Family Fun Bus (HJ47 Troopy)

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bull

bull

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Pendleton Oregon
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I figured instead of posting a ton of different yet related threads I would start an uber thread covering the trials and tribulations of our experiences. There will be some double coverage as I get everything in one place so please be patient and understanding :)

The wife and I made a decision that we wanted a troopy for the family. We already had a lifted 100 series and it was great, but it was getting cramped for space, if you can imagine that. So we searched for what seemed like 2 years for a nice low mileage troopy. A LHD vs RHD wasn't really a factor for us. This gave us a bigger field to choose from.

We searched all the usual sites and never really found a decent troopy. They were either missing rear seats and or beat to hell. I was crying in my beer one FJ45 run about not being able to get a decent troopy. That is when OrangeFJ45 said he knows a guy that has some nice ones and doesn't frequent the online places too much.

After 6 months or so of e-mails and phone calls with this guy he was ready to sell. It was the perfect troopy for our family. Had ample room inside. It also came with a huge rack to put all of our crap. An added bonus was that the troopy also came with a custom water proof bag made the same size as the rack (it kicks booty).

So here are some pics when we got it..
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So next we decided to take a break and drive the rig. See what we like and don't like and make improvements from there. We drove it daily all over town and even took it to Stockton Ca from Seattle Wa to attend orangefj45's swap meet.

1st chateau greenfox
2nd sellin crap..can you spot calicruiser?
3rd bigger shot
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Kelli and I got married during the summer at our place so all bets were off on getting stuff done on the fun bus. In September we made the pilgrimage down to Deer Valley, California for the 6th annual FJ45 run. If you haven't gone and like 45s etc, You need to go. I will even donate a 45 to drive down.

1st fully loaded troopy..yes that is two axles from a FJ60 in there..
2nd pit stop
3rd south bound and down
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So after getting back home we decided we loved the troopy and were ready to sell our 100 series. After really not advertising the 100 series for sale Gineric bought it and drove it home to Idaho where it is now happy as ever.

Now that the 100 series was gone I need to make the troopy more family friendly. The rear seats are not that comfortable and do not face forward, which is probably not that safe for little ones.

After reading wagoneers build of the FZJ45 build I saw he had a custom seat made. You can pick the color, size and number of holes for seatbelts. We measure the back of the troopy with the rear seats still intact and came up with 46" as being a safe width.

Armed with this info, I called up PRP http://www.prpseats.com/home.html. Told them I wanted a bench seat 46" wide with gray vinyl. There will be possibly 3 people sitting in the back so I will need provisions for seat belts. They said no problemo, it should take a week to build and a week to ship. Sure enough it arrived 2 weeks later in great shape and perfectly built. I was a little nervous on the fit, but after throwing it in the back it was just right..


The main idea was to keep the stock seats in place. I could have removed them and gained another 10 inches of bench seat width, but being as rare as they are we decided to leave them. This also played to the fact that I could still fold down the back seats for more seating capacity.
 
So on with the rear seat install. The prp come with tabs to weld or bolt the seat to a subframe. I figured I would bend up a seat frame and make it fancy. Well after calculating how much space I had, it looked like it was going to be a straight tube affair.

The beauty of this seat is since the troopy and fj40 share the same width tube I can bolt the seat into my 40 also...Que bueno

I had some 1" tubing and 1/4 inch steel plate at the shop so I got to business quickly.


Here is a picture of the seat already mounted to the frame with OEM used toyota seat belts. The outer belts don't get bolted in until the seat is inside the troopy.


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Once the center pads were on. I moved to the mounting pads that would attach to the troopy tub. All I had was thick plate so I made it the best I could without having to buy more steel. Probably way overkill, but MIBS is best..

Here it is being test fitted.
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Pad
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I made the square plate with rounded edges so that they were safe for sensitive skin.
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Here it is resting in its final place. The bolt threads will be cut and tacked in place so they will never come off unless my grinder says so.
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Belts run through the custom cut holes in the seat
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Gluing the tabs to the frame
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Note that I had the back of the frame resting on the rear of the bench seat. In the front I kicked it up 1.5"s so that the seat is reclined a bit sitting on the frame. It helps with car seat angle in the long run and doesn't affect passenger comfort.

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