Builds Bj60 Barn truck rebirth + 13bt

[BryanLiew]

Current

Soa with reverse eye springs
13bt/h55
Fr/rr arb air lockers
4.88’s
35’s
F250 shock towers

This starts back is 2018/2019 when a customer reached out to my dad for help selling a LandCruiser.

My Dad( @simonliew ) works on alot of LandCruiser at his shop and was helping a long time customer sell their fj60. Their 60 got rented to a movie before being sold to ontario or quebec. Once it sold she said we should come take the parts truck away at no cost. She didn't want the parts to go to waste.
The "parts truck" turn out to be a 1985 5 speed BJ60 with 625000KM.

It had been sitting in their yard under some oak trees for years(probably 10+). On our first look over it it was missing a battery cable,a headlight, and had mismatched doors. other than that it was just rust on the rockers, rear quarters, rear sill land lower tailgate. Everything from there up looked pretty good, including the roof! Looking inside, there were some random parts and brand new replacement steel panels for the rockers, rear wheel wells, and rear quarter panels We also found a brand new in box dash cover.

My dad asked a friend if we could store it on their property. it sat there for another 3ish years. a couple months ago My dad and I picked it up so i could start working on it.

the 60 outside my dad shop.


May 27 2022
We drove the bj60 into the shop.
To get it running we plumed in a oil container full of diesel beside the injection pump, hooked up one battery(crossover battery cable was still missing), and started pumping the fuel primer before turning the key. It finaly started running but would keep dying. the EDIC motor kept rotation non stop so it would die if we kept giving it gas. We later found it was the ground from the engine block to the frame that was broken. I unhooked the edic Linkage and the engine started running fine! it doesnt smoke sounds good. Its hard to believe it has 625000 km on it. although we dont know it is was every swapped out since we dont know the history.
plumbing in the fuel

 

[BryanLiew]

I was going to chop this 60 into a dualcab and put in on a 80 frame, but for now I decided to fix it up first and get it driving, since we have replacement body panels.

First thing in the shop was to check out the frame, since it has been sitting outside for so long. The rar was bad, but the front was fine.

The next few day i really dug into it. My dad convinced me to to remove the body from the frame to fix the frame. he was right about that lol.
So I started unhooking everything underneath, removing the whole front clip, and unhooking the engine.

you can really see how rust the rockers and wheel well and rear will are here. rememebr it has 625000km and this is manitoba, canada. But the rest of the body has almost no rust!

I had to strap the front of the cab down to the hoist because it was lifting up.

Not that the body is off it was time to start on the frame.

 

[BryanLiew]

I have to admit the frame it pretty bad from in the typical rust ares. I also hate rivets more than ever now.

i started with removing the homemade? hitch, and rear bumper. I used a combination of plasma, cuttoff wheel's, sledge hammer and pry bars the get the rear bumper and tow hitch off. I than started cutting out the rivets for the inner c channels. This was a couple months ago but im pretty that that took a couple days.

pic taken after usign the airchissel and ply bar to remove all the rust. and most of the rivets. The channel is almost gone lol

Whats left of the c-channel

i removed the rear spring mounts, to replace the rear frame on the right side.

 

[BryanLiew]

I got c channel bent up to fix the frame. i reinforced the other frame rail the same way, but dont have a pic.

 

[cps432]

This is awesome!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Way to go, saving that sweet old BJ60. Great stuff.

 

[BryanLiew]

Next i started working on the rust by the front mount for the rear springs. The more I cut the worse it got, I ended up having to remove the rear spring mounts(more rivets... which i hate) and cutting out the rust.

 

[BryanLiew]

after lots of welding and grindling.

 

[BryanLiew]

Frame is mostly done so I started working on the rear sill/body mount. i needed to do that before i could put the cab back doen on the frame. I could work on the rest of the rust while the truck was on the frame.

 

[BryanLiew]

some more pictures of rust lol

 

[cps432]

What an undertaking… good job!

 

[BryanLiew]

End of June the body was put back doen and i started working on more body rust. The first cut was scary. this is my first time doing somethign like this. I proabbly spent a hour just standing there and looking at it before I made the first cut.

The left rear quarter panel was full of mud. so it was really bad and no aftermarket replacement panel would be able to cover this part.

 

[BryanLiew]

The other side getting welded in. I butt welded every body panel on the truck. I didnt like the idea of overlapping sheet metal and using body filler. The replacement panels worked really well. not perfect but if i did this without them it would take forever.

 

[alex cortopassi]

Excellent!
Mythical Landcruiser and then with the rare BJ engine on the 60.
I remember in 1998 a trip to Niger in search of dinosaurs in Gadoufauoa with a Bj60...

 

[Michael Hanson]

Nice work.

 

[BryanLiew]

In may, when i started this this bj60 barn truck build, I made a deal to buy one of my uncles cruisers. My dad built this for my uncle probably 20+ years ago. inside the truck i found a 7th annual black hills cruiser classic aluminum sticker.

He gave ma a really good deal, since it had been sitting for 10+ years in his backyard. I bought his Turbo'd 1987 HJ60. He Had had it for a long time. He used to daily it and has drive it everywhere. Its been to Albert for river shiver, Williston, and utah. He even rolled it at his cabin, so this is the second body on it now.

It has arb lockers, soa with cut and turn. and body armour. He also gave me a york 210 and broken(lol) 8274. He had a brand new uninstalled Marlin Crawler Toybox for it, which is now sitting in a closet at home because my dad traded some work for it a couple years ago

the HJ60 wouldnt start so we had to toy it out with my dads HDJ81. One handbrake vs siezed so it took some hammering and tugging to get it out and freed up.

Swapped out the tires for good year wranglers. he wheeled on these tires. they have been stored inside for 20 years.

it has a rear bumper with a tire swing-out built using a Suzuki spindle, not seen in the pictures

 

[kirvesmies]

@BryanLiew , i'm envious of your shop space. keep after it man, it'll get done

 

[BryanLiew]

@BryanLiew , i'm envious of your shop space. keep after it man, it'll get done

Thanks! It’s my dads shop I’ve been using! He’s a mechanic, who is specialized in Toyotas/diesel landcruisers

 

[BryanLiew]

rockers getting welded in. slowly. getting it all to line up was difficult. still far from perfect.

 

[BryanLiew]

i then started on the rear quarter panels. the right side i did a quarter chop and welded it closed. there as only one small spot i had tp patch. i decided notto use the repait panel that came with the truck since i chopped off all the rust. i copied the chop from @Exiled 's green fj60.