Builds 1974 Reassembly

[Tehmbrick]

Things have been moving kind of slow on the 40. Lots of little parts moving together but no real progress. One of the things I have been working on is my wiper assembly. I took it apart and tried every type of solvent I had to remove the old waxy grease. I am thinking it may be cosmoline but not sure. What did work is for me to boil the parts in an old pot (wedding present almost 28 years ago, don't tell my wife). The old grease rises to the top and can be spooned off. Parts came out pretty clean and only needed a household cleaner to get all clean.

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Nice work!

I have a '74 and would like to refurb my wiper assembly as well. Is there a trick to getting the assembly to separate from the windshield? After removing all of the hardware (inside and wipers) mine still doesn't want to come off ... and I'm hesitant to yank on it and break something.

 

[Efjayforty]

@Tehmbrick

With all the nuts (the nut holding the wiper arm on and the nut holding the assembly to the frame x2) off the outside where the wiper arm mounts and the two bolts off each part of the two inside assemblies, the unit should come off. It is possible that the rubber between the inside assemblies has stuck to both them and the frame.

 

[Efjayforty]

Here is what the wiper motor looks like when installed back on the buffed frame. The old windshield has a new gasket which was not a lot of fun to put together. I need to get a plug for the harness to the motor. Hopefully Coolerman has what I need.

 

[Tehmbrick]

@Tehmbrick

With all the nuts (the nut holding the wiper arm on and the nut holding the assembly to the frame x2) off the outside where the wiper arm mounts and the two bolts off each part of the two inside assemblies, the unit should come off. It is possible that the rubber between the inside assemblies has stuck to both them and the frame.

Thanks - Must be the rubber piece stuck then for me.

 

[Tehmbrick]

Thanks - Must be the rubber piece stuck then for me.

PS. I got Coolerman to make me a new wiring segment from the fuse panel to the motor, and he included new connectors. Great quality work.

 

[Efjayforty]

Took the steering column apart and shortened the shaft 30mm so that it will be the correct length to use with my OEM PS box. The end that attaches to the rag joint is not oem and was already on the column as part of the saginaw system that I removed so I just moved it up the shaft. I would have preferred to modify the shaft on the left but was not sure if it would come apart. I drilled and put a pin through the shaft and end just to give it strenth. The shaft on the left is what an original looks like.

 

[Efjayforty]

Here are the rest of the parts dissasembled and ready for my ultrasonic cleaner. I will hopefully get the column back together tomorrow.

 

[Efjayforty]

The sonic cleaner removed all the grease so I lubed up the blinker connections with dielectric grease before putting it back on the column.

 

[Efjayforty]

Can someone confirm that this is the correct drivers side splash guard for a 74?

 

[Efjayforty]

It has been a long time since I got serious about working on this 40. I had the tub at a body shop and I noticed some things that I did not like. The tub had almost 100 holes to weld in from various seats, armor and fender flares that needed to be filled in. Most were shoddy so I used paint stripper and stripped off the primer to get it done right. I took it to another body shop. He is going to blast, repair it and paint if for me. I should get it back within a week. Here are pics of the tub with the old paint and primer stripped away. I am only going to have the pans and back half of the tub painted. The rest is going to be original to match the rest of the body parts.

 

[Efjayforty]

Getting a paint to match has been an adventure. First I bought some Freeborn Red from a reputable FJ40 supply house. It was way too red. I then found the original PPG paint code and found a PPG store in Chattanooga that had enough single stage acrylic to make me up a small batch. It was also too red. I went to Oreilly's and had them mix a can of their Nason Freeborn Red which was also too red. A local paint store mixed and match and after several tries and modifications we are very close. The part on the left is the kick out vent from this truck and the sample on the right is the final formulation. It would be hard to get much closer.

 

[Drake2]

Can someone confirm that this is the correct drivers side splash guard for a 74?

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I have never seen a part like that on a 40. Not to say it's wrong, just that this is the 1st one I have seen in 30 years

 

[Drake2]

Here are the rest of the parts dissasembled and ready for my ultrasonic cleaner. I will hopefully get the column back together tomorrow.

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Can you inform us on the ultrasonic cleaner? Looks like "Branson 5200" maybe? Do you like the results and what chemicals are you using in it?
Thanks,
Drake

 

[MadMace]

Getting a paint to match has been an adventure. First I bought some Freeborn Red from a reputable FJ40 supply house. It was way too red. I then found the original PPG paint code and found a PPG store in Chattanooga that had enough single stage acrylic to make me up a small batch. It was also too red. I went to Oreilly's and had them mix a can of their Nason Freeborn Red which was also too red. A local paint store mixed and match and after several tries and modifications we are very close. The part on the left is the kick out vent from this truck and the sample on the right is the final formulation. It would be hard to get much closer.

That looks like a great match. I had to match the beige on my 1963 FJ45--that was a pain in the tailgate. Ended up going to Finishmaster--they did a great job--they have some specialized scanner then dial it in from there.

 

[Efjayforty]

I will get the info on the ultrasonic cleaner.

The body shop started by scanning the original paint then we went from there. From what they tell me that current paints do not contain nearly the same amount of pigments as the old paints did which makes creating an old paint from a formula hard. On top of that, the original was acrylic and the new paints are urethane. I know that most documentation will call the color of the 70's FJ40s Freeborn Red but the Freeborn Red formulations are too red where the original has a terracotta type cast to it. This truck was missing the front doors, top, gas tank cover and spare tire carrier. I have sourced all of those parts from cruisers ranging from 73-78 and the color of those parts matches mine perfectly. The body shop has this card showing the 73 Toyota paint colors. The only red is Vesuvius red which looks like a possible match (the Pimento red is a different car makers color). A search for Vesuvius red on this site brings up zero results.

 

[MadMace]

The way you got the match was a great idea. Trying to track down old paint codes in hopes of getting a match is a fools errand--I've been that fool before. Like you pointed out, there are so many variables that affect the color--not the least of which is the decades of UV exposure that patina rigs have had.

 

[Efjayforty]

Drake, the ultrasonic cleaner is a Branson 5200. It works as good as anything I have tried. I usually use simple ultra dawn cleaner and let it run overnight. The water will get hot if there are metal parts in it which helps get things really clean. I have also used the cleaner shown below from Dollar General. It works really well on parts that aren’t plated or plastic. It will remove the plating and will dull the plastic so that’s why I use the dishwashing soap for most parts. I also have a vibrating tumbler polisher. I tried several different types of media but it never worked as well as I had hoped it would.

 

[Drake2]

Drake, the ultrasonic cleaner is a Branson 5200. It works as good as anything I have tried. I usually use simple ultra dawn cleaner and let it run overnight. The water will get hot if there are metal parts in it which helps get things really clean. I have also used the cleaner shown below from Dollar General. It works really well on parts that aren’t plated or plastic. It will remove the plating and will dull the plastic so that’s why I use the dishwashing soap for most parts. I also have a vibrating tumbler polisher. I tried several different types of media but it never worked as well as I had hoped it would.

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Thanks for the update. I will check around for this model.