Builds Rescuing a Basket Case '72 FJ40 (7 Viewers)

[diesellibrarian]

I have a passenger side tire carrier and latch I can be reasoned out of...not planning on using it anymore and it's in good shape.

Not sure what the shipping would be to CO though. Do you ever come to the Salt Lake area?

I'm actually in southern Alberta, Canada (the Rockies are a loooong mountain range!), so I'm thinking shipping would be prohibitive. Also, I'm kind of committed to the newer carrier at this point, having drilled a bunch of pretty big holes in my Cruiser. Thanks, though! Very kind of you to offer.

A trip to Utah/Salt Lake and the Land Cruiser Museum is on the list for sometime in the next year or two. Hoping to attend a Cruise Moab event in the not too distant future.

 

[diesellibrarian]

@diesellibrarian Great thread man, I've read the whole thing now. I too live where the flat land meets the bumpy land, and I too come from the 60 world - I've been daily driving one for four years now. I'm slowly hunting for the right 40 project and your work gives me hope that I can pull off something similar. My budget isn't going to allow me to get anything much beyond what you started with, but that's ok - you prove it can be done. Anyway, nothing to add except "thanks".

Cheers!

60s have always been my first love when it comes to Land Cruisers, but the 40s are pretty neat, and even though they're very simple, the more I get into mine, the more respect I have for the design and engineering that went into them. That simplicity makes rust repair relatively easy, since there aren't many crowned panels etc that would require specialty metalworking tools to recreate. Leaving aside wheels and tires, I'm hoping to have less than $CDN 4,000 including purchase price into to this one, which is probably less than $USD 3,000. But that entails a huge time investment. Still, as a midlife empty nester with a boring-ass office job, there isn't anything I'd rather spend my time on! Very grateful to be able to do this hobby - and to have a reliable FJ62 as my DD, haha.

Will look forward to watching your 40 project when it happens!

 

[CruiserTrash]

Cheers!

60s have always been my first love when it comes to Land Cruisers, but the 40s are pretty neat, and even though they're very simple, the more I get into mine, the more respect I have for the design and engineering that went into them. That simplicity makes rust repair relatively easy, since there aren't many crowned panels etc that would require specialty metalworking tools to recreate. Leaving aside wheels and tires, I'm hoping to have less than $CDN 4,000 including purchase price into to this one, which is probably less than $USD 3,000. But that entails a huge time investment. Still, as a midlife empty nester with a boring-ass office job, there isn't anything I'd rather spend my time on! Very grateful to be able to do this hobby - and to have a reliable FJ62 as my DD, haha.

Will look forward to watching your 40 project when it happens!

That number is in the ballpark of where I want to be total for a running/driving 40 when I'm done. Maybe up to 200% of that. I know that's going to involve rust and a lot of labor, but I'm looking for one that's mostly original and I plan on leaving it that way. I'll leave the patina too. So far that formula has worked for me in the 60 world, so why change it? This is not gonna be a high end resto. Something to putz around town in 2-3x per month and maybe once every year hit a dirt road in the mountains.

Anyway, I'll sit back and enjoy your show now.

 

[SteveH]

@diesellibrarian - not sure which is better, your photography or your welding repairs. Both look great.

I sure hope that (after all paintwork is complete) you shoot lots of Fluid Film (or any grease) inside those formerly-rusted cavities. Rust never sleeps.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Thanks, @SteveH! I'm actually better at grinding than welding, but the gap is slowly closing. My welds aren't necessarily getting prettier, but I think they are getting stronger, which is what matters.

Copy on the Fluid Film. I go through a lot of that stuff as I daily drive my FJ62 in the winter. I'm always spraying FF into the rockers and quarters etc. so that the two years I spent repairing rust don't go to waste, haha.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Got a little more done on the 40 over the weekend. I've been working to get the rust repair in the passenger compartment complete, so that I can install the fuel tank and get it permanently plumbed in so that I can start working on getting the engine running. One of the things I needed to cross off the list is the last remaining bit of rust repair on the gearbox cover. I just had the rear lip to replace. Here's the patch panel clamped in place for test fit:

I also scraped off all of the old undercoating on the underside of the cover. This shows a good view of the extensive rust repair I had to do on this thing. It also shows the lip repair all welded in:

I painted the repaired areas with some etching primer, then high-build primer, then some red oxide, and then a coat of paint that I had custom mixed to match the Breathe Green. It's the wrong shade of green - seems closer to Spring Green, so I'm going to have to have another go at that, but in the meantime this will work for some of the interior stuff I think.

I've been researching various techniques to blend new paint and the existing patina, so I thought this would be a good time to give one of them a try. It involves dipping some crumpled up paper (or a scotchbrite pad) into rust-coloured paint and dabbing it on the surface in a somewhat random pattern. I still have a bit of work to do here using some different colours of spray paint, but I think overall the technique has potential.

Of course I had to fit it, to see how it looked in the car:

Fun times, playing with paint!

 

[diesellibrarian]

I'm also going to have to patch a few spots on the passenger side floor. Decided to attack this one first:

My first step was to cut a piece of 16 gauge steel to the rough size of the area that needs repair, and then bend it and trim it down to size:

I then clamped the patch in place and scribed around it, first laying down some blue sharpie to make the scribe lines more clear.

Then I just cut right up to the scribe lines using a cut-off wheel on the grinder, making a hole that's almost a perfect fit for the patch:

The patch fully welded and welds ground as flat as I dared. A thin swipe of filler will make the imperfections disappear.

One step closer to driving this thing!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Over the past couple days I've wrapped up the repairs to the passenger floor pan: 4 patches in all. I made the mistake of poking the pan with a sharpened punch, and as it turns out, the pan was further gone than I thought, as I ended up making a bunch of little holes all over the place.

As a result, I ended up making a fairly large patch for the inner edge of the pan. Used a cardboard template to cut the patch, then scribed around the patch and then removed the rusty steel. Had to break out the air chisel to break some of the spot welds holding this piece in place.

Test fitting the patch. Fit-up looks pretty good.

...and here's the patch welded in and dressed. Won't need too much filler on this one.

Then moved on to a couple of other weak areas and burned in some smaller patches.

The fuel tank well is pretty crusty, too, and also has penetrating rust, but replacing it would be a pretty complicated affair, and I just don't want to deal with it right now. So instead of new metal, it got a coat of POR-15. Fingers crossed that will help things hang together for a couple more years.

My goal is to be able to install the fuel tank soon, but first I have a little more rust repair to do on the box section behind the seats, as that area won't be accessible once the tank is in. Getting closer, though...

 

[diesellibrarian]

This weekend the cold weather finally broke, and it was actually warm enough to work with the garage door open, which was a real treat.

Spent most of Saturday working on the windshield frame. This poor frame as been through the wringer: it looks like someone tried to fold it down with a seized hinge, and then bent it back into shape (sort of...and then covered the tears with JB weld or what have you). The windshield hinges were in fact seized when I first got the truck, but repeated applications of PB Blaster and WD-40 allowed them to free up, finally.

Here's the damage to both sides:

In terms of repair strategy, I did happen to have a spare frame that I acquired in the same lot of parts as the fuel tanks etc. The replacement frame was also bent in that same area (is it a common thing on these trucks, for people to bend the windscreen frame trying to fold it down??), but way less severely. So I marked it up and cut the corner out! I considered just swapping in this replacement frame, but it had other issues that made that a less desirable option.

Here's the corner clamped for grafting onto the old frame. You can see the dented area, which I tried to remove by heating with a torch and then inserting a piece of 1x1 steel tubing into the cut section of the frame and hammering it flat against the floor. That strategy did remove a lot of the dent, but not all of it. However, it did have the important effect of making the pillar plane with the lower front section of the frame, which I confirmed with a straightedge.

It was at this point that I realized that there was something seriously wrong with this windscreen frame. I could not get the old pillar to align with the newly-grafted corner. Taking a closer look, I realized that the damage to the pillar was much more extensive than I thought: the whole thing was crushed and distorted almost all the way to the top of the frame.

This pic shows the extent of the damage to the pillar, with the replacement piece on the right for comparison:

I realized that I would need to replace a much larger section of the frame, so that was my next step:

After much measuring, clamping, tack welding, and twisting, I was finally able to manipulate the frame back into shape. I still have a bit of work to do on this, but before leaving for the day, I needed to check to make sure that the repaired frame would fit, and it looks like it will!

Also looks the hinge pin on the passenger side has disintegrated, so I'll have to add that to the parts list.

All in all, this was one of the most challenging repairs I've done to date. Can't wait to see it all dressed up and looking sharp once again.

 

[diesellibrarian]

I hate leaving a project unfinished, so last night I snuck over to the garage to add the finishing touches to the windshield frame. I alternated between working on the frame and drilling out the seized windshield hinge. Both jobs kind of sucked, in their own way, so it was nice to be able to jump between two different miserable jobs lol.

Anyway, the main thing is that the windshield frame is fully repaired and in primer! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, considering the carnage that I was dealing with.

Glad that I was able to salvage the OG frame and preserve most of the paint. Just need to source a new hinge pin, though a bolt will hold things in place for now.

 

[RevISK]

I hate leaving a project unfinished, so last night I snuck over to the garage to add the finishing touches to the windshield frame. I alternated between working on the frame and drilling out the seized windshield hinge. Both jobs kind of sucked, in their own way, so it was nice to be able to jump between two different miserable jobs lol.

Anyway, the main thing is that the windshield frame is fully repaired and in primer! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, considering the carnage that I was dealing with.

View attachment 3546143
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Glad that I was able to salvage the OG frame and preserve most of the paint. Just need to source a new hinge pin, though a bolt will hold things in place for now.

Looks fantastic

 

[120mm]

Door pins work just fine as windshield hinge pins. Actually, so do bolts. IMO, this isn't a particularly low tolerance area, as the windshield is held on sufficiently by the door frame, the windshield frame screws and the top.

I just did this on mine, and am impressed at how well it turned out even though I buggered it.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Door pins work just fine as windshield hinge pins. Actually, so do bolts. IMO, this isn't a particularly low tolerance area, as the windshield is held on sufficiently by the door frame, the windshield frame screws and the top.

I just did this on mine, and am impressed at how well it turned out even though I buggered it.

This truck won't have doors most of the time, and I don't have a hard top for it. But I agree that the windshield flying off is unlikely as long as something stronger than a wooden dowel is holding the hinge together. I'll find a pin eventually, but I'm in no rush.

 

[RRblue40]

Thanks, @SteveH! I'm actually better at grinding than welding, but the gap is slowly closing. My welds aren't necessarily getting prettier, but I think they are getting stronger, which is what matters.

Copy on the Fluid Film. I go through a lot of that stuff as I daily drive my FJ62 in the winter. I'm always spraying FF into the rockers and quarters etc. so that the two years I spent repairing rust don't go to waste,

I hate leaving a project unfinished, so last night I snuck over to the garage to add the finishing touches to the windshield frame. I alternated between working on the frame and drilling out the seized windshield hinge. Both jobs kind of sucked, in their own way, so it was nice to be able to jump between two different miserable jobs lol.

Anyway, the main thing is that the windshield frame is fully repaired and in primer! I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, considering the carnage that I was dealing with.

View attachment 3546143
View attachment 3546146
View attachment 3546147

Glad that I was able to salvage the OG frame and preserve most of the paint. Just need to source a new hinge pin, though a bolt will hold things in place for now.

This truck won't have doors most of the time, and I don't have a hard top for it. But I agree that the windshield flying off is unlikely as long as something stronger than a wooden dowel is holding the hinge together. I'll find a pin eventually, but I'm in no rush.

Very good job sir. Helped me with a few things for sure

 

[diesellibrarian]

Minor update: the frame is in red oxide and provisionally re-installed. I'll take it off once more when it's time to paint, but for now I'm happy to have it back in place. Before installing I ran a tap through all of the mounting holes, and chased the bolt threads as well. After a coat of anti-seize, the screws threaded in easily by hand. Gonna have to source a few more screws, as a couple of them are marginal, and a couple were already missing when I bought the truck.

 

[RevISK]

Minor update: the frame is in red oxide and provisionally re-installed. I'll take it off once more when it's time to paint, but for now I'm happy to have it back in place. Before installing I ran a tap through all of the mounting holes, and chased the bolt threads as well. After a coat of anti-seize, the screws threaded in easily by hand. Gonna have to source a few more screws, as a couple of them are marginal, and a couple were already missing when I bought the truck.

View attachment 3547540
View attachment 3547543

Baller

 

[coinoperated40]

Great work and an inspiration to reclaiming trash into treasure.
Are you looking for these for the hinges?

Let me know.

 

[cbmontgo]

Impressive perseverance. That's some serious work.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Great work and an inspiration to reclaiming trash into treasure.
Are you looking for these for the hinges?View attachment 3549350
Let me know.

Yes, I need a few of those. I haven't had a chance to investigate if they're available from Toyota or any of the Land Cruiser specialist vendors. If you have extras that you'd be willing to part with and don't mind shipping to Canada, send me a DM!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Slowly working my way to getting the fuel tank ready to reinstall. One job I've been dreading/strategizing is the tunnel that connects the two floor pans. I'm not sure why Toyota chose to add a tunnel in this area, as there's definitely no driveline anywhere in the vicinity. I briefly considered just welding in a flat piece of steel, but then ultimately opted to take the hard way out and more or less recreate the stock piece. I feel that is piece is actually an important structural floor element, so I didn't feel comfortable re-engineering it in any major way.

I lost my phone for a bit there, so I wasn't able to document the construction process, but suffice it to say it involved a lot of bending, re-bending, un-bending, re-re-bending, etc. to get it symmetrical and more or less the right shape.

Here's the new tunnel next to what was left of the old one. Definitely didn't much to go on in terms of a pattern.

The fit looks good overall. It's not attached to the back wall just yet, as I have some rust repair to do in that area.

Here's the underside, showing how it's put together. Most of the seams are welded inside and out, for strength, and to give me a little extra leeway for grinding.

...and here it is, welded in place! Because this will be out of sight under the bench seat, I'm not going to worry about grinding the plug welds flat. Will run a bead of seam sealer along the edges before I paint.

Work on the Cruiser will probably slow down a bit as my wife and I are in the process of renovating a house, but still hoping to have this on the road by late spring!