BJ73 interior restore

[Felde]

Luckily my BJ73 is not giving me any mechanical issues at this time (fingers crossed).
So I can focus on giving it some tender love and care:
The program for the winter is:
- Rust treatment and preventive protection, i.p. :
fix rust in passenger footwell,
under floor and cavities preventive treatment,
replace windshield and
attend to a leakage in the lower right corner of the windshield frame (likely some more rust to show up )
- Clean and restore interior, i.p.
Sound deadner in front area,
restore the vinyl floor cover,
fix and restore the bridle roll bar garnish,
repaint the back side panels,
replicate or replace handbrake cover,
replace headliner.
Let's see what else can be done...
Join me on my journey.

 

[Felde]

The vinyl floor
I was tempted to get a new one.
@OGBeno identified 58510-90L01-03 to be a viable replacement for the original grey vinyl. (Thanks again).But it's about 400€ to my door. Budged is limited, so I fixed my old one with some patches.
More to see and read here:
What did you do on your 70 series today? - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/what-did-you-do-on-your-70-series-today.804784/post-14150007
It will take a while before it goes back in, though, as I first have to fix some rust holes in the passenger footwell and do the sound deadner.

 

[Felde]

This was found under my floor cover, after I had removed the bridle original asphalt sound deadner.

Befor removal of the asphalt stuff, it looked like this:

Anybody any idea why that area was left uncovered?
Thought the exhaust may be under it, but that is more to the right.
Should I do that also when applying the new Butyl sound deadner?
Any thoughts welcome.

 

[OGBeno]

It's not for heat. It's for NVH.

 

[Felde]

It's not for heat. It's for NVH.

NVH is Noise Vibration Harshness, right? That's what that asphalt stuff was supposed to dampen, I know.
But why was this section in between (now rusty) not covered? I initially thought due to the exhaust running under it , which might have heated the floor panel and make the asphalt melt and be sticky. But that can't be. The exhaust is more to the right.
I also wonder why exactly that area is that evenly rusty.
In the driver footwell, the asphalt dampener was covering all the area.

 

[jblueridge]

I put inexpensive butyl sheet over that spot. No melting, fire or smell.

 

[Felde]

Today I removed my FRP top to fold down the windshield.
I have a leak at the right lower corner, in the split between firewall and frame were the 'cushion' seal sits, which I need to investigate and fix.
One need to remove or at least move the FRO Top backwards, as there are two nasty bolts, which top down bolt the rail over the door to the windshield frame. Those can't be reached with the FRP top in place. Thanks to @FJBen for confirming and a snap from the manual.

The windshield frame eventually folded down. I had to remove the wiper arms as the sophisticated folding mechanism wouldn't fold.

This is what I found:

The PO had poorly repaired a rust issue in the area. The cushion seal sits on a curb that points upward. Water penetrating under the seal would run against the curb and escape to the sides. There are also some holes to drain the water into the cowl. That's the theory.
In practice, the PO had removed 0.8 inch of that curb (right from the fastner where that big screw goes in), presumably because it was fallen to rust. The seal hang loose and couldn't seal.

A bit of surface rust and poor repair by the PO here. But yeah, no severe hole!
Amazing though how much water came in from that gap. When driving in heavy rain it was about a quart (0,5l) in 5 minutes!

For today, I removed the rust with a brush wheel and treated the rest with rust converter.
Fun fact:
On the left side, there is a switch beyond the frame.

I have no idea what that does. I couldn't see any effect. Most likely it's dead.
Anybody an idea?

Stay tuned for updates to come.

 

[OGBeno]

Wiper arm kill switch.

 

[Felde]

Ah, yes. That makes sense. Thank you.

 

[jblueridge]

Yours looks better than mine did.
Good luck… seems like you know what you are doing.

 

[Felde]

Yours looks better than mine did.
Good luck… seems like you know what you are doing.

Thank you for the confidence.
10% real knowledge, 20% RTFM, 10% general engineering, 20% thinking, 20% help from friends and the forum, 20% experimentation.
So, some luck is well required.

 

[Felde]

The most ridiculous 'repair' of the PO I found on the vehicle so far...
Holes (probably for a carrier) been covered by stickers of a 'Surf-Club'.
The inner side had been badly cut open..
Was all hidden under the FRP top and rollbar garnish.

 

[Felde]

I reconstructed the curb to fill the gap and treated the rust:
Brush wheeled, rust converter, a penetrating rust sealer and painted all inside and outside with Brantho Korrux rust protection paint.
Once cured, the window frame can be folded up again and the vehicle can go to a specialist to have the windshield glass replaced.
The nasty rust in the dash panel is for another day.

 

[jblueridge]

Brantho Korrux

I don't know why but I always have the feeling that Germany has better chemicals than USA.

What is the penetrating rust sealer you mentioned?

 

[Felde]

I don't know why but I always have the feeling that Germany has better chemicals than USA.

What is the penetrating rust sealer you mentioned?

Well if its better I can tell in two to 3 years
It's called Oxyblock. It is a product developed by Korrosionsschutz-Depot - https://www.korrosionsschutz-depot.de/search?sSearch=oxyblock
It comes in a fast version S (curing in about 3h) and a slow version N (curing in about 3 days, allowing more time to penetrate). It penetrates rusty areas, replaces water, seals off the oxygen and eventually cures to a solid base (comparable to an alkyd-resin enamel) which can be painted with common paints. That's what I used here.

Another product I often use is Owatrol, in particular for fissures of overlapping panels. It also penetrates rust very well, acts and cures like Oxyblock, but it is a bit more fatty, cures even slower (weeks), doesn't stick to non-rusted surfaces and doesn't take paint that good. But it excellently seals fissures, is great on rusty surfaces and also can be used to e.g. penetrate and replastinate old undercoat. I plan to use it inside the frame (where surface rust can't be removed) and maybe on my undercoat.

 

[Felde]

Applied some Fluidfilm into the windshield frame and put the whole stuff back together: Cuishion seal in, Windshield frame up, bolted to door rails and FRP top back in position and bolted down.
The truck goes to a specialist on Wednesday to have the windshield glass replaced.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

This was found under my floor cover, after I had removed the bridle original asphalt sound deadner.

View attachment 2840691View attachment 2840692View attachment 2840693
Befor removal of the asphalt stuff, it looked like this:View attachment 2840694
Anybody any idea why that area was left uncovered?
Thought the exhaust may be under it, but that is more to the right.
Should I do that also when applying the new Butyl sound deadner?
Any thoughts welcome.

Are you sure the driver's side was covered in that area? In my '94 FZJ75 that area was uncovered on both sides. It's where your heel would normally rest under the gas pedal and I assume they do it on both sides so there is no difference in RHD or LHD. Here is the driver's and passenger's sides after I cleaned off all the old deadener but you can clearly see where the deadener was (and wasn't). I more or less matched the factory pattern with the Second Skin Audio butyl rubber deadener but only because I was trying to replicate the factory look. I did however cover up that small area as I saw no reason to leave it open. The write up is in the thread in my signature line.

Fortunately there's no rust to deal with on this truck.

 

[Felde]

Applied some Fluidfilm into the windshield frame and put the whole stuff back together: Cuishion seal in, Windshield frame up, bolted to door rails and FRP top back in position and bolted down.
The truck goes to a specialist on Wednesday to have the windshield glass replaced.

Got a new windshield today. No scratches and chips anymore.
The mechanic said, my frame is in immaculate condition under the seal, great
Had to remind the guys to also glue the windshield, though. Hey, rtfm I gave to you

 

[Felde]

Fixed the snorkel today.
It had a crack, which the PO had tried to fix with some sort of glue. Didn't work on Polyethylene. Also the Screw was suspicious.

I put some wire clamps which I melted in, to stabilse the crack and did some hot air PE welding to fix it. Wasn't easy and didn't turn out as nice as I hoped for, as the residue of the glue obstructed it from binding properly. But at least its stable now.
For whatever reason the PO had drilled a 13mm hole into the fender to attach the snorkel with an 8mm bolt. The nut in the fender couldn't even be reached to tighten it properly . That was the nut:

I put a proper rivet nut, along with rust protection. Had to be a M10, though, to cover that big hole.
I also figured out that the fastening had put some stress on the tube which eventual caused the crack. I replaced the rubber grommet and put a rubber spacer.
Done:

 

[Felde]

Santa was nice and brought me a new hand brake cover.