1971 FJ40 - PNW Blue Patina (1 Viewer)

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I'm thinking about updating my rear lighting. Did a quick photoshop on my thoughts.

Adding a 3rd Brake light. I saw a few posts of other Mud members doing this. Placement seems to be everywhere. Roof, rear hatch, etc. Unsure about this one as cutting into the body makes me a bit apprehensive. Even if just a small wire pass-thru.

Updated turn signals and reverse lights. The plan is to add in lightbars to the bottom of the bumper. Switch over to amber turn signals as opposed to the dual purpose brake/turn markers right now. And beef up the reverse light. Hopefully keeps is pretty subtle yet still visible to drivers.




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What kind of spare tire carrier do you have?
 
I was also considering adding a third brake light, but using something that would tape up to the inside of the glass to avoid drilling holes to mount and wire it. Many newer cars have the these lights inside the rear window, sealed up against the glass there shouldn't be a reflection to worry about.

Before I ever figured out how to wire it (so that it didn't flash with a turn signal) I took the top off.
 
Beautiful patina, Nice and clean find. I have a blue 71 too.

I like your plan. What size tire do you have now? Thinking of keep that size?
 
What kind of spare tire carrier do you have?

Pretty sure its custom. Built by the previous owner. It doesn't have a lockout stop, basically, the wheel stops it from swinging too far. Also, the latch isn't the smoothest thing to operate but it works well otherwise. Updating these small things will be a future project down the line.

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Beautiful patina, Nice and clean find. I have a blue 71 too.

I like your plan. What size tire do you have now? Thinking of keep that size?

Those tires were 33x12.5x15 on 15x8 American Racing Baja Wheels. I have since switched over to 235x85zx16 on 16x7 Vintiques Smoothies. (31"x9.5"x16). I will customize the hubcaps via this process to fit the OEM caps. Builds - LuckyNB 77 FJ40 - 7 Year Journey


The FJ40 will be heading to the shop tomorrow to get a FJ60 box power steering set up and FJ60 front disc brakes. It will also get its suspension updated to a 2" OME. Hopefully, all this will update the ride and return it a bit to a more classic look.

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I was also considering adding a third brake light, but using something that would tape up to the inside of the glass to avoid drilling holes to mount and wire it. Many newer cars have the these lights inside the rear window, sealed up against the glass there shouldn't be a reflection to worry about.

Before I ever figured out how to wire it (so that it didn't flash with a turn signal) I took the top off.

I like this idea. Looks like there a few options and should be pretty easy to install.

 
Thanks for these helpful comments. I’ve got a 1971 in Edmonds. Headlights (keeping buckets making new pigtails) brakes drums in back for now) wiring harness (EZ wiring) are all on my to do list.
 
So the truck has been at TorFab in Everett WA getting some major upgrades done. They are land cruiser specialty shop and pretty booked up. So took awhile to get it and have the work done. But glad to have waited as they did a great job.

Overview of the major work they did



  1. Power Steering Conversion
    They went with an 80 series box with 70 series steering/tie rods. This kept everything within the engine bay which was my goal. I like the cleaner look of the empty front bumper and preferred this to the outboard mounting option. This style is not mounted as far back as a minitruck box conversion would be. But hidden enough for me.
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  2. Front Disc Conversion
    Went with the Toyota route here also. They did the 60 series knuckle swap with an 80 series brake master. I opted to keep the rear drums as didn't want to go thru the trouble of doing Toyota fronts only to add Monto Carlo disc on the rear.
    Going with the 60 series disc gives me the larger birfields and lets me get stock rotors and pads later. (As opposed to having to source the modified Chevy rotors in the future.) Axle was rebuilt and new Aisin locking hubs were installed.
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3. Updated the Suspension.
ARB OME suspension was installed. 1.5" Front (light load) with 2.25" rear (medium load). With the lighter V8 this is much more level than before.


Transfer case was also rebuilt as well as a bit of driveline work on the pinion flange and seals. This pretty check off all the mechanical work needed on the truck for a while. I can't think of any major drive related work it needs.

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Now to drive it and enjoy it as much as possible. Before the PNW gets too rainy.
 
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Super simple fix today. Changed the cowl gasket.

Hit the nuts with PB Blast. Took them off with a 7mm ratchet. Scraped off the old gasket. Installed the new City Racer gasket. Hit all the pivots with Silicone Spray. Bolted it back together. 10 mins of active work.

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While there I noticed a few things. I need a new drain hoses. The City Racer Silicone ones look nice, but $$$. I've heard of people using a garden hose or something. Need to measure and see what I can get away with.

Also need to find an adapter hose for my defrost. One side is missing.
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Super simple fix today. Changed the cowl gasket.

Hit the nuts with PB Blast. Took them off with a 7mm ratchet. Scraped off the old gasket. Installed the new City Racer gasket. Hit all the pivots with Silicone Spray. Bolted it back together. 10 mins of active work.

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While there I noticed a few things. I need a new drain hoses. The City Racer Silicone ones look nice, but $$$. I've heard of people using a garden hose or something. Need to measure and see what I can get away with.

Also need to find an adapter hose for my defrost. One side is missing.
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I search high and low for a reasonable substitute and quickly realized I was wasting a lot of time on stuff that didn’t work. I eventually just bought the actual hoses from toyotapartsdeal.com and installed them. Tip: roll the end back on itself and then unroll on the drain pipe.
 
Updated my instrument cluster.


Fixed my seized odometer with @baas walkthru. Fixing the stuck odometer (with pics)
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Also updated my instrument bulbs to LED with these LEDs from SuperBrightLEDs
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I originally had the brighter 4 LEDs version in my turn signals and 4wd slots and they were just too bright. Distractingly bright. I swapped them out for the single LED version and they are much much better. Nice color and brighter than stock, but not in your face like the single 4 LED version. Save yourself the $1 and get the lower output.

Went warm white for the backlight in the cluster as it feels more natural to me and the bright 4 led blue for high beams because it's super dim with the way the lens is.
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I picked up this F40 locally a few days ago. Its a Jan of 71.

Outside of being local, it had a lot of what I was looking for. A Fuel-injected V8/Automatic Swap. I grew up working on these motors and feel much more comfortable troubleshooting and wrenching on this setup. My other project car is a 1986 C10 truck which has almost the exact same driveline. It also came with some great patina. I'm a fan of this look, feels like it matches the spirit of a vintage truck so much more than perfectly restored paint.


I'm hoping to document my build here. Everything related to the driveline is nice mechanically currently. I just want to optimize it a bit more for comfort.


Major Plans :
Power Steering Conversion - Looking at doing an Fj60 Box / Saginaw setup
Disk Brakes - Going with 60 series parts here also.

The plan is to go 60 series for power steering and brakes. Overall this approach seems to be quite a bit more than other options (Electric PS and GM Brakes). But I'm hoping it pays off long term with a buy once / cry once approach. I hope this will bring this up to a more modern driving standard and make me feel a bit more in control when driving.


Secondary Plans:
Truck currently has a 4" Skyjacker Lift on it. It just sits a bit too high for me. I'm trying to figure out the best course of action here. I would love to lower it 2". No idea how lower shackles would affect the ride, or maybe I can remove a leaf, even doing this I might need new shocks if I do that anyway. So I might need to just bite the bullet and install an OME suspension and new springs. This apparently goes down to a 1.5" lift from the 4" lift. This will be a 90% road truck. With the occasional camping/hiking weekend. But no plans on wheeling. Hopefully, the lower stance will help it feel a bit more planted. Plus should help the GF get in an out a bit easier.

Thanks for coming along with the journey.

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I am a sucker for the old chrome hood spears.
 
I was having a few problems with my turn signals and steering wheel. So I tackled some of those.

Symptoms:

The turn signals worked but they were very sensitive to where the lever needed to be to blink. Always had to adjust 1mm from where they landed naturally.
The wheel would lock up when turning sometimes.


So I updated my turn signal assembly. This was about $95. (Part #8431060022)

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My issues were because of wear on the turn signal lever. Seems like 50 years of service will do this to it. Because of the groove on the left, the switch was over traveling. This caused my turn signal sensitivity issues. And causes jamming with the cancel mechanism.
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Also while the steering column was apart I replaced the steering column boot. This should hopefully help seal up one of the cab a tiny bit more. (Part# 5512260021 $35)
The extra wire coming thru is my FiTech system.
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Updated my rear hatch struts to have hidden gas struts. This means the rear hatch auto-opens now like a modern car. A great improvement and relatively easy to do.

I tried two versions of the struts. 60lb struts and 50lb struts. The 60lb version opens very snappily but is a bit hard to push down. The 50lbs take a half-second longer to open, but is much nicer to close. Had I not tried the 60lber I wouldn't have noticed. I'm keeping the 50lb struts.

For under $40s and less than an hour of your time. Totally worth the if you haven't done it yet. 1.5 banana job.

Shock Strut Specs:

JR Products GSNI-5200-50 ($15.47 on Amazon)​

Extended 17 Inches Compressed 9.66 Inches. Stroke 7.34 Inches.
Rod Diameter 6mm. Tube Diameter 15mm & Force (Pounds) 50 .


To install. Take apart your strut. Remove the spring and plastic spacer. I then took that plastic spacer tapped them M6 and cut them down to fit the correct length of the tube. You can also just shave the current ends to fit in the tube if you find that easier. Install them and close the strut back up. Look remains stock.
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Few more changes have been happening slowly.

The first was relocating my stereo from the glove box to the center console. Old Setup was a clean install. But impossible to change while driving. Always had to use the Bluetooth app to change the volume. Much easier to access now and can get back the glove box space. I went with the Tuffy Security Products TFY013-01 ($270) and fit perfectly between the two seats.


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New
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The second was adding OEM fog lights. I had debated if I wanted to keep the front super simple. But decided I liked the look and the added light at night was an extra plus. The brackets were hard to find at a reasonable price. Fogs I got from my local dealer.

OEM Fog Lights (81210-60010) $84 each
OEM Brackets ( 81481-60010) $60 each



I went with the slightly more modern ToyotaMatt Fog Switch . I need to clean up the other knobs a bit so it doesn't stick out so much.
OEM Toyota Genuine Parts Concept Vision SEMA-Vision Updated Late Modle FOG ($90)


I used a generic two-light fog harness from Amazon and just spliced in new waterproof connectors to the fogs
Nilight - 10016W ($14)


I also bought a patina'd front bezel. My old one was repainted and I wanted it to have a bit more character. This one was installed upside down for a bit as noticeable by the rust drips.

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I also updated my cluster with a Dakota Digital RTX gauge. Almost all the gauges had always given me problems. I had bought another cluster and swapped out the speedo and rebuilt the odometer and was still having issues. I pretty much used FiTech to monitor everything. So after messing around with that for too long I just decided to swap. All gauges work perfectly now. (edit: although did notice the photo reads 12.0v. I may need to dig into that)

Also used the opportunity to clean up the wiring. Removed the Ammeter. Fused the whole system. Which apparently this had never had done. From my research looks like fuseablink links were never a thing on a 71. Engine bay wiring is now a tad bit cleaner.

Also, the interior fuses were swapped with modern ATC fuses. This should give a bit more leeway in the future if I want to add more interior lighting or accessories.. This is a pair of Blue Sea Systems ST Blade ATO/ATC Fuse Blocks ($25) one for always-on and another for ignition.



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