December POTM Ming89FJ62's 78 (1 Viewer)

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Ming89FJ62

Pig farmer extraordinaire
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Joined
Jul 31, 2002
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51
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1,753
Location
Palatine, IL
Arnold - a tale of a pig

Arnold is our second pig. I found him on e-bay and after no one met the reserve I tracked the owner down in a neighboring town. We agreed to meet on a Saturday morning that ended up being one of the coldest of the seasons along with chitown40 after he finished his 24 hour duty shift. If you’re going to sell a vehicle you normally would make sure that the thing would at least run right? Battery was almost dead, carb was junk (the only thing that got it started was some WD-40 that chitown40 brought with) brakes barely functional, tires were dry rotted – it was a long list although we were reassured that it was used daily all summer long. A couple of e-mails and few days later we had Arnold towed home.

Now why would anyone need, or want, a second pig – other than Landpimp that is. Well after having our first pig for about 3 years the wife wanted one of her own. She didn’t drive stick at the time and didn’t want to bruise Wang while she was learning but when I found Arnold her eyes lit up. Keep in mind that she’s been driving an 89 FJ62 as a daily driver for 19 years so there’s a lot of land cruiser in her back ground. How could I disappoint my wife of almost 20 years. We welcomed piggy #2 into the family.

Brakes new front rotors and a new master were first order of business along with a new Exide Orbital battery, I wanted the thing to at least start and stop. Now to figure out what we had bought.

Arnold is a 78 piggy with California emissions, a Fairey overdrive unit and was miraculously unmolested but had been ridden hard and neglected for quite some time. The good thing is that our other pig, Wang, is also a 78 with California emissions (now desmogged) but I had many common parts and manuals. Time to get to work.

Under the hood things looked pretty well, well used. Cosmetically, the air filter housing was one large island of rust. Most of the vacuum lines were cracked, the radiator had dreaded streaks of blue green in several places. There were extenders on two spark plugs so I kind of new that our latest piggy would be an oil burner as well as a gas guzzler. The parking brake needed attention as well.

The interior is in good shape. One small tear in the head liner and a saggy drivers side seat which is the source of summer swamp ass (piggy owners will know what we're talking about). The heater/defroster hoses have been replaced and the air plenum from the firewall to the heater has been repaired. I've also added a 0 to 5,000 rpm tach and a switch for the fog lights to the dash cluster. The brake light and seat belt warning buzzer work as they should. We also had the original seatbelts rebuilt by SsnakeOyl products to keep the interior as original as possible. I also replaced the speakers that a PO had mounted in the doors. The PO had the Sony head unit installed and with out the dash plate being butchered, very nice.

Cosmetically, rust in the usual places, rear quarter, front quarter, hood (surface only), roof (surface only). It’s been repainted once although the red/white color scheme has been retained. All the window seals are shot as are the door weather seals – especially the rear window/tailgate. The rear window works well but the rear heater, windshield washer and carb cooling fan are in operative.

New antifreeze revealed the radiator needed help so I dropped in a spare that Gumby had given me from the war wagon when he did his engine conversion after a local radiator shop reconditioned it. New BFG TA’s replaced the dry rotted Bridgestones. All vacuum lines were replaced. Several of the bulbs for side markers and tail lights needed replacement as well. The carb went out to Jim C for a rebuild and tune so that when spring popped Arnold would at least be drivable. A new voltage regulator and alternator rebuild were added to the list after we figured the battery wasn’t fully charging. I removed, cleaned and replaced the odometer which is now functional again and had the wife install a new fuel pump – her very first wrenching experience.

With time running tight I had a local shop change all the fluids, diffs, TC, oil, antifreeze plus a tune up. Only problem arose when they failed to completely fill the radiator. I’m only 5-6 miles away from the shop but 2F heads are not tolerant of running hot. Next on the list was a new/rebuilt head and since Arnold still had all its original exhaust manifold/exhaust system it still had the California emissions “thermal reactor” which had cracked to the level of being unusable. I couldn’t find any later exhaust manifolds which would have been an easy swap so I ended up finding a “thermal reactor” that Mark A had buried under a work bench in his shop. One little weld to repair a small casting break and I was back in business.

Since the wife is now a certified master of 4 speed manual transmissions we bit the bullet and swapped the engine this spring with a reconditioned 2F from SOR – it was cheaper than a local rebuild, and added a new clutch, water pump and thermostat.. What a difference. The old 2f had an oil appetite of a quart every 100 miles or so and had zero “umf”. Now it drives, and pulls, better that Wang who’ll be getting Arnold’s old 2F after a winter rebuild (my winter project).

I still have to make the time to get the carb cooling fan to work and run a new wire for the windshield washer pump but that’s what winter’s for. We’re in line for a local body shop to take Arnold in for a winter project – we’ll be keeping the Freeborn red and Cygnus white color scheme.

I know that this stock “restoration” may not be as exciting to some as it is to us but bringing another classic Land Cruiser back to life is certainly a worthy cause. For us cruising around town with the dogs in the back truly or an occasional trip to the office on a nice day is a blast.

Several weeks ago we stopped at the local dealer to get a hitch adaptor for the UJZ100 in Arnold. We almost brought the dealership to its knees. 10 to 15 sales people, the sales manager, 2 service writers and a handful of mechanics circled the truck all to the delight of the wife explaining her truck. That’s what old pigs are all about. Here are some photos.
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Can someone tell me what's up with the shackles?

It looks like someone installed an extended shackle on the drivers side only!?!?

Hey, what's wrong with a mostly stock resto? That's what ours is too except for the diesel repower because for me a 3B diesel or rebuilding the 2F would have cost about the same (I had a 3B without a vehicle in the garage) which made the decision easy.
 
Nice ROM...wife has also had an fj60 for a DD for a long time.......... btw, any pix of your foglight brackets?, they look and give a nice touch to the vehicle........an fj 45 used at work overseas had them...........wouldn't mind putting some on "Rusty", Trollhole found site in his thread that had the foglights but could never get the website to come up; Marshall any luck with the site on fogs?

Lou
 
Harry, noticed that your pig has rust around the hood hinges like mine; any thoughts on solving this before it goes bad?..........had thought about getting a cheapo sandblaster and just hitting this area, the using rustoleum primer and then rattle canning it; but haven't seen it done and don't want to screw things up...........have been know to do that a few times<LOL>

Lou
 
Nice ROM...wife has also had an fj60 for a DD for a long time.......... btw, any pix of your foglight brackets?, they look and give a nice touch to the vehicle........an fj 45 used at work overseas had them...........wouldn't mind putting some on "Rusty", Trollhole found site in his thread that had the foglights but could never get the website to come up; Marshall any luck with the site on fogs?

Lou


Lou,

The fog light brackets are nothing special - just a few chunks of flat bar with holes in them. If you really want a pic I can oblige.

Harry
 
Harry, noticed that your pig has rust around the hood hinges like mine; any thoughts on solving this before it goes bad?..........had thought about getting a cheapo sandblaster and just hitting this area, the using rustoleum primer and then rattle canning it; but haven't seen it done and don't want to screw things up...........have been know to do that a few times<LOL>

Lou

I'm taking all the rust repair to a higher level - a local body shop who's willing to take the 55 on as a "spare time" project. I'll let you know how they decide to tackle it.

Harry
 
I'm taking all the rust repair to a higher level - a local body shop who's willing to take the 55 on as a "spare time" project. I'll let you know how they decide to tackle it.

Harry

Harry, that's exactly what I did, and although it's been MONTHS, I don't regret it one bit. It will worth all the time "at the spa" when she comes back sparkling and shiny.

I love that you are keeping the stock colors! I happen to be a big fan of the red and white piggy. And to your wife, big respect for jumping into the pig world, I just did the same thing last year and I don't regret it a bit!
 
Harry, your cockpit looks great with a lot of detailing......am curious, what is that little green button to the right of your tailgate glass switch?

Lou
 
Nice Pig!!!
 
Harry, your cockpit looks great with a lot of detailing......am curious, what is that little green button to the right of your tailgate glass switch?

Lou

Lou,

The green toggle is for the fog lights. I'm still searching for an OEM fog light switch.
 
Nice pig. Very clean. I dig those fog lights a lot.
 
You have shoulder belts! Do you know if they are stock? Can you post more pictures of them?
 
Belts were rebuilt by SsnakeOyl Products - not cheap Homepage

Or you can use aftermarket from Seat Belts

Only issue with the Wesco belts is the lack of metric hardware - you'll have to make a bushing from some 1/4" sch 40 pipe for the pivot on the B pillar.

Snnake-Oyl know their price point - it ran about $150 more to rebuild the original Toyota belts than buy after market replacments.
 

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