i knew nought about this tojo when i went to pick it up; only that it was a column shift shorty forty that had been parked up for a long time. so i was with a great deal of anticipation that i arrived at the location with car trailer and carton. for the record it came from the farm of shane green about 34 miles north of the pub and wheatbin that make up the tiny settlement of yuna. shorty fortys are scarce in my part; 45s being the standard. but it was love at first sight of course!
i believe column shift was only in aust. in 61 and 62; all else appears stick shift.
there are rims around both with and without hubcap clips but i have never seen a hubcap myself so they certainly werent popular if they were an option. no clips on this one.
the gas cap is there, looks like my 25 one, but the tank is gone. an old car tank was doing service in the back and unfortunately the large quantity of hessian bags i mentioned seem to have been used as packer to stop the fuel tank sliding about.
everything pretty much intact under the bonnet. the wiring is a complete shambles; ive rarely seen such a mess. the horn relay is there, typically they are missing the cover in my parts for some reason. all the hose clamps including the vacuum lines are the wire originals which is nice.
steering wheel is not perfect but it is about as good as they come especially considering it has been open to the elements for 40 years and some
i played for a couple of hours monday evening before i dragged it off the trailer. disconnected the gearshift linkages, pulled the lid off the box and used a hammer and block of wood to get it out of gear. there is a fair bit of condensation and surface rust in there but not too drastic all in all. only really gave it a cursory glance before resealing it
next i gave the motor a few test revolutions with a crank handle; all went fine. after that got it cranking on the starter though the engagement is a bit hit and miss. even that old ford ignition switch worked with a little persuasion. and there was even a bit of weak spark at the old dirty points! the oil pressure sender is missing so got large amounts of black stuff with every crank which i took as a good sign regards oil pump. and that was about it to date. emptied a pressure can of penetrant over numerous odds and sods throughout the engine bay that need to come apart before i get serious with trying to get some noise out of this thing.
i also swept a large drum of sand, rust, old bag and broken glass out of her.
it is far too nice and rare to part out. and dont worry about that original transmission living in the past. i can assure you that nothing but nothing landcruiser gets discarded under my watch. i do seem to have 400,000 acres of dry semi desert here so space has never been an issue.
as for the plans? thought you blokes would know me by now haha. the plan is my usual completely ignore the rust and get this old gem driving on my usual budget of $0. purely for the enjoyment of have such an old one going and so i can take all those people who rolled their eyes when they saw it tiptoe up the driveway for a pleasant little drive with an esky in the back.
i am a bit short on time at the minute though. next on the list is a decent clean, get the chassis rails emptied out and get serious with the pressure cleaner. then hopefully jam her in the corner of the shed somewhere where i can steal the odd hour for a play now and again.
preservation and mechanical tinkering is the order of the day. and get as many things as i can back to original while i'm at it. but yes it is a bigger challenge than the last couple i have tinkered with. looking forward to it though!
You're a good man for saving her, and for sharing the story and photos! Thank you!
Would you mind taking a couple pics of the firewall from the engine compartment side?
I'm hoping to geek out over the differences in right-hand and left-hand steering; the top-view photo you posted shows some stuff "mirror imaged' from a LH firewall, and some stuff identical. A straight-on perspective to better compare RH vs. LH would make my day! ...And anything else you feel like posting up, as she's just a cool truck.
Toyota imported FJ25s to Australia before the US. Here it was late 58. I believe it was earlier in 58 for Australia. 61 FJ40s were imported to both places. Very small numbers by todays standards which makes them rare when you find one.
g'day punters; back home so will put some pics up this week. had a couple likeminded friends visit yesterday so towed the 61 into the environs of the shed. got the old motor to fire up without too much trouble. cleaned the plugs and put a little oil down the bores. my compression tester seems faulty but the time honoured thumb over the plug hole method instructed us to continue. cleaned the points and swapped out the cap, leads and coil for some better units and that was about it. rigged a gravity fuel tank. was beers all round when she fired and went straight to idle without even touching the (stromberg) carby. she sounds fine. had a quick look at the valve clearances too but didnt play too much; just made sure there was clearance. im calling it a conservative 35 years since this thing ran. im told "sometime in the 70s".
anyway.... hello nuclearlemon.... cant get oil to the rocker shaft. ran it up several times now for couple minutes apiece but nothing. do have what i would call plenty of oil escaping the sender unit hole with every revolution so satisfied with oil pump i think. dropped old oil this morn, disconnected the copper rocker feed line and drip fed some petrol and wd40 where i could with a bit of compressed air behind it. filled motor with some light hydraulic oil but still no result yet. this motor has probably ran for about 6 or 7 minutes all up.
so considering a tinker with the pressure relief valve; not too sure of my next move as yet.
my book to hand a little vague on the oil plumbing but think i get the idea. the way i read it is that the oil cannister is the default for the pressure relief valve? so if the pressure relief faulty more oil circulates through the filter and less is forced through the motor. my filter cannister has been bypassed and a single hose just loops back to the block but that is irrelevant for now.
i guess my question is this. would everyone think it unwise to temporarily block the filter feed (pressure default?) and so force the new thin oil through the motor or am i likely to damage the oil pump by overloading it? i am thinking just starter crank not run the engine. thoughts?
im considering it. in the meantime might see if i have a loose pressure relief laying about to have a fiddle with; i never had one apart before.
i pondered the oil and tinkered elsewhere; was a nice day so i set up the sun and tackled the boring job of mounting up some split rim rubber out of the available free stuff to hand. this thing has been towed half a mile or so now so all the old crunchy tyres are broken up ready for demounting. spare time is at low point at the moment but at least now i can roll it around and the 16" give me a bit of room to get underneath. the split rims can be tidyed up waiting for some appropriate rubber to turn up that falls within the aforementioned budget! while i was at it i cleaned a little and painted pretty much everything with old diesel with a heavy housebrush: brake fittings, diff plates, suspension etc... all the crap that prob has to come apart. then motor and box the same. belted the brake drums with a copper hammer and lubed everywhere but i am going to need heat to get most things apart; this thing is pretty siezed. at least some of the brake drums had teq stamps i didnt study them all. would have been nice to get some drums off to see what was under there but the oxy was elsewhere and the diesel soak will do everything good.
soaked engine and box much same way. my pressure cleaner out of action so working on a dirty motor at the moment but mates were here so was too good an excuse not to tinker. in the end i pulled the pressure relief valve and left it soaking overnight in clean diesel but it all looks very clean in there. havent really found too much sludge or condensation in this motor yet. regards oil i thinking next to pull the side covers and check the state of the rocker feed line.
last i pulled most of the unnecessary po wire and started contemplating what was left. i was spraying penetrant as i went. most of the light harness is going to be salvageable but the charge side is a mess; random donor generator with random lidless regulator screwed up near the lidless original regulator all stickytaped together and nothing looks remotely healthy. and wiring is not my forte so alternator fit coming up when the right mate visits. in the meantime i will look for a cover for the original regulator where it can stay in location surveying progress pending further developments.
so with some tyres and some wiring tidyup its already looking better.
unfort. i seem to have missplaced my camera at the moment but there will be some pics coming when i sort that.
and so with no sparetime, camera, pressure washer or budget we have made a start. but with the excessive amount of crc, wd40 diesel and etc this thing is taking so far i am almost about to declare financial committment!
I would remove that copper tube that feed the rockers and try using compressed air to see if it might be plugged. The pressure regulator only sees part of the oil flow. The oil comes out of the engine thru the filter then the regulator and dumps back into the sump. While nothing would get filter you could plug the hole opening that feeds the filter for a short time and that would give you the maximum oil pressure the engine is capable doing. If you don't get oil to the rockers guessing some passage is plugged. At least you temperatures are cooling off for working on it. Suppose to be 111 in Phoenix, AZ today.
yea a look at that copper tube is my next step i reckon. just cant be bothered pulling the side plates off till i clean further. i havent dismantled the pressure relief valve yet but it looks very clean and tidy inside. another option i can try is to use a donor pressure relief valve from something else that i know to be working properly.
it seems oil goes regulator then filter. without studying the regulator internals yet, the plumbing suggest so and my undated toyota f engine repair manual reads thus
"...oil discharged from the oil pump is divided into two parts. one part enters into the oil hole in the cylinder block, while the other after passing through the oil pressure regulator flows through the oil filter.....and returns to the oil pan..."
the rocker feed is apparently fed via the camshaft though i cant quiet picture this from memory. sure ill get there in time.
and reckon i try a temp bypass of the regulator if i dont get results after assessing the rocker feed line.
im having plenty of fun anyway and thanks for your input.
had a quick fiddle today. dismantled the oil regulator and gave everything a clean and the piston a little polish. to me it works thus; oil enters the regulator and goes direct to the filter. it is the piston travel that allows oil back into the block by default however this piston didnt appear stuck. there is a spring adjustment which i would out 2 turns to experiment. i lubed all and operated the piston sharply a couple dozen times with a probe and reinstall. ran motor up a few minutes but still no result. i am however getting oil to the regulator; gave it a crank with regulator removed. so into the side plates i go next but i really need to do some cleaning first. to this end i broke out the diesel and paintbrush again.
had a quick look at the horn circuit (priorities! haha). noticed the one existing cover is metal like an fj25 but a different less domed pressing. certainly by 64 the cover was plastic. so i learnt something new; more unobtainium.
also demounted the original rims and put them away for storage. they are a bit rusty in places but will suit my purpose. couldnt find any markings on them.
The rockers are the last stop on a long journey for the oil. Unfortunately if the cam bearings are worn you won't have that pound of pressure or so left to get it up the pipe to the rocker shaft. Of course the pipe could be plugged also. I had one that would just drool oil with the connection off in the pushrod gallery but not enough to get to the top of the motor. Ran a feed directly to the rockers from the other side of the motor..............did the trick for years until something else went.
yes worn cam bearings had entered my mind; it is the area i will start to investigate next i guess. at present i am temporarily running some very thin oil in the motor to flush things out so some regular weight oil may improve this. also the oil filter has been bypassed by the po (i've seen this several times before) so to my way of (often incorrect) surmising this must lead to a reduction in engine oil pressure as it is too easy for the oil to 'fall' back into the sump without the head pressure required to force it up to and through a filter? so maybe i need to mock this up. in this regard i badly need some new sets of oil filter lines; patina and stablemate are already running the 'cleanest dirty shirts' so to speak. and that reminds me; this project needs a name!
perhaps my next move (before i drop the thin oil ready for use in a windmill head) is to block the filter feed at the regulator and crank the motor without starting. maybe back off the adjustment on the relief spring for this process. for extra precaution maybe even pull all the plugs and simply get a bit energetic with the crank handle.
im also at the point where i need to start thinking about a cooling system of sorts so i can run this motor up warm. if i can be happy that the cam is at least getting some oil i can lube the top end with an oil can while i tinker further on a warm engine.
but a direct feed from the regulator is a pretty neat idea i hadn't thought of that as a last resort. i might even be able to scrape up enough bits and pieces to effect this 'modification' and still keep this project within budget!
it may not be a coincidence that the oil sender was missing (i only noticed it when i did my first tentative crankhandle revolutions). this might be the point where some other tinkerer left off. or an insect or somesuch may have found his way into the block through there and is now creating a blockage somewhere downstream?
plenty of time to ponder but not too much time to turn a spanner at the moment.
pondering. the vandals have smashed this old gem up elsewhere from where it was resting i think because most of the glass was intact on the many other old cars on the same farm dump. im wondering if someone had a play later and fitted the stromy carb because the other one was smashed? or perhaps someone had the forsight to put original carb in the glovebox but i cant see the kids bothering to carefully restow the carb after they had 'finished' with it! maybe this is when oil pressure became an issue and the sender was removed. at any rate i sent an mms to the po (to his amazement) of the motor running asking him to remember what he can.
at some point someone has 'borrowed' a rear wheel and lost the nuts. the original rim has found its way back in time but it is easy to see how 2 nuts were simply grabbed from the same side front to bolt it up. nuts are of the 23mm fj25 type; i have 18. if i ever make it back to the same farm i will have a rake in the dirt where she was sitting perchance the nuts lay buried there.
and im told by a knowledgable source that the donor ignition switch is not ford but from an ek era holden which is a bit embarrassing considering i own an ek (that is leading a very pleasent beery retirement in the non landcruiser 'corner' of the stable). this old stalwart sneaks into the background of some pics in my stablemate thread.
I'm hoping to geek out over the differences in right-hand and left-hand steering; the top-view photo you posted shows some stuff "mirror imaged' from a LH firewall, and some stuff identical. A straight-on perspective to better compare RH vs. LH would make my day! ...And anything else you feel like posting up, as she's just a cool truck.
