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

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Had a blank spot in my drivers wiper. Pulled it all apart and the bull gear was bad.

I had purchased a spare when mine went bad on Project Patina so I cannibalized my spare to fix it.

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It's all running smooth now. I laid a couple coats of RainX down and @ducksntrout now has a rainy day ride.
 
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I'm planning on doing the seat mount flip on the drivers seat and install some CCOT shoulder belts tomorrow.

The radiator gets here Tuesday. I'm praying a good Prestone back flush and a new radiator does the trick.

I ordered new rear lights. I'm going to drop the rear harness and cut out all the scotch locks and s***.

I kicked this bitch out of the shop today. Cleaned up the 100 and put it back in its spot.


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My next major project is a fresh 2F for my 60.....it's waiting patiently.

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Ok so here is my plan of attack on the cooling system. Tell me what I'm missing.

I'm heating up the motor a couple times today with a couple of bottles of prestone engine cleaner. I'll let it cook in there overnight.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll crack the heater hose in 1/2 and install the hose fitting.

Open the block drain (and hope it flows, if not I'll chisel that s*** out)

Backflush the block. Drain.

Install new radiator. Refill System.

Any suggestions other than this?
 
It's scary how closely my 74 build is following this one.
 
I had it in my head maybe the heater core was blocked so I busted out my spare and pressure tested it.

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Then I realized I have Patina here I can do some similar heat testing at idle so I heated her up and pulled IR readings at all points.

Then I went back and heated up the 74

These are the temps across the radiator when temps on the gauge were about 50% on the stock gauge.

 
Here are the temps across the thermostat housing, head, side panel and heater hose.



The temps got the highest at the inlet of the radiator at 210 and at the temp sending unit at about 200 and the heater outlet by the sending unit was pulling 180 degree water.

I'm pretty convinced the gauge is reading false highs. All these temps seem within spec to me. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe the prestone is already working.

When I shut it down there was finally no bubbling and hissing. The radiator tank leak is still there so the new radiator and a good air free fill after my backwash should do the trick tomorrow.

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I sure don't like this temp position though.
 
Quote: "I sure don't like this temp position though."

Had a similar issue with my temp gauge on a 77...tried everything to get the temps down...finally figured out that there wasn't a solid ground to the gauge pod :bang:...once that ground was cleaned up and solid, the temps magically came down to the lower mark! I used a manual temp gauge to get a handle on the real temps, which were well within reason...that pointed me to an electrical issue...seems you have had a few of those electrical "issues" in this build up...HTH

:beer:
 
Yessir! Ppppppplenty as Mel Tillis would say.

The defrost hose I ordered on Ebay showed up.

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Also the CCOT belts made it. These things are really nice. Well done.

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I flipped the rear seat brackets around on the drivers side. Supposedly moves seat back 2"

I will have to fab something up to mount the fronts of the seats.

Right side may be as simple as drilling a hole. Left will be a metal piece of some kind. I'll figure it out.
 
onemanarmy said:
it looks like you've got the cooling system about figured out, but did you ever replace the thermostat?
Click to expand...

Yep OEM piece from @beno with new gaskets.
 
I finished up the passenger side seat belt install first

Next I did the seat legroom modification to get extra legroom for the 40 as @ducksntrout is 6'2" (or he thinks he is...he's old and shrinking)

I read a few threads and they claimed flip the rear mounts 180* and you get +2" legroom

I flipped them

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Then I placed the seat in and marked the right side Runner and measured what I needed for the left side

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Since I am a "bolter" not a welder I searched for something to make a sturdy mount for the left side.

This hardtop bracket worked perfectly

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The bolts and the floor here in This side were one of the weak spots on the floor so I did not want to break them removing but if yours are good just unbolt the left side seat bracket and drill new holes

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Next I popped off the block drain plug praying it would be open.

No such luck.

Years of sediment have clogged it up and there was zero flow.

I began with a drill on an angle drill and slowly worked it into the impacted sludge.

Next I took a pick and worked the sludge

Then I got a piece of wire and worked it 360* in the hole. I bent the end more and more as I got more sludge broken out.

I was spraying carb cleaner in to flush the stuff I broke loose.

After :30 of digging my pick got some coolant on it and I began to have hope.

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I took my air hose and blasted it in the hole and scraped until antifreeze exploded out of the radiator! Huge mess but it was akin to striking oil. Worth the mess.




What a beautiful sight.

Next I added a new sending unit and made sure water was flowing through that passage.

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Success!!!!

Parts porn arrived

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Trouble free install. One thing I was able to do with the radiator out was to squeeze the new fan belt on. The one I was running was a touch longer and was at the end of the tightening "rope" and was just a bit too loose for my liking.

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This funnel was so nice to use. The 40 took 1.5 gallons of 100% green and 1.5 gallons of distilled water.

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Once I got the system bled it is sitting perfect on the temp gauge.

Test drive went great. IR temps when I got back were 178 at the head and 165 at the top of the radiator inlet.

Stoked.

 
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