I think it about time to start a build thread. I have been checking out the progress that many of you other guys have made. I have stolen about all the ideas I need and now it about time to give back.
This build thread will be spread over a long time, as it has taken me a long time to get to this point.
Let me start with some background. I have had a few SUV’s before this FJ40. I had a 78 K-5 Blazer, an 85 Jeep Cherokee and a 96 LX450. I still have the LX450. My wife didn’t like the Jeep Cherokee and wanted a Safari. I convinced her that the FJ40 was better so we got one.
I found it in a newspaper ad. A guy up interstate 75 spent his winters in Arizona searching for cruisers and shipping them back to Ohio. Mine is a’75 with an earlier hatch and double bottom doors in the rear. It has the original 2F with a factory PTO winch. It ran great and had very little rust for a 25 year old rig. My thought was just to get a good one and drive it. It also, as I found out, had very little paint left on the underside after the years of sun and sand in the desert.
In the summer of 2004 I found a car lift for my garage. This created an additional parking space. The LX450 being newer, and the two 84 300ZX (One my wife’s DD and the other my race car) had spots and the poor cruiser had been odd man out. In the process of packing the cruiser in the garage I discovered that sitting out in Ohio winters didn’t agree with the unpainted underside…it had been completely eaten up with rust. I stepped in the back and went through the floor. Time to tear it down and restore it.
I am not new to restoring cars as I had rebuilt my race Z , have a 63 TR-3 under my belt and have a 67 Austin Healey in the body shop.
The tear down was completed in short order. The frame was sent out to be sand blasted and primed. The tub stored until I could get it in a hot tank to be stripped. The rest of the parts were photographed, bagged and stored away in the garage and wood shop.
That was late 2005 and early 2006. At that point the frame rested up against the wall in the front of the garage and was forgotten.
Fast Forward to 2009. I had blown the engine in my race car and while getting frustrated with the lack of progress on getting it rebuilt (it will be ready for this season) and while waiting for the Obama stimulus bill to kick in and get me back to work, I pulled the Cruiser frame into the shop and started to work.
As I said in the beginning this will be an extended project, so if you don’t hear from me for awhile, please, someone ask where I am, sort of kick me in the butt so I keep going.
I know how much you all like pictures so here are a few. I will have a few more as I repair the frame.
I can’t believe that I only have one digital picture of the cruiser before I tore it down.
Here are a few of the pictures during the tear down.
Pictures:
This build thread will be spread over a long time, as it has taken me a long time to get to this point.
Let me start with some background. I have had a few SUV’s before this FJ40. I had a 78 K-5 Blazer, an 85 Jeep Cherokee and a 96 LX450. I still have the LX450. My wife didn’t like the Jeep Cherokee and wanted a Safari. I convinced her that the FJ40 was better so we got one.
I found it in a newspaper ad. A guy up interstate 75 spent his winters in Arizona searching for cruisers and shipping them back to Ohio. Mine is a’75 with an earlier hatch and double bottom doors in the rear. It has the original 2F with a factory PTO winch. It ran great and had very little rust for a 25 year old rig. My thought was just to get a good one and drive it. It also, as I found out, had very little paint left on the underside after the years of sun and sand in the desert.
In the summer of 2004 I found a car lift for my garage. This created an additional parking space. The LX450 being newer, and the two 84 300ZX (One my wife’s DD and the other my race car) had spots and the poor cruiser had been odd man out. In the process of packing the cruiser in the garage I discovered that sitting out in Ohio winters didn’t agree with the unpainted underside…it had been completely eaten up with rust. I stepped in the back and went through the floor. Time to tear it down and restore it.
I am not new to restoring cars as I had rebuilt my race Z , have a 63 TR-3 under my belt and have a 67 Austin Healey in the body shop.
The tear down was completed in short order. The frame was sent out to be sand blasted and primed. The tub stored until I could get it in a hot tank to be stripped. The rest of the parts were photographed, bagged and stored away in the garage and wood shop.
That was late 2005 and early 2006. At that point the frame rested up against the wall in the front of the garage and was forgotten.
Fast Forward to 2009. I had blown the engine in my race car and while getting frustrated with the lack of progress on getting it rebuilt (it will be ready for this season) and while waiting for the Obama stimulus bill to kick in and get me back to work, I pulled the Cruiser frame into the shop and started to work.
As I said in the beginning this will be an extended project, so if you don’t hear from me for awhile, please, someone ask where I am, sort of kick me in the butt so I keep going.
I know how much you all like pictures so here are a few. I will have a few more as I repair the frame.
I can’t believe that I only have one digital picture of the cruiser before I tore it down.
Here are a few of the pictures during the tear down.
Pictures:
Crap, those Ohio winters were tough on the old girl!
