Builds New Alaskan FJ40 intro thread (4 Viewers)

[Aussie Alaskan]

Greetings all.

I've been lurking and stalking this forum for a couple of months since purchasing my first FJ40 and it's been incredible the amount of information and help that's available for those willing to ask and search. Thanks!

As far as an introduction goes, I'm a mechanical engineer in Alaska and just purchased a 1977 FJ40 with no engine. I also procured a 1979 2F seized junk "boat anchor" engine that was potentially able to be revived, but had been full of silt, snow, ice and more for potentially decades.

I'm not a purist, but more a operationalist and simply intend to get this rig up and running and then figure out the next step in this venture. Not necessarily opposed to a decent sized resto, but I'm definitely not planning on a collector level resto. I've been replacing old rusty OEM bolts/nuts with SS wherever appropriate (not a high stress location, like engine mounts). So that gives you a good idea of my lack of FJ40 OEM purity .

I've added a couple pics of my new rig and the engine block I'm currently getting up and running. Wish me luck and I'm sure I'll be lurking/researching and asking many questions along the way!

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Another photo of the cylinder condition.

 

[Chilkoot]

Greetings fellow Alaskan. Where are you located? 40 guys seem to be few and far between up here. A couple that I know of here on the Kenai peninsula. Look forward to watching your build!

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Greetings fellow Alaskan. Where are you located? 40 guys seem to be few and far between up here. A couple that I know of here on the Kenai peninsula. Look forward to watching your build!

North Pole, AK.

Yes, for all you southerners, that is a real place lol.

I don't think I warrant the designation of a "40 guy" quite yet, but I appreciate it. My rig was apparently found out at a remote mining site up in northern AK and was brought back to Fairbanks, AK back in 2007 and has just sat around since then. This FJ40 shows only 25k original miles. It has the 1977 style odometer that rolls over at 99,999 miles, but given the condition of the vehicle I'd say it hasn't rolled over and those are 25k original miles. Pretty amazing for a 45 year old vehicle.

At some point in the last 45 years a former owner has brushed, or sprayed bed liner to the underside of the body and that is probably what saved this one from becoming destroyed by too much rust. Half the chassis has the original black paint on it, with some light surface rust on the other half.

All in all a great foundation for a fun project.

 

[samatulich]

Welcome. Will be following along. Alaska needs more Forties running around. I've met several owners and enthusiasts since relocating to the last frontier. Would love to see another one on the road.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Figured, Id post up a bunch of progress pics. I've owned this FJ40 for about 15 weeks, have completely rebuilt the engine, installed the newly rebuilt engine, started it up and have taken it for about a 5 minute run around the block. Not yet registered or titled for that matter so I can't run it much farther and harder than that currently. Carb is a brand new Taiwanese copy of the Aisan carb, and I'm working the kinks out of it. The idle circuit was clogged, and it took me a lot of hair pulling frustration to figure out why it wasn't starting easily and why it wouldn't idle below 1200 rpm without dying on me. Now, it seems to start ok, but still struggles sometimes, especially when its below 0 F.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

The exterior of this rig has been painted by one of the POs, but inside of the engine bay, its all original Rustic Green paint. I'm on the fence about eventually bringing the rig back to original color, but spraying it with the original color. There is enough rust treatment and sheet metal work that needs done on the body that I'll have to paint the entire exterior anyways, so why not restore it to the original color? Open to ideas here. But one look at the engine block and valve cover and I'm obviously not restoring to full factory colors. Mostly just having fun with this project.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

More pictures.

Luckily the original and functional H42 Tranny and T-case came with this FJ40.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Brought the vehicle inside of the garage for the first time at the end of November 2022 and was able to install the freshly overhauled 2F engine.
Bored cylinders.
New piston rings.
New gaskets all around.
New crank shaft and con-rod bearings.
Fully cleaned, inspected and painted.
Head and Block checked for warping outside of spec.
New SS Oil pan bolts and manifold studs.
New clutch plate (old one was falling apart)
Reused old flywheel and clutch plate as they were in good condition still.
Valves and seats were cleaned, de-rusted, lapped and re-installed with new seals.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Before dropping the engine into the engine bay, I wire wheeled the frame that would be more difficult to restore with the engine in the way. I then coated the frame with POR-15 rust inhibiting paint.
After engine installation, I slowly began to acquire, restore and install all the ancillary items to the engine. Water pump, fan, pulley, alternator, alternator bracket, radiator, oil cooler, battery... All that stuff.
I also upgraded the original points distributor to an electronic ignition distributor that is a plug and play upgrade to the original system, but still looks original. All ancillary parts to the engine were all meticulously hand restored and painted with POR-15. POR-15 seems to be the standard for restoring rusted or potentially rusted items, and even though it can be spendy, I figured it was worth it to do it "right."

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

I then bounced back and forth between the engine bay and the interior. You can see in these pics that the engine bay also needed some new paint, so I ordered a single can of matching paint from Cruiser Corp and after removing any rust on the firewall and priming, I painted it to make it look pretty again. I did this behind the brake and clutch master cylinders and also behind the blower motor housing. It turned out nice, and looks brand new. It was at that point when the possibility of bringing the entire truck back to the Toyota OEM Rustic Green first began to nibble at my mind.
The seats will need to be fully restored. Both front seats are held together by aftermarket seat covers. I ordered some OEM stitch pattern Tan vinyl seat covers from Cruiser Corp that will eventually be used to restore the seats. The seat foam is trashed as well so I'll have to either acquire new foam pads or take the whole lot to an upholsterer to have them install my new covers over their hand crafted foam. I also ordered some heated seat pads and will have those installed as the new seat covers go on. Will post more pics once the seats in better shape.
The floor under the gas tank needed some help with rust, and I began to chase electrical gremlins through the truck while rebuilding/replacing/restoring the control switches.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

I have been videoing the restoration process much more than taking pictures, but I hope that these pictures are an inspiration for anybody who reads this thread. I'm probably 225 hours into this project , but if I can do it, anybody can bring an old dead car back to live another life.

Installed new LED headlights from City Racer. These things are very nice and I would recommend to anybody looking to upgrade.
Finished patching the floor under the gas tank. Welded in the patch I made from scratch 16 guage plate and then used JB weld to fill in the uneven surfaces as it didn't look all that pretty by itself. I was on the fence whether I should simply patch this area or order a full gas tank patch panel. I ended up patching it myself, but I'm still on the fence about whether that was the best course of action or not.

DIY Exhaust manifold EGR block off plate.

Installed a 250W block heater as well as a trickle charger for the battery and a 250W silicone oil pan heater. I figured it was worth doing while It was all easily accessible.

 

[1911]

The exterior of this rig has been painted by one of the POs, but inside of the engine bay, its all original Rustic Green paint. I'm on the fence about eventually bringing the rig back to original color, but spraying it with the original color. There is enough rust treatment and sheet metal work that needs done on the body that I'll have to paint the entire exterior anyways, so why not restore it to the original color?

When I bought my Rustic Green 40, I wasn't crazy about that color but it's really grown on me over time.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

When I bought my Rustic Green 40, I wasn't crazy about that color but it's really grown on me over time.

I much prefer the Baby Blue colored FJ40s, but If I'm going to go to the trouble of painting the whole thing I might as well do it right. At least that is my thinking. Either go back to OEM color or do something outlandish like a metallic pearl orange to make it pop. I don't think I have the heart to do the outlandish quite yet, so it'll likely go back to Rustic Green with a white cover.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

After wire wheeling, sanding and degreasing the chassis, I moved from the engine bay area (previously restored) to the central chassis area with my POR-15 rust inhibitor paint. This is by far the least "fun" work of this project, but after hours of prep work, the fresh paint looks nice and should keep any rust at bay. Half the chassis has most of its original black paint on it still which is nice, but it seems like those areas. Left side of chassis when looking from front to rear was coated with oil and grease and that is what protected the original paint. Super tedious process to get it prepped for paint though.

I restored the white paint on the dash control knobs using a white paint pen. Not sure where my "after" pic went, but this is the between pic.

Installed new accelerator bracket and boot supplied by ToyotaMatt here on the forum.

And pulled the air blower housing off to be painted behind and for it to be painted itself.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Newly painted air blower housing.

Began to tackle the light surface rust in the back deck. Wire wheeled it, and will end up painting it at some point after all the other rust repairs are done.

Also started to look at replacing the rear sill. The rear sill was rusted through in a couple spots, and so I tried to save the ends of the sill, but ended up cutting the entire thing out, and then welding the "good" sill horns back to the new sill piece.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

Pictures of my new sill:

2"x2" steel square tubing 1/8" thick with original sill end horns welded to it. Turned out pretty good after alot of careful measurements. Not sure how the sill plate will fit over it and it may need some adjustment, but I'll see how it goes when the new sill finally makes it up to Alaska.

 

[Aussie Alaskan]

My tranny tunnel cover needs some rust repair and fabrication work done. Not looking forward to that, but with enough time I'm sure I'll be able to do it. The drivers side floor panel is also probably going to get replaced as there are a few rusted through areas.

And here it is outside running under its own power. Honestly very cool to take something like this and give it life once again after possibly decades of neglect.

I've still got a straight pipe exhaust system as no exhaust components came with the vehicle aside from the manifold. I had my brother, who is an electrician, bend some 2" EMT conduit for me and create the exhaust piping, then I routed the pipes firstly straight out the back, but now behind the driver's rear tire. I know this is not proper routing for my year 1977, but that is where the factory exhaust hanger was and so I used it. At some point I'll put a muffler on, but that is a bit down the road still.

That brings this post up to date with my current progress as of 20230113.

There are several parts, rear quarter panel patches, air filter housing, sill plate..... that are on their way up from the Lower 48 states.

But for now, I made the mistake of moving the vehicle out of the garage (heated) and parking it outside for a few nights at -15 F. It currently wont start, but merely cranks and cranks with an intermittent rump rump. I am familar with the FSM starting procedures, but its almost like the fuel isn't atomizing at these colder temps. Have any of you guys dealt with temps this low with an FJ40? I've searched high and low for extreme cold starts for these vehicles, but the word "extreme" means different things in different parts of the world lol, and I can't find my information regarding these in the arctic. Most cold start videos I find are in the 50F and 40F range which is not helpful for my current situation.

 

[Greek Cruiserhead]

Inspiring story so far, turns out great.
Keep it coming mate!

 

[SteveH]

Can't say that you're wasting any time with the resto. Lots of hard work here. At -15, I'd either wait until temps warm up, or give it a shot of Ether starting fluid sprayed down the carb throat. Keep it Rustic Green, IMO.