One Piece at a Time... (1 Viewer)

[BeerM3]

...and it's going to cost me a $%*tload of dimes!

I figure it's about time to start documenting my slow, scattered restoration of the 1/76 FJ40 I bought back in August of last year. But my love of these boxy, rattling soup cans with a tractor engine started a long time ago. I still remember riding somewhere beyond my little Kansas town with my dad to "look" at a car. I was 5 or 6, and had no clue what we were looking at. He had a friend that tipped him off someone was looking to sell an old 1968 Landcruiser. We found it. He loved it. And in 1980 he purchased it for $1300.

We went everywhere in that thing. My mom, an elementary school teacher, drove it daily for the next 8 years. My fellow cub scouts would pile in the jump seats and bounce down the gravel road hills that lead to our house. In the summer he'd take out the driveshaft, tie a rope to the steering wheel, and drop the bumper tow bar to hitch up to the old Chevy. Every year it was the same trek, out to southwestern Colorado to 30 Mile Campground west of Creede. My grandparents started going there in the early 40's.

 

[BeerM3]

I remember learning how to drive in that truck. 3 speed on the column, with a very forgiving clutch. Eventually as we got older my dad began to (correctly) have visions of me or my brother rolling that old Toyota in a ditch, and when the rust really started to take hold, he opted to trade it to my uncle who was a autobody guy. He traded it for a paint job actually, which was a fair deal back in the day. My uncle fixed the rust and today it still sits in a garage somewhere in western KS, hopefully being handed down to a cousin for their kids to learn how to work 3 pedals instead of 2.

But enough old nostalgia. Time for new nostalgia.

 

[BeerM3]

The itch has been there for a while. After fixing up my 72 Chevelle through high school and into college, I foolishly sold it to buy a $28k F150 on a $30k salary. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. But that truck's served me well over the years. Over the last decade or so I've been secretly browsing cruiser porn late at night in my office, with all the lights turned off. Craigslist is my mistress. 55 Chevy Belair with slow, smooth curves? Yes. FJ40 with tires that don't quit? Mmmmhmmm.

So after years of window shopping, I convinced the Mrs (fairly easily cause she likes cool $%*& too) that we should go look at this 40 about 1-1/2 hours away. That brings me to the archival point of the story.

 

[Varty Yo]

Sweet!!! Pics of this little beauty

 

[BeerM3]

I found one. It wasn't perfect...in fact just over the last few months I've discovered how little I knew about these trucks; and that's after reading the MUD cruiser buying FAQ over and over. I didn't overpay, but I certainly didn't get a steal either. However, it runs smooth, it's a start, and it's a hell of a lot of fun to drive and tinker with. Like so many others I just want to attempt to document the metamorphosis and lessons learned for others to learn from. This is from when it was purchased back in August.

front

• BeerM3
• Sep 1, 2017

The sun is misleading, but the cage has the OEM style rear turn down tubes

driver side

• BeerM3
• Sep 1, 2017

passenger side

• BeerM3
• Sep 1, 2017

side

• BeerM3
• Sep 1, 2017

 

[kevos37]

It looks Great !! Congrats.

 

[BeerM3]

The PO had rattle canned it to what I assume was an Icon knock-off kind of look? I call it zebra safari. He/She'd fried some of the wires attempting to install LED signals. The roll cage was quickly outed by other MUD members as homemade. Turn signals didn't work. I didn't fully realize in my haste to snag one of these that a few places in the tub had been someone's high school stick welding project. The mud tires were shot, but the floor had only a few holes in it. All things said after some deserved reservations from the Mrs, I convinced her we should get it. So we did.

 

[cruiserkev]

Nice 76!

 

[BeerM3]

In my "vast knowledge of all things FJ" I checked the VIN on the door and sure enough, it was a 1/76. At the time I didn't know where or how to look up the block & frame, or that there should be an additional tag on the passenger fender. A better trained eye would've seen what is painfully obvious to me now, but live and learn.

 

[BeerM3]

So back to the title of the thread (Johnny Cash newbies you can google it) I quickly realized I had a 76 Body, with replaced fenders, and a 79 or 80 engine - props to MUD and Spector for the serial number archive project.

Obviously this was never going to be a Barrett Jackson, numbers matching, showroom restoration. But then I quickly reminded myself..that was never the intent. This is going to be the Mrs daily driver, with crawling through pine forests in the not-so-distant future once it's mechanically sound enough. She's been faithfully driving a rapidly declining minivan with our 2 kids for the past 10 years, so it's time to get busy livin'.

Dropped off at the Ranch (aka parent's house) where there's extra garage space and our hometown mechanic to give it a once-over before trailering it the last hour back to her new home.

 

[BeerM3]

For those wondering what a '76 2F looks like; this is not it. Valve cover out front shoulda told ya.

 

[skidplate]

My advice to all is to get it running and stopping and just drive! I'd much rather have a good runner than a pretty one. You already have a sweet looking truck.

 

[Martyt]

Nice ride--I agree with Skidpate--have fun riding the dream!

 

[BeerM3]

Thanks all. And yes, it's going to be a daily driver for quite a while with little fixes here and there. It's funny @skidplate you mention "stopping" because that's part of this weekend's checklist; getting these drum brakes adjusted and diagnosing the brake pressure loss. Ultimately the goal is for a new tub (already in hand, more on that later) and a nice yellow paint job (the Mrs favorite color) with a beige OEM soft top, 2" OME lift, restored dash panel, shiny new JIS hardware...basically a complete rip off of @MScruiser 's build.

But first: brakes. And a garage. I should probably think about building a garage.

 

[BeerM3]

^^ That's not my garage. Last fall my dad and I started tearing into it at his place a little over a hour away from mine.

• New bestop seats & tuffy
• pulled the wiring harness to fix the melted issues
• put in a new rear wiring harness from @Coolerman
• replaced the steering wheel
• pulled the high school shop rollbar and replaced it with a metal tech family cage.
• took off the guillotined ambulance door "tailgate" the PO had made and installed a bolt-on tailgate from real steel cruiser parts. Very nicely made btw.
• Lots of other little fixes here and there that I'll document later.

"You paid how much?"

Turns out the old pool table can double as a harness dissection table. PO's splices removed, plugs replaced, and a re-wrap with some help from Coolerman's website.

 

[Varty Yo]

Looks great!

Any plans for 3 point seat belts in the rear for the bench?

 

[Living in the Past]

Your dad's 68 looked a lot like my 68 does now. First picture is how it looked summer of 75 about a year after I bought. second picture is probably early eighties after I replaced the top after putting the cruiser on it's side later in 75. Not sure the dates on the next two, guessing late eighties early nineties. Last one is a few years ago as it looks like today. You can see why your first pictures made me take a double take. Arizona is a lot easier to keep rust at bay.

 

[BeerM3]

Looks great!

Any plans for 3 point seat belts in the rear for the bench?

I have a pair of lap belts in there now but will likely up those to 3 point later.

 

[BeerM3]

Your dad's 68 looked a lot like my 68 does now. First picture is how it looked summer of 75 about a year after I bought. second picture is probably early eighties after I replaced the top after putting the cruiser on it's side later in 75. Not sure the dates on the next two, guessing late eighties early nineties. Last one is a few years ago as it looks like today. You can see why your first pictures made me take a double take. Arizona is a lot easier to keep rust at bay.

Those are very cool photos! I think I have some more saved somewhere of wheeling around Colorado that I need to dig up.

The carb gasket started leaking one summer and being 2 hrs away from a parts store, my grandfather just fashioned one out of a playing card. Worked perfectly!

 

[Rigger]

Love the "back in the day" pics!!