How NOT to restore the FJ40 (14 Viewers)

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Great work, as usual. @FJ40Jim, quick question, is that a small cap or large cap distributor? Any advantage to swapping out small for larger? ( i know, need dished side cover ) Was reading Coolerman's dizzyfaq, and wanted to learn your opinion.
Thanks
 
link?
I cannot believe someone else had an AC installed as poorly as the one in my 1982 FJ40!
Unfortunately my FJ40 has way too much in common with this one, I'll write it up to expose another criminal Land Cruiser hack!
 
The 78 in question still has the stock '78 dissy. It's small cap, but electronic & waterproof. The large cap dissy has the advantages of being more resistant to crossfire and adds a ball bearing for even better longevity. Parts are NLA for both types though. If upgrading from points to electronic is the goal, try to find a dissy that's not rusty insideand has a vac advance canister that is tested good.
 
This thread had been put on hold due to threats of extortion from Brett Young, but since extortion has gone from threat to actuality, there is no reason to accede to his demands.

So on with the show.

The engine and tranny are mated with the low miles clutch that came in the truck. It is one of the few things that was actually as advertised on this truck. The BH mounting ears, oil filter, starter, carb & P-brake are installed after the engine is in the bay.




Look out below.



From here, the tail of the trans is picked up by a floorjack to allow raising & lowering to facilitate installing the rear mounts. Once they are loosely together, the front mounts will be bolted up.




After the engine is in, the junkyard Hyundai battery is replaced with a stock Gr24 battery. Seems like a good idea to at least have a stock size battery to run the winch & aircon.




The ground battery cables are all in reasonable condition, so they are cleaned & reinstalled. The positive cable was an old parts store replacement that was almost completely burned up at the starter end. It's replaced with a proper cable and terminal.



The AC hoses were all routed wrong. This one is now positioned so the belt will not cut any further into the hose.



Underneath, the P-brake has to be rebuilt due to all the 90Wt leaving the t-case via the p-brake.




After much reconnection of heater hoses, AC hoses, fuel hoses, wiring, new oil & filter, priming of oil pump, etc, it is ready for first start:



Vroom!



That concludes restoring the engine to normal operating condition.

Next up: Bo(n)dy work.
I see this story is a couple of years old. Have you any new information regarding piston availability? Mine is an "F" engine, 1970. I did recently have the valve cover off to adjust valves and while dirty, I don't see anything untoward so fingers crossed my head is good. Thanks.
 
Thanks Jim, wish it had been better news. I will presume that the outfits advertising pistons would respond with a no longer available were I to inquire or order. I noticed the other day that my F cylinder head is the style that only has seven fastener holes for the exhaust manifold rendering my new ceramic coated header useless for me here. A former neighbor has told me he knows a guy that comes up from the coast (Guayaquil, largest city in Ecuador) once a week bringing parts and is willing to introduce me to the fellow so I can show him what I need. Sounds like instead of a cylinder head I am looking for a 2F engine and go from there. Thanks again. Sorry you are still working, retirement is highly underrated:).
 
Jim, I was checking the Sealed Power website and they are listing pistons in std, .5, ,75 and 1mm oversize. Is it your understanding that these are just part numbers and don't necessarily reflect available? I know that the Toyota parts diagrams are like that and you have to call to see if a particular part is actually available. Maybe I'll just call Sealed Power tomorrow and see if the parts are available or not. They also carry the camshaft along with numerous other parts. I have always preferred Federal Mogul bearings over Clevite as the FM bearing uses a softer babbett lining than the Clevite. The Clevite is more popular with racing engines due to lower friction.
 
13102-60011 OS 0.25
13104-60011 OS 0.50
are valid and active factory parts for the F engine. No stock though.
All other factory F piston numbers are obsolete.
 
Received this most unfortunate reply from Sealed Power/Federal Mogul;

Good Afternoon Leonard,

Thank you for contacting Federal Mogul.

As you probably already know, the set # is 12111P which is obsolete with no supercession or replacement. The W12111P part # in standard is a single piston part # which still shows as valid, but there is no stock and none in transit. More than likely it is on the way out as well.

We can contact the product planner to see if we can get an ETA or more info. This is probably a non-stock part for our Customers based on the application and demand. However, we keep a list of Obsolete and Rare parts Warehouses. Some of them may no longer be in business. I am attaching a copy to this email.
 
Pulled off the trans, clutch, flywheel, bellhousing. Underneath the BH is found an american standard cup plug in place of the special, very shallow metric cam plug. This plug was beat forward until it was running up inside of the rear cam bearing. Now the plug is occupying space that should be occupied by the camshaft itself.
DSC07539.jpg


So if the cam can't fit all the way to the back of the block, what happens?
Well Timmy, if the cam is prevented from going all the way to the back, then when the thrust plate is bolted to the front of the block, instead of the plate pushing the cam to the rear, the cam is going to bow the heck out of the plate and ride forward. Sorry, no pics of that.

So now the cam lobes that normally ride just a little off center of the lifters to encourage lifter rotation are centered under the lifters, allowing the lifters to "stall" i.e. not spin. A stalled lifter tears the surface hardening off the cam lobe in short order, which then begins to destroy the lifter face. And so with only a thousand miles on it, the new cam & lifters and thrust plate are garbage. :frown:

I had a similar problem with the cam plug when I was assembling my previous 2F. I noticed that the cam would not bottom out so I pushed the plug back so it would fit.
 
I was looking for something yesterday and came across some F motor rebuild kits that came with pistons(few sizes)....they were for toyota forklifts(showed f and 2f kits). I Forget where I found them , but remember they were not toyota
 
The annoying emails from Photobucket have been piling up in the spam bucket for a while. The ones that say "Your account has too many pics and is blocked until you pay us $400".

When this thread was originally started, I think some of the pics were hosted on PB. If somebody is bored, please read all 15 pages and post up if there are broken photo links. I will fix by hosting pics on 'mud.

Thanks!
 
The annoying emails from Photobucket have been piling up in the spam bucket for a while. The ones that say "Your account has too many pics and is blocked until you pay us $400".

When this thread was originally started, I think some of the pics were hosted on PB. If somebody is bored, please read all 15 pages and post up if there are broken photo links. I will fix by hosting pics on 'mud.

Thanks!

Photobucket really dropped the ball when they went to a pay model with that insane price. They were one of the most used photo hosting sites for over a decade and then boom I’d guess lost 99.95 % of users in one day. Had they used a more realistic price I’m sure more people would have paid it. But I remember it was 400-600 per year.... I think realistically I would have paid 50-60 but screw them. I hate those emails they send each day
 
Photobucket really dropped the ball when they went to a pay model with that insane price. They were one of the most used photo hosting sites for over a decade and then boom I’d guess lost 99.95 % of users in one day. Had they used a more realistic price I’m sure more people would have paid it. But I remember it was 400-600 per year.... I think realistically I would have paid 50-60 but screw them. I hate those emails they send each day

F**k them and the horse they rode in on. They'll never see a dime of my money. I downloaded the photos I didn't have a copy of somewhere else and deleted the rest off of their site.
 
Don't know if anyone is watching this thread any longer, but great info and thanks for making sure the photo links were good.

This would probably be for another thread, but I'll throw this out here, does anyone have any update as to the status of parts for a rebuild??? I've got one in the shop right now that I am building, but luckily I haven't had issues with the head or pistons, in fact my pistons are an aftermarket forged dome top piston for a '78 2F. I sent my cam and lifters off to Delta Cam for refurbishing do to what I believe was the same issue that brought me to this thread which was the cam freeze plug installed too deep.

I worry about the lack of 2F parts, I'm not the LS swap type, so I'm not sure the direction I'd go if I wasn't able to keep the old 2F in my rigs. That brings me to another thought as I daily drive my Cruisers, and I don't want to change that, so what's the future running gear for those of us who still put mileage on these things???
 
New to this forum (I have a 97 LC) perhaps rather than an LS, you could look at a 4 or 6 cylinder in-line? I have seen some 4 cyl diesel swaps? the original engines were around 130HP.
 
I've got a couple diesel Cruisers, and one in line for an HZ swap. All my swaps have been Toyota diesels so far. I've also been toying with the idea of the 2.8l Cummins, Isuzu DMax, or Even the Jeep/Ram VM Motori, and maybe the one that is the best fit is the OM617, but what options are there for gas motors besides the LS that are feasible, reliable and maintainable? Anyway, food for thought, no real answer here, just looking for opinions, again, I'm sure there is another thread out there asking this same question.

Thanks
 

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