Builds Bought our newborn a Toy (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

avicenna110

SILVER Star
Joined
Jul 29, 2021
Threads
32
Messages
472
Location
Sunnyvale, CA
I recently became a father and thought of doing something for my son. Initially I thought about putting some money away for him. Although I will probably do that anyways I thought building a Land Cruiser that I can give him when he grows up would be more special. Plus they're going up in value so it's hopefully a good investment as well.

I also thought it would be a good idea to document things so when he grows up a bit he can follow what was done and appreciate the car. I do have some conditions on giving him the car and one of them is requiring him to know the car very well. Other conditions are: not selling the car without my consent, helping me rebuild an FJ45 or my Toyota pickup, or both.

I had been casually looking for an FJ45 for myself for a while. But my search for the FJ40 was very brief (only a few days) and I bought the very first FJ40 I saw. I liked the car only after few minutes, moreover I really liked the owner (Brian) and his teenage son (Jack). They were moving out of state and listed this FJ40 for sale. They had done quite a bit of work on it already, but it was time for them to let it go as they had a lot of other classics to take with them. Brian had agreed to sell me the car for $10k which was my max budget, he was asking $12.5k. When I went there he didn't remember our agreement as well as I hoped, and others were calling him while I was there offering him the asking price. But Jack was quick to step in and remind his father of his word. I was very impressed by the honest young man. Based on the condition of the car, the amount of work that they had already done on it (and the quality of it), and all the parts the car came with I thought the price was really good.

Here are few pictures of the first day:

4F7F38ED-A66E-4E56-A619-736E8E3C0BED.JPG
B545267D-5909-4108-BD54-95B3A2FE1ACD.JPG



We signed the title and I send him a deposit since the banks were closed that day (July 5th). I loaded up what I could in my 100 series Land Cruiser and headed back. Brian offered to bring the FJ40 the next morning (over 2 hours one way).

Untitled 2.png

206B64F4-ABCE-42F3-94AF-014C6AD5CF6F.JPG
 
Last edited:
The fuel line to the pump was connected to a bottle of gas, and that's how I test drove the car in front of they storage. Brian had told me to clean the tank, which is the very first thing I did the next day. I took it out and was impressed how clean it looked, I doubt this is original.

BBDCBB0E-1FCC-484F-8B7E-583CAB38F157.JPG




3BB925C9-73BA-4F15-AF15-D5A0236ACB05.JPG


I cleaned it, painted the tank with POR15, changed the fuel line and put things back together:

9BC29B88-7250-4305-BBEE-0D3E7ACE96A8.JPG
it started right up.
 
looks like a good one to start with. i kind of did the same for my kids except they’re just old enough now to work on it with me!! it’s great if your kids ending up enjoying that kind of thing. it’s good time together for sure
yes I can imagine spending time with him in the garage already. These cars are simple enough that I can learn all the details by the time he is older, and teach him the basics. It would be much more difficult with newer cars.
 
I smogged our 1985 Toyota pickup last year here in California and hated the whole process. Fortunately I was wiser not to by a car newer than 1976 that would need a smog, so I thought.... I fell in love with this specific FJ40 and naively (not really) thought how hard could it be? Well.... hard when you're missing almost all the emission parts and I found out after that they're year AND region specific:mad:

My plan is not to smog the car in the near future, but to have a game plan. I need to know that I can pass the smog in the future when I finish the build. I spent the spare time of my vacation studying the FJ40 emission and making a list of what I am missing. The pictures of the parts of from various forums on this website. The diagrams and the parts numbers are from the parts catalog (found on ih8mud) which I found immensely useful in understanding what's what and what the compatibility of parts are. Here is the list of what I am/was missing:

Emission Parts- page 1.png



Emission Parts- page 2.png

Emission Parts- page 3.png
Emission Parts- page 4.png
Emission Parts- page 5.png
 
I am in the process of sourcing all the parts and I think I can. I want to thank all the members that I reached out to who had the parts. I especially wanna thank @pardion who sold me some of the harder to find pieces. Finding people that sell the parts you want is nice, but finding people that surprise you online is quite rare. I ordered the parts from John (pardion) and he shipped them the same day in less than a couple of hours. I found out that he had to evacuate his house due to the fire in California that same afternoon he shipped me the parts!! Not sure what I can say, totally unnecessary to ship the parts as I would have understood the situation, but this speaks volume about a guy I never met. Anyways, these are the parts I got from him few days ago, I don't know how he managed to package everything so nicely with the fire approaching his area (one of them is sent by mistake, can you spot it?):

IMG_5960.jpeg
 
Taking inventory of what I have, under the “watchful” eyes of our canine companions. No squirrel dares to go nearby.

most of the parts came with the car including new front fender, set of new wheels, new lights, emblems etc…

5FA8096B-0C1D-43D0-B6CD-44694B64488D.jpeg
3E8D48FB-EA63-49D5-9639-54F06FADC062.jpeg

95546A14-4E6B-4BE1-9FD0-83854E8E2050.jpeg
 
with the fender off I can see the steering box better. There is some kind power steering setup but there is not pump/pulley, does anyone know how this all work? Here are the pictures

1630035807866.jpeg


1630035779239.jpeg


1630035847147.jpeg


1630035855407.jpeg
 
@GLSisk pointed out to me that this part is called a center arm and is stock, also my steering box is stock.

I was curious what it does and found this on SOR website here:

"The center arm was designed to absorb the shock or energy from the vehicle hitting a rock or bump in the trail as not to beat up the steering box. So as the miles go on and on, the center arm takes all the abuse."

very interesting...

1630161577800.png
 
Last edited:
Making progress, I’m almost done with the tub with all the frame bolts off. The windshield is impossible to take off without an impact driver like this one:

1140E8A4-1A7C-4BC9-8D8D-553573C2644E.jpeg
8504FFD1-BFB4-4DA4-AF26-0D8501F39ABE.jpeg


here what the car looks like now:

6EDBE538-7C35-4A76-929B-B1B307183FAC.jpeg

890853D9-594C-4DED-8E74-767A133BAF23.jpeg

411F8034-3C66-462D-A0ED-7B9A7CBFED99.jpeg
 
I’m putting all small parts in ziplock bags, and bigger ones in boxes to clean and restore later:

5A8D1410-0682-4B20-ADBC-D2E759A0E16F.jpeg
DB017BEF-2FF9-430A-85F6-C416EFD47183.jpeg


taking off the switches is risky business, there is a retaining screw on the bottom of some of them that can be stuck. Of course the most expensive one, the headlight switch was stuck so I had to drill the retaining screw out. I drilled too much and broke the shaft! 🤦‍♂️ I didn’t realize there is a bulb behind this switch, which illuminates the known through a transparent rod that goes through the shaft I broke. It’s still usable but it won’t illuminate, or it will be very dim.

ED66C563-F465-430A-B59B-C6FBAD01E635.jpeg


The rest came off ok
E9F5CFD4-6F39-45B9-83B0-754E3584586F.jpeg
 
I made some more progress. Taking the tub off alone was a bit of a challenge. I spent a good amount of time finding the center of gravity of the tub, only to find out I had the clutch hose and throttle cable still attached in the engine bay. The clutch hose goes to the slave cylinder by the transmission but gets attached to the tub at the front. I had to cut it off with the tub mid-air🤦‍♂️ I would recommend having someone else to give you a hand.

32AEF17E-F3F6-4382-A280-3424E1389475.jpeg

032C3063-8FC3-42A9-9FD6-6FE7A3E0441D.jpeg

DEA4D939-87F0-47C3-81D9-CD4AA0ACD422.jpeg
 
I wanted to move the tub around the shop so I made some support legs from cheap carts I bought at HB. Front and back are different height so I measured them and made them. The rear one is taller so it would be unstable if not supported, but I made them in such a way that they would fit where the wheel goes, so they’re not wobbly.

FF994A41-6898-4C3A-B80E-D6EC3ACA7E3F.jpeg

286742CE-0CC0-40A5-98AC-D7D8E6D4608E.jpeg
2B54B60B-2D9B-4B53-BDB8-D5E0442EF34E.jpeg


B33174DF-B5B7-4420-9BEC-D27920574482.jpeg
 
Last edited:
I have made good progress so far, everything came out without a fuss so far. But unfortunately the thermal reactor exhaust manifold has some cracks in it:

IMG_6266.jpeg




IMG_6262.jpeg


IMG_6264.jpeg



Here is the transmission:

IMG_6277.jpeg


IMG_6274.jpeg
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom