Builds 1977 FJ40 Rebuild – Focus on Custom Stainless Tub

[knuckle47]

I just realized we have the same wheels

 

[psmbfuer]

It certainly looks that way @knuckle47 - great looking 40 - it appears to be the same Rustic Green.

I have had those wheels for decades, and if memory serves, they are American Racing wheels - one of the few wheels that were available back then with the correct offset to clear the front rotors. That said, these will not be staying on my 40 - moving to 16" wheels, giving me a broader selection of tires, although I've specifically targeted the 235/85r16s - more on those soon.

 

[psmbfuer]

And here is what things look like from the bottom, with the roll bar support loosely bolted in place. We also don't have the nuts install on the rear upright support in this pic, but is the only one that we have. And even though the roll bar supports are stainless, I was up a our powder coater and we decided to include the these in the batch of other parts that we were having done for another job.

And again, we loosely installed the ambulance doors to check fitment. We only have two bolts in the doors, so it is hanging a little low, but everything is good, so taking them back off to finish fitment and install of the driver's side wheel well panels and quarter.

 

[knuckle47]

And here is what things look like from the bottom, with the roll bar support loosely bolted in place. We also don't have the nuts install on the rear upright support in this pic, but is the only one that we have. And even though the roll bar supports are stainless, I was up a our powder coater and we decided to include the these in the batch of other parts that we were having done for another job.
View attachment 3793755
And again, we loosely installed the ambulance doors to check fitment. We only have two bolts in the doors, so it is hanging a little low, but everything is good, so taking them back off to finish fitment and install of the driver's side wheel well panels and quarter.
View attachment 3793759

This is like watching FantomWorks. I know Dan is a stickler for perfect seams and door gaps, and apparently you are too!

 

[psmbfuer]

Hey @knuckle47, I had to lookup FantomWorks - very nice and high end work - one of our largest concerns rebuilding the rear of the tub was to forget to check the ambulance door fitment as we progressed. Imagine being happy, getting the rear entirely together, and then going to install the ambulance doors to have the opening be too small, for example - that would be a nightmare.

So, we'll be hanging those doors several more times before we are done with welding the rear back together.

That said, time to start the driver's side wheel well and quarter. While we cut and bent the wheel well lips on both quarters at one time, we have not yet bent the rear sweeping radius, nor the 90 degree bend on the very end of the quarter. We wanted to wait until we actually mounted the quarter on the truck to mark everything up and start the bending. Below are several pics of the work progressing this.

It also worth mentioning that tape is not our favorite in that it will likely leave a residue, generally not enough to cause issues with the weld, but more likely with the painting process, so we are careful to clean after using tape. I'm pretty certain I was working along and was struggling, so temporarily fell back to the tape.

Bending the sweeping rear radius is a manual process for us. (I can't recall if we managed the final few degrees with the come along or not on this side, but we don't have any pics of it.) We set it up on the table with a rounded edge and continue to work it until it fits tightly on the truck. I should mention that this is not like bending a 90 degree bend, for example, meaning we don't just push down, but down and in at the same time. We also needed to change position of the quarter on the table to progress the bend. It is difficult to see, but we placed two lines on the quarter panel, one where the sweeping radius should start and another where it should end, and then did our best to confine the radius entirely within this area.

And not to scare anyone with hammer in the pic above and below, it was just used to adjust the piece of wood to align with the bend lines.

Below, you can barely see the start bend line, about an inch to the rear of the vice grips at the marker light opening, but the stop bend line is much more obvious. And you can see that we have yet to bend the final rear 90 that will slide in behind the upright.

 

[J40Fan]

Hey @knuckle47, I had to lookup FantomWorks - very nice and high end work - one of our largest concerns rebuilding the rear of the tub was to forget to check the ambulance door fitment as we progressed. Imagine being happy, getting the rear entirely together, and then going to install the ambulance doors to have the opening be too small, for example - that would be a nightmare.

So, we'll be hanging those doors several more times before we are done with welding the rear back together.

That said, time to start the driver's side wheel well and quarter. While we cut and bent the wheel well lips on both quarters at one time, we have not yet bent the rear sweeping radius, nor the 90 degree bend on the very end of the quarter. We wanted to wait until we actually mounted the quarter on the truck to mark everything up and start the bending. Below are several pics of the work progressing this.

It also worth mentioning that tape is not our favorite in that it will likely leave a residue, generally not enough to cause issues with the weld, but more likely with the painting process, so we are careful to clean after using tape. I'm pretty certain I was working along and was struggling, so temporarily fell back to the tape.
View attachment 3795831
Bending the sweeping rear radius is a manual process for us. (I can't recall if we managed the final few degrees with the come along or not on this side, but we don't have any pics of it.) We set it up on the table with a rounded edge and continue to work it until it fits tightly on the truck. I should mention that this is not like bending a 90 degree bend, for example, meaning we don't just push down, but down and in at the same time. We also needed to change position of the quarter on the table to progress the bend. It is difficult to see, but we placed two lines on the quarter panel, one where the sweeping radius should start and another where it should end, and then did our best to confine the radius entirely within this area.
View attachment 3795830
And not to scare anyone with hammer in the pic above and below, it was just used to adjust the piece of wood to align with the bend lines.
View attachment 3795829
View attachment 3795828
Below, you can barely see the start bend line, about an inch to the rear of the vice grips at the marker light opening, but the stop bend line is much more obvious. And you can see that we have yet to bend the final rear 90 that will slide in behind the upright.
View attachment 3795827

Interesting build. Do you have CAD drawings you could share?. Have you ever thought about using countersunk stainless solid rivets? Bucking/squeezing the rivets instead of welding! It would be more like building an aircraft and not a car.

 

[Augustiron]

Impressive work, especially without major metal working equipment.

 

[psmbfuer]

Interesting build. Do you have CAD drawings you could share?. Have you ever thought about using countersunk stainless solid rivets? Bucking/squeezing the rivets instead of welding! It would be more like building an aircraft and not a car.

Thanks @J40Fan. We didn't really consider solid rivets, but have looked at them now and they could be interesting. Most of the quarter is open enough on both sides that I believe they could be used, although not with most of the dedicated tools that I found. I'll need to purchase several rivets and experiment to get a better understanding and feel for clamping strength, install consistency, etc.

Regarding drawings, yes, all the panels in the build are in CAD, so I could cut them on the plasma CNC table, but I'm not certain if I want to release them publicly just yet. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about this further.

 

[psmbfuer]

Impressive work, especially without major metal working equipment.

Thanks @Augustiron, we try to get the job done with what we have, but have also been fortunate to be able to slowly grow the tools / equipment collection over the decades. Now if we had more space, time, and money...

 

[psmbfuer]

With all of these panels removed, the driver's side rear tub is obviously weakened, so to keep the remaining structure square and from moving outward, the come along / cable winch again can in handy. It wasn't the first choice due to its somewhat coarse adjustments, but the longest turnbuckle that we have can expand to just over 3 feet and wasn't long enough and couldn't be used without additional hooks to extend its reach - and it turned out that the cable winch held the rear upright perfectly square to the sill.

Then as we were working panel fitment, we realized that this quarter panel is a little too tall. You can also see, if you look closely near the top, that the cut to remove the original quarter isn't as straight as we would like, leaving a gap between it an the new panel - this isn't large enough that it will cause too much trouble welding, but more on that later.

Below, the large screw driver is used as a wedge to help hold the quarter tight against the top skeleton, and you can see that the panel is clearly too tall along the rear.

Now, after removing a thing wedge-shaped piece, we start to weld it back together.

And now the welding is done.

It's still not perfect, but as I often remind my son (or possibly more myself), we are not building the space shuttle.

 

[greenbeast]

Amazing work! I had to dig out pics from my first 40 16 years ago which looked almost identical with rust and all. Realized when I bought mine it had painted black roof.

Part of me was hoping it was my first and it was getting the attention your giving this beauty!

 

[knuckle47]

I will never forget my first new car…1974 FJ40, horizontal blue. What impressed me more is that after 6 years of the Vermont winter…it was a rusted , rotted nightmare…I sold it for fear of it looking like on of those Ford Rustangs my brother is in love with

 

[psmbfuer]

Thanks @greenbeast. In the wrong environment, its amazing how quickly these can get out of hand while conversely some even today are quite solid and original. And sorry that this wasn't your first - it would have been interesting. I was considering starting a thread trying to find my 45 that I bought from Earl Warden back in ~1992 and sold after the family started to grow. So, if anyone bought a blue-green FJ45 in Collegeville, PA in 1996 or so, I would love to catch up.

Here is a pic driving back through Idaho after picking up the 45.

Here are two pics of it not long before we sold it, which we have regretted ever since, even if at the time, it was the right decision.

 

[psmbfuer]

Getting back to the driver's side rear, from where we left off above, we need to build the top wheel well panel and work final fitment of all panels, and then put it all back together. Below provides a top down view of the inside.

The next two pics are the top wheel well panel with the rear radius already bent and using a pipe and rubber mallet to roll the front.

In the following pic, you can see that the bent edge is short of the upright - we'll correct this later.

Fitting the top panel and marking the factory wheel well front so we can butt weld the two together.

And now everything clamped and screwed in place.

And this shot is easier to see the gap between the top wheel well panel lip and the rear upright.

 

[Malleus]

@psmbfuer don't be ashamed to use the come-a-long; my first design job back in the late '70s was to design the assembly line tooling for the Nashvile, TN Peterbilt motors plant, for their new 360 cabover design. We got through the entire assembly line and the project manager came to us and asked us to do something about the roof skin (the top) which wasn't in the origonal project spec. Apparently, they thought the very thin sides (all 5 vertical feet of them) would just stand up straight and wait for the top to be dropped onto them. They didn't.

Since the entire cab was built by the time it was time to install the roof cap, there was no provision for a temporary internal structure to maintain the geometry while the cap was dropped in place and riveted onto it. We settled on using a pair of come-a-longs, attached to cross corners, to square the cab up enough to allow the cap to drop over it.

As far as I know, the method was used until the day they stopped producing the cabs. We never heard what the California plant did about their roof cap porblems...

 

[psmbfuer]

Thanks @Malleus, interesting history, story, and another use of the come along. Sounds like an interesting job as well, and you gotta love those down stream requirement / design changes... hard to avoid, especially in a large organization. I've been on both sides of that fence, although mostly in the software and telecom space, not on the physical side. That said, the impacts are similar.

Part of the fun in this type of work is figuring out ways to accomplish an objective, with the tools / equipment that you have / don't have. Putting a finer edge on my earlier point, I was surprised, and frankly lucky that the come along worked to bring the opening back into square - as you know, the teeth on a come along are rather course (at least all that I have seen and worked with), and with this, every click equates to a certain reduction in length. And although I haven't measured the length reduction with every click, I was concerned that the opening would move from slightly obtuse to slightly acute in a single click, but instead that last click landed us at a perfect 90 degrees - and it was a happy moment.

 

[Malleus]

You can use a fine thread turnbuckle on the end of the come-a-long hook, to overcome the coarse gear tooth count on the come-a-long.

 

[psmbfuer]

Agreed, some combination like that was next if the come along didn't get the job done.

 

[psmbfuer]

Good morning and Happy New Year everyone. I have a few minutes to spare as most of the family is still sleeping, so back here with another post.

So, after a thorough fitment exercise, we now clamp the new quarter and wheel well panels in place, with the help of several screws so we can again reinstall the ambulance doors to check on the opening size, squareness, and overall fit. The doors still need some minor tweaking, but the opening and the fit are looking good, and now time to move back several minor corrections and panel installation.

 

[psmbfuer]

Two minor corrections still need work:

• The rear edge of the rocker.
• And the rear edge of upper / horizontal wheel well panel, as noted above in post #154.

In the pic below, follow the seam of the new quarter to the bottom and you will see that the gap between the rear edge of the rocker and the quarter widens when compared to the gap between the quarter and the B-Pillar, so we need to fix this before installing the quarter panel.

We considered slicing part of the rear edge of the rocker just on the inside of the rear bend and then welding it back on, similar to what we show above to the lower rear quarter panel, but in this case it required such a minor tweak that we decided to add material by adding a column of weld beads along the edge. In the end, we could have refined it slightly more, but are pleased with the final result.