acjb
GOLD Star
1979 FJ40 Olive Brown - In 1998 I bought as a Flintstone mobile with floor pans just gone. My avatar is it when i brought it home. Way before digital photography. Oddly enough that was the only rust to mention on the thing. Tore it down to the tub and engine in the frame and piddled off and one for several years. 2002 Started a business and that ended the FJ40 resto. Got my feet under me by 2004 or 5 and then tore it all the way down to the bare frame. Rebuilt transmission, rear end, brakes, knuckles and clutch. Got new Toyota front fenders and Got Jim C to rebuild my carb. Then it happened, I got distracted. She sat as you see it below until this weekend (tub was on a wooden frame right side up though). I would be in and out of the forum over the years but never got juiced enough to get back in. Had young kids and we were doing the family thing on the weekends. My dad often said just sell it, you will never finish it as it looks. I could not bring myself to part it out. I knew one day the bug would hit me hard enough. He passed in 2019 (F@#$ Cancer!) and I have so many times wished he could have seen it come to fruition. He thought it was a really cool vehicle. The excuse has always been the bottom of the body would need frame to flip it over on and I never made time to build it. Bottom of the tub was the next step that had to be addressed. Heck, I even bought a rotisserie and restored it thinking I would use it to work on the bottom. Never could figure out how I wanted to mount it on the dang thing. Well this past week something happened and I just got started. Bought some steel, made my make shift rotisserie and yesterday started cleaning up the bottom, welding up some of the rusty floor pan left overs. The PO did me the favor of spraying undercoating on everything. There were small spots of surface rust on the edges inside the fenders starting so today I spend an hour scraping this crap out of the driver rear fender underneath. Some spots it just flakes off, others it is stuck pretty good. And of course there is grease everywhere with dirt baked in. At any rate, here we go. I hope it sticks this time and the 3rd round is a charm. I labeled most of the things that came off, but I am sure I will be lost as hell in short time. I do have the FSM for the engine and chassis but I think the engine one is for up to 78 only. Distributor information is all points type. I have made some contacts over the last couple of days that have 79 models and they have been awesome resources as expected here. 25 year later, below is what we have to work with. I have parts strewn all over my garage. I have really enjoyed this forum over the years (joined in 5/2007) and I have always gotten the info I needed by searching or asking. I look forward to reconnecting with the group. Have a great week! I hope to keep this thread updated in hopes others may benefit in some way. I certainly have from the many other build threads. 
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