Build Abandoned 84 FJ60 gets some love, and a 4bt!

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Today I swapped out my master cylinder, bled the brakes, and installed a new serpentine belt.
Truck is driving better than ever now, and finally a lot quieter without the squawking belt and chattering belt tensioner.
Believe it or not, the thing is finally smooth and quiet enough that I don't wish it still had the 2F, even as buttery smooth as it was. Until today, I was nearly regretting the swap because of how loud the engine was and it turned out that most of the noise was from the worn out, wrong length belt and tensioner bottomed out and chattering against the stop. Wow wee what a difference lol.
Don't get me wrong, it's still loud, but sounds a lot less like it's going to blow up now, haha.
I just figured all 4bt's sounded that way 🤣
 
Over the weekend I loaded up the 60 with camping goodies, and took my son to Natchez Trace Sate Park to camp with an old friend from high school. We had gotten rid of an old bed in the house in favor of bunk beds for the kid, so I scored a 4" memory foam pad that fits perfectly in the back with the seats folded down. 😎
So we had a comfy place to sleep, and a cool rig to explore the state forest trails in.
It's about a 3 hour drive each way from home, and the old truck did awesome. It was actually pretty fun pulling some of the long hills on the interstate and seeing newer trucks and jeeps have to downshift, and still losing speed, while the old 4bt just chugged to the top like it was on flat ground.
It was a great little 2 day trip!
The kid got to swim in the lake, and my mom met us in the park to see us for grandparent's day.
At 7 years old, he swam from that beach in the distance, all the way to the bridge. I'm proud of the little fellar lol.
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Last night I finally installed my electric radiator fan, after him-hawwing around about it for over a year thinking I'd rather have a mechanical fan.
I at least feel better with something on there, even though the truck has never overheated, even offroading on 100° F days with steep hill climbs. I don't want to find out what the limit is at 12k feet in the Rockies when I'm 1500 miles from home, though.
Funny thing, though, is that I spoke with a friend while working on it who offered me the mechanical fan stuff he has just laying around for a 4bt... so I may take that stuff and install it later on down the road instead.
Another thing I did was install a switch for my electric vacuum pump so it won't run when the truck is parked and drain the battery. I'll eventually add hydroboost or get a gear driven vacuum/power steering pump combo for the 4bt, and can use that switch/fuse/relay setup for lights or something in the future.
For now, I'm just chasing reliability so I don't end up stranded somewhere. I'm hoping to drive this thing to Colorado and Utah before winter really hits, so I'm buttoning up a few last items over the next few weeks to get it ready.
 
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Thechief86 said:
Over the weekend I loaded up the 60 with camping goodies, and took my son to Natchez Trace Sate Park to camp with an old friend from high school. We had gotten rid of an old bed in the house in favor of bunk beds for the kid, so I scored a 4" memory foam pad that fits perfectly in the back with the seats folded down. 😎
So we had a comfy place to sleep, and a cool rig to explore the state forest trails in.
It's about a 3 hour drive each way from home, and the old truck did awesome. It was actually pretty fun pulling some of the long hills on the interstate and seeing newer trucks and jeeps have to downshift, and still losing speed, while the old 4bt just chugged to the top like it was on flat ground.
It was a great little 2 day trip!
The kid got to swim in the lake, and my mom met us in the park to see us for grandparent's day.
At 7 years old, he swam from that beach in the distance, all the way to the bridge. I'm proud of the little fellar lol.View attachment 3426226View attachment 3426227View attachment 3426228
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Really sorry I missed out, though enjoyed the cruise with the wife.

Great pics and Natchez Trace is on my "to do" list.
 
After almost 2 years, I finally installed a radio in this pile, lol. I've got 3 different radios laying around, but this was the most simple one.
1984 speakers suck, but it's still about as good as your average Bluetooth speaker or the stereo on some dummy's Harley. It'll do for now.
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When I got home from work today I finally got around to something I've needed to do since I first put the lift kit on. I finally trimmed my u-bolts and re-torqued them. They were a lot looser than I expected them to be! In turn, upon test driving, the suspension feels much better and more stable, and the truck doesn't lean nearly as much in the curves as it did previously.

Thinking back, I'm thinking I may have run the nuts down with the impact and sent it, but never came back to fully torque them, or even check them after some miles. We make some dumb mistakes when in a hurry, I guess... luckily nothing bad happened, with the side bonus of my truck being a lot more solid and stable to drive than before.
I've been trying to get back in the mode of fixing, correcting, or installing something every chance I get. Tomorrow I'm going to try to score some tubing to use with my roof rack gutter mounts, so I can install my roof rack, in case I don't get a rear tire carrier sorted before I have to drive this thing to Colorado. I don't like hauling stuff on the roof, but I've got to make do with the stuff I have around, and I don't have the material to build the tire carrier on hand just yet.
 
Spent a week in Florida, and when I got home I set back to work on the 60.
I put the roof rack on and put my spare up there with a steel cable and lock so it'll still be there when I have to park it in town.
I also inspected my wiper linkage to figure out why that stuff is so sloppy, and found that the bushing in the center is basically nonexistent, and after an hour or two of trying to get random GM and Jeep and Nissan ones I had laying around to fit, I just ordered the right bushing. Hopefully that will go easier.
After fighting and cussing with the wiper situation, I decided to wash it and slap some stickers on the roof basket, then drove into Nashville to pick my wife and son up at the airport. It was still a good day.
Tomorrow I'm gonna wire in some rear speakers and some other stuff, and hopefully to a little work to my Subaru.
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Today I had no success with fixing my wipers, but I did finish up the wiring for my electric fan, at least it is wired, but I still haven't cleaned it up and tucked the wires into a nice loom or anything yet.
That'll happen eventually.
The new wiper linkage bushing came from Amazon, but didn't fit and kept popping back out, so I'm sending that expensive but useless piece of plastic back to Amazon.
Then I just ordered a whole new set of linkage, hopefully it will come in time for the big trip.
 
You are really doing justice to that 60. I really regret letting my 61 TWPW with the 4bt in go. Hindsight is always 20/20 though. Your ride just keeps getting better and better.
 
61twpw said:
You are really doing justice to that 60. I really regret letting my 61 TWPW with the 4bt in go. Hindsight is always 20/20 though. Your ride just keeps getting better and better.
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Thank you! I'm really trying hard to bring it back up to a usable state. I've been daily driving it since I got the transmission back in, and it has been doing great. I just try to fix something else every couple of days, I figure eventually I'll run out of worn out mechanical bits, and I'll work more on making it look nice and more comfortable.
I'll eventually even fix the dents and get it painted, but for now, I am pretty proud of where it is, considering where it started.
 
120mm said:
Small world; the 2F from this 60 is what is currently motivating the 40 I bought from you.
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Drew, I'm so glad that engine went to a good home. That thing runs so great and seems to have a lot of life left in it. I am also quite happy to have gained you as a friend among our collective cruiser shenanigans. That has been one of my favorite parts of the experience so far.
 
Thechief86 said:
Drew, I'm so glad that engine went to a good home. That thing runs so great and seems to have a lot of life left in it. I am also quite happy to have gained you as a friend among our collective cruiser shenanigans. That has been one of my favorite parts of the experience so far.
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At 400,000 miles, that 2F is finally just getting broken in.

Whoever did the rebuild, as well as the new head you put on it helps if course.

Back atcha with all that squishy stuff, of course...
 
For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to rehab my windshield wipers, to no avail. Parts bought from ebay and Amazon didn't work, or broke nearly immediately. So I've decided to try my hand at either making my own linkage, or modifying this stuff to work with tougher, more easily available end joints. Lawnmower shift/clutch/deck linkage and heim joints worked great when I needed to build new clutch linkage on an old CJ5 I had, so I'm leaning towards using that stuff. I've already ordered a few heims and have some all-thread and small diameter steel tubing stashed at work. It may take a week to figure it out, but I will have functioning wipers before winter. I'm hoping to get it sorted before going to the Southern Swine Soiree at LBL next weekend, but we will see what actually goes down. If any of you read this and wanna hang with cruiser folks, we will be in this rig, even though it's not a FJ55...
In other news, We just got back from our first cub scout campout in the 60! It served well as a gear hauler and mobile yet somewhat unsanitary kitchen, and we served a buttload of pancakes the last couple of days!
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I didn't get a photo of the line of kids waiting for pancakes yesterday, because I was afraid there'd be a frenzy like piranhas and I'd be a skeleton within minutes.... so I took a photo this morning before the little mongrels smelled the batter and the propane...
 
This past weekend me and the boy and the doggo went to Land Between the Lakes to meet up with the FJ55 folks at the Southern Swine Soiree, and had a great time camping and wheeling with those guys. The truck performed well, and offered a good shelter from the cool night winds by the water. I was proud of my rig, and really enjoyed seeing other people's stuff as well.
I used a half tank of fuel for the entire weekend, including 200 miles of traveling to and from, and 2 days of rattling around in the woods. It was a good time.
The other day I finally got back to messing with my wiper linkage, and after a little creative welding and cussing, I now have wipers, with superior linkage and joints to stock stuff, and a nice set of wiper arms from a late 90s 4Runner I found at the junkyard. All of a sudden, I can't wait for it to rain, haha.
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The past few weeks I haven't made a ton of progress, through dealing with work and family and cub scout stuff, but I did finally get my wipers working, and managed to do some of the mundane maintenance stuff along the way.
At the moment, I'm simply trying to daily drive the 60 most of the time, and have been taking every out of town trip.as an opportunity for something to fail so I can chase down my gremlins until it is reliable. Amazingly, not much has gone wrong, and as cold weather comes along to feed my turbo, the thing just seems to run better every day!
As of now, I'm planning to leave for Moab on December 15th with my wife, kid, and 2 dogs.
The plan is to shoot straight across to Denver to visit friends and family, then meander southward through Colorado seeing as much as we can of the Rockies and enjoying hot springs and snow along the way, and finally spending 3 or 4 days in southern Utah before turning towards home on a more Southern route across New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. I am very excited for this trip, while also a bit apprehensive to go so far in my cobbled together project beater, lol.
I'll be bringing lots of tools and cold weather survival gear, and the mindset of an adventurer.
Hopefully things will go well.
 
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wowowowow....crazy where your rig is now!!! Amazin!!!
 
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