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- #201
I haven't got dad back into the FJ55 for another try for that cheeseburger. One of the main reasons for getting this back on the road was to share it with dad while I still can. Anywho, that's neither here nor there. I've been driving it more, Working on it less, and generally having a great time with it, which should be the entire point of owning it. Saturday I drove it to Sacramento to check out some ultra beefcake tube audio amplifiers ~250 miles round trip. It ran great, no problems at all. I've had one issue begin to develop which Is a clunk in the steering.
I lifted the front end and shook it down with a pry bar, torqued my trunion caps, checked my wheel bearings, shocks, spring and shackle bushings and everything seems copesetic. It should be, I just went through it all. So last night after a trip to the park to watch the sunset, I lifted the hood to check the shaft between the box and column. Sure enough both u joints are shedding red dust, which explains the extra steering effort, and the front one is developing play, which is for certain the clunk that I'm hearing. They don't have zerk fittings so they can be assumed to still be running on 52 year old fish renderings. That's a good thing. During the inspection I noted that after several 4x4 runs through the woods and a few deep puddles, the steering balls are dry, so are the brake backing plates. There's no grease/gear oil/ brake fluid whatsoever.
That's a good thing.
My issue getting it started in the cold has been fixed by removing the top of the carb and replacing the brand new and perforated accelerator pump seal with a 50 year old original (made of alcohol resistant leather).
Glad I saved that.
I also went through the ignition with new points, and condenser and i timed it ~12° advanced from tdc and plugged the line to the vacuum retard mechanism.
Now it climbs hills at 50 in 3rd gear instead of 25 in second. These days I'm driving it quite a bit more than I'm working on it. That's another good thing.
It doesn't seem to turn heads the way it did when I first brought it out, or maybe I'm just getting used to it. Yesterday I guy in a Nissan patrol troppie (I think thatscwhat it was) rubber necked me pretty good, but I rubber necked him pretty good back. Whatever he was driving is not usdm, not often seen in this country.
I lifted the front end and shook it down with a pry bar, torqued my trunion caps, checked my wheel bearings, shocks, spring and shackle bushings and everything seems copesetic. It should be, I just went through it all. So last night after a trip to the park to watch the sunset, I lifted the hood to check the shaft between the box and column. Sure enough both u joints are shedding red dust, which explains the extra steering effort, and the front one is developing play, which is for certain the clunk that I'm hearing. They don't have zerk fittings so they can be assumed to still be running on 52 year old fish renderings. That's a good thing. During the inspection I noted that after several 4x4 runs through the woods and a few deep puddles, the steering balls are dry, so are the brake backing plates. There's no grease/gear oil/ brake fluid whatsoever.
That's a good thing.
My issue getting it started in the cold has been fixed by removing the top of the carb and replacing the brand new and perforated accelerator pump seal with a 50 year old original (made of alcohol resistant leather).
Glad I saved that.
I also went through the ignition with new points, and condenser and i timed it ~12° advanced from tdc and plugged the line to the vacuum retard mechanism.
Now it climbs hills at 50 in 3rd gear instead of 25 in second. These days I'm driving it quite a bit more than I'm working on it. That's another good thing.
It doesn't seem to turn heads the way it did when I first brought it out, or maybe I'm just getting used to it. Yesterday I guy in a Nissan patrol troppie (I think thatscwhat it was) rubber necked me pretty good, but I rubber necked him pretty good back. Whatever he was driving is not usdm, not often seen in this country.
. We need more pics of this Pig 
