1989 HDJ74 FRP to FST conversion

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Sometime early last year, I picked up another truck from my good friend @joekatana. It started life as a 1989 RHD BJ74. Over its lifetime, @rick_d converted it to left hand drive, dropped in a 1HDT or two, and added a few more things. It made its way to Joe, and then to me.

Joe did a bunch of work including adding in a rollbar to keep my kids safe in the backseat.

It has been my daily driver for the past six months. As much as I enjoy its green FRP top, I just couldn’t get images of factory soft tops out of my head. I kept thinking back to @OGBeno’s BJ70 and @FJ73Texas’ sweet FST 73.

I started collecting parts. I’ve spent nearly 9 months collecting every single part to do this conversion. It’s not a small list. It took Partsouq, Dave @Japan4X4, Toyota USA, and a bunch of parts from Yemen.

Yesterday was the big day where I moderately naïvely thought I would just unbolt the FRP, bolt on the new top, and happily drive home. Yeah, right.

 

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Friggin’ Beno. The stance, the top, the damn roll up sides. I couldn’t get this pic out of my head.

 

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A dusty crate of parts arrived from Yemen, containing 90% of the bows, the B pillar, and many of the seals/weatherstripping.

 

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I picked up the correct windshield frame, got new windshield glass from Toyota USA, and the frame over the rear door.

Dave at @Japan4X4 then worked his magic, and found me all of the little parts. And there are a lot of little parts. He sourced all of the fasteners, weatherstripping, new rear upper half door frames- a seemingly endless list.

New friends from Canada visited, and Marc was gracious enough to paint all the parts Toyota 045 for me.

 

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The correct windshield frame for the FST is 56301–90K18. It’s available from Partsouq. It has a lip that the soft top hooks into.

Windshield glass is 56111-60230. It’s available new in the US. I order mine online from my local dealership, save 32%, and it’s shipped to the dealership for a $5.95 pickup fee. Beats the hell out of anything else for these gigantic, fragile, bulky items.

 

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The windshield gasket is 56121–90K01. I’ve never roped a windshield glass into a frame. I think I could’ve done it, but I paid an awesome local mobile glass guy to come do it. Austin friends, if you need a glass guy, Lupe at Austin Mobile Auto Glass is the bomb.

 

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The B pillar is made of four parts:

Right frame is 66503–90K00
Left frame 66504–90K00
Inner panel 66543–90K00
Outer/top panel 66541–90K00

 

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All four parts are hard top versus soft top specific. The horizontal panels do not have holes, whereas the hard top panels have holes to admit the bolts that secure the FRP top to the B pillar. The frame sides for the FST have an attachment for the soft top on its trailing edge, and additional mounting points for the rear frame bows.

For reference, the dimples/small holes point to the rear.

 

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One as of yet resolved problem (there are a few, we will get to that after I list the parts) is attaching footman loops to the rear of the outer/top panel. The factory outer panel at some point had four welded loops on it. I’ll just get some 2 inch footman loops and attach them with hardware.

Photo courtesy of @FJ73Texas.

 

[OGBeno]

Not for the faint of heart…. Though sure makes the truck stand out.

 

[FJ73Texas]

Wow...so awesome Galen. I love how you are documenting this and sharing part numbers. It shows others how it is not so simple to convert FRP to OEM FST.

It makes me miss my old FJ73 even more though to see all of this.

 

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Matt, we’ve only just begun. More part numbers are on the way.

 

[FJ73Texas]

Matt, we’ve only just begun. More part numbers are on the way.

Noted and trust me...I know....you still have a ways to go. The devil is in the details......

 

[FJBen]

Good stuff Galen! FST Middy's are sweet. LHD 1HD FST Middy's are flipping awesome.

I had thought about this path of OEM, but decided on a aftermarket setup. This is looking awesome.

 

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Before this thread gets too disorganized, let me just list all the parts from front to back. Let’s break it up into sections:

Windshield and frame:
Windshield frame 56301–90K18
Windshield glass 56111–60230
Gasket 56121–90K01
Cushion between cowl and windshield frame 56211–90K00

Windshield hinge cover:
Left 56368–60010
Right 56367–60010

The 33 old plastic tabs broke on mine so I ordered new ones.

While you’re in there, it’s a good time to replace the hood to cowl seal, 53383–60040

Gasket between upper windshield hinge and windshield frame is 56336–90K01. Mine disintegrated and I have a pair on order. In the meantime I cut some quick replacements out of bicycle inner tube rubber.

Lower hinge to cowl gasket is 56338–90K01.

 

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So as I broke everything down, I found rust on the cowl underneath the cushion. Not a big surprise. We cut it out and replaced it with 18 gauge sheet metal. I’ll get a new quart of paint and blend it all in, I used some gloss white that I had laying around. It doesn’t really matter to me as this truck is rusty and it’s already three different colors of Toyota white. You really can’t see very much of anything when it has all been reassembled.

 

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New cushion, homemade gaskets, new cowl to hood gasket. Windshield frame in place.

Rust repair hides really well under there.

 

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Next: the rails above the windows.

These problem children come in six separate pieces that are spot welded together at the factory from Toyota. I thought there were only three pieces… Turns out I am missing front and rear retaining brackets and the inner front rail #2.

The big difference between the FRP and FST rails are five threaded weld nuts on the outer rail (4 M6 for the hard top, 1 M8 for the front bow) and the addition of a drip rail on the outside.

 

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Part numbers:

Right:

Inner rail 61231–90K02
Outer rail 61211–90K01
Drip rail 61267–90K01
Inner roof rail #2 61233–90K00
Outer roof rail retainer 61239–90K00
Rear rail gusset 61241–90K00

Right seals:

Rear seal 61883–90K00
Front seal 61881–90K00

Left:

Inner rail 61232–90K02
Outer rail 61212–90K01
Drip rail 61268–90K01
Inner rail #2 61234–90K00
Outer roof rail retainer 61249–90K00
Rear rail gusset 61242–90K00

Left seals:

Rear seal 61884–90K00
Front seal 61882–90K00

Hardware:

Bolts 90119–06405 ×2
Bolt 90119–06588 ×6
Bolt 90119–06605 ×2

 

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I reassembled mine using the FRP rail for the time being.

These seals are three dimensional works of art.