low rpm (with a little throttle to not let it die) the vacuum was much stronger, maybe around 20 in.
Not sure if my timing could just be way off or if that would even cause that.

 

[Green Bean]

IS your distributor vacuum advance? Is there an open vacuum port on your carb?

 

[royal cake]

IS your distributor vacuum advance? Is there an open vacuum port on your carb?

Yes vacuum advance, I don’t believe I have any open ports but will double check. Appreciate the input.

 

[royal cake]

Here’s a video of the vac gauge as I run the motor.
I read somewhere that maybe a clogged muffler could mess with vacuum readings?