My Favorite Color Is Mustard - A Full Restoration

[flatlandhj]

Watch out. Purists beware! What you are about to see is neither stock, ideal, or completely removable. I had to make some compromises on the roll bar. There just aren't any easy places to tie to the frame. I tip my hat to anyone that has isolated an internal cage from the body on one of these. Even when I brought in some local experts, no easy answer came to us.

The solution isn't perfect, but I very much like the way the final product turned out.

We started by locating and cleaning space for some .25 inch pads.

 

[flatlandhj]

The pads were welded in. The design begins to take shape.

 

[flatlandhj]

Getting everything tucked into place was important. The tab in back is for a more advanced seatbelt (if required).

 

[flatlandhj]

I'll have some more pics later that show more detail. This last one shows the finished product. Yes, it's completely removable!

 

[flatlandhj]

Next::Bumpers. (I had a hard drive crash about this time, and I lost all of the mock up pictures as well as the early construction ones.) The pics I have are closer to the end of the process.

I know it's a little heavy. It's a little obnoxious.

The horizontal members are 2X6 in the front and 2X4 in the rear. The vertical members in the front are solid .5 inch water-jetted steel.

 

[flatlandhj]

The D-link mounts took a little longer. They are 1 inch jetted steel blocks. Pics of those later. I wanted a very clean look in the rear with nothing hanging down. The goal was skinny and tight with the back one.

 

[flatlandhj]

Did I mention the winch came in? 8274-50. Sweet.
Brackets to hold the cool rubber flaps from Ebay.

 

[flatlandhj]

I just had an inquiry. The trayback has already been sold, but the original Ausie bumper is still available for someone in Florida.

The other shot is of the kayak rack mount in the bed, using the existing holes. Removable as well.

 

[flatlandhj]

One original headache rack from Costa Rica.

You can see here the addition to allow mounting of a kayak rack.
When it's bolted together, it locks up tight.

 

[flatlandhj]

I added back the lights from Oz. The interim front and back look like this. Not finished yet though.

 

[flatlandhj]

If you want to carry a kayak or two...

 

[flatlandhj]

Add some stainless hood hooks that didn't come on the HJ47... and the removable top gives all sorts of jalopy-like variations.

 

[flatlandhj]

New seat covers from SOR, installed with new foam. Yes, I put the plastic pullover covers on top of the new covers shown here. I'm not the only OCD person here. The rest of you know who you are. I've read your posts.

My bench seats didn't have headrest tubes, so I had some super hard 2 inch kayak brace foam cut and covered in gray vinyl to make headrests. It looks a little dorky, but you feel a lot better driving at night or in the rain when you have it behind your head.

When the top and back are off, one snap and some velcro lets you pull them.

 

[flatlandhj]

One of these is more comfortable.
One is more fun.

 

[flatlandhj]

The H55. The five speed. Every FJ40 driver dreams of it whenever driving faster than 50mph.

I called Cruiser Dan and bought a brand new one.
Gulp.

Let me show you photos of what happens when the shop you choose doesn't have experience in making the swap. There are plenty of posts here on the topic. Let me show you in pictures exactly what can happen.

First. This is your 4 speed gearbox.

 

[flatlandhj]

This is the length of your gearbox.

 

[flatlandhj]

This is the length of your sparkling new H55 gearbox.

 

[flatlandhj]

This is what your H55 looks like bolted into place with your parking brake mounted on an input shaft (I think that''s the right term) that is now too short due to the extra length of your new gearbox.

 

[flatlandhj]

As I said. This is the result when your shop doesn't have experience in doing the swap. That doesn't mean that my local shop wasn't good. Far from it. Since my old gearbox was perfectly fine, they were able to press the gears off each gearbox's input shaft, re-press the gears onto the new shafts and reinstall everything.

I would have been pooping my pants, but they pulled it off. I've been driving now for over 2 years and it still shifts like butter. (As much as an HJ-47 is going to be butter-like anyway.)

There was no need to do a 60 series axle conversion to get the rear parking brake feature.

 

[flatlandhj]

Everything does move back. When installing the H55, you will have to do something with the gap on the gearbox cover. This plastic is temporary until new sheet metal is welded into place.

In my case, the transfer case actuator still fit in the stock opening. 4H and 4L are right at the edge, but they work fine.