Builds Meet “Marge” our new Piggy

[WarDamnEagle]

Wow. The tailgate handle and license plate lights look brand new. Nice score.

 

[jestlurnin]

I’m pretty close to being able to spend a couple 4 days wrenching on Marge. Her water pump started leaking in early September and I didn’t have time to get to it until yesterday. I needed to get her drivable as my friend/neighbor has said I can park her in his shop that has a lift while I knock out the fixes I have planned.

It had been a few years since I changed a water pump and the last one I did was in a 60. Realized quickly that in order to do this job without cursing too much the radiator was gonna have to come out. So out it came.

The old water pump looked pretty nasty. Nice little plug in the line that I’m assuming used to go to an oil cooler? If that is in fact the case I’ll be putting an oil cooler back on Marge when I get rid of the monstrosity of a distributor that’s currently in her and go back to OEM. Yes I’m a Toyota purist. If I can get OEM the OEM will be used on Marge.

I couldn’t not clean everything up the best I could so I got to spraying, scraping and wire wheeling as best I could.

 

[jestlurnin]

Looked a lot better when I was done.

thanks to cruiser outfitters for the new pump, city racer for the bolt kit and my kinda local Toyota parts guys for the gaskets and form in place gasket juice.

I didn’t totally have time to tighten everything back up before trick or treating with my ghouls yesterday so I’ll knock out the rest of the job today. I freaking love wrenching on Marge! Can’t wait to dive in to the rest of her soon.

 

[jestlurnin]

When I drove her back from central Oregon in March I noticed the heat didn’t work for crap. The gentleman I purchased her from said he had dumped a bunch of stop leak in the coolant system to stop a leak in the radiator before he finally took the rad to an old school shop and had it fixed. I’m guessing stop leak gummed up the heater core so I picked up a new heater core from city racer and a heater box restore kit from Spector. Since I have all the antifreeze drained I might try and knock this project out before I dump a bunch of antifreeze back in. It sure would be nice to do this in a warm shop rather than my drafty pole barn! We’ll see how adventurous I get this week. Regardless I need heat/defrost ASAP if I’m gonna drive Marge this winter.

 

[jestlurnin]

This was the last day I drove Marge to the winery before the water pump started spewing. Gotta knock out all the projects I have planned so I can start driving her again.

 

[PabloCruise]

You are doing the work! Next up - the rewards...

 

[jestlurnin]

Finally was able to get Marge up to my buddies shop. Crazy how life gets in the way of cruiser rehab.

Can’t even tell you how lucky I feel to be using his shop. Made a dreary 30 degree day in Western Oregon nice and toasty when we closed the doors and turned on the heater.

First up total steering refresh. Decided to start out with the Ol’ knuckle rebuild. Man I forgot how nasty this job was…

Noticed this not normal angle when I got to looking up Marge’s skirt. Glad I got a new one sitting in the shop!

Had a blast wrenching again. Can’t wait to drive her with the steering all tightened up!

 

[jestlurnin]

Does anyone know if a company is selling braided steel brake hose kits for our 55’s?

I saw Spector has a kit but there shipping for me is always ridiculously slow.

 

[RUSH55]

Does anyone know if a company is selling braided steel brake hose kits for our 55’s?

I saw Spector has a kit but there shipping for me is always ridiculously slow.

Cruiser Outfitters has brake lines - it says for anything FJ55 related to call. Probably a chance that they would supersede to the FJ60 lines, but I’m not actually sure about that.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

If one of the Forum vendors can't fix you up, Paragon will make them to order and they are fast, at least they use to be fast. I ordered an extended set for an '85 4Runner years ago and they put out a quality product at a reasonable price.

 

[RUSH55]

The main info to know is that the fitting size is a 10x1.0 inverted flare.

 

[bobm]

Thank goodness she's Blue

 

[scrapdaddy]

Yeah, if Marge were green she would of slapped him for looking up her skirt.

 

[76lcmike]

Meet Marge...

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Awesome pig

 

[jestlurnin]

@RUSH55 @WarDamnEagle thanks for the info I’ll give cruiser outfitters a ring about brake lines.

@76lcmike thank you but she’s definitely a 50 footer…but she’s my 50 footer and only gonna get better.

 

[jestlurnin]

Ok, got another one for you guys. Marge has an Alcan lift I believe. Or at least Alcan springs. I want to replace the shocks while I’m in here but not sure how to measure it out with a lift. This is the first cruiser I’ve ever owned without stock suspension. Also, what shocks are folks living these days? I had OME’s on a 40 I owned forever and those puppies were filling extractors.

 

[76lcmike]

i would call alcan and give them that part number and I.D. it that way. looks pretty fresh.

 

[jestlurnin]

@76lcmike i was thinking bout that. Looks like I’ll be calling Utah and Colorado today

 

[tucker74]

Bilstein 5100s if you don’t want to spend a fortune, Dobinsons IMS if moneys less of priority. Both are better than OME shocks

 

[riderjgs]

When I lifted mine, I just called the manufacturer's Q/A line for advice. The had me measure top to bottom at the mounts and provided a part number.