Builds Mississippi Delta Beast - 1974 FJ-40 Rescue and Rehabilitation

[FJ60Cam]

The original all-drum brake system worked fairly well last year, but with all the new use use, has begun to deteriorate. The fronts don’t work and the rears only lock up. Several of the wheel cylinders are leaking, and the master cylinder and booster have outlived their life expectancy.

So, instead of patching it up every year from now until eternity, we are doing it once and doing it completely.

First up, rears...

We are converting to discs in the front, and rehabbing the drum system in the back. These aren’t the worst I’ve seen, but they were starting to leak from the axle seals and wheel cylinders, and was attracting grime & rust.

Might as well replace the bearings while we’re in there...

One side stripped down, crud chipped off & wire brushed...

Other side looked a little better:

 

[CruisingSned]

View attachment 1837414

It’s hard to hide ones excitement after doing said burnout

View attachment 1837415

I want one.
Awesome work!

 

[FJ60Cam]

I couldn’t just bolt new parts to that mess and cover it back up, so I hit it with a few healthy coats of primer & paint...

While the paint was drying, I changed out the old crusty brake soft line...

 

[FJ60Cam]

Mocking it up on the bench, I could see that the new cylinders didn’t have ramped adjusters like the ones that came off, and the slot was too narrow for the shoe to sit in. Luckily the old ones were in good shape and transferred over.

If you orient them the cylinders right way (there’s four unique wheel cylinders), you can spin all the adjusters toward the axle tube to tighten up the shoes. Helpful to know once it’s covered up with the drums.

All fresh and clean:

 

[Dustin Messina]

The beast.....Looking good!!

 

[FJ60Cam]

Next up, highway gears!

 

[1Fine40]

Next up, highway gears!

View attachment 2037791

View attachment 2037792

Acck! Travesty..

 

[krice118]

the Delta Beast is awesome. Hotty toddy

I cant wait to find a patina 40 of my own and give it the Mosley Motors Treatment

 

[wngrog]

Acck! Travesty..

Man. 3.70s....33’s and a 4 speed in a 40 is legit.

 

[1Fine40]

Just joshin' wit ya...but street gears in a trail machine just doesn't feel right...to me that is. Now if this old dog had an aussie 4 spd to go with that 3.70, then I'd feel much more inclined to be enthusiastic. We all do what we feel is in our best interests for the performance we desire, thus the YMMV saying

 

[wngrog]

Cam finished this guy up we did a swap today for the owner.

The DB owner purchased a Pig locally and wants a little Mosley Motors love for it.

We got up early and met at the Biscuit Pit in Grenada for some nourishment

Did a little speed run to test the Cop Motor with the new 3.70 gears. It had more. I ran up on traffic and had to back down

Back in the same spot 2 years later. Does not look a lot different at first glance

 

[ducksntrout]

Cam finished this guy up we did a swap today for the owner.
View attachment 2076974

The DB owner purchased a Pig locally and wants a little Mosley Motors love for it.
View attachment 2076973
We got up early and met at the Biscuit Pit in Grenada for some nourishment
View attachment 2076975

Did a little speed run to test the Cop Motor with the new 3.70 gears. It had more. I ran up on traffic and had to back down
View attachment 2076976

Back in the same spot 2 years later. Does not look a lot different at first glance

View attachment 2076977

oh its different alright.

 

[FJ60Cam]

I’ve been too busy to update the thread, but it’s way behind now so I’ll try to quickly bring it up to speed.

After the rear brakes, we worked our way forward.

Off came the old booster and leaking master cylinder:

And on went the new City Racer booster, master cylinder, and proportioning valve...

 

[FJ60Cam]

For the front, I picked up a disc brake conversion “kit” from @cruiserjunktion and added new rotors, calipers, and Aisin hubs...

 

[FJ60Cam]

...but first we had to remove the old drum stuff.

One side’s spindle nuts were so frozen up, I had to pull the knuckle whole and toss it in the scrap pile.

We debated running these for another 45 years...

Coarse birfs removed from the inner axles so the FJ60 birfs could be applied:

 

[FJ60Cam]

Since we we’re going from a 40 knuckle to a 60 knuckle, we didn’t have any previous shims from which to get the preload and axle center started.

So I called up Jason at @TRAIL TAILOR to order one of his knuckle centering FSTs:

There’s math involved:

...and if you’re lucky, you have shims that are close:

 

[FJ60Cam]

After getting that figured out, I got the highway gears swapped in the front housing:

FJ60 birfs cleaned out and put back together to be installed on the old inner axles:

Getting closer:

Shiny new Aisins:

 

[FJ60Cam]

With the heavy lifting out of the way, we turned our attention to the things that really matter - getting rid of the rest of the rattles.

With most of the gaskets replaces, all that was left was sealing up the rear hatch.

The hatch was near impossible to open, so the first order of business was restoring function to the latch.

This arm was bent out of position, preventing the lever from pulling on it:

It was extracted from the door so it could be dissembled, straightened, and lube applied to the moving parts.

With the latch operational, the old gasket was removed and a new gasket from City Racer was glued on:

 

[FJ60Cam]

The barn door latch was hanging by a thread, so it would need to be reinforced if we wanted any kind of seal around the weatherstripping...

 

[FJ60Cam]

A patch was cut and custom kinked:

Sticky boogers were applied (with extra boogers around the latch) and quickly covered up with paint: