Builds Barons white FJ62 log (1 Viewer)

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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.
 
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This is whitey on its first big trip. Its an Aussie Spec GXL, 1990 FJ62, with a 3F on 31's. Pretty much stock, no lift or anything. Raptored flares, front/back bumpers only. I'm quite a fan of this black/white look.

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ok, so its my intention to video these steps in detail. In order to help anyone else in the future do this type of things. These are all youtube's so hopefully they stay linked. I talk in the video's what i'm doing. Sometimes I talk about what I intent to do , other times its just after I did something. I'm sure people realise that its only after you push/prod/stick a screwdriver in and break something that you realise you missed a simple step, screw or button to push, so I attempted to do this. Feel free to comment if you have done this and found a better way, or any other tips you might have.

First off, This is Whitey in all its rusted glory. And yes, this is the same cruiser as before, but the PO and myself, painted and corrected the surface rust. It goes to show, how good you can make bad rust look. I did not pay much for this cruiser, so dont feel bad and I love taking on new challenges and learning new skills. I've already rebuilt a fibreglass boat and some work on other cars including an FJ40.

Also 'Admins' if I'm doing something wrong with images and vid's please let me know.

 
So, I need to strip the white cabin down, in prep to be able to lift it off the chassis. I already removed the doors (They had rust in the two front ones, and the two rear were not the orginal, and all wires were cut, and over the last two years I actually picked up 6-7 doors including at least one full set). I removed seats as well. I actually replaced the drivers one with a BMW e36 leather seat, mainly cause I'm 6'2 and I needed another 2 inches of drivers legroom, which the bmw ones offered). I also removed all carpet. The rear cabin carpet, was actually new, bought from a place in Victoria, but the rest was original. It's not too bad, and I'll degrease and clean to see how it comes up. The rear tailgates are also good, but the PO cut the cables to do some rust work on the roof, but I have spares for that. The new cab does have some interior parts (brake, clutch, evap, heater, blower), but it had a 12HT in it and the guy took all the wireing harness out, so I will need to transfer that over. So the Job for now is to strip the white cab, remove as much as possible and at least get the wiring harness out and all dash parts.

I searched a heap on here, as well as facebook and youtube. While I found some small bits to help, I was never able to find a complete step-by-step process, so this will be an attempt to do that, as well as offer pre/post videos with talking about what I @&$ed up and how you would avoid it.

Seeing the above Vid, I may not post them as Vid's in the Forum, as It will take up screen room, but I will paste the youtube links if thats ok? Let me know if thats an issue.
 
So, at this stage I've not touched the dashboard, expect remove the GPS and UHF. I've upgraded and rewired the Radio, so I'm pretty good are removing the main part of the dash. I also got some LED dash globes at somestage I will use, but I wont put them in now, as I learnt along time ago, never upgrade two steps at once (cause them you have to undo two steps when it does not work).

First I needed to remove the main speedo cluster. Once you undo all the screws it will come out an inch or two, but that it.



I found a tip how to do this, so this is the result



So, one key TIP is to seperate all the screws and stuff. Most people recommend zip bags, but I bought those big multi-box tackle things, which I put the screws in, and a piece of paper with a diagram showing which box contains what.

However, The dash loom has a TON of cables, and while they all seem to be slightly different, I wanted to find a way to label them. So I used this.

label everything. some cool amazon labels - https://youtu.be/dCilyFu7frc

I later learnt, the texta that it came with smudges, and just a plain pen was much better.

Now, along the way, I removed the roof, just to see what was under it. I just found more rust, however the Jute was still in place and I thought I would share what it looks like in case people are searching for it.

what a fj62 roof looks like when off. - https://youtu.be/ClswXLlFO4U


Some more plugs to remove in instrument cluster, fj62 instrument cluster off - https://youtu.be/XGbSVwQbDEo

This is what the speedo cable looks like when removed fj62 speedo cable looksee - https://youtu.be/ahDiSyBHXoM

Next was to remove the upper part of the dash. I found a few tips on this. And some people suggest minimal steps to remove it, but I was not going for minimal.
removing fj62 dashboard top - https://youtu.be/RTtLt1WniW8

It was not as smooth as I thought. Always some hidden screws to find. Here is them fj62 dashboard out tips - https://youtu.be/W2cdHfJWLgM

Next was some air-con pipes. Pretty straight forward fj62 dash air routing - https://youtu.be/1mm4j3AdHqk and fj62 dash air routing removal 2 - https://youtu.be/6mvY3ospWa4

next I remove the bottom facia. This may not be what its called, but look at the video to see what bit I'm touching. fj62 dash air routing removal 2 - https://youtu.be/6mvY3ospWa4

on this facia are lighter and switches. I messed some of these up, so lessons learned. I have some spares. fj62 dash switchgear removal - https://youtu.be/ivxgFdmANxM

The hand throttle, looked simple. I found a tip to undo the screw on the knob. This is very easy to miss. In the end, I could not remove it completly, as it had more stuff connected to it. fj62 hand throttle removal - https://youtu.be/L6ymCQ_3THw

A few small things. air con switch fj62 4wd switch and choke removal - https://youtu.be/1R3lHK_MXd4 Choke fj62 air controls removal - https://youtu.be/4F-mgXTDDTM and 4wd switch
Now, at this stage I realised that much of this is easy, however its only because I dont have Seats, Windscreen or doors. I'm a big big guy, and I'd hate to be doing this with those things in place.
 
Next I wanted to remove the steering column. Found some cables under that needed to be disconnected.

I remove all the bolts on the inside for the steering column, two big nuts to remove and that was it. I read someone have another two bolts but I never found them. However, I was not able to remove the steering pinion thing, and beers were catching up with me.

NExt was what I called the second skin of the dash. fj62 dash 2nd skin removal - https://youtu.be/XCgSzJcdi3U

Now the next steps involve the engine bay. Essentially the AC system (you need to discharge it), and Heater (your going to get water everywhere. green water for me). These were NOT easy, but the all eventually came out. Blower. fj62 air blower removal attempt - https://youtu.be/cHML8g3eu-s aircon fj62 air evaporator removal - https://youtu.be/Abo8akb4orw heater fj62 heater removal - https://youtu.be/gOXdW16vWSs some more heater fj62 heater core out - https://youtu.be/iAZI47jIKCs

next are basic misc steps. Cause you start looking around and seeing things to remove.

This is where the wiper relay is! Its Camo as well. very easy to miss. fj62 wiper control relay - https://youtu.be/0-ahsHeJ3xU and who knew the ground wires where connected here near the side windows fj62 chassis ground wire - https://youtu.be/IvupGZy-43M

more soon.
 
to continue. My aim is to remove the main wiring loom.

First, I found a cable near fuse box going up. The benefit of all the rust is I can track this. Here is how the main cabin light is wired,

Next was the fuse box. This has one screen on the front but the other end, near firewall is simple slid on to a spiky thing. This will be usefull to know when putting it back. Also found some bad PO wiring.

So The wiring loom in the engine bay, needs to feed through into the cabin. No plug here. So I need to label everything in the engine bay. STarting on passenger side Some of the vac solinoid thingies look the same, so I needed to label then Vac 1 Vac 2, and also label both sides of the cable. The Alternator, also connects in. It has a LARGE round plug, and then a slightly small round plug directly onto the alternator. I couldnt figure out the big one, but the small one came out. NOTE: I replaces the alternator ages ago for the bosche 80amp one. FJ62 Label passenger wiring loom - https://youtu.be/xkgF6aaj5-Y

The drivers side was harder. Mainly as a loom branch goes to the starter motor, This is attached to a plastic lug on the chassis. I'm finding I need to break all these plastic lugs, but I have some standard zip tie lug things to replace them with. Also the starter end on the loom had like 4 plugs but only two we in use. They were all covered in grime. The oil sensor also comes off this loom. FJ62 removing drivers side wiring loom - https://youtu.be/Map7HeUYayA

Another branch goes to the battery. This has a screw lug as well, (8mm nut) and fusable links. fj62 battery wiring loom - https://youtu.be/Wd-YRy5JDGg

Coil also have two 8mm nuts. Not confident in the connections here. I might search for a new coil. Also the 62 has a accessories box. This was easily removed. fj62 accessory box and coil - https://youtu.be/PymSANDGfis

Final loom removal, drivers side: be carefull labels dont come off. fj62 internal loom removal - https://youtu.be/2o3NaVcWtM8

This was a vid to show all the internal routing for later; FJ62 wiring loom summary - https://youtu.be/uZP4lg3n4qo

Thats the last one for now. Seem to have monsoon season in Sydney, wont stop raining.
 
Thanks for posting all this info / videos - it is much appreciated... I actually just registered an account on this forum just to say thanks and to follow this (re)build. 👍

I have a white FJ62 in Brisbane that's been in the family a while (since ~'93 I think) and it's now in my possession and needs some anti-rust TLC. So I'll be watching closely as I'm likely going to be diving into very similar areas of the car in future to do some repairs.
 
so I found a couple of posts about lifting the body of a chassis using an engine hoist. I have a 2.5 car space I'm working in which is needed as the hoist needs space. I need to lift and place body side by side the chassis, so I can wheel the chassis out of the way (you cant just lift body and move chassis as hoist base is in the way)

Chassis is stripped of everything. roof, doors, fuel tank, interior, wiring. except clutch and brake booster. It will be scrapped so I'm a bit loose with it.

Im using a standard hoist, 750KG setting. You need the lift in centre of weight. I could prob go smaller setting. but when I did this, it lacked control. I had mm spare, of the chassis to hoist.

I used a leveller. two reasons. 1, lets you level. 2. spreads lift points out. You want to lift vertical as much as possible on the strap mounts.

Used ratchet straps. x 3. 350kg rated with hooks. One through the rear baby-seat mounts. These bent a little, but held. Don't use seat lock mount, as the metal is thin. other option is to fab something to rear seatbelt holes. I did see one guy do this which seemed to work. I then had a seperate strap from side seat mounts to leveller on each side. I tried One strap, BUT the chassis slipped sideways under weight. with two straps, this stopped slide and I used the ratchet to level sideways motion.

Also note the height of the leveller inside Cab. you need to lift very high to clear rear quarters, I was prob at 80% of the range. Also remember, when you lift, chassis will move, IN, to the hoist. I did lift and settle back several times to adjust levels. I did not always settle back on body mounts exactly.

Video has some tips on what to disconnect. Most issues are at rears, related to wiring and fuel. Don't forget speedo cable. I did it solo, and felt it was quite steady and safe. hardest was moving hoist, with its small metal wheels on concrete moved in jerks, but a hand on chassis could stop swaying.

Vid here.
 
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For those interested this is one box of car builders mass noise vinyl. 1600x950mm. I reckon at least 3 sheets, ideally 4 are needed. I’m just going to use it on the firewall I think in place of the standard stuff that hates water.
 
So just an update. The new cabin has had a bit of most of the rust taken out. I have a largish section above passenger front/rear door to do. I've had to cut down to the doorframe and I took a section out of the rusted chassis to a sheet-metal fab to get him to fold up the complex shapes of the topdoor frame. He is taking 4 weeks so far (he is doing me a favour so cant complain). Its all epoxied up so its protected. I also epoxied the engine firewall, under front of car and lower parts of the chassis, just to protect it while I do other things. I then removed all the body bolts. Amazing how easy things are the second time. I had two bolts refuse to move, so had to cut them. I then lifted the chassis again. Same method as before. Was a bit tricker, as the 33inch tires just meant everything was higher, but it worked ok.
 
So I'm now working on the chassis (cabs are pushed to the side of the driveway, giving me some room back). The Grey doner car chassis, was in ok condition, but whitey was better. Grey has raised suspension, which i wanted to transfer. So this weekend was that work. With the cab off, the engine crane did most of the lifting where I would normally use a Jack. Felt much safer. I lifted the doner rear suspension, it came off ok. Pulled leaf springs, then put it back, just sitting on the diff. I then lifted whitey, and removed rear suspension, it also came out without much trouble. I was able to compare the lifted springs with non-lifted springs. It actually only has 1 inch difference, but I suspect when weight is applied its more. I sand-blasted the rear suspension and leaf springs with a Karcher with sand blasting attachment. Learnt that you need to use dry sand, so back to bunnings and paid quite a bit more. The blasting was getting me back to metal, but it was going through sand way too quick, so I just removed the loose stuff that way. It also makes a HUGE mess of everything within 5m. The doner car rear break drum brake was much better condition than whitey, so I committed myself to swapping them. So pulled most of the brakes apart, cleaned, sanded, cleaned again and painted black with a simple anti-rust/zinc black paint that was on sale. end result was good. repeated on the springs as well. I also noted the shackle pins were all very corroded, so committed to ordering new ones all round. I already ordered red Poly-bushes, and when I paint everything black it should look pretty good. Next Job. re-assemble rear suspension and then start on front suspension. Was a good day working today.
 
Amazing amount of work you are putting into this. Thanks for posting all the pix and info.
 
Just some commentary around rust treatment. I did heaps of research trying to find the right way to a) treat rust that existed, b) treat bits that are'nt yet rusted, but could be. Lots of on POR15/KBS style but thats quite expensive doing the entire undercarriage (I actually used nearly a full small kit just on rear bumber and tow bar, it is very good and has no resurfaced rust). One idea I had was a 'Wirewheel, Wax/grease clean, and hit with a spray rust paint (i.e. its a all in one rust convertor, preventor and top coat of blackx2). I did one entire Diff/Axle in this. then it rained for three days straight. The rust returned to many parts of it. I had to re-grind/wirewheel, which showed new rust. So that was a fail. Next I'm going to use Brunox as I had some luck with other parts of it. more info to come.
 
so a few more steps in the past weeks. As the cab is off the chassis I'm doing a few things. suspension/2"lift. new bushes, new shackles, new shocks. I'm now looking at the engine and thinking what should I do while I have access. The clutch will be replaced. It alway felt a bit dead, and shuddering. The transfer and gearbox are ok, but I can see some oil leaks on the input and ouput sides. I also have leaks on the oil-pan, but I can do that later, and no more leaks I can see. So thats the next job. Clutch.
 
i'm following the write up. How to change a clutch step by step with pictures + descriptions - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/how-to-change-a-clutch-step-by-step-with-pictures-descriptions.412372/. This was really helpful. I'll only comment on things that I needed to adapt to.

First off, I'm doing this with the cab off, so I'll be lifting the gearbox out, not dropping it. So firstly was to get the engine crane out, with the balancer. I lifted the gearbox slightly, then removed the load-bearing bracket under it. I then discovered that the engine mounts could NOT take the load if I dropped the gearbox (which is a slight issue as my engine crane has a slow leak), BUT later when I removed the gearbox/bell housing the engine mounts could take the weight. The fix was to place a block under the engine oil-pan. Also also jerry rigged some metal supports through the bell housing, but after a while that was not needed.

Now following the guide, all of the steps to pull things apart worked well. But some tips. (removal steps)

- You CANT remove the bell housing while the clutch/flywheel is still inside. This means that ALL work on the clutch/flywheel is done insides the confines of is. This seems opposite to nearly any other cars bell-housing which lets you remove it, which the flywheel is in place. It means that you need to remove the bolts holding the clutch plate one at a time and then rotate the flywheel to access the next one. Remove the starter and stick a large flat screwdriver and wedge the flywheel around. I cant imaging how you would get this all off if you had a seized engine.
- Flywheel bolts are stiff, and not much room to get a breaker bar in. I ended up buying a larger impact wrench (1000nm) worked great. (old one was 300).
- Spigot bearing is trickly. using the 'grease' method I found some flaws.
1. You need a large bolt (15mm) to hammer into the grease-filled hole. They dont make these (only make 14mm and 16mm). I have a allen-head bolt the rightsides, but only the head was right. you need the whole length to be 15mm. I ended up getting a 16mm, cap-head bolt 120mm long, and ground it down. Worked great.
2. You need to constantly add grease, stick your finger in the hole, expel and air and repeat. Think of your other-half and you will get the idea.
3. You will be snickering at thought #2 the whole time
4. You need to 'shock' the grease out. When you fill the whole, you only get 2 hits before the pressure does not work any more.
5. Grease will come out around the bolt AND through the ball-bearings of the spiggot bearing. Hence it takes quick a few goes. I reckon it took me 20 resets of the process. Thats a lot of time giggling to yourself.

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So, some tips to put it back together.

- Oil spiggot bearing and mail seal before you hammer it in. Goes in much easier and you wont bugger it up (like I dig).
- Had to get the clutch resurfaced. i had hot spots on it.
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Cost $70 at a local break and clutch shop and took only a few hours.

- Putting the clutch plate back in, is the second most difficult thing (again cause the bell housing is in the way). It really is a two man job, only to lift and hold, the plat, centre the alignment tool, and the other to thumb tighten a screw, and then turn the flywheel. I got it done, by aligning the helper dowle thingy to the top to take the weight while carefully balancing the thing.
- If the alignment tool DOES NOT EASILY SLIDE IN/OUT then its not aligned. when doing the previous step, i must have knocked it somehow when I tightened all the screws, and the centering tool needed lots of effort to pull out. IT means that you CANT get the gearbox in.
- The whole engine lift/balancing tool/chain lift turned out to be not ideal. The problem is that a landcruiser gearbox/transfer box weight is NOT evenly distributed, so its near impossibly while hanging for it to be aligned, and will sit 5% twisted to one side. between this issue, and the cantering tool issue I spent 3 hours trying to get it all to connect. I had to give up.
- The next day and a clearer head, I decided to remove and redo the clutch plate. I found that I could 'loosen' the plate screws enough, that the actual clutch could be moved, without pulling it all apart. This let me re-align the clutch plate (it did not look out of alignment, but it was). The next big tip. TIGHTEN THE CLUTCH PLATE SCREWS A LITTLE BIT, ONE SCREW AT A TIME. (dont tighten one all the way). You need to evenly tighten the plate, testing that the alignment tool is relatively loose, turn the flywheel, tighten another screw. Do this for 10 mins until all the screws are tight and still continue. Each time you tighten one side, the other comes loose. Eventually it will all be tight AND the alignment tool still has some play.
- Dont forget the clutch-fork. I didnt replace the throw-out bearing as the one the KIT came with was very different. bearing felt ok anyway. Also remember to lightly grease anything that will be touching other metal, but not enough to splatter everywhere when its turning.
- This now worked. I was able to manhandle the gearbox in, through the clutch fork, into the hole. The clutch fork has its own issues in that it has two sections to go through. Its possible to get these lined up if you focus on it. you can get the fork on properly first before targeting the hole. You cant actually see the hole, so instead use the outside bolts hole as a guide AND ensure its all going together in parallel by looking at the space (bottom/top/left/right should all me the same). the lift balancer became handy to help align this. ALSO, put the transfer box into gear, and twist the outputshaft. This turns the input shaft to help with the alignment. You can also 'feel' where the edges of the outputshaft are when you have it nearly engaged (you get a notched feel)
- I could not 'push' it all the way, once it went, but I came within 1cm. This was enough to finger tighten the gearbox bolts. Then, (after a quick beer, 10am), I just slowly tightened the bolts until it all came together.

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Whole job, took prob 10 hours over 3 days and prob three dozen beers, mostly at the end. It would have been 6 hours, if I didn't stuff things up. I have NO IDEA how you do this from under the car. Would recommend a good gearbox lifter, and remember that the bottom of the geabox is NOT flat.
 
@Baron what tires are you running? Looks more like a 'road' tire than I see some of the trucks using, curious how it is in any sort of mud/dirt/snow (lol, Iknow, youre in Aus).
I need tires NOW, but I really dont know if I want a loud(er) off-road tire when I have so little desire to really go on trails etc
 
Gday
This is a great post. I’ve picked up a FJ62 that’s had it’s engine removed 3F and wires hacked indiscriminately. Would you be able to share some information about the wiring when I get into it?
 
Gday
This is a great post. I’ve picked up a FJ62 that’s had it’s engine removed 3F and wires hacked indiscriminately. Would you be able to share some information about the wiring when I get into it?
Sure. I have everything out at the moment. Including wiring loom. engine is still in place with all the plugs and I've lots of video's how they all connect. the real test is putting it back together. I'm in sydney is your close!
 

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