Dave's 1978 FJ40 long restoration project

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I finally got the frame members and horns straight by using a 24" crescent wrench. Before and after. Took the frame in for powder coating today.
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Looking great Dave!!!!
 
Hade a VERY enjoyable conversation with Dave yesterday as a follow up to my suggestion that he tackle straightening the frame himself. I am hoping he shares the story here. It so very typical of the empowering experience these builds can be.
 
Originally, I took my frame to a powder coat/ fab shop to have the frame members and bumper extensions or horns straightened. I showed them what needed to be done and they said "no problem". After two months, they called me and said "we want you to see what we did and give us approval to shoot the powder coat. I went down there and noticed the members were wavy and not straight. They never touched the horns. They told me they couldn't straighten them. They had frame shop owners, VW shop owners, classic car guys, ETC. look at it and said it couldn't be fixed. This is my first resto so I called Mark and he said "put the bumper back on and get a big crescent wrench on it and do it yourself". I was skeptical to say the least. I thought, how am I going to bend this thick steel straight but I would give it a try.
Being a heavy equipment owner I have some very large tools as you can imagine. But I thought, hey, I have an idea :idea: I have a bench vise in my garage that I don't use maybe if I clamp that down on it really hard it will take the waviness out of the members and straighten out the horns. So I tried it.


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It helped but didn't quite work as well as I thought. So I decided to put the bumper on and proceeded to work the metal with the crescent wrench. Sure as heck in 2 hours I was done. I felt pretty good about myself and took it back to the powder coat shop. I showed them what I did and they were shocked that I did it. The owner brought out the fab guys and they couldn't believe I was able to straighten it out. They thought I wouldn't be back for weeks. As I drove away, they were still looking at it. I felt great about my accomplishment. I also know it was done right and I never have to worry about it again.
I think that's why we do this. a sense of personal accomplishment, pride, and satisfaction. :)
 
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DSB345 said:
It helped but didn't quite work as well as I thought. So I decided to put the bumper on and proceeded to work the metal with the crescent wrench. Sure as heck in 2 hours I was done. I felt pretty good about myself and took it back to the powder coat shop. I showed them what I did and they were shocked that I did it. The owner brought out the fab guys and they couldn't believe I was able to straighten it out. They thought I wouldn't be back for weeks. As I drove away, they were still looking at it. I felt great about my accomplishment and I know it was done right and I never have to worry about it again.
I think that's why we do this. a sense of personal accomplishment, pride, and satisfaction. :)
Click to expand...

An old body guy told me that most metal has a memory and with the right amount of heat and patience will go back to where it originally was. I think that a lot of the "professionals" tend to think inside of the box and have a hard time looking at non traditional ways to fix things. The thing that I love most about being a dad is watching my kids go into a project with no knowledge of how it's "supposed" to be done and come up with a unique solution to the problem. I learn as much from watching them as they do from me. Congrats on fixing something that couldn't be fixed. You will get satisfaction every time you look at the frame.
 
Picture day!

Steering box is done:
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Dave, my son literally cleaned every spline on the worm gear and sector shaft with a razor blade. Impressed me!
 
Timing cover looks great. Powdercoating is addictive!
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Transfer case is almost done:

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Still need to make the call on the gold zinc. I'm exploring another option for the smaller parts. Won't include the headlight buckets.

I've got a couple od days of carb rebuilds before I get back to this.
 
Food for thought on the plating. Sometimes even parts in the same batch come out different.

I pulled out a fresh alt bracket for my swb. Factory color.
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Then I remembered I had a plated 2F bracket. Both parts plated at the same time. One is lighter than stock, one darker.
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I found a core support.
 
Wow, progress is awesone on your buid. Nice work!
 
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