Builds Matubrembrem’s FJ60 build (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Aug 12, 2019
Threads
15
Messages
116
Location
OR
Hi everyone!
I’m putting this up to share the ongoing build of my 60 series, the truck that started my love affair with Toyota Land Cruisers. Thanks for checking it out!
Let’s get started…

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Alright, little bit of backstory. My Dad and I picked up the 60 my sophomore year of high school. He taught me to drive stick in it and I drove it, wheeled it and wrenched on it for the next 10 years enjoying every minute of it! My trusty steed took me all over the western US from CA, AZ, UT, CO, then finally moved me and my family to OR two years ago. Unfortunately, It was during the move from AZ to OR that the old gal really showed her age. Towing an 8ft Uhaul trailer with all our belongings, in July, over the desert grades outside of Southern CA and the grapevine was almost too much for the tired 2F. The water temp got higher than I’d ever seen and she was smoking from the tailpipe on every descent. When we landed in OR, I started planning for a heart transplant and knocking out all the TLC she needed after nearly a decade in the desert. I figured now was as good a time as any to finally swap in the Toyota diesel of my dreams, a 5-speed and repair all the little spots of body rust that had been slowly growing since I got her…
 
Well, it turned out she had a little more body rust than I thought and the subsequent repairs ate up a bit more of the budget than I had planned for. The diesel swap would have to wait…for now. I got lucky and got a deal on a rebuilt 2F for less than what it would have costed me to rebuild my motor, so I pulled the trigger. Then I started buying up parts I’d need for the heart transplant and snagged a brand new H55, t-case rebuild kit and some other goodies to sweeten the truck up because, well, “while I’m in there…”
 
Parts acquisition took me a few months and there was some stuff on the “new” motor that I wanted to address before it went in the truck. Mainly, I saw some scoring on the cylinder walls that appeared to be pretty deep and should not have been there given how few miles were on the motor since the rebuild. My father in law and I pulled the head to inspect further and found the scoring wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked originally, so we decided to just run it. A bunch of the valve stem seals were trashed so I replaced those and cleaned up the head. And the oil pressure sender was damaged during shipping so that was replaced.
 
Well, it turned out she had a little more body rust than I thought and the subsequent repairs ate up a bit more of the budget than I had planned for. The diesel swap would have to wait…for now. I got lucky and got a deal on a rebuilt 2F for less than what it would have costed me to rebuild my motor, so I pulled the trigger. Then I started buying up parts I’d need for the heart transplant and snagged a brand new H55, t-case rebuild kit and some other goodies to sweeten the truck up because, well, “while I’m in there…”
“While I’m in there”… “snowballs” really quickly🤣
 
“While I’m in there”… “snowballs” really quickly🤣
Yeah no kidding! With how much I’m gonna knock out and the cost of it all, plus another kiddo on the way, I couldn’t afford to go diesel now. But I will eventually. Reading through your build a few years ago was a big inspiration for me to want to go diesel. I love what you did with it!
 
I’ll rattle off a few more things I did since the end of July to get us up to date. We had a string of wet days back in August which led me to discover the windshield I had replaced back in February was letting water in. The carpet was all wet and funky so I tore it all out. Good thing too, I found some more rust spots beneath the factory sound deadener. I removed it all, scrubbed the floor down with simple green, treated the rust and painted it with POR-15.

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Removed all the hard water lines and gave them a soak in some dilute CLR. Took all the corrosion off with a wire wheel and brushes. Then I applied JB weld to the pitted hose ends, sanded and gave them a coat of silver engine enamel. Gave a similar treatment to a couple of covers, but in black.

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I cracked open the transfer case today. It took some time getting the output flange nuts off since it was out of the truck. Ended up pushing the staked parts out with a small punch and chisel and using a little heat to help loosen them up. I set out all the gears then spent a good chunk of the day getting the old gasket material off the case halves. A soak in permatex gasket remover and some careful work with a razor got the old gaskets off pretty clean. Now I just have to commandeer a press to do the main shaft bearings, give the case halves a more thorough cleaning and it’s time to re assemble.

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Installed the heat shields for the steering shaft. It won’t fit with the 80 series box because it’s a bit longer, so I drilled a hole in the lower cover to move everything toward the firewall an inch. I still had to “massage” the top cover with a ball peen and a block of wood but it turned out ok. Nice thing was I didn't have to cut it up and the access holes for the zerk and clamp on the intermediate shaft are still functional.

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I also made a mistake when I was pressing the bearings and gears back together on the main shaft. The high range output gear had burrs on the heel of every tooth, some of which were over 0.5mm long. I didn’t even think about it but I had set that part on the press plate and the pressure caused a bunch of those burrs to flake off, which pretty much ruined the gear… DOH!

All is not lost though, I’ll be replacing everything with a 3.3:1 low range/10% under-drive high range gear set.

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