FJ55 newbie

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Oh yeah!
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The lady at the DMV was super excited when she saw it. She thought it was super cool and even knew what it was.

It did good on it's drive down to Auburn. Only half an hour drive, but nothing wierd happened. The transfer case is leaking, but I already knew that. The engine had two little "hicups" driving home but I'm still pretty convinced the carb has issues causing that kinda stuff and the low off idle power.

I think I'll take it up to the local graval pit this weekend and play in the dirt a little with it. :)
 
Congrats!

-Daniel
 
Played with the Bucket finally! Good day. Popped a tire 30 seconds into the trip! My friend broke his front driveshaft 30 seconds after that... other then that it was awesome.

I did have one issue which is going to be a pain to fix. The front seal on the engine started POURING oil out when I had it at a very hard downhill. :(

But... all in all a really fun afternoon. Plus, I haven't been out to Greenhorn in like 4 years and it brought back lots of good High School memories. We used to go out there after school and weekends at least once a week back when we thought we were hardcore having a stock FJ40 and a lifted Toyota pikcup with no other mods. ha ha. Good times...


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Yay graval!!!!!

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DOH!

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That creek was deeper then it looked...

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Sweet poser shot!

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This is fun...

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Pefect fall day for wheeling.
 
So, I just bought a big pile of parts I can't really afford right now to get both piggies running before summer.

Got a carb and distubutor for the Bucket, and a head gasket and some other small parts for the blue one. Going to go get the F motor put together and ready to go in today, hoping that by the end of the weekend I can have the blue cruiser running for the first time since I got it over a year ago.

The bucket shouldn't be too far behind. I just need to install the carb and distubutor and it's good to go.
 
Yeah, I just realized a few months ago that I needed to focus on one truck at a time or I wasn't going to have anything to wheel this summer. Got my 40 rewired and back into driving shape again so now I can play with the pigs again and not worry about having nothing to wheel this summer.

Now I need pushrods. I bent 4 of them yesterday being a dumbass and trying to remove the head by myself. I ended up dropping it half way out and it took out 4 of the pushrods. They are $16 EACH from NAPA and I am not going to pay that when I know there are a million F engines laying around ripped out for V8 swaps. There have to be a good set of pushrods somewhere near me.

Today I'm going to go swing by 4x4labs and the other 4x4 shops in GV and see if I can come up with them. If not, I'll hit up the classifieds here, but my goal was to have that motor back together by the weekend and have the blue pig driving by Monday.

Worst case is I'll get the Bucket running again this weekend instead. It just needs a carb and starter and it's driveable again.
 
hairy_apple said:
Yeah, I just realized a few months ago that I needed to focus on one truck at a time or I wasn't going to have anything to wheel this summer. Got my 40 rewired and back into driving shape again so now I can play with the pigs again and not worry about having nothing to wheel this summer.

Now I need pushrods. I bent 4 of them yesterday being a dumbass and trying to remove the head by myself. I ended up dropping it half way out and it took out 4 of the pushrods. They are $16 EACH from NAPA and I am not going to pay that when I know there are a million F engines laying around ripped out for V8 swaps. There have to be a good set of pushrods somewhere near me.

Today I'm going to go swing by 4x4labs and the other 4x4 shops in GV and see if I can come up with them. If not, I'll hit up the classifieds here, but my goal was to have that motor back together by the weekend and have the blue pig driving by Monday.

Worst case is I'll get the Bucket running again this weekend instead. It just needs a carb and starter and it's driveable again.
Click to expand...

So .. you need my spare push rods!
 
Finally got my 40 running good and my wife's truck all caught up on maintanince and repairs so I'm able to start working on my piggies again.

First of all, I've got to the realiazation that I don't like what I've done with the "Bucket" and want to turn it into a pickup in the future. The badass little 283 is a sweet motor, but not what I want. So after all that work I did last summer, I think I'm going to yank the motor and sell it (and use the money to buy tires for the blue pig) and go a differant route totally with that truck. Turn it into an expo truck someday... but not anytime soon becuase I'm busy and poor. So I'm going to non op it and put it out to pasture until I'm ready to go crazy on it. I have big plans for it, but not for a while.

BUT.. I finally got around to starting to put together all the parts I've been collecting for the blue pig. Got the motor started today, going to yank the old one tomorrow and hopefully in a week or two I can get it running. Then it's going to be a "fix it as I drive it" kind of thing. Most of the "fixing" is minor once it's got a new motor. Just cleaning and painting things as I go mostly. My wife's family is going to do a horse camping trip in a few weeks, and I'm really hoping to be able to bring the pig for that trip. We'll see how it goes, right now I'm finding I'm missing just about every bolt I need to put things together. Going to take a trip to Toyota tomorrow for some carb studs and some other missing stuff.

If anyone has a pile of motor bolts for just about EVERYTHING that bolts to the motor I would love to buy them off you. :( Everything is either stripped or broken or missing.

But.. here is a pretty motor for you to look at until I have more pictures of progress.

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Made major progress today. Should have it ready to go in a day or two. Got to figure out the remote oil filter, clean up and bolt on the motor mounts, get new studs for the carb, and a few minor little things. Get the old motor out and the flywheel cleaned up and on this and it should be ready to go in.

Dragged the pig out of the field today and pulled it up to the house and started washing and dewasping it. Going to go home and give it a good bath inside and out and maybe even wax it to see if I can get the paint to come back to life. I think it will look pretty good actually with a little wax. At least until I start cutting out the rust I can get it looking alright.
 
Thank you! No, not really trying to match the body... just matched it as close as I could to the old motor and the head which was already blue.

Pictures after a good washing and waxing. Got the paint semi shiny again. Not bad considering it sat in the sun for the last decade or so. Going to go wheeling tomorrow but Monday I'm going to spend scrubbing the 10 years worth of Nevada dust out of the inside, rip down the torn up headliner, and just get the inside cleaned up and ready to be driven.

Also going to get the grill painted, vents, headlight buckets, bumpers ect painted. I think it will look a lot better.

It's going to be a while before I can really afford to do the body work that needs to be done. There is a lot of little bits of rust starting and I will do my best to stop it until I can afford a full frame off which I do hope to do on this someday. I've wanted one of these for as long as I knew about them and even with it sitting in a field waiting for me all year last year I still smiled every time I walked by it.

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Also thinking more and more about some minor mods, originally I did want to keep it totally stock, but the bench seat is the most aweful thing I've ever sat on, and I really hate it. I'm thinking some bucket seats from a 40 won't spoil the vintage look I'm trying to keep. I also already was planning on putting AC in it someday down the line. I think if I keep the mods to things that could have been done when it was new, it won't spoil the overall feel of the pig.
 
Going to try to get up early tomorrow and get some major work done on the piggy tomorrow to get it ready for the motor swap. I think my goal is to get it in and ready to fire up Sunday. I think I can do it.

The new motor is ready. I just need to get the old motor out, and get the flywheel onto the new motor.

Crossing my fingers the clutch is reusable (for now)... if not, we'll see if I can dig up the funds but I'd rather not right now.

The fuel tank worries me. It's been sitting in the desert for a decade and in my field for a year... no idea what it looks like in there. I would very much like to drop it and clean it out. Anyone have any recommendations for how to clean it out? I'd hate to have that motor get starved by a plugged up fuel filter on it's first drive.
 
Apple,

Find an old box of bolts, nuts, etc. what ever you have and dump in the tank with water. Then wear yourself out shaking it. That will break up all the loose rust. so you can use a tank coating.

I used a red product from NAPA, for one of my old tractor's tank, :meh: I'm not sure if it lasted or not.

Use alot of cheap inline fuel filters, for awhile.
 
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