Builds 1974 FJ40 Practical Rebuild (1 Viewer)

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Lol the only picture with my hands in it was from when I went out to the garage to take pictures of those brackets for my powdercoater. I can’t afford to have someone else work on it!
 
Well that escalated quickly...

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Picked up a large piece of 18 gauge to start making the floors. Used this little rusted section as a test section. I’ve never worked with welding sheet metal before.

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The passenger side presented itself as more of a challenge because of the gas tank well that is stamped into the factory piece. I took measurements of the fuel tank as best I could and fabbed up a metal pan for it. The first revision did not work! The first and main reason being that I welded the bottom plate on the top lol. The second reason being that the sides were at 90 degrees and caused interference issues with the frame rail and sat higher than the floor. Back to the drawing board.

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To achieve a fuel tank well similar to shape of the factory stamped pan, I drew the whole thing up in CAD and printed flat patterns so I knew exact dimensions of what needed to be cut before I started. Believe it or not... aluminum HVAC tape comes in handy when fixturing sheet metal pieces!

Now that I have the well fabbed up I can go ahead and start bead rolling the passenger side for so I can get it welded in.

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Clamped the passenger side in to check fuel tank fitment. Fits good. Now I need to clean up all the metal and tack it in place.

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Looks awesome man!!! Love it! Any pics of your bead roller?
 
In the mix of all of this.... I had to take care of a couple of other things. The shackles were crappy eBay shackles and they were binding up. This was due to extreme overtightening from the previous owner. I replaced them with factory style shackles from CCOT. Believe it or not, this really improved the ride. I forgot to mention the lift is a 4" Rough Country lift. Well it was supposed to be until I found out that the rear leafs had a part number that matched FRONT leaf springs... and this explains why the ride is still so stiff. This will be fixed soon. I really wish I could do an OME lift but I'm wanting more lift than just 2.5".

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In the midst of replacing the fuel level sender... I found out that the front seats were held in by 2... YES TWO 1/4-20 bolts to the floor board. WTF!! So now I had to rip the seats and everything along with them out only to find that there was half of a seat frame in there that was barely bolted on.... UGH.
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So I did the obvious... I went ahead and ordered OEM seat brackets so I could properly bolt in my seats. Along with Corbeau FJ40 specific brackets and sliders... and along with that... I ordered a couple of Corbeau Baja JP's.

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I figured that the wide version would be more appropriate. I am 6'4" and about 235 lbs. These are supposed to arrive by the end of next week. Looking forward to having seats that are actually bolted in lol.

I had the used factory brackets sent out for powdercoating. I chose a semi-gloss/satin black.

The idealogy behind this build it that everything that gets removed from the car gets reconditioned before it goes back in. That way it's clear what has been touched and what hasn't. I also think this method is good for just improving the vehicle overall over time.

Two bolts so you can have ejection seats.
 

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