MJC70s build thread

[MJC70]

Been lurking on the forum off and on for years, grew up riding in my dad's FJ40. This weekend me and my dad ran out to Montana to save my first car. 1988 FJ62 bone stock now sitting at 205k miles. Had it in highschool but uncle needed a car so we sold it to him about 11 years ago, he only put about 23k miles on it in that time and it's been sitting for the last two or three years. We managed to jump it and get it started long enough to roll onto the trailer, exhaust was burning oil and tried to stall when giving it gas so definitely needs alot of work. I imagine I'll be rifleing through this forum alot in the coming months haha.

Step one will be making sure the engine/drive train is at minimum salvageable, looking forward to getting my hands dirty. Want to get it to a reliable daily driver point but it's the third car so can take my time. Long term goal is some moderate off-road mods for weekend overland camping.

All things considered pretty minor rust, front fender is only just starting to show cancer, but all the doors/door frames look good, hatch only has very minor surface rust near the gutters. Once I get the drive train sorted I can start addressing some of the rust. Vehicle spent most of it's miles in the PNW originally so no salt, area of Montana it was in doesn't salt either. Body has dents on all 4 corners from spinning down an icy road so will need some headlights bezels and tail light covers get the lights sorted properly before driving it much, not too concerned with cosmetic dents though.

 

[kirvesmies]

well, let this ole f$%ker be the first to welcome you down this rabbit hole we call mud (official welcome)
at least you got it right n showed us what you scoredhow badly did your uncle beat on it? meaning is he the one that did the custom by crunch?

 

[MJC70]

Well there were some dents from original owner, but all the lights were fine when we sold it to the uncle haha. I'm more concerned about the deferred maintenance and several weeks of minus 30 under feet of snow, I'll have to get some pics of that up soon.

 

[Seth S]

Sounds like the price was right and can’t really go wrong with that! Welcome

 

[kirvesmies]

Well there were some dents from original owner, but all the lights were fine when we sold it to the uncle haha. I'm more concerned about the deferred maintenance and several weeks of minus 30 under feet of snow, I'll have to get some pics of that up soon.

it's a 'yota. it should just shake it off like an ole grizzly coming out of hibernation

 

[MJC70]

Well so far Ive got it parked at home, has an issue where it idles fine in park but as soon as I shift it into reverse or drive it starts idling crappy and giving it any gas tries to stall. I'll see about draining the 2-3 year old crappy gas and checking the vacuum hoses first.

Have gone through alot of dead links looking for manuals, digital and hard copy, what's the go to these days for a set of 62 manuals?

Looking to source a headlight bezel and driver side tail light cover too, bezel doesn't need chrome if anyone has a hookup on a used part. Have checked the usual places, ebay, SOR, cruiser corps, not quite ready to go for new parts prices when I'd be perfectly happy painting used.

 

[MJC70]

Pic from the first fuel up

Got some good deferred maintenance done, first thing was replace the vacuum hoses and found a couple unplugged and routed incorrectly then it ran much better. Dropped off wheels for powder coat then new tires. While cruiser was on jack stands went through the rear brakes and had to replace the brake cylinders, new brake lines and found the front totally seized. Replaced the diff and oil fluids then got on the wait list for Tor to start a list of all the deferred maintenance. Honestly was prepared to throw in a new motor before I picked it up in Montana and was pleasantly surprised with good compression. Had their guys rebuild my front knuckles and throw on my new brake parts as well as a handful of leaky seals and rebuild the transfer case now it's running much cooler. They went ahead and threw on some of my accumulated parts as they went which was awesome.

Oddity I'm scratching my head on, I'm running 31s but my gauge is reading fast, like the gauge shows 50 but I'm actually doing closer to 42mph on the GPS. Replaced the speedo cable checked the transfer gear and they both appear to be working correctly.

Also dealing with a hot start issue I think I finally got figured out with a phone call to Tor. It turns over but sometimes felt like it was starving for fuel and sometimes flooding on hot starts, initially I replaced the fuel dampener and pressure regulator which seemed to make the idle more steady in general but didn't fix my hot start. Called Tor and he mentioned that sometimes the coolant switch or sensor fails to leaving the cold start injector on, suggested unplugging the cold start injector while starting hot and what do you know starts right up every time. Went ahead and ordered the two sensors sending unit and switch anyways just to know they're all new. Now I'm tempted to source a fuel pump to have on hand since I've replaced the rest of it haha

Installed a set of beefy battery cables from fourrunner here on the forums, very nice cables, probably tackle cleaning up the fusible links next, think I'll probably put them on a bus bar similar to others have posted and keep spares on hand for easy maintenance.

Also got new accelerator cables on order from summit racing, probably tackle those next and keep the original parts as spare.

 

[MJC70]

After much debugging think I solved my hot start issue.

Had rough idle and no start when hot where I would have to wait 20 minutes or more before it would start.

Replaced the fuel pressure damper first, seemed to help idle but still wouldn't start hot, fuel pressure regulator replaced next and that definitely helped idle but still had hot start. Decided to start tackling it from the electrical side, unplugged cold start injector while hot and problem disappears. Seems like cold start injector was just running all of the time and flooding on hot start. Narrowed it down to the temp switch, pin was totally fried on it, went ahead and replaced the temp sender and sensors as well while I was in there. Great hot start issue fixed!....started having to give it gas to start, new problem, installed a fuel pressure gauge last week on the cold start injector and was only getting 31psi, FSM specs 34-37 so not that off but still.

Well that all came to a head yesterday while I was driving the dog around for fun, drove up to the mount Pilchuck trail head, about 8 miles of crappy dirt road at a pretty good grade took me 45 minutes to get up. Came back to truck no start, no fuel pressure, checked the fuses, no obvious issues but dead. Luckily I had a sliver of cell service to call for extract, dad was able to come tow me out with the 4runner, he's so awesome, his other Toyota is a 40. So now to confirm my suspicion that the fuel pump died although I have been told continuity issues are common as well?

Just thankful it left me stranded with cell service, ended up sitting around for about 4 hours after trying to diagnose with my limited tool kit but at least it was a nice day!

 

[MJC70]

Replaced the fuel pump and a bunch of fuel hoses while I had the tank out, was in surprisingly good condition although the old in tank filter had completely dicentegrated. Drove for awhile and then the alternator went.

This was a busy week, after finally receiving my alternator got that installed Monday and replaced a bunch of the smog hoses with generic rubber heater hose, seems to be working fine even though the collapsed corners aren't ideal. Will get some 90 degree elbows at some point to clean it up. Then got to install an OME 2"lift kit, went with medium springs and it rides really well now, install went about as smooth as you can hope on a 30 year old landcruiser but had alot of help from my dad.

 

[MJC70]

Had a great time with some cruiserheads getting Christmas trees today

 

[MJC70]

Got a ton of work done in preparation for first camping trip with the cruiser. pretty pumped with how it's looking now. I think if I were to do the 12v outlet again I'd go with a shorter setup, it works but it's makes it hard to get the jack out, can't put it higher because of the latches in the panel. Had to get in there anyways to fix the flooded out connectors, ended up replacing a few (quarter panel retained gallons of water, plugs pulled and drained now), took the opportunity to replace the gasket on that pillar and snag the trail tailor vents which fit really well. Installed an auxiliary fuse/relay box in the engine bay in prep for future accessories, will likely run that off an auxiliary battery in the future. New tie-rod ends and alignment, still trying to dial in the steering wheel, alignment shop overshot center, I probably just need to spend some time fine tuning it so it stops driving me crazy haha. The Bowfin roof rack looks and feels super solid, can't wait to load it up. Next up is probably u-joints as I seem to be getting a clunk going from drive to reverse and vibration around 40 mph. Didn't get a good picture but installed a couple recovery points into the frame below the ARB bumper just to be safe. Next is to finish up some window covers and come up with some padding to sleep on for the back, got a couple ideas I think will work

 

[MJC70]

Been having some bad wind noise coming through the old seals along the B-pillar, got some new edge trim with a bulb seal along one side and other than being black which doesn't bother me the fit is really good, probably not the first to do this but I used Mc-Master PN 1120A231. 25ft was enough for front doors and a strip on the edge of the tail gate, will have to order more for the back doors

 

[FJACS]

Nice work on bringing this one back into circulation.

 

[MJC70]

Trying to think ahead on my battery system. I would like to go to a dual battery setup to eventually run my winch and fridge off of, probably some camp lights. Doing alot of reading there's about a hundred ways to skin this cat. I don't really want to go to a battery management system so it sounds like I'm stuck using similar batteries. This might be controversial but with the under hood temps should I avoid AGM batteries? Does this diagram make sense? I'm guessing I'll need ignition power for whatever isolator I end up with as well, is there a better way to set this up to ensure I'm getting good charge on both the main and auxiliary batteries? More of a general question but is it better to ground the second battery to its own point or should I send it back to the main battery ground?

 

[MJC70]

I decided to try a different route with dual battery setup, trying to see if I can fit a second alternator where the air pump goes. I just got my original alternator rebuilt and it's now my spare. It looks like the 62 alternator will fit in the smog pump mounting points but I need to find a single pulley to swap out, the double pulley is too tall to fit behind the fan. The air pump mounting points are in approximately the right spots radially and there is enough clearance on the top mount that I will be able to adjust fwd/aft to get the belt alignment right. Not ready to start taking apart the air pump yet, need to get a vise so I can get the pulley off the alternator and start taking measurements but it's looking like this should work with non permanent modifications if I can source a pulley. Then I can run whatever battery I want for house power and not worry about differences causing balancing issues

 

[Seth S]

I decided to try a different route with dual battery setup, trying to see if I can fit a second alternator where the air pump goes. I just got my original alternator rebuilt and it's now my spare. It looks like the 62 alternator will fit in the smog pump mounting points but I need to find a single pulley to swap out, the double pulley is too tall to fit behind the fan. The air pump mounting points are in approximately the right spots radially and there is enough clearance on the top mount that I will be able to adjust fwd/aft to get the belt alignment right. Not ready to start taking apart the air pump yet, need to get a vise so I can get the pulley off the alternator and start taking measurements but it's looking like this should work with non permanent modifications if I can source a pulley. Then I can run whatever battery I want for house power and not worry about differences causing balancing issues

check out some of the more modern mini alternators. They take up a lot less space and could be adapted to the spot you want to mount. They might put out less amperage but you won’t need a lot for maintaining a second battery.

 

[MJC70]

Haven't made much progress on anything but maintenance in awhile on account of the daily losing a timing belt and I ended up having to do a head swap on a modern volvo so that was fun. Recently got a new windsheild installed, the original was pitted so bad night driving was terrible, but it also seems to have closed out my driver side leak so wins all around.

Redid my auxiliary fusebox setup in preparation for dual battery mounting and put on a hazard fraught light bar mostly for watching for dear when visiting family in Eastern WA.

Picked up this bad boy last weekend on a Craigslist find, looks like a 1977 if I'm reading the codes right. Plan is to rebuild all the seals and probably do the Albright upgrade and look into making drain and fill ports. I think it's totally original but I'm new to these. Patina matches the rig so I'm debating if I should paint it or not, don't really want to shell out for powder coat

 

[MJC70]

Well I thought the ARB bumper was designed specifically for the 8274 but I'm about 1/2" to close. I marked the offset through the original holes

I may have room to put another set of holes in the bumper to increase the space about an inch but would put me real close to the bend. Will dig through my old engineering text books and see what the stress reduction factor is but I'm not optimistic. Maybe I can double the fastener count or something, if not probably need to go get some custom brackets welded up

Anyone else run into this while trying to mount an 8274 on a newer ARB bumper?

 

[MJC70]

Spot I'm considering drilling

 

[MJC70]

Haven't posted in awhile. I've done quite a bit since bit haven’t taken the time to document.

Installed a pair of Recaro LSC seats this weekend, I had to fab adaptors with counterbores because the seat anchors clash with the OEM fj62 slides and floor brackets. Came out great, my underseat storage is even better and the seats have a ton of support.

Took a drive out to my favorite spot today with some moderate wheeling and feel like these significantly reduced driving fatigue, very happy with the end result.