So in the beginning....
Project Patina 1964 FJ45 (Australia)
- Thread starter west aussie
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- #2
splendid, that worked! my family have always had landcruisers since they first bought a used fj25 in about 1961. the photo of my parents above was taken in latter part of 1983 when i was 10 years old. it shows a 1963 fj45 that my father bought in the mid 1970's. this old workhorse was used for the following 2 decades for all sorts of hard work but principally pulling sandalwood. this involved meandering through the trackless scrub, attaching a chain to the appropriate trees, dragging them out by their roots, chainsawing them up on the spot and so on until a full load was ready to take back to base camp then go out again. the sweet smelling sandalwood was exported (mostly for incense and the like) and my family did a lot of this work through the 1980's. it was hard work on the old toyota and as such this one was never licensed or expected to be roadworthy. my father was a very capable bush mechanic. eventually the gearbox and diffs out of his earlier fj25 got slapped under her along with an endless multitude of rough repairs and parts from other models. he often referred to her as being like the irishmans axe ("...i've had this same axe my whole life and in that time its only had 3 new heads and 17 new handles...") at some point my older brothers did a bit of a flying leap into a creek and badly bent the chassis; not that that made too much difference to the work at hand. this old toyota was used spasmodically through the 1990's and somewhere this side of the millenium was parked under a tree where it remains to this day. from memory she had a core plug issue and failing hydraulics but could still be started with a little dedication. i often feel guilty observing her state of neglect. anyway this is how she looked this morning.
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- #3
i try again
Very cool family history ... It does look like it was worked hard! ... But ... That's why they were built the way they were... And why we still have them 
Man, that's really neat history. I can only wish, I still had some of my family's jeep station wagons.
What's the plans for it, rebuild?
What's the plans for it, rebuild?
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- #6
no real plans for this one other than just look at it at the moment. i kind of like it just the way it is really. the chassis is badly bent and the front wheels track about 4 inches further to the right than the rear. here is a photo of the fj25 box in position
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- #7
there are plenty of old photos of this toyota at work though last night was my first ever lessons at scanning old images. this is the vehicle i learnt to drive in at about age 7 so it is a sentimental favourite and i must shed it before it rots away altogether. i am lucky in that many of my families old toyotas exist in the scrapyard though they are very dismantled. the bodies are usually work battered and full of fatigue cracks but here in the semi desert they don't rust like elsewhere. and of course storage space is not an issue! anyway i eventually came to realize that these old fixed cab 45's don't exist much and about a decade ago i started looking about for another in better condition to tinker with. after a good lead this is what i found on a station about 100 miles from home
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- #8
1964 fj45. PROJECT PATINA was underway
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- #9
isn't she lovely? at this point i wish to add that that if anyone with the appropriate know how wishes to move this thread over to the 45 page i am more than happy with that. apologies cruisernerd i read your comments this morning after i had already made a tentative start last night. guess i just hang out in the 25 hollow as a force of habit after reading nuclearlemon and pigheads wonderful (and motivating) thread about orphan annie this year i decided it was time to update my poor computing skills and tell you my story. wish i had more pictures of project patina as i found her sitting in the weather unloved, windows down and flat tyred. the owner wanted $400 for her which i would have easily paid. the only value he saw was in the radiator which he had vague plans of butchering to make fit something else. anyway we struck a deal where i swapped a surplus yamaha farm style motorbike i had for this old tojo and a nice old holden hr ute with similar patina. so as you have probably guessed patina is my thing. i dont seem to have either the time, skill, patience or pockets for major restore projects (but i love reading other peoples restore threads with a due measure of awe). myself i have always found paint and chrome boring and expensive and mechanics relatively cheap and interesting. the day we picked her up was a bit chaotic in that we arrived at the exact time as the previous owners toddler son had just cut his hand on a chainsaw that had been left idling on the ground; he luckily survived with a lot of tears and a rush trip to town for a number of stitches. but i digress. project patina was off to a flying start. she got pushed of the trailer at home, windows wound up and there she lay for the next year or two. this was probably about 2005 and long before i had ever heard of mud.
after reading nuclearlemon and pigheads wonderful (and motivating) thread about orphan annie this year i decided it was time to update my poor computing skills and tell you my story. wish i had more pictures of project patina as i found her sitting in the weather unloved, windows down and flat tyred. the owner wanted $400 for her which i would have easily paid. the only value he saw was in the radiator which he had vague plans of butchering to make fit something else. anyway we struck a deal where i swapped a surplus yamaha farm style motorbike i had for this old tojo and a nice old holden hr ute with similar patina. so as you have probably guessed patina is my thing. i dont seem to have either the time, skill, patience or pockets for major restore projects (but i love reading other peoples restore threads with a due measure of awe). myself i have always found paint and chrome boring and expensive and mechanics relatively cheap and interesting. the day we picked her up was a bit chaotic in that we arrived at the exact time as the previous owners toddler son had just cut his hand on a chainsaw that had been left idling on the ground; he luckily survived with a lot of tears and a rush trip to town for a number of stitches. but i digress. project patina was off to a flying start. she got pushed of the trailer at home, windows wound up and there she lay for the next year or two. this was probably about 2005 and long before i had ever heard of mud.- Thread starter
- #10
so late one afternoon i felt i must of needed a bit of a 'pick me up' moment so i wandered down the laydown area with beer, plugspanner, fresh fuel, battery and a few other bits and got her to fire up without much trouble at all. i forget if i used the existing fuel tank or syphoned fuel to the system but at any rate i don't recall ever pulling the lift pump at all. anyways she made noise so without much further ado we must of found some sort of rubber and towed her back to the shed for a serious look.
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- #11
pulled the tappet cover and found a sea of condensation induced rust sprinkled over everything. to this day i have never since fired an old motor without checking under the rocker cover first. also found one of the mounting blocks for the rocker shaft was cracked and another was missing a holddown bolt altogether (both of which i thought were very irregular). anyways we sorted this and fitted my least leaky used waterpump (cleanest dirty shirt) and used radiator hoses. motor was running a cast iron gm branded thermostat housing presumably from an old chev stovebolt 6 or similar, all of which we tidied up somehow, i forget, and got her running warm. i have one treasured photo from about this time. my father and couple of brothers featured; presumably getting oil up to the rocker shaft i reckon
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- #12
pulled the tappet cover and found a sea of condensation induced rust sprinkled over everything. to this day i have never since fired an old motor without checking under the rocker cover first. also found one of the mounting blocks for the rocker shaft was cracked and another was missing a holddown bolt altogether (both of which i thought were very irregular). anyways we sorted this and fitted my least leaky used waterpump (cleanest dirty shirt) and used radiator hoses. motor was running a cast iron gm branded thermostat housing presumably from an old chev stovebolt 6 or similar, all of which we tidied up somehow, i forget, and got her running warm. i have one treasured photo from about this time. my father and couple of brothers featured; presumably getting oil up to the rocker shaft i reckon
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- #13
apologies mud punters i try again
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- #14
i well remember the first 'test drive'. my brother paul (in the background above) was away for a few days and i was contracted to feed his kids horses. his house is half a mile away on the same station (read farm or ranch if you will but we call them stations in my part). we rigged a headlight of sorts and decided on a test drive; there were no hydraulics to speak of but just start her in gear and aim. tootled over to his camp, parked, and used the headlight to throw some hay or somesuch to the chaffburners. anyhow job done i hopped back in the old toyota and turned off the light thinking to give the starter undivided attention of a failing battery. put her in first gear, gave the throttle the obligatory couple of hard pumps and hit the key. she fired jammed on full throttle and lurched forward into the darkness hay and horses. in standard panic mode i went for the clutch and brake at once (of which there were neither) then the column mounted key i am used to (which doesn.t exist) and it was a nervous 2 seconds before i fumbled for the ignition and shut her down; especially for the horses! anyhow without many more test miles we got her deeper into the shed where she sat for the next 5 or 6 years buried deep under dead motorbikes and other realms of junk.... i mean treasure! here is a picture from those years
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- #15
if anyone wishes to remove my duplicate post above that would be great. and so the project chipped along at the average rate of 10 or 20 hours a year, usually of an evening and always beer in hand. i spent a solid half day with a variety of scrapers and compressed air attachments cleaning 50 years (or was it only 45 years then?) worth of mud and debris out of the chassis rails which were full to capacity as expected. also got her sitting on the used rubber you see above so she at least looked a bit better as i walked past. went split rims just for ease of mounting. we repair and mount all our own tyres here and if you saw the amount of old diesel landcruisers and trailers we run here you would understand this is something of a full time job in itself. besides, split rims are everywhere and free right?
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- #16
there were a couple of interesting irregularities to deal with
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- #17
on the left above is a homemade engine mount that has been cut and bent from a piece of 10mm plate. how the original cast piece failed or was lost is a bit beyond me. this replacement was sagging and the fan was slowly wearing its was into the fan shroud
on the right above is an unique replacement for a drive plate adapted from a waterpipe fitting. it was held on with 2 bolts and a felt gasket cut i believe from an old hat. it sufficed to keep dust out of the wheel bearings and not much else. no provision for the spline of course and the front axles had been removed along with the front driveshaft.
both these gems now hang on the wall of my shed though i wish i had a picture of them in situ!
on the right above is an unique replacement for a drive plate adapted from a waterpipe fitting. it was held on with 2 bolts and a felt gasket cut i believe from an old hat. it sufficed to keep dust out of the wheel bearings and not much else. no provision for the spline of course and the front axles had been removed along with the front driveshaft.
both these gems now hang on the wall of my shed though i wish i had a picture of them in situ!
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- #18
enter parts wreck number one
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- #19
i found this old fixed cab sitting on the town dump in the coastal town of northampton about 4 hours drive from where i live. i just happened to be passing by with an empty car trailer after an unrelated mission. i will add it took a bit of loading. as you would all know there is nothing like putting any old vehicle at all on a trailer to gain attention and i got some funny looks and comments hauling this one home! i have always been loth to wreck (or 'part out' as some of you say) old cars with even a little potential so i love examples like this. it provided lots of parts starting with the axles, drive plate and front shaft. later the original mirror and ashtray which were missing on mine. and one of the little chrome locks for the sliding rear window and the original firewall grommets for the wiring harness with fj25 stamped on them and etc
