I have been debating making an old school FJ40/Early "Toyota" emblem in CAD that would bolt directly to the bolt holes of my current Lexus logo on the gille. I already have the fake chrome lexus logo off and it seems pretty easy to build an emblem to use the same bolt holes as my Lexus. I already have a 3-D printer and could print them from PLA plastic with 100% fill (this means it would be solid plastic and not shelled out. I did some basic math and it would cost me around $15-20 in PLA plastic to make each one and would take another 30-40 hours to make, print, test fit, repair, and reprint (if needed). Once all the R & D was done I could print them pretty easily. It would probably take about 6 hours per print and I could do 3-4 at a time. I'm not sure this amount of time is worth alll the hassle unless other guys would be interested in one too. I'm thinking around $40 for an emblem. Don't quote me on that yet. I still need to actually build one before I will know an exact cost to make. I guess I have two questions: Is there any interest in the old FJ40 style emblem on an 80? This would mount to the factory emblem holes. Also, if there IS interest; which font would people like? Here's what I found that I like. I actually think I like the modern FJ Cruiser Font on an 80 the most. That is pictured on the Tacoma at the bottom. It has an old school feel but with a cleaner modern look.
I found this 80 with a similar set up. It appears he is running an ACTUAL FJ40 emblem with a custom grille. I really like this look but don't have the time or money to fab up something like this nor do I want to try and track down an FJ40 emblem on the cheap. I also think it would look a little better if the font was a little bigger. My thought would be to keep the factory grille and just bolt this into the factory emblem location using the factory screws. I like 5 minute mods a little more then entire weekend mods. Props to the guy who did this. He did a great job.
If someone was willing to loan me their 80 94-97 toyota emblem off their grille then I could make one for a yota as well. It wouldn't be much more work to move the bolt holes to the location needed for the yota grille.
Da entire front of that white LC is beautiful! Any info on the bumpers, lights etc..... Would love that entire set up on my 91!!!!!! LC porn at it's finest!
I think I'm gonna go ahead and start working on this. Since I work full time and have a 1 and 3 year old at home; I'm not gonna be ablelto devote a lot of time to this. Give me a month or so and I will have a bolt on ready product to show you guys. I will probably print one in red and one in white. I will then paint each one black and then sand the raised letters leaving only the red/white letters exposed. Probably will then toss on a coat of clear coat for durability. The PLA plastic seems to do pretty well with sanding and paint so it should look really good. I think I will do one design with the FJ40 font and one with the FJ Cruiser font. Once I have the basic platform and tabs built it isn't much more work to just change the font.
I just finished designing the "FJ" font emblem. I thought I would share what I have so far. I need to print it out on my 3-D printer but right now it's down with a bad extruder motor. As soon as the new part comes in I will have in printed and test fit. With the main chunk of the work done it should now be quite easy to make minor tweaks to get it to fit perfect. I will start working on the "FJ40" font this weekend. At this point I badly need someone to donate their Toyota emblem so I can make one for an 80 and not just an LX450. The one pictured below would only fit on an LX.
I'm going to an 80 meet n greet/camping trip in two weeks. I'm gonna try to talk someone into letting me borrow their emblem there. If I don't have any luck then I will send you a PM and we can figure it out. Thanks for the offer.
Well I ended up having some spare time to kill so I went ahead and added the FJ40 font to the template. It still needs a little refining but overall turned out well.
