1974 FJ40 Hard Top Camper Build (1 Viewer)

[H0ki3]

Hi everyone!

I have a 1974 FJ40 that I've been working on remaking a hard top for. I bought the 40 off a owner on here search "project red dawn" that saved it from the junk yard, prepped it to be a topless beach rig, then sold it. He did a lot of sheet metal work, freshened accessories, lot of new bolts and hardware, wheel tires, seat covers, paint, etc., He added a Holley sniper and surge tank. Seller threw in a pretty rough hardtop with fairly rusty sides, a cool soft top, and we bought a set of hard doors in so-so shape.

I bought the 40, and so far I've done a nut and bolt check, new full exhaust, fluids, ran a secondary modern fuse panel, oil pressure gauge, 12 and 5V for phones. Re-did and tuned the sniper & surge setup and lines and filters, fixed intake and exhaust mounting and leaks, fixed PCV and charcoal setup. Balanced driveshafts, new transfercase output housing, u-joints, etc.. basically I made it reliable and safe. I also added the soft top and soft doors.

The last year I bought hard top sides in pretty decent shape for $1400. I've now fixed all the minor rust and extracted all the broken bolts.

Plan is to take my newly fixed hardtop sides and my old fiberglass top, make a custom heavy duty gutter system that I can hinge on the front. thus making a Westfalia tilt top camper setup. I plan on using 1/8 inch steel for the gutter and foam on the bottom of gutter and top of sides to make a seal. (in reality the car never sees rain and I'd be a fair weather camper in it, we have a toyhauler for real camping). If you have any suggestions on the gutter system let me know. I'm ordering the steel tomorrow.

I can weld and paint so this should be doable. I painted a lot of the little red car in the image below and body worked and re-painted some of the 40.

my proposed heavy duty gutter, profile view. replacing rivets with bolts and rivnuts.

fixing rusty corners

replaced this entire corner and post

Some of the fleet. '14 Fiest ST (6 spd Turbo), '92 Cappuccino (5 spd, 3cyl, Turbo), '74 FJ40

 

[45Dougal]

Looks like a great project.
My HJ45 safari truck previously had a pop up safari roof which has since been filled over with steel, but I'd like to reinstate it.
A few points jump out to me - your 40 is much shorter, so I guess you're not planning to put a bed up there?
If you pop it up parallel, then you'll get a lot more usable head space in the limited length available.
Most of the pop ups I have seen adopt a stand-up rim in the remaining part of the existing roof to help create a seal - the actual seal is much less critical then.

 

[H0ki3]

Looks like a great project.
My HJ45 safari truck previously had a pop up safari roof which has since been filled over with steel, but I'd like to reinstate it.
A few points jump out to me - your 40 is much shorter, so I guess you're not planning to put a bed up there?
If you pop it up parallel, then you'll get a lot more usable head space in the limited length available.
Most of the pop ups I have seen adopt a stand-up rim in the remaining part of the existing roof to help create a seal - the actual seal is much less critical then.

very good points.

I see three things I should take into account.

1. I need to affix a L bracket to the entire top of the side panels, like yours shows this will be the (truck side) mounting surface for the hinge, as well as keep the rain out. I'll seal the L to the sides with foam. This roughly aligns with my thoughts for the inside of the roof, likely similar dimensions to the gutter system.
2. I need to beef up the roof so it does not flex -hence the HD gutter system I drafted, maybe some ribs as well.
3. I like that hinge design. though it requires some tent material near the hinge

I'm only 5'10 so I can sleep in the 40, it will be a bit tight though, but a neat place to hang out, and standing room when in the back of the truck. I plan to enter from the cab via a trap door. I have some roll bar tubing I plan to use for a roll bar/sleeping platform support (eventually)
I have a RTT that I don't really use now that we have a camper, but I liked sleeping in it and it was nice and breezy spot to drink a brew and nap.

Cheers!

 

[45Dougal]

Sounds good.
The hinges are readily available on ebay if you go that route. I bought some great waterproof canvas on there for another project which would also work for your side panels.

The VW pop up is pretty much perfected now, so it's worth a close look for some ideas.

 

[ducktapeguy]

It's been a while since I removed my hard top rain gutters, but I don't think there was a whole lot of room to add rivnuts. From what I remember the rivet holes were already pretty close to the edge so trying to drill them larger would be a problem. It would be easier just to use nut and bolts with some washers.

This thread has some ideas of other pop up designs. I think the rear hinged design is pretty unique and probably more practical from an engineering standpoint, but aesthetically it looks backwards.

Does anyone make a pop-top for a 40 series? - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/does-anyone-make-a-pop-top-for-a-40-series.1072146/

I thought of doing something similar and came up with a design and acquired a spare hard top, but never got past the prototype phase

I think in addition to the reinforced gutter, you're going to need a similar matching channel on the hardtop to tie the sides, doors, and windshield together. Without the roof cap it'll be a lot of separate pieces with no rigidity, and would be hard to seal up. Even if you don't take it out in rain, the wind penetration from the gaps will probably drive you crazy.

The lifting hinge from the westfalia is another idea I toyed around with, along with a hard sided pop up design. Without some type of lifting hinge it you lose a lot of usable space in the hinged side of the roof, enough that it would make it difficult to sleep in because your feet would be hitting the roof cap and your head would be pushing out of the opposite end. The roof is around 7ft long, which sounds like a lot but if you've ever slept in a 7ft tent you'll know it's pretty cramped even for someone of average height

I think if I were to do something like that I'd copy a flippac style and have it open 180 for more usable room. Even with a popup roof, the space in the back of a 40 is already cramped enough that the ability to stand up inside won't really help much because you'll still have all your gear at the bottom. Having a popup would make it even worse because I'd lose the ability to store stuff on a roof rack. I gave up on the idea because I couldn't justify the amount of work it would take vs. just getting a roof top tent. It's still a cool idea and I'd like to see someone do it.

 

[mattressking]

This is my favorite idea, the idea has been around a while and I’ve been yearning for one…only other decent pic I’ve found. The high roof from the outfit in Oregon is another cool one that could be turned into a flip top.

 

[45Dougal]

I plan to reintroduce the safari roof on mine (similar to the one on this Tanzanian 70 series), but then add a canvas surrounding which we can zip in for camping.
Hopefully can tweak the dimensions a bit to fit a bed up there plus access (my roof is around 10 feet long).

 

[H0ki3]

Great points and pics! I'm going with the front tilt just because it looks better to me and I want to be able to stand up in the back not, on my redone seats.

Finishing body work on the hard sides.

Yes, like you mentioned I'm linking the sides and front and back together with 1/8 inch L channel and the gutter is 1/8 C channel as well. I'll post version 3 of the plans. Front will be gusseted as well as that's where the strain from hinge is.

Picking up my family roll cage this AM which is base for sleeping platform. Flip pac style is cool but a lot more fabric and I don't really need the space. If whole family goes we bring camper.

I might bolt my rooftop tent to the roll cage just to see how it looks for now. As I don't see being done woth this by the end of October for the Capital Land Cruiser Fall Crawl, so that might be temporary setup. Being sick every other week with flu/cold does not help with progress.

Here's a body work picture as of today. This entire corner was rotten and thin, cut it put and replaced. Pretty proud of this. Very minimal filler, just to get thr edge right. The shadow makes it looks less even.

Also planning on getting some 31 skinnies on it for trail days.

 

[H0ki3]

Next piece acquired. Got a deal on a older 6 point cage this morning. Needs cleaned up a bit. Mught remove brackets that were added.

 

[clrussell]

Watching this one.

 

[H0ki3]

Plopped the cage on it. Some interference with the windshield wiper motor. Not going to boly it in quite yet as I want passanger side to scoot a bit more forward.

(Tractions boards are an inside joke. I have a family member that hates when people strap them to their roof/hood/tailgate).

 

[newmexicokid]

I do all my thinking while driving and pooping. I just got back from a long hunting trip with lots of driving. I’ve thought about this type of camper conversion too. What about purchasing just the pop up portion of a camper like AT Overland or GoFast Campers and “bolt” it to the drip rail without the sides? Not sure how wide the units are. I’m very tall so I wondered about the Habitat from AT Overland. I may need to do some more driving or something to think more about it.

 

[H0ki3]

I do all my thinking while driving and pooping. I just got back from a long hunting trip with lots of driving. I’ve thought about this type of camper conversion too. What about purchasing just the pop up portion of a camper like AT Overland or GoFast Campers and “bolt” it to the drip rail without the sides? Not sure how wide the units are. I’m very tall so I wondered about the Habitat from AT Overland. I may need to do some more driving or something to think more about it.

LOL. I think in the shower mostly. Or at work when bored.

If you're tall I'd try a flip pac style camper. I'm not tall at all. But I still think that would be neat.

I mocked up my soft top and think I have a solid plan to make a rack out of spare 1.5 inch .120 wall tube I have a pile of. Strong enough for my RTT.

Will keep working on the hard top camper in the meantime. Sides are nearly done.

 

[FJBen]

Slightly different but I’m building one for my bj74. Here’s my thread on just the poptop.


BJ74 Poptop, modular top camper or something - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/bj74-poptop-modular-top-camper-or-something.1214677/

Here’s my photoshop

Here’s my top currently.

As for hinges I looked at VW eurovan style and those were alright but $$$ even used.

I found old Camaro hood hinges should work pretty good with little mods, and they even have space for the hydraulic lift assist.

 

[H0ki3]

Did some mock up of the PS side pannel that's about done with body work. First time with cage and door and a pannel on. It all fits, sort of. The soft door is not made for a hard top, it overlaps the side near the top, and doesn't sit flush against the header bar, but it'll be fine until my hard doors are fixed up, or hacked into half doors (seemingly likley with the state of the door regulators and innards).

The cage should work great for supporting the front half of the sleeping platform. It definitely will need additional support of the rear of the sleeping platform. Maybe something light weight that swings down from the platform and rests on the floor So I don't have to actually tie it into the cage and it's not a weak point or a hazard in an accident. I have a bunch of 1.5 inch .120 wall DOM and thin 2 inch square tube.

Been thinking about the platform itself. Marine grade ply or a sheet of 1/4 inch plastic possibly? Not sure. And it's far enough down the road I'm not going to stress about it.

 

[45Dougal]

I was considering harvesting a pop up roof from a Mazda Bongo - plenty of them around and cheap as chips, plus that gives you lots of the bits and bobs that you don't even know you need yet.

I'd make the platform in sections for easy storage, in composite/ aluminium honeycomb sandwich panel if you can get it.

 

[H0ki3]

Sitting at my desk and someone says "will someone take this sheet of 1/4 steel from my cubicle". Uh yes!

Will use this to sandwich the tub and tie into the frame at the body mount for the tub/step.

 

[H0ki3]

Slight change of short term plans. Threw back on the roll cage and the soft top and welded up a rack for my RTT that works with my soft top. This will do for this weekends ride. Then back to bodywork on the hardtop next week.

It uses the hard top mounts to anchor. Seems solid. Here's so pics mid fabrication. Finish welding and paint tonight.

 

[H0ki3]

I finished up the soft top rack in time for my trip. Here's some images. I did tie it into the windshield with some over-door-bars. Worked great. I wouldn't put a ton of weight up there but the tent was fine.

back to working on hardtop.

 

[Mark Jennings]

I finished up the soft top rack in time for my trip. Here's some images. I did tie it into the windshield with some over-door-bars. Worked great. I wouldn't put a ton of weight up there but the tent was fine.

back to working on hardtop.
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Pretty freakin’ awesome