Builds FJ 40 project

[jackbrad]

Weekend update.

Well my wife was on Sprig break last week so we went on a cruise. This killed my car budget for last month and also killed anytime working on it last week.

All I did was take a couepl pictures of the motor mounts with the engine installed and also started to setup the new steering column.

Here are the pics from the motor mounts in.

Here is a pic of the steering column that I am using I took it apart because someone broke a piece of it try to still the truck.

 

[REZARF]

Dang bro!

Great works, great pics, keep it up. What are you going to do in the engine bay, paint it body color or black or what?

Thanks for sharing the pics are great!

Rezarf <><

 

[jackbrad]

I plan to go body color in the engine bay as well
Black on the frame and under the car


<><

 

[secretagent]

This is a great write up along with awesome pix. Keep up the good work and keep us posted. i love reading and seeing other cruiser heads projects.

 

[REZARF]

I plan to go body color in the engine bay as well
Black on the frame and under the car


<><

That is going to look great! Keep up the nice work.

Rezarf <><

 

[HogDriver]

How far back are your motor mounts from the rear shock mount? Nice work so far, seems like everything is coming together nicely.

Cheers

 

[HogDriver]

That's the rear of the front shock mount..

 

[JRFJ4-]

I like it.

I like the motor mounts. I wish I had done something like that. I have the AA motor mounts with the crappy rubber bushing things.

Your gear ratio will be fine with those tires. People always say to re-gear. There is a bunch of folks who run 44 boggers with 4.10 gears. I'm running
39.5 with 4.10. It still has plenty of power on the road and crawls along fine too. It still has plenty of power to sling gobs of mud very high in the air in 2nd and 3rd gear in 4LO.

Everything looks great, the TBI will get better mileage than what you had before. What are you doing about a wiring harness?

Oh, the steering is OK too. It uses the pillow block lower down the shaft. Most folks put it on the firewall, but that looks fine to me. They might have done that to clear the headers now that I think about it.

Keep it up.

JR

 

[jackbrad]

Thing have been moving very slowly for me this month. I have not made any real significant progress to speak of.

I talked with Poser over the phone about the positioning and working of the trans and t-case, and decided over all on the AA kit that is most commonly used for th350, th400, and 700r4 transmissions. However, AA recommends a newer and different setup than the one I picked up. Truth be told I think that the kit I choose works better for me.. so beng the "smarty" that I am I went with my gut.

Since March 30 all I have done is mount the trans crossmember and took the trans out to the rebuild shop.

I sold a couple of parts on ebay to recover some costs but, as usual... You never get any real money for things. So I made back about 500 on the 1000 I have in it so far, in trading out parts.

I thought some of you may be interested in the budget of a project like this.

I expect I will not go over this because if I do my wife will reduce me to dust.

Vechical Purchase 4500
Wiring Harnesses 800
AA Kit 700
Paint 2000
Body 1500
Engine 1200
Transmission 1025
Suspension 1200
Interior 1000
Other Conv. Kit Parts (Brakes) 567.35
Miscell 1500

Total 15592.35


Taxes killed me this month so it slowed the progress down a bit because speed in rebuilding a vehicle is in direct relation to the amount of cash you are ready to pump in it. I learn this lesson everytime... At first I am excited and in a hurry and soon the grim reaper of the wallet shows and things slow down.

Right now I am pushing 7 invested. 4500 for the car 1025 for the trans, AA kits 850, 400 in chassis wiring harness. I did get about 500 back on some parts sell but, that only helps some.

There is a long way to go.

I will post pics of the trans mounting and the trans in a few days.

 

[jackbrad]

BTW Poser is awesome... Thanks for the help.

Jack

 

[jackbrad]

Trans mount length

Here are the pics from the trans mount that we installed last week. I am pretty happy with it and I want to show you all the pics. I took the trans off to the trans man and he has already called and sadi it was done.

I put the truck on the lift to do this... It made this.

Here is what was left of the rear cross member. I had to cut it down.

After I removed them I did a dry fit with the kit. It removes the PTO cover for a mounting location.

Putting on the scab plates were easy we just cleaned around them with the small grinding pad and the tacked them in.

After that we just set the mount with a level (really tricky level. )And tacked the mount brackets on.

 

[74fjsemistock]

WoW.Nice man!

 

[FJ40onNOS]

hey im looking in the same swap, how long is the rear drive shaft?

 

[4x4Poet]

Your making good progress, IMO. Home based projects go pretty slow, in my experience. Keep your focus no matter what.

I'm pretty sure that the rear pinion points too up too much because the rear springs have much longer than stock shackles with no shims under the spring perches to right the pinion angle. When you install new springs with the right length shackles and/or shims the pinion yoke will be positioned lower.

If you're interested, Alcan Spring (and any custom spring maker) can make springs that allow for longer than oem shackles while retaining proper pinon angles without shims. They just bend one half of each spring a little more than the other half to *adjust* the pinion angle to compensate for longer shackles.

Shims, as a general rule, should be avoided, if possible. Most off-the-shelf springs make that difficult when using longer shackles.

 

[jackbrad]

Update

The last couple of weeks have not been a total waste. I got my transmission back from the rebuilder and last weekend with the help of my cousin Josh I finally got some progress made.
This is the trans... I am in the middle of cleaning it up.

I got sick I a couple of weeks ago and it took a good bit to get me up and going. I am not a 100 percent yet but, I am getting there day by day. A huge thanks to Josh.

To start, we had to bring the truck and trans home from the shop and put it in my basement. (Apparently, our family business is trying to max out the amount of vehicles you can stick in one building... As it stands now I can not walk from one end to the other. ) So these new pics are in my basement. My basement will work but, it is tight. Normally, I wedge my boat in there barely.

We were able to remove the body and all the parts from the frame. The only problems that I had were at the back. The rust in the rear was tremendous. We ended up just cutting the rear sill out and the cutting the bolts off after the body was off. Most of the bolts that held the body on just broke when we tried to loosen them. I was honestly thankful each time one did ... That way I knew that they would come loose and I did not have to fight them.

We tool the front fenders off first... It looks like I will be able to save one fender so far the other has a big cut out of it.

To get the body off we lifted it up on the back tires and then rolled it all back. The frame rolled back and then we pivoted it up so that the rear sill laid on the ground. Then we held it there and push the frame back forward.

There are tons of crap welded to this frame.

After that it was off to the blaster with the frame.

Then I was just beat. Lifting that frame after taken the body off all by ourselves was a chore.

I took the frame up to the guy to sandblast on Monday afternoon at 5
He called me at 11 the next morning and it was done... That was fast.

I primed it red.... It helps to see the coverage when we go to paint it black.

In the garage:

One thing I hate is the big crappy hitch that is welded on. I gotta cut that off.

Now I am going to get my suspension.. The OME kit is pretty expensive but, I think it is the the best ride. After that it will be back to the engine, brakes, birfield and other running gear stuff. (After I paint the frame of coarse. )

 

[my64fj40]

Lookin Good



Keep the good work up...



What type of Serpentine kit is that on your engine???



-my64fj40

 

[jackbrad]

Stock chevy belts

 

[swilson]

Good progress... keep the updates coming!

 

[jackbrad]

frame painted..

Today, I capped off a 2 month frame prep effort.
I finally got the frame grinded... cleaned... welded up in bad spot.... and all mounts set.

I can not say enough about how much my brother Pete and cousin Josh have made this possible. They have repeatedly helped when I could not get the job done. During this segment of the build I was sick for 4 weeks. Really sick.

Josh came over several times and helped me get this segment done when I could barely eat and could hardly move around without passing out.

My brother Pete has two kids... (The only really important things in my life.) He took care of them and me during the coarse of getting this frame welded up and moved in and out for paint. If you have ever done it moving a frame with nothing but, two guys is hard. Mix in lovable but, lively kids and getting the job done timely is much harder.

We moved the frame in just before the bottom fell out.

The frame was really easy to paint.
Getting the holes in the frame was not easy through. I really will have to paint them in a different way. It dod however, look pretty cool with the red showing through like gills in the frame. I am thinking about paint rust red in the when I hand paint it.

Next I will add suspension and put the front and rear end in. I am planning to get them to the sandblaster this week.

Jack

 

[jackbrad]

OME Springs Installed.

Last night I finally got my OME springs installed. It was a fairly easy install. The only that that held me up was "life in general" and determining which direction the shackles and spring go on.

I purchased this suspension kit from Man-A-Fre so I still have a number of parts and pieces to put on.

The number one thing that I learned in this install was that old shackles are very hard to get off. Once you get pasted that things are really pretty easy.

The spring come basically as you see above. You really don't get any instructions so expect to have to pay attention if you are in the installer.

The shackles come not put together. So you will have to assemble them. They are pretty nice but, I have to say it took me a thought or two figure out which way they are assembled. What I figured out was that really all that matter in the assembly in that you put the nuts on the threaded side before you try them on the car. I had to go ahead and tight them on the thread side first so that when I get them to the car they did not need help staying still.

Anyway after I assembles the shackles by threading the rods into the threaded plate and putting the outside nuts on them. I went to the shackle hanger and put in the new bushings. Adding a little grease to the bushing made it go in very easily.

Looks like my camera focused wrong on this pic.

Then I added a little grease to the shackle pins and was able to push them in. If they got stubborn I just banged them.

Putting the spring in the front mount and them bolting them in the shackle seemed to make the job easier. I did that on the front and did not have to fight to line up the holes on the mount.

The fronts went in the same basic way.

The main reason I posted these pics is so that anyone doing this will see which way the shackles and springs go. I had to ask and it was not easy to find.

As far as my research goes these are on correctly.


My next challenge is to get my diffs blasted painted and sealed.
Then its knuckles... brakes and put the major components to the driveline in. (Engine, Trans, Transfer case.)

Off to the blaster