Builds 76 FJ40 in South Texas (3 Viewers)

[South Texas 97]

Cleaned up the engine side of the firewall for the clutch master mount, derusted, and put flat primer to hold it over until a frame off comes around.

Bench bled the master, but while putting the clutch hose on the slave, cracked the brass inlet pipe,very annoying, ended up ordering a new OEM slave cylinder.

while waiting on that show up, moved back to the rear wiring harness, now that all the bits are here. Got some good advice from ToyotaMatt and read up everything Coolerman has posted. Added some extra ground wires, and used 16ga for everything.

old one on the top with what looks like 18ga, much of it cracked. Replaced all the way to the little plates inside the individual sockets, and added a ground to the case. Ground away the paint before rivetIng the ground, and then some paint over it.
tested as I went along, and everything so far is good. Ran the ground all the way up to an existing ground point for the fuel gauge, and added a pigtail with additional 12v, and all wires for a trailer plug for an led light bar at some point.

Old and new side by side. Tested the reverse switch it is good, and no shorts to ground in either position.

 

[South Texas 97]

All back together and working as designed

hindsight being what it is, the reverse light wire should be a bit longer before the harness as it goes on the other side of the frame rail. Added some extra Tessa tape to protect the reverse light wire, and routed the harness over top of the light housing, so as not to squash the harness between the frame and housing.

reinstalled the rock guard and the license plate holder, and everything works as designed.
On to something else while waiting on parts.

 

[South Texas 97]

cleaned up the rock protectors, put two coats of POR15, and a top coat of chassis black satin, they look new.
same with bumperettes, not perfect, but should do for a while.

Next is the front axle, the WARN freewheel hubs looked and felt a little rough, and there is a bunch of greasy dirt behind the brake backing plate. So removed the hubs, and disk brake caliper and disk. Will need to order new hub nuts and stake washer, as PO used a hammer and chisel to add and remove, it looked like several times. They used the same method on the diff fill bolts, and in the case of the rear, drilled and tapped a smaller bolt, go figure.

the WARN hubs came apart pretty easily, once I got the right size circlip pliers. Not terrible shape, but it looked like they had never been refreshed. Took lots of pictures, which turned out to be very useful, as the location of the roll pin to the actuator was very important.

waiting on spindle nuts, stake washer and gaskets to put it all back together.

 

[South Texas 97]

The WARN hub came out ok

The hub axle stub and backing plate came off fair easily, after I had cleaned up the knuckle that had about an inch of caked on mud, as hard as a rock. Taped up the axle stub, the good news was the wheel bearing grease was “new” and the bearings feel good, so taped everything up to protect it, and got to cleaning.

cleaned and painted the backing plate, which had some surface rust, but not much. As always with any paint, prep is the key.

two coats of POR15, followed by a top coat.

 

[sggoat]

The repair is not perfect, but it saves the original lens.
View attachment 3200393
the gaskets were unresponsive- new ones on order.
View attachment 3200394
Next was the bulb housings and the housing protector, View attachment 3200399
the reflectors are riveted in as part of the bulb housing, so just taped them off and blasted the housing.
the rubber grommets were cleaned and given a bath of 303 which rejuvenates them nicely.
Does anyone know the wire gauge for the rear, it looks like perhaps 16 gauge?. I plan on using the proper wiring colors, so will be ordering some Once I know the right sizes.

You may not believe it, but the oem Lenses will NOT yellow like the junk that is now marketed--Agree with your decision to repair-they will stay clear for many more yrs(I have original front sigs on my 77--they look to be as clear as the day they were installed at the factory) They had some cracks at the screw holes--I bought new lenses-they lasted 1 year before they looked like I had painted them JD yellow--pulled out the old saved orig lenses and did what you did-here's the look now--

 

[South Texas 97]

Nice, been a while since my last post so here is an update
pulled the front axel and suspension, getting the rear bolt for the front spring out was a challenge. Ended up using a couple of bolts and nuts to press them out. The PO had at some point replaced the bushes with yellow poly bushes.

then Two bolts to pull them out

after loosening the nuts on the u bolts under the axel, the front axel came out fairly easily.

Perhaps I am doing this backwards, but I had cleaned out the burfs, they has some sloppy green grease, and repacked and replaced with the grey moly lithium grease, messy, but by sliding out the axels was able to rotate and repack correctly. One tin of grease per side.

next was to strip the springs off the axel and clean and derust everything. Slow and tedious but not difficult. Having done this on the 97 series 80, I picked up an electric finger sander from HF. And a bunch of belts. It came out ok.

Acid etched with phosphoric acid and then two coats of POR15 and a top coat of chassis black.

 

[South Texas 97]

While waiting for paint to dry, decided to tackle the blower, it was pretty ugly.

in the process of pulling this off, one bolt was completely rusted and broke off.
not sure how the glove box got so rusty, perhaps some spilled liquid of some sort. Fortunately was able to drill out the broken bolt. And of course ran a tap through all the holes.

I will leave this for later.
the rebuild was straightforward. YT has a couple of good videos on the topic. Toyopat restoration and the 40 channel.
the resistor was damaged, the wiring loose, but the high low function was working, so used some epoxy to glue the wires in position.
Zinc plated all the nuts and bolts, and painted the housing, and it came out very nice.

 

[middlecalf]

Nice work! That rusted glovebox is probably from something leaking from above.

 

[South Texas 97]

Also while waiting on paint to dry fixed up my ‘Toyota Landcruiser’ badges on the front sides, the little plastic pins had mostly broken off and the PO used silicone to glue them back in place.

yes, I know I can buy these new, but why not rebuild when I can. Took maybe an hour.
cling wrap plastic on the body panel, bolts through the holes, mix up some epoxy, dollop on each bolt and place the logo on top. Tape it down and turn the panel over so gravity puts the epoxy around the bolt head.
while this was setting up zinc plated most of the hardware for the fron axel.

and of course more cleaning. I discovered even the u bolts have the TEQ logo stamped on them.

zinc plated shackle bolts.

Apparently POR15 does not like to flex much, so just used some chassis paint on the springs.

 

[South Texas 97]

Almost ready to put the front axel back together. Picked up some new bushings from SOR.

I did manage to zinc plate the u bolts but my setup is really too small for this, so after the zinc plate I painted them with an Eastwood silver anti rust.

Putting the axel back was pretty straightforward, just took my time and did not tighten anything down until it was all installed.

to add some bling, painted the caliper housings and brake lines silver, and replaced the three flex lines, one on each side and one to the frame, and painted the brake line protector cover on the chassis , and of course zinc plated all the bolts. These are original bolts , they came out very nice.

next, I moved to the rear axel. Basically rinse and repeat of the front axel.
someone had been in here before, several new brake cylinder, and the drums and pads are in excellent shape. there are no leaks or seeping on the ends of the axel, so at this point, I will not replace the seals.

what was a pain was to get the drums off the hubs. they turned freely, and you can see evidence of antiseize on the hub. I eventually wiggled them off, but it took a while. To make it easier next time, I drilled and tapped m8x1.25 holes on the drum on opposite sides along the wheel stud circle diameter so I can use a couple of bolts to get them off easily next time.
more sanding and cleaning, with some evidence this rig was actually driven over some rocks at some point.

 

[South Texas 97]

after a good cleaning a soak with phosphoric acid prepped the surface for POR15.

Two coats of POR15 and then a top coat after that as POR does not like UV rays.
now time to put it all back together.

 

[pb4ugo]

Nice work! That rusted glovebox is probably from something leaking from above.

^^^^^this^^^^^

Check the body seam above the glove box. The seam sealer is probably suspect.

 

[South Texas 97]

Thanks for that, indeed the seam sealer is cracked in several places. It’s on the list for replacement
almost ready to put the rear axel back. Nuts and bolts came up nicely.

these are the original u bolt nuts and spring washers

I could not get one of the drums on, turns out dropping the axel from the stand onto the ground made the backing plate out of round, so had to pull the brake shoes off to bend the backing plate back Into round.
this is the two bolt holes I added to the drums to make removal easier. Worked like a charm.

I did not paint the mating surfaces on the drum, as the experts have told me on previous projects there should not be paint where machined surfaces come together. Put some antisieze to prevent rusting.

 

[South Texas 97]

With the axles back under the truck time to move on to something else.
As I wanted to clean up the transfer case and transmission the trans cover had to come out, and to get that out, the gas tank had co come out. I do not like working with gas, but eventually got it drained and out. it had been recovered in primer, with just a few rust spots. The transmission tunnel was a bit worse for wear, the PO had cut a slot for a PTO lever, so I thought I would clean up and patch the cover. I even managed to remove the asphalt sound deadening on the top, and I am glad I did, there was rust underneath.

but it cleaned up pretty well.

some derusting gel overnight, and then a wipe down with some phosphoric acid to etch the surface and two coats of POR15 both sides followed by a not quite right beige color, but ok for now as protection.

and while I had the gas tank out it got a similar treatment. There is some surface rust in the tank, but not bad. Cleaned up the outside with a brass wire wheel, phosphoric acid wash and two coats of POR15 and a satin black top coat.

 

[South Texas 97]

and of course started to clean up the floor where the tank sits. It did not have any sort of rubber pads. Which was a bit odd, so made some up.
took quite a while to get the floor clean. And of course, while I am in there, dug out as much of the seam sealer around the area as I could and applied some derustIng gel. I am sure I have missed some spots, but oh well.

the floor Pax side

Washing off the gel means it flash rusts ever so slightly but the phosphoric acid wash takes care of that, and then more POR15.

should I put seam sealer before the POR15 or just let that soak into the panel joints?

 

[South Texas 97]

Oh, and while I was building up my courage to drain the gas, did the side steps. Removed and cleaned all the bolts, and zinc plated them, straightened out the steps and brace underneath

this view from underneath looks good.

All the bolts are original. They came up nice.
Finally got to the transmission and transfer case.

as I have a PTO, it was not easy to get the transmission at the right angle to slide straight back. I removed the 4WD levers, and ended up removing the PTO 6 bolts but two of them very hard to get to.
used a couple of jack stands in the truck with a small chain hoist. i had a jack underneath as well.

dropped it down onto a wheel dolly, and then had to jack up the frame by about 6 inches, and it rolled right out.

cleaning for the next few days…

 

[OlYellr]

My thought is the POR will harden over any seam sealer like a shell. If it were mine, I would SS after.

Looking at the bolt thread in one of your pictures above, I found a .40 Cal gun cleaner brush on a drill is great way to clean the threads if you are not doing thread chaser. I bought a cheap hand gun cleaning kit at Wally-World and use that to clean them.

Love the work!

 

[South Texas 97]

Agree, will put POR15 first, and do my best to jam it into the seams. At that point, not even sure if seam sealer is needed, at least on some of the more hidden seams.

On through bolts I use a tap, and on blind threads, yes, I use a suitable sized brass or steel bottle brush in the drill, it works a treat. I then put a bit of 3in1 oil or fluid film to keep things good. It really does make a difference when a bolt slides neatly and easily into a nut, with no crunchiness.

 

[South Texas 97]

Not quite finished cleaning up the tranmi and transfer case, but making progress

ran into a slight issue with the fill bolt, the PO had damaged the nut, and had welded a big nut on the top of it, easy he says, looks like lots of solid weld, should come right off. NOT

the bolt was super soft, and there was almost zero weld penetration. So I cleaned up the bolt, and found a large nut that fit over it.
A welder I ain’t, and there is no grinder or paint, but it worked!

Very pleased with the result. The serial number is 6D1242, which is 1976, April, serial number 1242. Which seems to match the rest of the truck which is April 76.

When I pulled the parking brake, which seems to work ok, there was no leaking from the seal or the splines, but the shaft has a bit of a groove so ordered a speedy sleeve

 

[South Texas 97]

Finished cleaning up the transmission and transfer case, replaced most of the gaskets, everything looked pretty clean inside.

And buttoned everything back up.

The install was something else. Read up on a couple of threads who recommended several different method, up to and including remove the engine and bolt up and reinstall, I am sure this is a good way to do it, but beyond my skill set and tools at the moment.
I picked up three M12x1.25 x 75mm bolts, cut the heads off and cut a slot for a screwdriver, and fitted them to the bell housing.
slid the trans on a wheel dolly under the truck , had to jack up one side, but it fit just fine. Used two jack stands and a bar in the footwells, and with a small chain hoist lifted the transmission up to fit a motorcycle scissor jack and some wood blocks.
got the bottom two bolts aligned, and proceeded to pop off the clutch fork retaining springs, could not find one of them, fortunately my local Toyota dealer had them near by and picked two new ones up, just in case.

With that fixed, tried again, this time jacking up the motorcycle lift slowly, and then tilted the transmission a bit. With the clutch throwout aligned, raised the transmission so all the four bolt ears were the same distance and started gently rocking the transmission. It was stuck.
one recommendation was to put the transmission in gear and turn the output shaft. However my transfer case was in neutral, so I took the rear cover off the back of the transfer case, wriggled the shaft a bit, and it popped right in.
I quickly bolted the one bolt, and removed the three guide pins and torqued everything down.
Installed a Speedy sleeve on the handbrake drum, it was not leaking, but why not.