This is the first in a Build thread for an FJ62. A bit of background. Aussie based build thread.
3-4 years ago, got the FJ62. It was drivable, and looked good. I knew it had rust and spent the first 6 months, fixing the obvious. New rear brakes, fixed clutch issues, some paint repairs, lots of work on bumpers. Got it registered and took it on a few trips and had the best time with it. Fell in love with the 60. I started to get some parts for it, UHF, winch, and collecting things like spare doors. It had a cracked windscreen and as shannons has free replacement I got the guy in, but when he saw the rust around the windows he said, he really could not guarantee that he could replace it, and that started a big push to fix it all up.
Looking at it, it has rust on all 4 corners of the windscreen, and into the airbox behind wiper moter, and then rust on the top corners of the windscreen and all around the edge of the roof, that was bleeding through paint. The PO riveted some aluminium on the rear sides of the roof, to give it some life. It also had rust in quarter panel, but just a small bit. The rest of the body was clean. The Chassis looked bad, covered in grease and grime, but the engine and transmission was bullet proof.
So I committed myself to fixing the rust. I removed the windscreen and saw the worst! all 4 corders were completely gone. I opened the cowling on passenger side air vent and started removing metal, and fabricating new bits. I picked up a windscreen shell from someone who was carving up a 60, which gave me something to weld it. That prooved a lot of work, but far better then manufacturing the complex shaped from scratch.
Then one day, I decided to see if all, and grinded the roof sides back to metal and removed the aluminium. At the end of it, I found 80% of the rain gutter was rusted under the paint, all 4 corners were bogged up, and it looked like all 3 layers of roof skin was affected at various places. Only the front top windscreen was good. I decided the roof needed to come off (I priced up a new one, from toyota at $3500 and some roof cuts that were a bit cheaper). In trying to remove the roof, showed how bad it was. lots of the roof sides, were missing, all corners missing and the skin under it was also through in all corders. Now it was all fixable, and I found plenty of inspiration threads on it and on our local aussie facebook ground, but this was one of the worse.
I asked a few people for roof cuts, as that seemed a good idea, but I was really concerned my welding skills were not up to it and the few fixes I did do, showed how hard it was. Then I found a guy selling parts of a car. He thought the rust was bad, when when I went and had a look, it was nowhere as bad as mine and the price was right. So i now have my own rolling chassis parts car. So the plans is to;
a) Strip whitey (I had already remove doors, fenders, inner fender and roof).
b) Strip browny (new parts one), and fix the rust if has, then prime, paint white
c) Remove whitey cab and replace with browny cab, keeping original whitey 3f and full chassis
d) put everything back, prime/paint everything left as I go.
I need to follow this process, mainly due to lack of space in the yard and garage. This has lots of moving cars on/off driveway etc, but it should work.
The good news is, I've been also working on the chassis, and once I remove the grime, its completely rust free and has original black paint. I wont need to touch it. So this thread will track this as much as possible. I've been taking video on iphone, and a gopro. A bit of searching found lots of hints and tips, however the one thing missing was a full breakdown of the steps to strip an interior (and rebuild it). So I intend to document that!!! So lets see what happens.
PS: Whitey Project is actually a trial for a much more valuable project. Full nuts/bolts restoration of a HJ61, 12HT Sahara. Hence why I want to learn on this one, to make the next project go much smoother.
3-4 years ago, got the FJ62. It was drivable, and looked good. I knew it had rust and spent the first 6 months, fixing the obvious. New rear brakes, fixed clutch issues, some paint repairs, lots of work on bumpers. Got it registered and took it on a few trips and had the best time with it. Fell in love with the 60. I started to get some parts for it, UHF, winch, and collecting things like spare doors. It had a cracked windscreen and as shannons has free replacement I got the guy in, but when he saw the rust around the windows he said, he really could not guarantee that he could replace it, and that started a big push to fix it all up.
Looking at it, it has rust on all 4 corners of the windscreen, and into the airbox behind wiper moter, and then rust on the top corners of the windscreen and all around the edge of the roof, that was bleeding through paint. The PO riveted some aluminium on the rear sides of the roof, to give it some life. It also had rust in quarter panel, but just a small bit. The rest of the body was clean. The Chassis looked bad, covered in grease and grime, but the engine and transmission was bullet proof.
So I committed myself to fixing the rust. I removed the windscreen and saw the worst! all 4 corders were completely gone. I opened the cowling on passenger side air vent and started removing metal, and fabricating new bits. I picked up a windscreen shell from someone who was carving up a 60, which gave me something to weld it. That prooved a lot of work, but far better then manufacturing the complex shaped from scratch.
Then one day, I decided to see if all, and grinded the roof sides back to metal and removed the aluminium. At the end of it, I found 80% of the rain gutter was rusted under the paint, all 4 corners were bogged up, and it looked like all 3 layers of roof skin was affected at various places. Only the front top windscreen was good. I decided the roof needed to come off (I priced up a new one, from toyota at $3500 and some roof cuts that were a bit cheaper). In trying to remove the roof, showed how bad it was. lots of the roof sides, were missing, all corners missing and the skin under it was also through in all corders. Now it was all fixable, and I found plenty of inspiration threads on it and on our local aussie facebook ground, but this was one of the worse.
I asked a few people for roof cuts, as that seemed a good idea, but I was really concerned my welding skills were not up to it and the few fixes I did do, showed how hard it was. Then I found a guy selling parts of a car. He thought the rust was bad, when when I went and had a look, it was nowhere as bad as mine and the price was right. So i now have my own rolling chassis parts car. So the plans is to;
a) Strip whitey (I had already remove doors, fenders, inner fender and roof).
b) Strip browny (new parts one), and fix the rust if has, then prime, paint white
c) Remove whitey cab and replace with browny cab, keeping original whitey 3f and full chassis
d) put everything back, prime/paint everything left as I go.
I need to follow this process, mainly due to lack of space in the yard and garage. This has lots of moving cars on/off driveway etc, but it should work.
The good news is, I've been also working on the chassis, and once I remove the grime, its completely rust free and has original black paint. I wont need to touch it. So this thread will track this as much as possible. I've been taking video on iphone, and a gopro. A bit of searching found lots of hints and tips, however the one thing missing was a full breakdown of the steps to strip an interior (and rebuild it). So I intend to document that!!! So lets see what happens.
PS: Whitey Project is actually a trial for a much more valuable project. Full nuts/bolts restoration of a HJ61, 12HT Sahara. Hence why I want to learn on this one, to make the next project go much smoother.
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