Need advice on '74 factory soft top (1 Viewer)

[BadReligion]

"Restoration" is too loose a term to easily quantify. Based on our discussions, I think you should expect to sink another $6,000-$8,000 in a modest refresh to get it where you want to be.

If it were mine, I'd budget for the following:

Misc. maintenance items (belts, hoses, fluids, etc.), replace the soft top/door restore, yank all that funky carpet, conduct some exploratory surgery to determine whether replacement of that passenger rocker is necessary, add disc brakes to the front, replace the wagon wheels with Toyota steelies and a fresh set of 33"s, replace the front fenders, source some correct running boards, add a 4+Products winch bumper, de-chrome that poor bezel, add three-point seatbelts, fill the hole in the hood left by the Chrome Chicken, and a superficial respray of the external body panels (if you are deadset on changing the color, triple the projected expense). The rest of the paint is in such good shape it would be easy and I'd have a real hard time justifying a change to the body color unless I am committed to a full frame-off build.

$6-8k to "de-bling", refresh, and get it back to almost 100% stock is not bad. I think that would be a great start and I could always go full on frame off in the future.

More pictures!!!

I only had those half dozen crappy phone pics. I'll post more when I hopefully buy it this week!

 

[tlaporte]

Not sure if anyone is making real canvas tops. But doesn't matter since from the mid sixties Toyota was using vinyl not canvas.

True. I should have chosen my words more carefully and said a reproduction top, rather than canvas, as the various vendors are offering a few different choices but few, if any, are doing canvas.

 

[mattcamp]

When you replace the top I would be very interested in the old one, even if it's rough. Beautiful FST 40 regardless of it's funky mods. What a cool find! -Matt

 

[bikersmurf]

That’s such a cool find. I’d leave it the way it is... other than carefully removing the carpet and the hood ornament. I’d not even repaint the whole rig. A careful cut polish and repair of the damage. The history of the rig has more value in my mind than trying to make it all original again.

 

[C6H12O6]

Did we ever hear back on the status of this? Curious if this deal ever got done.

 

[lelandEOD]

Did we ever hear back on the status of this? Curious if this deal ever got done.

Yep,
He snapped it up.