1984 HJ47 Troopy Restoration Build - A Retrospective (1 Viewer)

[HJ47]

1984 HJ47 Troopy Restoration Build - A Retrospective

I've been putting off making a build thread for years and now as my restore is getting (nearer) to the end, it's time to document the path over these last eight years. Some things went smoothly, and some things didn't. Many mistakes were made along the way. So many dead end paths and rework.

Considering I had never even changed oil on any car before buying my first land cruiser, I had a steep learning curve. To date, my troopy is the only 40 series I've ever driven. In fact, I haven't even RIDDEN in another one.

I purchased my vehicle in Santa Fe, NM late summer 2012. It was an over the top safari rig with quite a few mods and customizations. Any 40 will draw attention. With this thing, I couldn't make eye contact at the gas station without planning for 10-15 minutes of Q&A with the other customers. Now it did have a safari heritage. I believe the original owners were retired schoolteachers who toured around Africa in it for 18 months when they first purchased it. It had a converted 'high roof' with a 12" rise after the B pillars, another set up upper windows and a simple camper setup. The second owner purchased it in 1996, and I've had it since.

Over the years, I've somewhat 'normalized' her to be more of a 'stock look' troopy. Many parts have been removed/replaced, sometimes more the once, as I've changed direction over the years on the build. I'll try to document what I've deleted/added/replaced and any lessons along the way.

I hope it will help the MUD community that I have depended upon so much during my years of ownership.

Here she is soon after purchase.

 

[Robs76fj40]

That's a pretty wild looking rig to start with! Love seeing build threads, so I'll be following along with this for sure.

 

[HJ47]

Here's a few of the original specs:

• 1984 HJ47-RV-KCQ, Right Hand Drive AUS spec
• 2H diesel engine was replaced with a 2000 Chevy Vortec 5.7L
• H55F 5-speed transmission mated to the Vortex an Advanced Adapters 350/H42 adapter
• Split transfer case from an 87 (?) US spec FJ60, 38mm idler shaft
• transfer case parking brake
• Dual fuel tanks, approximately 44 gallons total
• Donaldson air cleaner and 'stove pipe' snorkel
• OME 2.5" lift
• 60 series power steering
• 3.73 gears
• BFG 33x10.5x15 tires on a set of aftermarket 'wagon wheel' white rims
• 4 LX style sliding windows
• Non-US front vent windows
• Warn 8274 winch
• Massive Australian bull bar with custom 2" side rails
• 4 Plus rear bumper with tire and cooler basket swing outs with a 48" Hi-Lift jack and shovel mounted as well
• Dual battery setup in the rear interior, mounted under the camping bed frame
• 8(!) 7" front lights (two standard headlights, two mounted near winch, four mounted on the custom roof rack)
• Custom roof rack over the cab roof, about the height of the raised rear roof
• Front seats were from a 4Runner with custom brackets
• Enough toggle switches to rival an airplane cockpit
• 7'8" tall!

 

[HJ47]

First rear seating project, long switched out. Two Toyota minivan captain seats mounted to a comically small/thin metal frame. Reclining with kick up foot rests and integrated seat belts. To get them to fit side by side, I had to remove the bottom plastic cladding and remove the center arm rests. They were pretty cool and I could reverse them and have the kids face backwards. They loved waving to all the people in traffic. When forward facing they gave a great view of the road ahead for the rear passengers.

 

[greenbeast]

Congrats, cool looking rig! i too just bought a Troopy, an 84 BJ45. Should have it in couple weeks and can't wait to take a cruise in it.

 

[HJ47]

@greenbeast I'll be looking forward to some pics of your new beast!

 

[HJ47]

Rear seating through the years continued. It took years to find OEM troopy seats so in the meantime I had:

FJ40 1967 jump seats (two hole oval feet with double hole brackets on each side of the back brackets) long jumps seats mounted in most of the factory troopy bench bolt holes. Four lap belts for the jumps mounted in factory holes using the 7/16" bolts. I started out with the standard strap belts, but those suckers rattle all around. I ended up getting the retractable kind Cruiser sells for the front seats. You can get away using the factory bolt hole for receivers, but it was not centered (maybe 60/40 shift). Since I had plenty of tub holes already, I drilled a centered hole for some grade 8 hardware and backed it with some 3" heavy washers on under tub side. I really liked the retractable ones, especially with kids in and out, as it kept the straps tidy.

These I had for a number of years and even restored them with power coated frames, new SOR cushions, and new Cruiser Corps covers. Wide, deep seats that folded up/strapped up out of the way.

 

[HJ47]

When I removed the 'dentist' mini van seats (as the kids called them), I put in a Bestop fold and tumble seat. They sell on Amazon for around $200 shipped. Nice little seat that I mounted to tub (more holes!) with grade 8 nut/bolts and heavy 3" washers on the underside. For the belts, I put the center receivers on a grade 8 nut/bolt/heavy washer combo on the floor and the adjustable male straps bolted to existing factory bolt holes on the wheel wells. I just used the old jump seat belts for this. The seat sat very low, with 6 footer's knees close to chin height. It did fold quite flat and then it would tumble forward to rest on the front seats create some cargo space quickly. The 'dentist' seats were a pain in the ass to remove and weighed about 40lbs each.

 

[HJ47]

All was good until I was browsing the MUD classifieds and saw someone was selling a 70 series middle seat with a custom heavy floor mounted cage with integrated seat belt mounting points (more tub holes!). This was a wider seat (hanging over the wheel wells by about 6" on each side. You could seat three across in a pinch. Sweet middle seat and with the jumps folded up, it created a nice walled cargo area in the rear. I added a couple of brown headrests from a FJ60 that I found on eBay.

 

[HJ47]

Years later I finally found a full set of OEM rear seat frames. I have yet to restore these. These are just the metal frames, so I'll need to add new plywood/cushions/covers. SOR still sells the replacement covers for about $200 a set. The seat bottom frames have the spring back kick-out legs. The set I found had about 4-5" of depth added to each of the bottom frames. The previous owner did that to support a camping bed of some sort. I'll have to remove the extra frame pieces and weld them to factory depth. Here are some pics getting the rear seat mount holes redone at the bodyshop so all the factory mount holes are restored. The PO cut out rusted wheel well sections years ago and removed the factory mounts for the front pair of the rear benches.

The deeper frames are evident in these pics.

 

[whitey45]

Josh’s old rig! @Chamba not sure if he’s on here much anymore! I just put some hj75 front seats as a second row!

 

[HJ47]

Am I a dreamer, yes. Am I an idiot, probably.

Just after getting all my OEM rear bench seat mounts restored to factory positions, complete with heavy backer plate on the under side of the tub, something catches my eye while browsing MUD. A BJ46 factory middle seat.

What if I found one of those BJ46 seats? Wouldn't that be cool to have as the middle seat and then keep a pair of troopy rear jump seats for the very back? Well, I found one of the seats as part of a bundle with (almost) restored OEM front bench troops seats.

 

[HJ47]

@whitey45 yep, this is Josh's old rig. Those HJ75 seats look great!

 

[whitey45]

I had that same seat in my other Troopy! Worked great! I have always been a fan of Toyota seats, I hate aftermarket seats, takes away the Toyota feel!

 

[HJ47]

Soon after I found the first BJ46 middle seat, @YoYoHo offered to sell me one of his spares, provided he could keep the (in)famous safari striped seat cover. No issue there as I'm going all '79 and later gray interior.

Additionally, he made me two of the anchor plates that the those seats use to attach to the tub. He's got a red BJ46 that I'm sure you all have seen pics of. Really great guy and so helpful.

Here are a couple pics for the dual BJ46 seat setup in the troopy. I haven't assembled his brown seat yet, as the frame will be painted the same gray as the upholstered one.

The last pic shows YoYoHo's copy of the OEM mounting plate as well as seat belt anchors the shop added.

 

[HJ47]

Here's a few pics showing the weld nut mounts and backing plates.

 

[greenbeast]

I do like the middle seat. Like you I have to build the rear seats and just had the frames powder coated. Wonder how tough it is to find those seats? Was it an easy search?

 

[HJ47]

I do like the middle seat. Like you I have to build the rear seats and just had the frames powder coated. Wonder how tough it is to find those seats? Was it an easy search?

BJ46 seat? Those took awhile to find. I think the gray one I found by via a three old sales thread, messaged the guy who never sold it, and found that he still had it up in his garage rafters. He even had copies of the OEM arm rests made that mount to the tub sides (see pic). You could put a wanted ad up here, you never know... One thing with the BJ46 seats is that you do sit pretty upright, so probably not an all day comfort thing.

 

[greenbeast]

No worries, I wont be sitting in back!

 

[HJ47]

As long as I'm posting tub rotisserie pics, here's couple of the current painted interior and underside.

What to 'go with' was a long process. I considered many options from custom tinted Line-X to Raptor liner to paint to 3M under coating. The bodyshop just wanted to be done with it and move on - even to the point to offering a $2K labor credit to have Line-X do the whole tub interior and under body. (This was right at the time I had the shop do all seating mounts for BJ46 middles AND the factory jump mounts so they were certainly sick of me at that point) I did get a quote from Line-X and it some crazy $5K quote for tinted liner on both sides of the tub (I think they didn't want to do it either!).

One of the shop concerns was the tub bed did have some pitting. Also the PO rust repair sections, even with grinding and smoothing, didn't look 'paint ready'. They were afraid of going with the 'traditional' paint and then having it still look like hell. Certainly bed liner would help hide the flaws without hours and hours of labor to get it paint ready.

In the end, traditional paint (over bed liner) won out, so Toyota purists can rejoice.

We used PPG's Delfleet Evolution single stage commercial paint tinted 464 Toyota beige for the interior. They also may have used a 'high build' primer but I forget. For the underside we used a 3M undercoating and then went over it with the Delfleet 464 beige. I don't recall the specific 3M formula they used, but the other restoration shops in the area have used it for years on other cars with no complaints. It did take a bit of convincing to go with the beige underside. They lobbied hard to just have it black. Once done they agreed the body color underside turned out great.