1978 Barn door FJ55 "daily driver" (1 Viewer)

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gonzopancho

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Since I got into FJ55s (not so long ago) I've had an affinity for the barn door variety. These were never available in the US, but they do occasionally find their way here.

I've also found myself admiring this FJ56 restored by Riverside Garage in Japan. I really like the 1UZ, 5-speed combination, FJ7x rear axle, bucket seats, heavy chrome, and the overall "Toyota Way" quality of the build. It looks like something Toyota would have built, had the FJ5x been produced 10-15 years later.



More pics on the owner’s IG account.


So I set out to build my own version of it. First thing to do was to find a barn-doored pig. As it turned out, I found two, but we'll save the other for a later build. @FloridaFJ80 at Land Cruiser Heaven helped me find several in Colombia, but I finally settled on this one. Frank had his people fly to where it was and check it out. It was a bit rougher than these pictures show (and on tear-down things were, as you might imagine, even worse), but that's the fun of it all, right?

It was "good enough", and money changed hands in a country I've never visited.


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That was March 2020, and we all know what happened in March 2020. The US started to shut down, and Colombia shut down for months starting in April. Everything was stalled.

In the meantime, the other barn door FJ55 that I'd been looking up got offered to @FloridaFJ80 (even though I had a deposit on it), so I bought it through him. I lost the deposit, but gained a second barn-doored pig, and a spare 1978 body. I'll post the pictures here, but won't say more other than, again "that's a different (pair of?) builds..." and "Don't do business with Steve Eby."

As it turns out, @FloridaFJ80 imported it from Colombia back in 2015. (And still had the original grille and bumpers, which I've purchased.) The truck has passed through a couple owners, but it's mine now.)

@heavytlc bought it
and it shipped

And at some point Steve E bought it, then whatever happened, and he put it up for sale after scavenging a frame and title from a different FJ55.


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Oh, and @FloridaFJ80 is rebuilding the LX450 I'd bought as a daily driver before all this happened. 1HD-FTE, Gturbo kit, PDI intercooler, repaint, new interior, and a bunch of other crazy. It went to LCH in April, and with any luck, I'll have it back next month. Covid sucks.
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