1969 FJ40 Land Cruiser Restoration (1 Viewer)

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So my FJ40 entered the family almost 12 years ago when my parents bought it off a friend of the family. It had been sitting in a storage shed for quite a while before that so it was in really good condition. After buying it, the FJ sat in the back yard until any of us kids were old enough to drive.

In 2012 while living in the snow up in Colorado my brother was involved in a wreck in the beloved beast. Rolling a complete 360 degrees down an embankment into a field, any other vehicle and my brother would have been much worse off. But he fired her up and drove her back up onto the road as he waited for a tow. It sat under a cover in the back yard for the next 4 years before being returned to Arizona.

After its return i began the process of stripping her down with the idea of keeping it as a soft top jeep style cruiser. What i thought would be a few dollar simple fix to get her back on the road has turned into a 6 month adventure. The first 4 months were spent chasing an electrical problem just trying to get it to start. After exhausting all options and getting a new battery with no positive results i bit the bullet and decided to do it right and embark on the frame off restoration. And this is that story...

 

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First job to tackle was stripping it down to see the full extent of the damage

 

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We needed to straighten the windshield frame as it was off by about an inch and a half. So we devised a moment arm to apply enough force to pull it back... Yeaaahhhh that turned into a come along attached to the hitch of a suburban slowly ratcheting down as someone heated the frame with a torch and another person with a sledge hammer to "persuade" it to move in the direction we needed.

 

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After the frame came the chasing of wires and starter solenoids and batteries until months later I gave up and decided to strip her down completely and build it back up... November 19th, 2016

 

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I am a helicopter mechanic and have never really worked on a vehicle before but at this point in the build i am completely in awe and enthralled by being able to work on a land cruiser as these things are legends...

 

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A few more of the tear down

 

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Next Came some sand blasting December 3rd, 2016 The Frame

Pics:

 

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December 10th, 2016 a pretty common repair to fj's is the rotten support in the rear, we replaced this with i inch square steel. also we filled in any and all cracks and crevices to protect against water intrusion

 

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Next up was the spraying of the bed liner to protect against water, rust road debris, and dampen noise. I used U-pol raptor liner and it came

lly amazing.

 

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[65swb45]

Nice documentation. You will find when you research further that your 40 is a '68 like my Ruftoys. Your vin is just a little lower than my October.