'71 40 Refresh - First rodeo. (1 Viewer)

[jaredmcginness]

Hey fellas,

I am Jared from Maryland, USA. Lurker of mud and long-time-lover of cruisers. Background on me:

By trade and hobby, I am a metal worker. I am a DIY guy and primarily focus on classic Porsches - Along my full time job, I run a small side business doing metal work on said Porsches.


A few years back I had an FJ cruiser, Not sure how you guys look at them, but I loved that truck and its reliability. It was always a little to new (and expensive) for me, so I sold it and bought a Trooper II... Or as I called it, the Isuzu Pooper Deux


For the past few years, 40 series trucks stay in rotation of my weekly (daily) classifieds search. I've always felt priced out of them, I know decent buys come around.

A few weeks ago, this kinda rough 40 popped on the classifieds (thanks @letterman52 ), local enough, fair price.
My fiance gave me the green light to put this thing at our house, so I sent off a deposit.


(unfortunately for her, it popped up the same day I proposed, so I feel like I stole a bit of her thunder there, haha!)

The truck:

Fortunately for me, a long time friend of mine - many of you know him as @mattressking - happened to be in town when the truck became available. This past Saturday we loaded up and grabbed the truck.

Specs as far as I can tell.

-Mostly there and mostly stock early car.
-1F, lots of new parts, ignition, cooling, etc.
-"runs and drives" It is a toyota...
-Orangey-red paint - anyone know which color?
-3 on the floor.
-Pretty rough rear tub.
-Disc conversion up front.

Now I own a Land Cruiser!

Pics:

Plans:

I made room in the garage, forfeiting other dreams for the time being. (sorry 912).
This is not a no-expense-spared job - working on a budget, when I have time.

To do:
-Both rear quarters
-Outer rockers
-floor patches
-mechanical refresh + fluids
-steering box rebuild (probably the wrong term)
-OE steels. I like narrow tires, not much of a crawler here.
-Fix the fibreglass top.
-Every piece of rubber/seal, etc
-Find a front window, or get one made.


It does run!

Nate and I spent a few beers hours on the truck last night. We got it running, almost immediately, out of a Gatorade bottle.
We determined a few things after letting it idle for 15 minutes or so.

There is a pretty big exhaust leak from the header seal, the carb needs a rebuild, no gauges work, yatta yatta, typical New Old Car stuff.

What I've bought:
-Rockers
-Rear quarters
-OE Ignition + key
-OE Filters
-OE Headlight switch
-OE windshield seals
-Remtex thick Exhaust seal.

Again, thanks Nate and Matt.


Anyways, enough of the long winded novel.

I love this thing!

Cheers

Jared

 

[letterman52]

Excellent. Glad it made it back safe and started right up for you. I look forward to seeing the progress you make.

 

[middlecalf]

Nice!

Goggles and keep mouth closed. Zoom zoom!

 

[jaredmcginness]

Thanks!

And for any interested, here are some quick snaps of my other projects:
My '69 912, and a customer's '67 on the rotisserie getting all the metal work done.

Quarters, suspension pans, R style mods, rockers, etc.

Also for good measure, this is my '71 914. I did a full metal restoration on, rear end, floors, longitudinals, rockers, etc. I also built a sweet little 1911cc motor for it.

Obviously I love old rusty stuff.


Thanks,
Jared

 

[Green Bean]

"Now I own a Land Cruiser" Correction: should read "Now a Land Cruiser Owns Me."
All kidding aside, welcome aboard. Looks like you made a really great purchase. Oh, and congratulations on the engagement too.

 

[RodrigzCrzr]

Sweet looking Porsches!
Congrats on your 40 series.

 

[mattressking]

Yew! Glad it all worked out while I was home and could be there!

 

[jaredmcginness]

Hey fellas,


Had some time today to start disassembling.
A few parts popped up in the mail, still waiting on most of the metal stuff!

First order of business is clean the rear end out. Lots of spare parts, seat frames, etc. first time really seeing the trunk area.

First real order of busines: remove the fiber top. As expected, every single bolt needed cut off

The rain tray (or whatever it’s called that’s riveted to the roof) was nothing more than a few chunks of metal and rivet heads.

Got it off:

The metal sides on the top are repairable. Nasty, but doable.

The middle/rear bar of the hard top… ehhh. I would say it’s done for. (Anyone have one laying around? Flip up lid style.)

Next was to pull this black partition out (seen in first photo)

I’m told it’s not a factory piece, but was indeed, at some point, well made. Laser cut and bent up with a brake…. Don’t know what it’s for really, but i’ll keep it around.

I suppose it’s useful if you are hauling stuff.


Looking forward to getting rid of this slathered on mud.

Gotta say, here I was a bit surprise to bend this up and find that this is *all* the reinforcement there is from the tire. Hilariously awesome.

Side note: a lot of the pieces will be very simple to fabricate. I’m really looking forward to this. There’s really not much going on with these trucks…



Poking around in the bed. Both forward leaf mounts… are just like … sitting there. So I need to find out how these mount, try to get these mounting bolts off and get them secure.

Cool seein the window down and no top.

Totally love this truck.



Cheers - until the next update.

 

[PapaDon]

Hey all, new to this forum and have a few questions on a 73 FJ I saw today. The front fenders, rear quarter panels, and the firewall have all been replaced with fiberglass body parts. All the other body parts are metal. The work looks good but, does this extensive work make it basically a replica FJ or does it still have value? Hope this is the correct forum for these questions. Thanks

 

[jaredmcginness]

Hey all, new to this forum and have a few questions on a 73 FJ I saw today. The front fenders, rear quarter panels, and the firewall have all been replaced with fiberglass body parts. All the other body parts are metal. The work looks good but, does this extensive work make it basically a replica FJ or does it still have value? Hope this is the correct forum for these questions. Thanks

Probably would be best to make your own thread in this section, to get a bunch of different responses.

To answer the question, it probably loses value. But a titled FJ with fiber parts is still a titled FJ. Not a replica.

 

[jaredmcginness]

Can’t update my thread on mobile.

I now realize the mount above is a body mount, I mistakenly called a leaf. Guess I need to order a body mount kit as well.

 

[Slapshot]

Congrats on finding your truck. Good thing you’re familiar with metal repair! Should be easy compared to Porsches.

 

[jaredmcginness]

Evening.

Holiday season is great because we also
get deliveries on Sunday.

Fedex dropped off my quarters.

No time like the present. Let’s dig in.

Brace it up…. Also, Here’s a close up view of the 3/16” of bondo on here.

After cutting off the top of the tunnel I found the circumference of the tunnel has what’s left of a rusted out flange. (The flange that welds to the quarter. So I suppose this is indeed two layers)

I need to read more build threads lol.

Placed the fender up to trace a rough cut line.
In the excitement, I forgot there’s a spot weld flange up top too. I ended up cutting right about down the middle of the flange, which is a good spot for butt welding anyways.

Bare bones, nice to get a good look in here for the first time, lots of cleaning up to do.

Now it’s a fun game we can play called “how deep do I go?”

Here is a rough test fit of this panel. Wow.

This is just held in place now with self tappers - I need to research where the rear of the quarter is supposed to sit (in reference to the tail light)

Not bad for a Sunday afternoon.



See ya.

 

[letterman52]

Familiar work. Clecos make the panel alignment a tad easier.

 

[FJCamo]

Dude, you are killing it! I don't even know you and I'm proud of you!

Love it. Keep up the great work. Excited to see you return her to glory!

 

[jaredmcginness]

Hey all.

Not a whole ton accomplished over the holiday. Put around 20 hours into a 911 project and spent some time trying to market my side business a little bit better (or at all)

I did order a bed:

The passenger quarter is not complete yet, in order to do so, I need to finish the tops of the tubs. This way I’ll have a flange to mount the 1/4 to.


For the tubs, I could lay a flat piece of steel down (voiding the stamped ribs), order a repop (150/each), or try to recreate it.

I went with option 3.

I made up a shakey and kind of corny stamp and die fixture.

Tested out:

Make 18 or 20 of em and flatten the edge in a big vice.

Lay them out:

Idea is to make 2 pieces for each tub. 24” flat, and a 16” with the rear quarter radius.

Recreating this:

6 stamped pieces each tub, flush welded.

Here’s a mock up on the tub.:

Ehhhh..... anything else to add....?

Soda blasted the carb first time trying it out, man does it make a mess. Looks like someone poured a couple lbs of Columbian outside the garage - and I'm not talking Breakfast Blend...

Sent it off with @mattressking for a rebuild. (No rush Nate )


Before:

After:

Decent clean up results for $4 with of soda.


Talk to ya.

 

[middlecalf]

Lovin’ this! Giddiup

 

[jaredmcginness]

WHOOPS....


Haven't update this in a year...
Super busy these days, never stopped working on the truck.

Where did I leave off? I'll try to keep these descriptions brief. Photos will be pretty self explanatory.


Drivers quarter on, time to deal with the rocker:

A kind member who's name I'm forgetting donated these to my build:

Much better than the half height pieces I got.
Couldn't find a photo, but I rebuilt the inner rocker structure. Easy peasy.

Fitting up. This was more diffucult than I thought. I couldn't brace the door opening, because the fit was already way off.
Truck didn't have the correct sill when I received it, so the dimensions were all over the road.

Fitting up with the top half:
LOTS of lifting and shoving the body around to find the correct door gap. Once done I welded in a brace to hold it in place @ 32.5"


I didn't know this yet, but a huge mistake was already made.
This truck should have been on leveled on jackstands before I attempted any of this. Would have saved me many hours.

Dang!
Only 5 photos at once?? More in the next post...

 

[jaredmcginness]

Cutting the bed out and working with a fresh metal for the wheel wells:
I SHOULD replace the vertical sides, but I'm really pressed for time to get this out of the garage. Maybe on a deeper resto...

Yikes: (peep the bondo wall near the back of the passenger side, haha!)

Testing the new bed:

Looking back at all these... excuse the mess! Looks nasty in the garage, but its a work space! Happy with what I got!

Removed the hump to clean the trans. Also cut out the gas tank debossment, Very rusty - I'll try to recrate this, unless someone has a cut out for me!

I was told "most cruisers look like this under the hump"

Started cleaning - this really needs a power washer.
I think I'm going to keep these floors, it is really thick steel - i will acid treat them, then etch and cover in POR 15 or something.

I spend a lot of time around rusty stuff and truly, the floors are not that bad. (gas tank area, different story)

More...

 

[jaredmcginness]

I made a new inner sill section (where the rear floor mates up to) out of 3/16 steel. Super beefy.

I tried my hand at making a correctly sized body mount (off of the old dimensions)

This was done much later than the last photo, but same area...
Recreated the floor area that goes here - including the inner rocker. (more on that later)

I got my Carb back from Nate a few months ago.


Installed and the damn thing fired up on literally the first turn of the key.
Cool to see some electronics function.

Backed her out of the garage. Now I can flip it around and begin work on the other side.

P.S. in some of these photos you can see my chopper project taking shape in the background too.


Here's me, thrilled to drive it for 35 seconds. like half of the truck still falling off! Oh wait, it is!

Man that is rough...
Night and day from this side.

....