Builds '74 FJ40 Build: My 1st Cruiser

[watrob]

It should work quite well?

 

[gpfj40]

Its been a few weeks since my last update. I painted the bumpers and fuel tank with Endura 2 part paint. The 60 series power steering box is now installed after an extended wrestling match with the pitman arm. It needed to be changed because the arm that came on the used pump had been drilled out for a bolt rather than a TRE taper. It took 2 relief cuts with a zip disk, heat and a hydraulic puller to free the old pitman arm. I was then able to mock up the drag link and scope out how I will mount the pan hard bar. I should work out ok.

Next up was pulling the T case and Trans to change all of the seals, they leak a fair bit including the rear engine seal. I figured now is the time to do this since the body is off the chassis. I've ordered seal kits from SOR, so I will be waiting patiently for them to arrive, in the mean time I washed all the grease and oil off them off with varsol.

Next up was body work, I pushed the chassis outside and flipped the body upside down on the wheel cart I made for the purpose of working on the body. So far I have just cut out the DS rocker panel and it appears like I have solid sheet metal to weld the new panels on the the jams with out replacing the whole rocker/jam panel inside and out.

 

[watrob]

If I may ask, I noticed bolt & nut on the top hat of the front coils, assume you have locked down the coil to the hat, do you have a photo of this? as I am thinking of doing the same with my coils?

Is this because you made your own hats and not used the original hats?

 

[gpfj40]

Those 2 nuts hold the OEM 80 series cone shaped bump stops in place in the buckets. The coils are not actually attached at the top. They are not attached at the bottom coil mounts yet either but I do intend on strapping the coils to the bottom mounts. I don't see the need to fasten the coils to upper mounts. The axle will not articulate enough in its stock form to allow the coil to drop below the bump stop and fall out. Of course I could be all wrong in my theory because I really don't have much experience in this sort of thing, just learning as I go.

 

[gpfj40]

Here is a body work update. This is as far as I got yesterday when I ran out of Almig gas for my welder which was probably a good thing because the garage needed to be cleaned! This is sure a steep learning curve for me, I have never really done any sheet metal welding before this. I guess watching all those body repairs on power block muscle car is coming in handy now. I replaced most of the inside and outside rocker/sills, leaving only 1 to 2" of the existing sheet metal as is. Next step will be to flip the tub and finish patching the DS firewall and A pillar post connection to the floor. 2 or 3" of the tranny hump have rusted away on the DS so that will need some patching and hammer/dolly work before place the captured nuts in for floor to hold it down.

 

[gpfj40]

Another body work up date. Finished welding in the new floor and PS rocker panel and flipped the tub. There was a section of floor right over the DS body mount channel that needed to be replaced, welding the replacement to the firewall panel was tough because it was thinned out by 40 years of rust while being trapped under the previous owners pop riveted patch panel.

Next up was repairing the tranny hump. I was nervous about whether or not I could do a half a$$ed job of the repair because of all the curves in it. I trimmed all of the rust thinned sheet metal off and then bolted it in place.

I mocked up some cardboard in the shape I thought it should go and cut out the cardboard pieces to simulate the sheet metal pieces I needed to cut out.

Once those two shaped strips were cut out I started tacking them in place and much to my amazement it went together fairly well. Once I welded and ground the seams of my patches I drilled and welded captive nuts on the new floor to hold the tranny hump in place. At this point I was really quite surprised how it turned out, I was expecting it to look much worse!

Seat mock up: Front seats are out of a 20+ year old 4 runner and the rear is a fold n tumble from you don't what to know what.

I haven't really decided how to mount the seats, but I am happy with how they are going to fit as pictured. They are sitting a couple inches further back than the stock buckets to provide the leg room stock 40's lack. 1x2 square tubing and 1.5" angle will likely do the trick for the DS bracket. The PS seat mount will include one of those forward leaning brackets out of a jeep to make getting in and out of the back seat easier for my daughter. After the seats are complete it may be time to fit it back on the chassis.

 

[watrob]

I don't see a panhard on the front axle yet? I assume its going on the front of the axles? have you check whether it will clear the steering linkage?

 

[gpfj40]

I haven't mounted the pan hard bar yet. It took a couple tries to get the correct steering parts and I didn't want to mount it with out checking clearances. I have mocked it up and it seams like it should work. It will be one of the first things I do after rolling the chassis back in the garage and setting the body on it.

 

[gpfj40]

I just spent a day and a half working on my 40. First up was replacing may of the seals and gaskets on the trans and tcase including a new rear engine seal. Hopefully the tcase won't pump oil in to the trans and leak down out of the bell housing cover, nor from the rear engine seal. Both leaked bad enough that there was a 12" puddle on the floor the next morning after driving it. Once the seals and gaskets were done I remounted them in the chassis while the body was off.

Next up was mounting the newly repaired tub on the frame and drilling out most of the mounting holes in the new tub and floor. I also made some rubber body mounts, I couldn't bring myself to spend $200 (with shipping and exchange) on a new set. Once I had the body mocked and clamped on to the frame (I forgot to pick up my bolt order at Fastenal) I took 1 leaf out of the rear spring pack so it would sit close (1 deg) to level so I could finalize the rear pinion angle and final weld the rear spring perches.

Next up was the long pondered front pan hard bar for which I'm using a heim style rod ends and a length of DOM tubing with weld in threaded bungs. I started with the axle passenger side mount, which was built from scratch because these axles came out of a RHD 80. I built this bracket out of a variety pieces of 3/16 and 1/4" flat bar and angle and included a captive nut. At this point I just tacked it into place in case things don't work out as planned. I started making up the frame side bracket out of a piece of 2.5" .250 wall square tubing; this is as far as I got this weekend. I think the pan hard bar will work out, although the frame bracket will be a little lower than I had hoped in order to make it the same angle as the drag link.

 

[White Stripe]

What is this truck going to be used for? You have a lot of rear overhang for a crawler.

 

[watrob]

I like how you have your engine supported while your building? good thinking?

 

[gpfj40]

I won't be doing much crawling, the rear overhang is a trade off to maintain what I feel is a properly proportioned cruiser while going for a longer wheel base. I don't think it's too bad though, I'll try and post a side pic now that it is back together and sitting at my targeted ride height. One of the underlying objectives of this project has been to maintain a period correct body while improving the ride of the old leaf sprung 40. If I was building a crawler there is a lot of things I'd do different.

The engine support aka 2" square tubing worked good, it allowed me to push the chassis around, otherwise a jack stand or some blocks would have worked.

 

[gpfj40]

This weekend included moving the fuel filler to the rear of the tub and installing the drop end gate. The new tub's pillars were a little further apart than my old tub, leaving a 1/16 - 1/8" gap, so I bent and added a little 20 gauge angle to the pillar which I will be mounting some bulb weather stripping to keep the elements out. The hinge bolt holes now have captive nuts on the backside of the rear sill, I left the latch bolt holes for regular nuts so there is some room adjustment.

Next up was to finish tacking the pan hard bar and bracket. The clearance between the bar and the diff is about 3/16". The bar/diff clearance will gain another 1/8" when I modify the misalignment spacers. I think it should work, despite not getting the drag link and pan hard bar at the exact same angle. Any thoughts?

I also got started on installing the front seats. First up was to mount the Jeep PS flip forward bracket on the the PS seat then build the brackets that will mount to the floor. I've learned the hard way a couple times that you need to you need to cover up glass, carpet, cloth etc when you are welding anywhere near these things. I purchased a roll of 3M spark defector and it worked great, the sticky back side is real handy putting it in place.

 

[watrob]

I see your clearance for the steering arms worked out ok, I had the same thoughts on my build with 80 series suspension on 40 series axles, played up on my mine how close it was going to be, in the end there was like yours plenty of room.

Your build is coming along nicely, what's your thoughts on the time frame to be finished?

 

[gpfj40]

If I had to do it again I would have made the lower pan hard/track bar mount a little higher to make it the same angle as the drag link and perhaps shorten the upper bracket therefor reducing the leverage of said mount. it should be ok as is as I do not intend on beating the hell out of it on the rocks. Hoping to have it together for a test drive sans top by early July. I want to make sure everything goes together and works as I expect it to before I paint it. I don't want to be cutting, drilling or welding a fresh paint job. There are lots of little things to button up yet before then. I'm considering purchasing a heat/ac unit as the stock heater is not adequate for Canadian winter and it makes sense to install it before paint if I go with the smaller universal Gen II compact unit and custom fit it rather than the standard cruiser under dash unit.

 

[watrob]

The geometry on the frontend looks good? what travel are you allowing in your front shocks - "10" ? it looks link you have about "8"of travel to the bump stop as it sits at the moment?

 

[gpfj40]

The front end has 5-6" up travel until the bump stop, I think the shocks are 9" travel, but I can't remember. The are from the OME lift kit I bought last fall before I realized how in depth this build would get.

Weekend Update:
Finished up welding and painting the front pan hard bar mounts. Finished and painted the front seat brackets. The PS jeep seat mount doesn't tilt the PS seat as far forward as I was hoping but it is better than with out it, forgot to take a pic if the seats in and the PS seat motion. I took 2 stock roll bar hoops and made a very basic cage so I will have a place to mount the rear bench seat shoulder belts. I used 1.5" schedule 40 pipe because the OD is 1.9" which is the same as the stock hoops. I realize this is not safe for hard core wheeling, but at this point I want to see how this project turns out before I jump in to a full cage. I will plate the underside and connect it to the frame which will make it better than the stock roll bar which will be good enough for now.

I stripped down the wind shield frame and pulled the glass to see what I had, there is not much left. The defrost vents are rusted right through. Not a big deal if you live in Grande Prairie Texas, but I live in Grande Prairie Alberta and we need defrost 12 months of the year. Not sure what to do about it.

In other news I think the colour is decided:

 

[gpfj40]

Update:
Some progress was made over the past week. My windshield frame repair has been taken care of by fellow mudder 45Kevin, he sent me a frame that was still in really good condition. Thanks 45Kevin.

I started putting the engine compartment back together, including making some new belt tensioners for the PS pump and Alt. The alt was mounted on the driver side stock, but the PS pump with bracket I purchased went on the driver side so i bought a 2f pass side alt mount but had to make a tensioner. it took 3 tries to get the right length belts. The track bar and drag link are installed for good now. The rad mount frame needed to have some support added to where I cut it out to fit the PS box, although not in this pic.

I cut out 4 backing plates for the roll cage mounts, which will be extend down to the frame at a later date.

I have lift the body back of the frame. Next I plan to finish all things chassis:
-80 parking brake cable
-fuel lines
-install fuel tank
-rear brake lines
-rear shocks
-rear drive shaft

 

[gpfj40]

The chassis is complete now except 2 things: upper rear shock mounts and power steering hoses (that's why the PS pump is off again). The parking brake, exhaust (not 100% happy with it but it will do for now), exhaust heat shield for DS rear shock, brake lines, rear wiring harness, bump stops, rear drive shaft and fuel lines are installed. The next step will be to finish the underside of the tub so I pushed the chassis outside to make room.

At this point I took a more detailed look at the options for painting and/or coating the underside of the tub based on what is available locally and what other mutters have reported. I decided to use raptor liner tinted to freeborn red on underside and firewall. I had previously purchased a gallon of Al's HHR which I will put under the raptor liner on the firewall. The first step in this process was to remove everything off the firewall and start striping the pealing paint and rust spots. As I was working away at this I remembered I had not finish my rear fold and tumble seat brackets and if I was going use captive nuts as planned on these brackets they needed to be installed prior to raptor liner. Before I flip the tub I will finish and install these brackets.

The next steps include:
-finishing and mounting the rear seat brackets
-building a home made paint booth
-flipping the tub
-prepping the underside and firewall
-prime with Endura EP-2C, brush Al's HNR on the firewall, spray raptor liner
-flip the tub right side up and mount it back on chassis for good
-mount 80 series hand parking brake
-reassemble the front body panels, rad, steering shaft, air cleaner, wires/hoses/etc
-take it for a drive (hopefully this happens in July)

 

[gpfj40]

The rear seat brackets are competed and the fold n tumble is functional. All that is left is to do to compete the brackets is weld in the captive nuts once the tub is flipped. This took far longer than I had expected, I would estimate I spent at least 6 hours on these. There was some concern about how securely it is mounted because the seat belt receivers are attached to the seat, managed to get the nuts attached to the support channel in the front and scabbed some 16 ga under the rear bolts to reinforce them to the hat channel running across the underside of the tub. The reason I used 4" wide flat bar was to distribute the load over the sheet metal more evenly and when bolted in they would provide more support to floor sheet metal.

I had originally thought about flush mounting these by recessing the pin bolts but decided it would be too much work and it would be harder to seal up the underside of tub from the elements. I'm happy with how this turned out.