Where to begin... For several years I have been wanting to get back into an SUV/truck and earlier on this year I almost pulled the trigger on a Jeep from Starwood Motors in Dallas (they make really cool custom Jeeps). I held off because I have always liked the FJs and a friend of mine had one sitting under his carport. So I asked if he wanted to sell it because in the past he wanted a high price for it but this time he came down to a more reasonable "high" price. I knew that Cool Cruisers owned this vehicle so I contacted them for a little history. This is what they wrote:
[FONT=Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]We purchased this beige FJ40 from Nichols Motors Co in Dallas, TX 8/1/91. It was a TX Title. It had 94,669 miles on it.
We sold it the next month 9/21/91 with 94,735. We added new tires and made minor repairs, but no restoration. The truck was naturally clean.[/FONT]
The individual who purchased it from CCOT had some mods done to the vehicle: Installing a V8 automatic transmission, stereo, security and probably a lot more other stuff. My friend purchased it from him as a secondary vehicle, drove it for a couple of years and one day on the way back from Austin, it started smoking and lost power. He parked it under his carport for 10 YEARS!!!! until I purchased it.
The first thing I did was to have a friend with a wench pull it on a trailer and we took it to a car wash to hose it down.... the amount of dirt, dust, mud daubers, rats nests that came off that vehicle was incredible; it just kept coming off. After hosing off about 7 years of grime, we dropped it off at the mechanic.
Before I go any further, yes I am not doing the work myself. I don't have the time nor the expertise to apply to this project. I know myself if I get on something like this I won't stop until its completely done and being self employed that means I wouldn't work on my job. That is why someone else is taking care of the refurb.
The vehicle itself is in phenomenal condition. The body has very little to almost no rust because it was under the carport. The front end frame, steering linkage is all rusted due to being exposed to rain splashing over all those years. What I am amazed at is that the hard top and all the doors were left under a tree for 10 years and are not destroyed! One door has heavy pitting while the other 3 only have light pitting and a colony of ants made their home in one of the doors. We took the doors to Artisan Automotive in San Antonio, Billy is one of the best in the business. He patched up the doors and added a new bottom portion to the rotted door.
From what the mechanic could gather that went wrong with the vehicle was a cracked head due to a clogged radiator. What was going to be a simple project has morphed into a complete frame off restoration. This vehicle is going to be more GM than Toyota and is going to be my daily driver and I am not into preserving the integrity of the original FJ (I am not knocking it but I am just not into that). I like the retro look of the vehicle but with more modern mechanics.
I hope you enjoy this thread on my build. I will be adding more pictures until its done.
[FONT=Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]We purchased this beige FJ40 from Nichols Motors Co in Dallas, TX 8/1/91. It was a TX Title. It had 94,669 miles on it.
We sold it the next month 9/21/91 with 94,735. We added new tires and made minor repairs, but no restoration. The truck was naturally clean.[/FONT]
The individual who purchased it from CCOT had some mods done to the vehicle: Installing a V8 automatic transmission, stereo, security and probably a lot more other stuff. My friend purchased it from him as a secondary vehicle, drove it for a couple of years and one day on the way back from Austin, it started smoking and lost power. He parked it under his carport for 10 YEARS!!!! until I purchased it.
The first thing I did was to have a friend with a wench pull it on a trailer and we took it to a car wash to hose it down.... the amount of dirt, dust, mud daubers, rats nests that came off that vehicle was incredible; it just kept coming off. After hosing off about 7 years of grime, we dropped it off at the mechanic.
Before I go any further, yes I am not doing the work myself. I don't have the time nor the expertise to apply to this project. I know myself if I get on something like this I won't stop until its completely done and being self employed that means I wouldn't work on my job. That is why someone else is taking care of the refurb.
The vehicle itself is in phenomenal condition. The body has very little to almost no rust because it was under the carport. The front end frame, steering linkage is all rusted due to being exposed to rain splashing over all those years. What I am amazed at is that the hard top and all the doors were left under a tree for 10 years and are not destroyed! One door has heavy pitting while the other 3 only have light pitting and a colony of ants made their home in one of the doors. We took the doors to Artisan Automotive in San Antonio, Billy is one of the best in the business. He patched up the doors and added a new bottom portion to the rotted door.
From what the mechanic could gather that went wrong with the vehicle was a cracked head due to a clogged radiator. What was going to be a simple project has morphed into a complete frame off restoration. This vehicle is going to be more GM than Toyota and is going to be my daily driver and I am not into preserving the integrity of the original FJ (I am not knocking it but I am just not into that). I like the retro look of the vehicle but with more modern mechanics.
I hope you enjoy this thread on my build. I will be adding more pictures until its done.
i will definitely be subscribing so i can keep up with this
