Builds POTM - March, 2014 - Javelina By Pablo Cruise (1 Viewer)

[PabloCruise]

We had a few other Pigs at Cruise Moab '08. I think Ige took some pictures of all the Pigs together at the raffle dinner. Ige, do you have those pictures?

The drive home sucked. Climbing up Vail Pass, Pig just could not make any power. As I was sitting on the side of the road feeling bad, I was surprised to see Land Cruisers drive by without stopping, oh well.

When I finally got Pig towed home, the output from the external, electric fuel pump was meager at best. I took a look at the inlet to the fuel pump and found it occluded by debris, third picture. When we were installing the 3FE and adding the external fuel pump back by the tank, I thought we should have put a pre-filter between the tank and the pump. I got talked out of it because we sent the tank and radiator out to be cleaned at the radiator shop. I should have trusted my instinct.

So we added a pre-filter. One of those clear plastic units (NAPA 3002). As you can see, lots of debris came out of the tank. When I saw this, I thought about those documents saying the Pig was inoperative for 2 separate 5 year stretches. I wondered if it sat outside and had lots of fine, New Mexico sand blowing into every nook and cranny...

 

[PabloCruise]

Having fixed the fuel issue (or so I thought), I focused on 2 other issues that bugged me in Moab.

1) I had a gas smell in the cab. If I tried to roll down the rear window while driving, the gas smell would be replaced by exhaust smell

2) The odometer would not roll over consistently, and made a weird little "boing" noise.

I took these issues on and found a connector off the vapor separator in the DS rear quarter was split and let gas vapors into the cabin - awesome! I replaced this with a brass barb fitting and made sure the charcoal canister was hooked up to a vacuum port on the 3FE (air cleaner port).

I tore into the speedometer and found it to be gummed up with what felt like a tacky varnish. I got some great pictures in my speedo rebuild thread here: https://forum.ih8mud.com/fj55-iron-...ument-clusters-will-70-cluster-work-74-a.html

 

[PabloCruise]

Somewhere around this time I realized that there were still issues with the 3FE. It was not running properly.

I also realized I had to deal with the body.

I began to lose heart and wanted to give up. I had put so much work into this Pig, only to realize how much more I had to do. I listed the Pig for sale. I don't know when exactly I did this, but I think it was probably mid-year in 2008. Then I realized I valued the Pig more than what others would value it at given the 3FE issues and the body.

So I started asking what to do with the surface rust in October of 2008: Pig (FJ55) Roof Panel w/ Surface Rust - How To Proceed? It was in this thread that Dallas, @dmaddox , who was a friend from the LCML, offered to let me come down and paint the Pig in his family's shop. It would be another YEAR before we would finally get it together enough to start on this.

 

[PabloCruise]

I thought I would rather have all the mechanicals working on the Pig before we started painting it.
So somewhere around Feb of 2009 (a year after I got her) I started looking at the 3FE pretty seriously. I did not know much about them, and had very little hands-on time on them. That would soon change.

I joined the 3FE List on Yahoo! and began checking off things that you should do when trouble-shooting a 3FE. I don't want to relive that all that pain, but after fixing many little things and still not fixing the 3FE idle problems, we found that the fuel pressure in the rail was way too high. Then we found a clog in the fuel return line. Once that was clear, the 3FE ran flawlessly!

You can read all about my 3FE trials and tribulations in these threads: https://forum.ih8mud.com/showpost.php?p=8624744&postcount=2

The time-frame on these fixes was Feb '09 to June of '09. When I mastered the 3FE, I felt much better, and ready to take on the body!

 

[PabloCruise]

Thanks to Dallas' offer to bring the Pig down to Colorado Springs and paint it down there, we started scheming. I finally drove the Pig down to CO Springs the weekend before Halloween, 2009.

The plan was to take the Pig apart in his garage, and then when we were ready to paint, we would bring it over to a shop that he and his family built. Some painters leased space there, and one of them would paint the Pig. Boy was I excited about this!

After that first day, we realized the next weekend was Halloween, and that would not be a good day to spend the whole time in the garage. Then the next weekend was one of his kid's Birthday. Then the week after was my son's Birthday, then my Birthday, then Thanksgiving... We didn't get together to work on the Pig until after New Years. Dallas got out to the garage a few times and put in some solo time on my Pig. Thank you Dallas.

Did I mention that the entire time my Pig was in his garage, his wife's 80 sat outside? Thank you again to the whole family!

 

[PabloCruise]

Just found another picture of my boy with the Pig before I took it down to CO Springs for paint:

 

[PabloCruise]

Before long, we decided to paint the entire Pig, inside and out.

So everything came off. Everything. It all went into little bags that we labeled. I also had to figure out what color this Pig was, so I could buy the right paint. I posted in several of the color code threads about this.

Of course I also thought about painting the Pig with Chrysler's High Impact Panther Pink!

Ultimately I determined the Pig was Nebula green. Someone, I forgot who, was kind enough to send me some spray outs of different greens that Toyota used around '74: Breathe Green and Fashion Green.

 

[PabloCruise]

Since I lacked skills in rust repair and Dallas had been welding on Cruisers for years, I took everything apart while Dallas worked on the actual metal:

 

[PabloCruise]

One down, a few more to go.

We sprayed rust converter inside the hole before welding in patch, repeated application after patch, and then coated backside with bearing grease.

 

[PabloCruise]

Out comes the glass. The rubber was nice and dry and brittle from sitting in the NM sun:

 

[PabloCruise]

I wanted to capture all the paint lines on film before we ground off all the paint. It looked like the majority of the paint was factory:

 

[PabloCruise]

More paint lines. I hope these can help others:

 

[PabloCruise]

Out came the headliner (what was left of it), seats, floor mats and rubber:

 

[PabloCruise]

At this point, Dallas and I were getting into a good routine of getting together on Saturdays and banging out a day's worth of work on the Pig. Everything was taken off. Metal repairs made. Lots of great progress.

I should mention, CO Springs is 2 hours south of Fort Collins. Was I a dumb-ass for taking the Pig 2 hours away to work on the body? Probably. Was it cool to have a Land Cruiser friend who liked working on the Pig as much as I did? Yes.

Then one day in February Dallas said that he got a great new job offer. I told him that sounded great! Then he said he would be moving out of state. Oh...

The Pig was very much taken apart. Dallas was very kind to let me bring the Pig to the family shop and continue to prep it for paint. It would be another 8 months before she was ready to come home. Weekends became long stretches of driving to the Springs and taking the Pig further apart, sanding, sanding and more sanding. My wife would question the wisdom of this decision to paint the Pig down there, but I was afraid if I brought the Pig home in pieces it would just sit in the garage and slowly languish. so I pushed myself every Saturday to grind this out. I would not call this a high point in our marriage.

Moving the Pig to the Shop:

 

[J Mack]

You can see the issues online by going to: www.tlca.org

If you are a member you can download PDF copies of the Trails as well.

OK I joined but I have yet to see where I can download the pdf copy?

 

[PabloCruise]

Despite these challenges, I really enjoyed my time in the Shop. I work in an office, on a computer, with a lot of women. So it was nice to put on work clothes and work with my hands on steel. I got my guidance from the professional painter leasing space in the shop. Dallas' Dad was usually in the shop on weekends working on the property. That guy had a work ethic that would not quit. He was planting trees, building patios, finishing living space inside, and he usually had his youngest grandson in tow. The guy was a machine. So these were good times, filled with hard work.

 

[PabloCruise]

OK I joined but I have yet to see where I can download the pdf copy?

Sent you a PM, hope you got it...

 

[PabloCruise]

Taking apart the tailgate lift mechanism was a particular PITA. I took pictures of just about everything I took apart, but a lot of these are pretty boring. The tailgate lift mechanism has a special place in my heart because it was so frustrating to take apart and put back together.

The only way to do this is by the book. I don't remember if I scanned pages from the FSM on taking this apart. I can look if anyone wants/needs these pages.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Pablo,


Great pictures and nothing boring about them. In your next installment, let us know what you did to the rod and it's cradle, to stop future rust. I'm thinking about powder coating the rod, then covering it in light coat of Super lube. Just thinking at this point.


Keep it coming, I'm enjoying every bit.

 

[J Mack]

Pablo,


Great pictures and nothing boring about them.


Keep it coming, I'm enjoying every bit.

Very well documented build and it's an enjoyable read.
Please keep the updates coming!