Dusty Love Restoration - 1964 Fj45 LV (1 Viewer)

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Arabian Cruiser

Arabian Cruisers
SILVER Star
Joined
Mar 6, 2010
Threads
25
Messages
744
Location
Dubai, UAE
A few years ago I got a call close to midnight from a friend asking me if I wanted to go in 50 /50 on an LV. The numbers being thrown around were too rich for me and being an eBay auction, time was against us to arrange the funds and who knew what it would end up at. So told him I'm in but he would need to bring two more people in to make it work.

A few minutes later we had the two other guys lined up, except one of them didn't know he was in. He woke up the next day with a bunch of msgs on his phone and surprised as to what had happened, but he was a good sport about it.

My wife asked me what was going on because she had witnessed the entire episode unfold in front of her as she was laying in bed next to me.
I had been caught red-handed in a purchase of another cruiser. Well technically we hadn't won the bid yet, and so it was all talk at that point which probably helped my case with the Mrs, No harm done. Yet.

Side Note: Historically I would always somehow find a way to say that new cruiser entering the driveway at the house belongs to a friend or 'I'm helping with some work on it', or ' yah that, I bought it many months ago and it just arrived', or 'I am selling it for a friend', or 'I bought it to sell it'. I learnt fast that saying I bought it to sell it only caused more problems as she would keep asking about "how much money it would sell for". I think I used all the possible excuses available. But never got caught in the act. But not on this one. I had to tell my wife the truth. Sometimes telling some truth can buy you years of telling untruths. More on that later.

I think it was midnight when I shut the phone and was giggling like a little girl about how crazy this all was and went to bed. Woke up to find out we had won the bid and I was a 1/4 owner of a dream truck that we didn't plan on keeping. Told the wife which she found amusing. The problem with this story so far is none of us was drunk or under the influence. All stone-cold sober and smiling.

If I remember correctly the plan was to restore, sell her and retire to an island and live happily ever after. That was the plan. Funny how they don't always work out.

This is that truck that arrived.

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That was the starting point? Lucky. Beautiful LV.

yes. We had bought it under the assumption that it was a clean truck. As you will see in the following posts what was really hiding under that ‘good from far but far from good’ appearance. But compared to a lot of the starting points I have seen yes very very lucky. She cleaned up well.
 
After a couple of years of the truck sitting and no one driving it, the guys started to flake out each for his own reason I guess. Still, it became apparent to us that we had bought it expensive in all the excitement. The cost of the resto would double what we had into it and so selling it and retiring to an island was no longer a reality but a dream. Note to self: never buy a truck online, let alone on an auction site through a friend.

I ended up buying one of the partners out in cash and swapped a nice all original 1983 fj40 LX (Lexy) for the other two shares. I miss that truck. Not a bad deal. Expensive but worth the sacrifice.

The LV was parked at a friend of one of the ex-owners house since she landed in Dubai. And so now I had to move it but didn't have space for it as I had moved my family and kids to Dubai with all my cars from Saudi and the apartment block I lived in only had one parking space for each apartment. Luckily the building also has a covered public parking garage for all the retail shop guests, so I parked my fzj80 and fj40 there and the wife car got the underground parking spot. Still, I could not park a car that didn't have plates, so asked my cousin who was kind enough to park it at his house, and the car sat there for another year or two.
 
Here is the car on the day she became mine and I got the keys

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So a few years after we bought the truck is when I decided to start work on her. I needed to get her road legal to enjoy driving her before getting in the restoration. At this point, she needed a transfer case rebuild which I had ordered the gasket kit for, some paint touch up as the paint was flaking in huge chunks. She had some minor surface rust around the rear quarter windows and standard going through before the inspection to get her roadworthy.

I didn't know what I wanted to do with her. So I picked her up from my where she had sat and sent her out to a company that grinds down, clean and repaints undercarriages to make her presentable for when she goes for the road inspection test and gets plates. Didn't want to give the inspection guy any reason to take a deeper dive into the inspection if he saw all that gunk and rust on the exhaust and fuel tank and Chassis. As you will see in the pictures, she was crusty from underneath.

The undercarriage needed some love as you can see

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Don't have any images of the work done.

Please find videos from the companies Instagram account which you can find below.

Before


After

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To be fair for them they had to grind down a bunch of crap and plate all the hardware. It was much better than how it was and would have impressed any inspector if you showed up at night to get it passed. it was a temporary solution.

Some bad screenshots from the videos

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That got done, but Seb, who owns a restoration shop and who was going to do the work, started to look at all the things she needed work on for the inspection. One thing led to another, and now I'm balls deep into a full-blown nut and bolt restoration and some way to go before she gets back on the road.

Here are some of the issues that turned the tide on driving it and deciding to go for the full restoration.

The paint was peeling off in huge sheets and seemed like it was rolled on and not sprayed. . There was also rust under the weatherstrip.

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What’s the VIN # on this one?
 
Have seen much worse! I’m glad it found a good home, regardless of the work that was done before you owned it glad it’s with someone who appreciates the rarity that is a 45 LV. Good luck with the resto! You can’t lose money if you never sell it ;)
 
Have seen much worse! I’m glad it found a good home, regardless of the work that was done before you owned it glad it’s with someone who appreciates the rarity that is a 45 LV. Good luck with the resto! You can’t lose money if you never sell it ;)

yup don't plan on selling her.
 
The next few posts will be close-ups pictures of the cruiser before teardown.

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Then the shop started to teardown the truck. Found what seemed to be the original colour which also gave us an idea of what sort of restoration it had. It seems the PO basically embalmed the LV for us. which was a good thing.

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She looks a lot better than this though. Cheap paint job but like you said, it probably preserved her for a bit.
You need to PM @Gumby and change the vin number to your name on the registry list.

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Wow if that underside pre-restore wouldn’t pass inspection I’m in trouble, 😂.
 
She looks a lot better than this though. Cheap paint job but like you said, it probably preserved her for a bit.
You need to PM @Gumby and change the vin number to your name on the registry list.

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Already changed. It’s funny I have this picture after doing some research. Can you confirm it’s the same LV ?
 

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