Hi all, a few of you may know me from the 60-series forum, I've been spending most my time there the last couple years as I did an LS swap on my first FJ60 and then went on to some other projects. Four months ago I turned my restoration and build hobby into a career and opened my own shop. I'm not exclusive to Cruisers or Toyotas but certainly am an enthusiast and enjoy working on them. Which leads me to this thread... I have a local customer who has had a 1967 FJ40 for a while now that he picked up from a friend. It's a very solid truck but not running and he's been wanting to do something with it. He found me at a local car show, shortly thereafter a plan was hatched to restore the truck but update it with modern tech.
Here's the starting point on the day of arrival at the shop....
The story/background of the truck isn't completely known, but it seems to have been in Colorado all it's life. I really like the original dealership badge on the rear, I think that's going to stay no matter what we do with exterior and paint.
There's very little rust overall, just a bit under the rear doors and on the passenger side rocker. The odometer reads 12k miles, which I'm guessing must be 112k. The engine was reportedly rebuilt and does show some fresh gaskets and seals, however the freeze plugs are out and when I peeked in the cylinders with a borescope the pistons didn't look new. The truck has been sitting outside for quite some time now and had the hood up at times so there's a fair bit of dust and dirt underhood, further obscuring any real evidence of what was done previously.
Here's the starting point on the day of arrival at the shop....
The story/background of the truck isn't completely known, but it seems to have been in Colorado all it's life. I really like the original dealership badge on the rear, I think that's going to stay no matter what we do with exterior and paint.
There's very little rust overall, just a bit under the rear doors and on the passenger side rocker. The odometer reads 12k miles, which I'm guessing must be 112k. The engine was reportedly rebuilt and does show some fresh gaskets and seals, however the freeze plugs are out and when I peeked in the cylinders with a borescope the pistons didn't look new. The truck has been sitting outside for quite some time now and had the hood up at times so there's a fair bit of dust and dirt underhood, further obscuring any real evidence of what was done previously.