Builds Project 2027: 1977 FJ40 Rebuild

[Jetlander]

Haven’t posted an update in forever. The work on the rebuild hasn’t stopped. I’ve been spending every free minute in bodywork and prep. Temps and humidity continue to be a tall hurdle for me.

All told I finally got every last piece stripped to bare metal. Etched it all and got 3 coats of primer laid down. Then wet sanding, wet sanding, and wet sanding. Did I mention wet sanding?!? Now I know why good paint jobs are big money. The man hours of wet sanding properly are astronomical.
Anyways, once the primer was laid down I Raptor Lined the bottom of Aqualu tub. Mainly to keep the noise down to a loud roar, and hopefully some of the heat out. I was pleased with how easy Raptor lining turned out to be.

I built a 14’x12’ paint booth in my garage with fans and filters. Today was the first day since the priming and wet sanding was done to FINALLY shoot the first panels with color. To say I was nervous was an understatement. Definitely didn’t want to mess it up and end up back at square one... I fretted a bunch on the color I wanted and finally decided to go with the modern Toyota Cement. I had it mixed up and when I brought it home it was virtually the same color as the leather I used for the seats. Thinking the color all being the same would be too much of a good thing, I went and got some black to add in to darken it up a bit. Glad I did.

Well, here it is... First attempt at painting complete. 3 coats of base and 3 coats of clear. Other than a few dust particles it turned out better than I expected.

Getting so close to being done after 3+ years of work is starting to dawn on me. My excitement is definitely building.

 

[Jetlander]

Well... The moment of truth. Everything has been painted minus the body, but now it’s ready for a little love. Expecting to shoot paint and clear on Monday.

 

[White Stripe]

Looking good man. Have you thought about step sliders instead of the aqualu steps?

 

[Jetlander]

Well, like a kid in a candy store I couldn’t wait to see how the final product would eventually turn out, so I did a quick cut & buff by hand (I haven’t bought a buffer yet) to see if I wasted all my time. Still a lot of swirl marks but it was the best I could do by hand. Once I have a buffer I will hit this apron again to clean it up.

It looks very blue in the photo due to the chair but I can assure you, it’s grey.

 

[Jetlander]

And finally... The paint is done! It’s been a helluva journey up to this point. Lots of ooops’s and plenty of frustrations as I tried to get ahead of the learning curve without too much pain. Here it is. Hoping to have some better light on it in the next few days for better pictures

A little bit more elbow grease and sweat equity needed for the cut and buff, but I’m over the moon on how it turned out.

It’s been 3 years and 4 months up to this point and now the fun part finally begins... Putting this ol’ girl back together again!

 

[Varty Yo]

Awesome man! Ill be visiting this often as ill be doing the body on my 42 in a year or so.

 

[rickpaw]

Looking good

 

[Jetlander]

Looking good man. Have you thought about step sliders instead of the aqualu steps?

I’ve definitely thought about it. It’ll be a trail rig for sure but as it sits now I doubt I’ll do any crazy crawling with it, at least not like I did with my Tacoma. With that being said, I’m going to run with the steps initially and make a decision down the road as to sliders.

 

[Jetlander]

And the finally major step is done. I Raptor Lined the interior for durability. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I figured it was an aluminum body so at least I don’t have to worry about the corrosion aspect. And with the intention of it being a fairly regular daily driver it would add a touch of comfort with reductions in both heat and noise. Not a great picture but here it is...

 

[Jetlander]

Awesome man! Ill be visiting this often as ill be doing the body on my 42 in a year or so.

Appreciate it. I’m no expert by any stretch but I’ve certainly learned a lot over the last few years. Large body projects can be done with enough patience.

 

[zerotreedelta]

Very curious to see your final product - I'm midway through my frame-off, and I've been eyeing up that new Toyota Concrete color as well. Mine was originally *all* Cygnus White...I'm tempted to go back to the white since that's original, but the two-tone color schemes tend to just look nicer on the FJs, vs the white-on-white, especially as my original isn't even two-tone white, it was all Cygnus.

Looks very nice so far, though...guessing you can't wait to get it buttoned up.

EDIT: did you tint the Raptor, or did you topcoat it with color? I used it in black for the bed of my '98 Ram refurb, it does shoot nicely for sure.

 

[Jetlander]

Very curious to see your final product - I'm midway through my frame-off, and I've been eyeing up that new Toyota Concrete color as well. Mine was originally *all* Cygnus White...I'm tempted to go back to the white since that's original, but the two-tone color schemes tend to just look nicer on the FJs, vs the white-on-white, especially as my original isn't even two-tone white, it was all Cygnus.

Looks very nice so far, though...guessing you can't wait to get it buttoned up.

EDIT: did you tint the Raptor, or did you topcoat it with color? I used it in black for the bed of my '98 Ram refurb, it does shoot nicely for sure.

I appreciate the feedback. My final color is actually a lot darker than Toyota Cement, which wasn’t the original plan. I felt I needed more contrast between the Cruiser’s color and seats. I think I achieved that and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I did tint the Raptor before spraying it. I took the base color and added more black to it, again for a little contrast. I was surprised at how little paint had to be added to tint the whole bottle. Anyways, now the Raptor is sprayed it’s on to the cut and buff. After this is done, if I never see sandpaper again, it’ll be too soon.

 

[zerotreedelta]

I appreciate the feedback. My final color is actually a lot darker than Toyota Cement, which wasn’t the original plan. I felt I needed more contrast between the Cruiser’s color and seats. I think I achieved that and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I did tint the Raptor before spraying it. I took the base color and added more black to it, again for a little contrast. I was surprised at how little paint had to be added to tint the whole bottle. Anyways, now the Raptor is sprayed it’s on to the cut and buff. After this is done, if I never see sandpaper again, it’ll be too soon.

Good to know on the Raptor, thanks for the info. Guessing I'll only do the underside, but still nice to color match.

And I forgot, it was the new Lunar Rock color that I was sleuthing - similar to concrete but a tiny touch of green, kind of harkening back to the old light green color, but a bit muted.

Good luck with the buffing...I remember that job well from the doing the repaint of my '98 Ram last summer.

 

[Jetlander]

Cut and buff done on one side. Still in my garage so no real natural light to truly show it off. I’m ecstatic on how it’s turning out. Super happy I decided to do the paint myself.

 

[cbmontgo]

That paint looks beautiful.

 

[icorradoi]

Wow! Impressive dude. How much body work knowledge/experience did you have before this? I'd like to do the same to my 40, but I'm mostly afraid of not knowing what I don't know, if that makes sense.

The trip idea sounds awesome too. I was born in Buenos Aires and lived there until I was 8. Would love to drive down there, but probably in my 80 instead of my 40.

 

[zerotreedelta]

Can't speak for the OP, but with the more modern materials and equipment (and info out there), it's much more approachable than it ever was. I started dabbling last year - redid a salvage motorcycle to start small and learn...then did a full redo on my '98 Ram, and hoping/planning to paint my FJ this spring.

As the OP alluded to, patience and prepwork is most of it...and being willing to do lots of handwork. Lots and lots of sanding, and re-sanding. The one nice thing is, if you do screw up a panel, you just have to re-prep and reshoot, it's not the end of the world. The other nice thing is our 40's are typically non-metallic paint, which is also more forgiving. My Ram had a center stripe of light-tan metallic, and that paint was a buster to get the flake to lay down evenly at times.

That said, that's some beautiful paint...well done there.

 

[Jetlander]

One word... MILESTONE!

 

[zerotreedelta]

Sharp! Definitely on the home stretch. Looking forward to that day myself...soon, soon.

 

[Jetlander]

Widgets are being put back in place fast. It’s starting to look like an FJ40 again.