My '64 FJ40 Build - Cave Cricket (1 Viewer)

[Ramination]

And we're back!

The past few months have been a blur, but I come with updates! I don't believe I mentioned it before, but my wife and I had our first child on July 5th. So the month of July I did not get much work done on this thing, but I did get more sleep than I have in the past few weeks.

Around the beginning of August I was able to get back into the barn and buckled down - this is thanks to my awesome wife who allows me to partake in the fun baby/Dad stuff and skip all the boring stuff and crying. This is all in order to get this thing painted before it's too cold...which is getting too close at this point.

Anyways, back to July and August:

In those first couple of weeks of Dad life I was able to sneak away for an hour here and there which was perfect for tackling the small jobs that weren't important enough to do previously, but necessary before paint. These included things like CB antenna mount, rearview mirror mounting, etc. I don't have any pics of most of those items, but I do have a few from the rock lights.

I went with five 4" 18W LED flood lights. Two in front, one on each side about midway and one centered in the rear.

I made my own wiring harness for these, first time using Weatherpack connectors and I was impressed. Once I figured out the crimping tool it was a breeze.

And I last minute added an Antirock bar to the rear

Once I got the correct rate springs on the rear the body flopped around a lot just climbing in and out. I probably should have one up front too, but we will start with the one for now.

EDIT: I ended up with 14" springs of 150/200 up front and 100/150 out back. - The front is perfect for ride height with 0.5" of preload. The rear at 100/150 does take 3-4" of preload to hit ride height (tested with some weight and tools in back) and is SUPER soft, hence the sway bar. May go with 150/150 out back, but we will see how it shakes down first.

 

[Ramination]

The beginning of September started the teardown phase. In 2.5 days we went from a full vehicle to parts and pieces everywhere. I'm truly baffled how so many do builds like this in a 2 car garage. My barn is 1800 square feet with 48 feet of benchtop not including the 4x8' rolling table and 3'x5' welding table and aside from a few hundred square feet for the dirtbike and lawn mower stuff it is all dedicated to this build...and I still feel like I don't have enough room!!!

Anyways, some pics of the teardown.

There was a lot of finish welding that was done on the chassis and tub during this time, the stuff that I couldn't get to very easily with it assembled or just didn't want to weld upside down.

Better shot of the engine skidplate mount.

And finally a better shot of the trap door hinges from the bottom of the tub

 

[Ramination]

Starting with the axles I sand blasted almost all of the components. What a mess, but it is effective. I did not blast the tub, just a little bit of the firewall where it was in need. Overall the frame did not require much attention either since it was all new, just a little love around the areas that I cleaned off the mill scale to weld and it was sitting pretty.

Paint Booth:

At the same time as I was tearing down the rig I was building the paint booth. It is 10' tall, 13' wide and 24' long, built inside the front corner of my barn. I should get a better picture from the other side, but I use my big fan as a puller to suck air through the booth. I read somewhere that the ideal flow through a cross draft booth is 100 fpm, with the fan on high its about 11,000 cfm which works out to be about 85 fpm...however I later found that running the fan on high was too rough on the plastic and would pull it down or rip it so with it on low I ended up around 69 fpm and a booth that was air tight.

For the filters I have six 20"x25" of the cheapo 1" thick filters on the booth inlet and outlet (by the fan). This works out to be 3000 square inches of filter in and out of the booth, which is about 3 times the size of the fan. If I was to build the booth again I think the inlet side is sufficient, but I would have put as many filters as I possibly could on the outlet as they do get dirty with paint over time and once they start to plug up the airflow drops and the paint no longer falls as effectively rendering the crossflow useless. At this point I have went through 3 sets of filters (and spoiler, not done painting yet). You can see the inlet filters in the pictures, I guess I don't have a picture of the outlet/fan side at this point and it is pouring rain so maybe later. But the outlet side is a wall of filters with a little room and then the fan fitted in and taped to seal the plastic around it.

 

[Ramination]

Then it was time to sling paint....errr I mean primer.

First time ever using a HVLP setup so a bit of a learning curve. I went with Harbor Freight guns, the cheap $15 one and the $50 package with the big gun and detail gun. The plan was to use the cheap one with the colors and the expensive gun with primer since it comes with a 1.8 tip (the others only have 1.4) but I HATED the cheap gun and ended up running paint and primer through the other gun (it comes with a 1.4 tip too).

I started on the axles since they'll be scuffed immediately and never really inspected close in case I did a poor job...but they actually turned out great!

Then I moved the frame in

Because everything is totally or mostly bare metal it all got a coat of epoxy primer first. Items like the axles, skid plate and frame immediately got paint next, no sanding primer.

The epoxy primer I used is by Speedkote. While the t-rex did play a part in my decision to go with this one, it was also influenced by the fact that a lot of epoxy primers are not eligible to be shipped to MI. Look at that dino though...

For the black paint I used Rust-Oleum Farm and Implement in Gloss Black

On the body and other areas where a smooth surface was important I laid down a coat or two of Rust-Oleum Primer Surfacer - note this is the stuff you sand...don't try to sand Epoxy primer it just gums up your paper and ruins your day.

And so we paint:

 

[Ramination]

The hood took A LOT of work to prep. HOURS and HOURS of sanding in the middle of the night, what a drag.

And then there is the final piece to the paint puzzle...the color.

Pacific Blue single stage from Summit racing.

I've found that this stuff is much harder to lay down perfectly, and I'm still learning actually. Pretty nervous to shoot the tub, but am out of other pieces to shoot blue. The hood and fenders aren't perfect, and I'm sure the body wont be either but its just going to get beat up anyways, right?

All that said, the reason I took the morning off to update the thread is because I am waiting on more blue to show up which has been a whole debacle in itself but that is a post for another time.

The bottom of the tub is black, the plan was to paint it blue however I was running very low on blue and not sure when more would be available. As of yesterday morning there is another gallon of blue headed my way but there was a week and a half where it was looking like I was going to be painting in the dead of winter or waiting until spring so I decided to do the bottom in black and take a shot at painting the body with the blue I had left.

So currently the tub is sitting in primer waiting for the new blue to arrive, hopefully Monday.

I think that is everything. In spare time while waiting for coats to dry I have begun the final assembly on the chassis. Axles, sway bar, etc are installed and nuts torqued to spec. I plan to put the drivetrain back in before setting the tub on top, so that is next on the list.
Once the drivetrain and tub are back on there is a bit of wiring to complete then it is TIME TO WHEEL!!!

 

[Indestructible 47]

Killer! I'd be honest here and say that at the start i didn't think it could come out this good but now..... absolutely crushing it. Looking forward to pics of this on the tracks/trails.

 

[scrapdaddy]

I think you're doing a hell of a job, keep it up!

 

[Ramination]

Thanks guys. Even though it has turned out just as I had envisioned a couple years ago at the start of the project I am still shocked by what has been built. I am beyond excited to finally get to drive it. Didn't get much done today, but it was nice to take an easy day, back at it tomorrow.

 

[White Stripe]

That thing is awesome. Amazing transformation.

 

[65swb45]

I haven’t enjoyed a crawler build this much since I saw @burnttoastburgos .
Burnttoast Build Post
I am glad this is here in the 40 section instead of the crawler forum. It’s a good reminder not everyone sees a 40 as a restoration platform.

 

[Ramination]

And then the headers got wrapped. I wasn't originally planning on such games but seeing how they immediately rusted on a buddy's motor I decided they may actually look better this way PLUS actually help keep the plug wires from melting.

First time wrapping, I feel like they turned out pretty good. I also wrapped some of the Y pipe and the part that goes under the passenger floorboard to keep the temps down. In addition, reflective heat tape was added on the bottom of the floorboard and trans tunnel. This is all the s*** that you don't think of when budgeting for a build, but I am too close to the finish to care right now!

So then I installed the axles, motor, trans, tcase, driveshafts, etc. oOoo look at the pretty tailpipe

Oh yea and this happened.

Also, just ordered the new wheels, tires and winch.

 

[White Stripe]

Have u tested the suspension flex yet? I think you'll have to lower the front bump stops a fair bit since they are mounted pretty far inboard of the knuckles. When flexed the tire will probably come up a lot vs straight up n down travel.

 

[Ramination]

I've tested it in the garage, but not real world yet obviously.

It's a very valid point you bring up, something that concerned me when designing. I feel like you're implying that the tire will get into the fender at full flex? Through all the garage testing this is not the case, but my real concern is the relationship of the coilover and bumpstop maxing out separately. As we know, the closer the bumps are to the coilovers the closer their ark will be through flex, therefore maxing out at the same time (ideally). Since I chose to mount them inboard a few inches I have a situation where in an off camber landing the coilover would bottom before the bumpstop if they were mounted to bottom at the same time when on flat ground. In order to minimize this I made a bit of a compromise on uptravel - the bumps fully maxed out will still have about 3/4" of shaft on the coilover when sitting on flat ground. This allows for the bumpstop to be the first to max out for some amount of suspension twist before the coilover does. There is still a point where the coilover will bottom first, but I believe that is unavoidable unless the bumpstop is mounting in line or outside of coilover? Based on the design and testing I've done so far I feel pretty confident that if I am bottoming out a coilover prior the bumpstop that it is going to be a total yard sale, the shocks would probably be trashed anyways!

 

[Ramination]

 

[65swb45]

This is all the s*** that you don't think of when budgeting for a build, but I am too close to the finish to care right now!
. [/QUOTE]

I think we’ve ALL experienced the financial haze that accompanies the race to the finish line. I still remember it with my short bed resto...and that was 25 years ago!

 

[Ramination]

Well, today was AMAZING!

For the first time ever, I drove it. As I pulled it out of the barn for the first time it was surreal actually moving - remember I'd never driven it. So wild.

Only a couple issues on the initial drive
1- The driveshaft contacts the body crossmember a tid bit under hard acceleration. It's already clearanced itself pretty good to the point where it isn't making much noise anymore, so I didn't do anything about that for now
2- One of the AN fittings on the trans cooler didn't have a good grab on the hose so I lost a little fluid. I caught it before it got out of hand, but it did make a mess. Already repaired.
3- Brake booster doesn't seem to be working. The brakes work OK if you can STAND on them, but otherwise it is scary! I noticed that the peddle doesn't change feeling after starting engine, so I feel like the issue is just the booster. Will have a new one tomorrow and go from there.
4- Rock lights not working. Unsure why as they did work prior to the first drive. Based on some quick investigation it seems like the ground lost connection - this is based on the fact that when I unplug one of the lights and run a ground jumper to the wiring harness the rest of the lights fire up. I searched the ground wire where I expected it to be potentially broken or frayed and it looked fine so I am not sure what happened. Will have to dig into it more but not at the top of the list right now.

A couple more notes from the first drive:
The suspension is great. Already jumped it twice, it was cool and smooth. I have a little pit that I drove through many times today and I noticed that the front was doing much more of the flexing than the rear. I was super happy about that because it means the anti-rock bar did in fact stiffen the rear enough to offset the super light springs because that was a concern of mine! I had it adjusted mid-stiffness so afterward I adjusted it a bit softer, didn't get a chance to drive it again to test though.

The hydro assist is pretty awesome. It is as good as I'd hoped it would be.

I'm glad the exhaust situation worked out the way it did. The muffler is very tolerable sitting at idle and even a light cruise but gets nice and growly with RPM.

Only the, voltmeter, coolant and trans temp gauges are correct. The tach seems to read about half of what it feels like the motor is running - for example it idles at 400 rpm and cruises at 1000. For the oil pressure I tried to use the factory Dodge sender but it appears that it only sends a pressure/no pressure signal because the meter is either nothing or maxed out. Additional searching supports this theory. I didn't even try to hook up the fuel gauge yet and lastly, the speedometer needs calibrating (not anyone's fault, just need to get this thing on street to do so)

I'm still waiting on the adapter to add the thermo switch for the electric fan, so I controlled the fan with a toggle today.

The hood doesn't fit with the intake...yet. I'll have to trim the flange from the two halves of the hood a bit to clearance the intake hat.

I also still need to narrow up the winch and install it. The list is as long as ever...LOL!

And here are a couple obligatory poser flex shots in the pit mentioned above:

 

[White Stripe]

Looks sick. Nice job

 

[rmckay1021]

Fantastic build ..... I stand amazed!!!

 

[Ramination]

Thank you!

Been steadily checking items off the list over the past week. Most not picture worthy, but I figure I'd post a few words about narrowing the winch because it seems to not be discussed much.

Way back I decided I wanted the winch to sit down in between the frame rails instead of on top and in front of the grill. I THOUGHT that I'd left enough room between the rails to accommodate a winch and the steering box, but as it turns out the space I'd left was about 1.0 to 1.25" too narrow depending on what winch I chose. Now I could have went with a Warn 8274 which would've fit the space fine, but the price, old design and relatively low pull rating...no thank you. So I bought a Warn VR-10S which was 1" too wide and cut it up.

I'll admit that I was a bit nervous going into it to take the winch and immediately void the warranty, but honestly it was significantly easier than I anticipated it'd be. I started by pulling the top plate off and the two halves fell off the drum, this exposed the shaft that goes through the drum and the brake assembly. My plan was to cut about 1.5" out of the middle of the drum, so I made the first cut:

Then the second:

Then I beveled the edges and welded it back together, now 1.5" narrower

Following that I cut the rod which goes through the drum to connect the planetary gears to the brake to match the shortened drum and reassembled. I ditched the original upper plate assembly in favor of the older-school "tie rod" setup because it was easier to cut them to length than try to modify that cast plate.

I was still able to fit all of the rope onto the drum although the last 20 feet or so did rub the new tie rods.

It does sit a bit off-center, but it fits.

 

[White Stripe]

Nice work on cutting the drum down. A 8274 is quite a bit more powerful than that winch, but that winch u have should work well. I think from what I understand of winches is that preferably you want the Fairlead narrower than the spool as well as centered horizontally in regard to the spool to alleviate line stacking on the side of the spool and breaking the winch. That's what I've learned from Internet wheeling anyway.