1978 FJ40 Resto - Lord Jesus, What Have I Done?

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OMG

As I look at these photos I want to say something - - but I am speechless :crybaby:
 
Had some scrap walnut lying around and a rainy day yesterday, so I spent some time in the shop making a new knife rack. I just put in an order with Eastwood for some big C-clamps, a magnetic copper backer to try and repair some spots on my transmission hump, Eastwood PRE, rust convertor, encapsulator, and Bioxide weldable primer. Hope to get the passenger side done next weekend.

knife rack.webp
 
I removed the old seats, transmission cover and tank cover to find that he had riveted a floor pan over the old floor, sandwiching some quikcrete in there where the floor had rusted through. I haven't gotten to the drivers side yet, but instead of an actual floor pan, he just riveted a sheet of aluminum over that side.

Were you able to save the transmission hump cover or do you plan on finding one?

I just joined the forum and need one for my 78 FJ40. Any words of wisdom?
 
What have you liked about the electric power steering?

It was super easy to install. It's clean. No welding necessary. A little bit of cutting or grinding but nothing crazy. It's no longer embarrassing trying to parallel park in front of large groups of people.
 
I've driven @adistler1 's Cruiser and the steering is a little surprising. It's no saginaw setup but not bad at all. If you don't want to cut up your truck for power steering, this is a decent option.
 
I've driven @adistler1 's Cruiser and the steering is a little surprising.
So, not bad at all, but a little surprising. Could you describe what makes it surprising? Do it have artificial feeling?
 
I had a saginaw setup in my Cruiser and it was kinda like driving a 70s Buick. Super super easy to drive with one finger. More impressive on the trail in a tight bind... Still easy.

This setup was different in that it felt more like driving a 70s Carolla. Works fine. Steers easily. Just not the same. I also bet it's not super easy in a bind. So my advice is that this is fine for maintaining a clean frame on a street Cruiser. If I were to build a trail rig again, I wouldn't think twice about slapping in a saginaw.

I hope that helps.

And, this electric setup is not invisible. The unit on the column is noticeable under the dash.
 
Nice work. When your doing your welding, is you gas tank dropped. I have rear sill and quarter panels that need to be replaced. Or welded. And I have rear gas tank.
 
Nice work. When your doing your welding, is you gas tank dropped. I have rear sill and quarter panels that need to be replaced. Or welded. And I have rear gas tank.

Yeah, my tank was drained and pulled out before I even started cutting or welding.
 
I need to support my tub but I think the width at the back is off to begin with. I have pretty big gaps when I mount the doors. Does anyone know the distance between the channel the quarter panels mount to? I need to get that right before I weld in my supports.
 
"Man s***!!!"
 
Geeze Aaron... If you get that fixed right, your gas mileage should improve with all the wright loss!
 
It's been a minute. I ordered all my panels from CCOT, my sill from @Awl_TEQ and a few misc. things from Real Steel Cruisers. First off, the sill and the panels from CCOT are such great quality. I'm so glad I spent the extra money on going with them.

As most know, life gets in the way. After Ralphie passed away, I took a job running an orchard in Mt. Juliet, TN. We've been trying to bring it back to life and between that and my 11 month, I wasn't getting anywhere, so I reached out to my uncle who is a retired metalworker in KY. @oldschool4wheeling was kind enough to help me tow my truck up there from Nashville. If this forum has provided one thing besides a wealth of knowledge on tooling on your trucks, it's a bunch of incredible folks who become great friends. So, Doug and @Rainman came by and we loaded her up and headed north. Doug has some great anecdotes on our visit on his build page and then we had what I consider to be the best steaks in the world at a dive called House of Como in Evansville, IN. Unfortunately, none of us took any pictures. I wish I had pictures of the steaks, Doug and Rainey wished we had pictures of me sitting on a bucket while the truck rolled down off the trailer.

So, after a couple of weeks, I was able to get back up to KY for a day and a half and we tore into the truck. I started by cutting out the floor. It was so rusted, it basically peeled back like a can of tuna. We taped off the quarter panels and started cutting. I was able to remove it all in one piece, so that went quickly. All in all, we had pretty much everything out in about 3 hours.

LC3.webp


Harry's buddy Jimmy has a 67 Chevelle that he's working on. He said the car "was pissing him off", so he came back to work on mine. Man, these guys love it. Jimmy grabbed my grinder and started on the rivets holding in the supports coming off the rear cross member. Mine were completely rusted out, but the cross member was still in good shape, so we removed those and will build the replacement for them.

After that we got the sill and floor put on.
LC5.webp

And then the mid bed and wings. Everything is held together with sheet metal screws.
LC4.webp

From there we grabbed the wheel wells and the channel at the back of the truck. Everything squared up perfectly back there so we tacked it together with some welds, then put on the quarter panel. There was hardly any work getting fitment right. We had to work a couple spots with the hammer and dolly on the curve, but for the most part, everything lined up and was square and tight, so we tacked on the wheel well top to the quarter panels and started on the spot welds on the top of the panel.
LC6.webp
LC7.webp

I had to leave by 2pm, so we called it a day after about 4 hours of work, grabbed some lunch, then went over to Jimmy's so I could check out his Chevelle. He basically ran into the same issue as me. He paid good money for what looked to be a fairly restored car. His was perfect. on the outside but underneath was a mess. The trunk was rotten and all of the body mounts were rusted out. He said the body wasn't even connected to the car!

Anyway, I can't wait to get back up there later this month for another 2 days of work.
 

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