**UPDATE** - So spent most of today working on what has now taken on the character of “BRAHMA,” not the god but just the bull. The 40’s stance kinda reminds me of a bull about ready to charge…plus I can now call it “the silver bull” lol 
. Anyway, fixed the gas smell inside the truck! Turned out that there was a big hole in the breather hose that was letting all those fumes into the cab! Now it smells like old Land Cruiser , except for the exhaust leak that needs to be fixed… 
. Anyway, my crawlings around the interior, underside and engine brought a few questions up for you Cruiser gurus.
1. It looked like there was some kind of plate bolted on the right (pass.) side of the engine block. It goes along the whole length of the block, and appears that if you took it off you could see all the push rods, or at least their sleeves or whatever you would see. Just curious what that was all about.
2. It looked like the grille has a hinge so it could fold forward – is this for real? What’s the (I suppose obvious) purpose of this? Is it easy to make it do this?
3. It’s a ’77 FJ40, and has a hydraulic clutch, is that something that changed from mechanical to hydraulic, or were the clutches always hydraulic? When/if did it change?
4. What’s the stock interior light setup? Is it weak? What have you guys been doing do increase the output of the interior lights (I mean like courtesy lights, not gauges…and don’t make fun of me for asking this like a new car owner…it’s just that I know there’s supposed to be a light above the driver’s head, didn’t know if there were any others ).
5. On the instruction plate for shifting into 4wd, it mentions that if you have the hubs unlocked and shift the lever into 4x4 the front end will automatically engage. What’s up with this? Isn’t that the point of locking the hubs? Or is there a slick mechanism like on our Suburban that automatically engages the hubs when that stuff starts spinning? I guess I could try it, but don’t really have a good place to right now… Along those same lines, were there any FJ40s that were full-time 4wd? I seem to remember something like that…very rare obviously. And also were there any FJ40s that had auto-locking hubs, which I assume would be more common than full-time 4wd but not as common as manual locking hubs.
6. Is Aisin the only stock carb for these vehicles? Do they say Aisin on them? We have what looks like the stock carb, but can’t really make out what it says on the front, but it sure doesn’t look like Aisin, and it’s not Holley. ?
7. What is up with the oil drain plug, 24mm? Is that really necessary? I mean there’s 8.5 quarts (oh BTW is that correct also?) of oil to drain, but that’s a BIG plug. Just checking…
8. Now we have the little wing windows in the rear, but looking at the Specter catalog it showed sliding rear windows…but even though I’ve always heard post-’76ish rear windows called sliding rear windows I’ve always only seen the wing window type. Any explanation?
Thanks all,
. Anyway, fixed the gas smell inside the truck! Turned out that there was a big hole in the breather hose that was letting all those fumes into the cab! Now it smells like old Land Cruiser , except for the exhaust leak that needs to be fixed… . Anyway, my crawlings around the interior, underside and engine brought a few questions up for you Cruiser gurus.1. It looked like there was some kind of plate bolted on the right (pass.) side of the engine block. It goes along the whole length of the block, and appears that if you took it off you could see all the push rods, or at least their sleeves or whatever you would see. Just curious what that was all about.
2. It looked like the grille has a hinge so it could fold forward – is this for real? What’s the (I suppose obvious) purpose of this? Is it easy to make it do this?
3. It’s a ’77 FJ40, and has a hydraulic clutch, is that something that changed from mechanical to hydraulic, or were the clutches always hydraulic? When/if did it change?
4. What’s the stock interior light setup? Is it weak? What have you guys been doing do increase the output of the interior lights (I mean like courtesy lights, not gauges…and don’t make fun of me for asking this like a new car owner…it’s just that I know there’s supposed to be a light above the driver’s head, didn’t know if there were any others ).
5. On the instruction plate for shifting into 4wd, it mentions that if you have the hubs unlocked and shift the lever into 4x4 the front end will automatically engage. What’s up with this? Isn’t that the point of locking the hubs? Or is there a slick mechanism like on our Suburban that automatically engages the hubs when that stuff starts spinning? I guess I could try it, but don’t really have a good place to right now… Along those same lines, were there any FJ40s that were full-time 4wd? I seem to remember something like that…very rare obviously. And also were there any FJ40s that had auto-locking hubs, which I assume would be more common than full-time 4wd but not as common as manual locking hubs.
6. Is Aisin the only stock carb for these vehicles? Do they say Aisin on them? We have what looks like the stock carb, but can’t really make out what it says on the front, but it sure doesn’t look like Aisin, and it’s not Holley. ?
7. What is up with the oil drain plug, 24mm? Is that really necessary? I mean there’s 8.5 quarts (oh BTW is that correct also?) of oil to drain, but that’s a BIG plug. Just checking…
8. Now we have the little wing windows in the rear, but looking at the Specter catalog it showed sliding rear windows…but even though I’ve always heard post-’76ish rear windows called sliding rear windows I’ve always only seen the wing window type. Any explanation?
Thanks all,
