CW 2.0 (19 Viewers)

[cruisedeisel]

Make sure to tie back any long hair and no loose clothing. I had to run over and hit the EMERGENCY POWER Stop in our shop once when a friend caught his sleeve in the chuck and almost ripped his arm off. 5-10 seconds more and it would have been a gonner.

 

[seapotato]

Yeah keeping the soft fleshy bits out of the metal spinny bits is generally a good plan... hard to play guitar without all the fingers.


I'll set up a holy s*** button of some kind when I'm rigging up the belts.

 

[seapotato]

Did some minor stuff yesterday. After staring at it a bit, I decided to raise the deck, so I made up some 1.5" spacers.


Just out of a bit of nylon I'd had for years. Quick and easy body lift basically.

I'll weld in some bits of 1.5" square tube at some point but I want to see if this is the spot I'm going to leave it so I don't have to cut welds if I decide to change it again.. Proportions look better I think.

Course, this now means that the rack is at least 1.5" too tall, so I need to finally mess with a hard top so I can see how much I can lower the rack. I want to get it down pretty close to the fbg lid.

Not exactly excited about it. I took it for a quick burn a couple days ago (whenever it wasn't raining last ) and it was smooth ,felt tight and most of all, fairly quiet...

Not words I figured I'd be using, but a hard top will **** all that up by turning it into a reflective deafening tin can. Hence my lack of excitement about the prospect.

Step one is hacking up the fbg lid tho.

 

[GTSSportCoupe]

Theres always the Peltor option. I used to wear a set when I drove my MR2 SC on long trips to the interior back in the day. That car was great for scaring the deer away from the highway well ahead of me (hitting deer in it would have been fatal). That said I replaced the straight-thru muffler with a multi-chamber soon after one of the longer trips...

Of course the exhaust system isn't necessarily the loudest thing about a cruiser. If only it were so simple, haha. My family dislikes my LJ78 for all the noise it makes....and it's relatively quiet!!

Looking forward to seeing your truck with the hard top on though.

 

[seapotato]

haha, it's funny, when I redid the exhaust on the 61 I added a muffler, I swear the ****in thing is louder inside now.

I think I must have blocked out how much I hate these hard tops. I have enough sides in the shed that I can afford to waste a s***ty set for test fitting and figuring things out. Trying to keep the vent window and the seatbelt attachment point is going to require a few million cuts and welds...

Insert 1000 more emojis...

Don't feel like getting itchy today tho.

 

[seapotato]

I experienced some shrinkage.

Bonus, at least there's a 30" strip of this s***ty old hard top I didn't have to sand.

Just a little bit of tabbing to hold it for a test fit.

It's been so long since I used my epoxy the pumps seized. Trip to ipp in my future I guess.

Fortunately I have a good front channel that attaches to the ws frame, the one that was on this crappy top fell off when I looked at it.

Guess I'll have to dig out some doors for fitting before I get too carried away. I anticipate some ****ery will be required to get the gaps small enough birds can't fly in.

Not looking forward to that.

 

[slowandsteady BJ]

Raising the deck was a good call. It looks better. I also much prefer the non 35" tires.

Ever thought about original steel rims with factory hub caps? Perhaps widen the rims an inch? Sure would be easy with that lathe. Just a thought.

 

[seapotato]

Raising the deck was a good call. It looks better. I also much prefer the non 35" tires.

Ever thought about original steel rims with factory hub caps? Perhaps widen the rims an inch? Sure would be easy with that lathe. Just a thought.

Yes, that's one of the things I'm looking forward to with that big old brute , there's a 16" faceplate with it I need to clean up, and the actual swing is around 18"... should be able to get into all sorts of trouble.

I would like a stockish kind of rim, just preferably a bit bigger than 15".

 

[seapotato]

Apparently whatever formula I used to estimate the height of the rack was fairly accurate. If I lower it by 1.5" it'll be about 1/2" above the roof.

Dragged in my hard doors to clean up as well...should be interesting to see how they fit, because I'm sure my handmade eyeballed tub is laser accurate in all directions.




Now I just have to remember wtf I did with the door strikers....

 

[seapotato]

Didn't really intend to work on it today, because I work tonight, but the curiosity got to me so I stuck a door on.

the fact it sorta fit right away was a bit of a relief...

Windshield angle is slightly off, I might have to tweak the hinges or go with the bolts to hold it back rather than the knobs, just needs to come back a bit more to tighten up the gap at the top where it meets the door.

Don't think it'll be a big deal tho, so I'm calling it a win. I'll dig out a couple fresher top sides and see if I can get a full sized vent window in there, or if I'll have to cheat and narrow them a little.

 

[GTSSportCoupe]

Looks great from this end of the interwebz.

 

[cruisedeisel]

Is that a 50 caliber machine gun port?

 

[seapotato]

Is that a 50 caliber machine gun port?

Which, the rust hole in the door?

 

[seapotato]

So I used to have a pretty large stash of hardtop sides...

Right hand one was annoying as hell because all my sides had the same rusty areas.

This was a pain in the ass. I tried to warp them evenly in both directions when welding them up.

Haven't done much fairing yet, it's been kinda cold for that kindof thing. Once I'm done I'll douche the inner recesses with krown and shake it around. Not even primer inside those voids, just bare metal. Small wonder they all rust out.

I might glass up the top tomorrow and then next week regoop and rivet it to the channel, then I can figure out which way things are leaning when things are actually bolted together a bit.

Chunk of side in the back is me deciding how I'm going to fill that space. I'll probably get a chunk of tin cut and then put ambulance door windows in. Had thought to use an older ht side with the one window, but they aren't actually symmetrical, so had to toss that idea.

Also tempted to use the chunk of fbg lid I cut out...it's big enough, some ribs glassed in to hold it flat and it'd work ok. Currently seeming like a good idea cuz I'm reeeeeal fawkin' sick of welding sheet metal

 

[cruiserpilot]

I guess you don’t have an early style rear hatch door and upper sill attachment.
That would be a nifty way to finish it up. Come on, you’re almost done welding.

 

[seapotato]

I guess you don’t have an early style rear hatch door and upper sill attachment.
That would be a nifty way to finish it up. Come on, you’re almost done welding.

That'd certainly be easiest, but no. Don't have one.
I'll think about it some more. I sense the beginnings of a plan forming, just might take a few sessions of staring at the inside of my eyelids to shake it out.

 

[cruiserpilot]

Bummer, the one thing I’ve not been able to get parts from are old roofs.
Some late model stuff came my way but it was all rusty cornflakes when I
got rid of it.

 

[seapotato]

Bummer, the one thing I’ve not been able to get parts from are old roofs.
Some late model stuff came my way but it was all rusty cornflakes when I
got rid of it.

Yeah doesn't seem like a lot the early 70's and before stuff survived around here or there was never much to begin with.

Weird considering Toyotas don't rust any worse than anything else...

Think I've only ever seen one of the early bifold hatches in person.

I'm thinking about a smaller hatch that could pop out like a vent window. Or possibly larger versions of the vent windows. I like the look of the old split windows on fixed top 45s, despite the fact that they aren't very practical.

 

[cruiserpilot]

I have a ‘65 top for an FJ45 but not for sale if you wanted to look at it. It has just
a single rear window but you could take dimensions to keep it similar. That guy
who was looking for Harley, if he finds him you might want to see what they have stashed
I’m betting a few bits of old parts.

 

[seapotato]

Thanks but it's all good.

I'm not too worried about using stock parts unless they're free and already in my shed.


This is where it's heading tho. Some scraps from the hard top off cuts pile.

Leaves room for a smaller more easily managed panel that may or may not pop open an inch at the bottom depending how I feel about it when I get there.

This deals with the bend in the back of the top.