Builds Rescuing a Basket Case '72 FJ40 (2 Viewers)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

diesellibrarian

SILVER Star
Joined
Sep 30, 2013
Threads
11
Messages
806
Location
Where the prairies meet the Rockies
Hello all y'all in the 40/55 Forum. I usually find myself over with the 60-series folks, but I recently bought my first 40, so I've been hanging out here, reading and learning.

Every Cruiser has a story, and this one is no different. You know when you see a Cruiser for sale on Kijiji or Marketplace, and it just sits and sits and no one buys it and you think about it more and more and then eventually you send a tentative message to seller, and then you get into a full-on chat and the next thing you know you're figuring out a way to break it to your spouse that you've bought another rusty hunk of metal to stash under the carport? That's what happened here:

FJ401.jpg


It's a '72 FJ40 with a build date of 11/71. Colour is Breathe Green. It was posted for sale in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which is about 200km north of where I live. It was posted for sale by a gentleman who'd purchased it with the hope of restoring it. Unfortunately, he experienced some pretty serious health problems and was unable to complete the project. I sensed that he was quite attached to the truck despite not having been able to work on it, but luckily I was able to convince him that I was capable of doing the necessary work to bring it back around. He sent me a few more pics, and we agreed on a price of $3,000CDN (about $2,150 USD). Not having access to a truck or trailer capable of hauling the rig, I found a guy to haul it for me. He dropped in it in my driveway, and I couldn't help but tear into it right away.

Here's one of the pics that the seller sent to me before we closed the deal:

FJ402.jpg


From the pics he sent, I knew that I'd be dealing with some weird mods - the most obvious being the shortened top. I could also see that most of the lights were missing, most of the glass was toast...and the rust. I knew I'd be in for lots of rust, though I have to say it ended up being much worse than expected. Based on the debris that I pulled from the bed and cab, it's pretty clear that this truck had been sitting for a while in a forested area. There were leaves and pine needles to a depth of 3" in some areas of the cab. The rear heater was completely buried in dirt, and in fact most of it had *become* dirt - that's how corroded it was.

In order to shovel and hose out the interior, I removed the seat, tool box, and fuel tank. The seat is a non-Toyota bench seat that they mounted using square tubing welded to the floor pan and rear fender:

FJ404.jpg


The bottom of the tool box had disintegrated completely, and the fuel tank was rusted and leaking along the seam. Anyway, after much cleaning and hosing, this is how things are looking. I'm going to need to build a complete driver's side floor pan, parts of the transmission tunnel, along with a lot of other sheet metal on the tub.

FJ4010.jpg


FJ407.jpg
 
Last edited:
Even though the tub is pretty far gone, other parts of the truck are pretty decent. The doors are in good shape, and the front clip and fenders are banged up but relatively solid. The dash is actually in pretty good condition, though judging but the amount of house wiring I found in the truck, there's going to be a lot of electrical work needed. The brakes kind of work, but the clutch master is seized up.

FJ409.jpg


FJ406.jpg


The F engine appears to be mostly complete as well, and according to the seller, it did run fairly recently when fed from a jerry can. Here's hoping.

FJ403.jpg


So yeah, that's where we're at. I'm currently working on an '89 FJ62 that needs a lot of sheet metal replaced, but once that one is up and running, this will be my next project. I'll probably pick away at it here and there anyway. I also need to accumulate some parts, such as seats, exterior lights, fuel tank, and maybe a hard top (eventually). Thanks for letting me share my new rig with y'all!

FJ405.jpg
 
Nice, IMO you could save that fender emblem. If you got tools and skills this will be a project for sure. Tops are available so I wouldn't stress on that, question is replace with metal tub or aluminum, looking at the destruction , depending on frame condition, an aluminum tub would be easy. $8k tho.
 
Nice, IMO you could save that fender emblem. If you got tools and skills this will be a project for sure. Tops are available so I wouldn't stress on that, question is replace with metal tub or aluminum, looking at the destruction , depending on frame condition, an aluminum tub would be easy. $8k tho.
Thankfully the frame is solid, so no worries there. The tub crossmembers seem to be intact as well. At any rate I can't see myself dropping $8k on a new tub, since the sheet metal work is the part that excites me the most. These big, flat panels should be pretty easy to rebuild compared to the swoopy curves on my FJ62.
 
Finally digging into this sweet old rig! The rustoration of my FJ62 is pretty much complete, as it's registered and on the road. That means there's an empty bay in the garage for this truck. So, the first challenge is to get it over to the garage that I rent, which is just a 2-minute drive from my place. I'm not above a late-night illegal tow, but I do want the towed unit to have some semblance of brakes, which this does not. But I'll get into that in a moment. The first thing I needed to do was remove as much junk and gunk from the unit as possible. So, off came the chopped top:

FJ40001.jpg


That gave me my clearest view yet of what I'm up against:

fj40002.jpg


FJ40004.jpg


Much of the tub is severely rotted, but from the firewall forward, things look pretty salvageable.

FJ40003.jpg


Now, to the matter of braking: the truck still has the original drum brakes on the front. The master cylinder for this era of Land Cruiser appears to be discontinued, and none of my usual vendors have stock. Same goes for rebuild kits. So right now my plan is to swap in a used MC from an FJ62, and run a JT Outfitters disc brake swap kit. I'll probably plumb in a manual proportioning valve for the rears - that's what I did on my 62, with good results. It looks like the 62 master will bolt up to the 40 brake booster. If that doesn't work, I have a spare 62 brake booster as well.

Does anyone see any real issues with this plan? Still very green to the world of the 40 series.

Any real-world feedback on the JT Outfitters disc conversion kit?

FJ40006.jpg


I'm also going to need a new clutch master and slave as well, but they seem to be available still.
 
Looks like a great project. I would adapt stk Toyota frt brakes similar to the ones on your FJ62 and evetually adapt rear disc's too.
 
I've read about that option, too, but I gather it requires resplining the 40 axle?

No, you source parts from a disc brake frt end along with its birfields or a complete fj40 disc frt end. If you swap frt ends you need the same diff ratios. Everything is some what interchageable. Its all bolt on. Search knuckle rebuild. Also go to FAQs at the top of this section. Scroll down to frt ends and read away. The 1st 2 threads are important along with others. At the top of faqs is tech links too. Search here or use the internet and search, click on anything that references this site.
 
You obviously have more skills than the average person to tackle this "resurrection". Might take a couple thousand years for me and subsequent generations. Good luck and hope to watch the progress, but please hurry up. I'm 73 and don't have that much time! By the way, I couldn't help but notice the wheels. The red and blue stripes are a dead give-away. Had the exact same ones on our new '78 installed as a dealer option. You obviously passed inspection by the bezel police, That means you've made it to first base.
 
You obviously have more skills than the average person to tackle this "resurrection". Might take a couple thousand years for me and subsequent generations. Good luck and hope to watch the progress, but please hurry up. I'm 73 and don't have that much time! By the way, I couldn't help but notice the wheels. The red and blue stripes are a dead give-away. Had the exact same ones on our new '78 installed as a dealer option. You obviously passed inspection by the bezel police, That means you've made it to first base.
I'm still learning! But I did have to do extensive rust repair to my FJ62, so I think that will give me enough of a foundation to tackle this one. I'm hoping to have it ready to roll by next summer, but best laid plans and all that...

That's cool info about the wheels! I'm not sure they're going to stay - we'll have to see how things play out. I think i prefer the look of a stock steelie, but wheel/tire choice is pretty far down the list of priorities.

*Also, I've poked around this forum long enough to know to flip the bezel before snapping any pics. :hillbilly:
 
Living in the southwest most old cars and trucks don't get that far gone rust wise and are easier to bring back. A long time ago I lived in the rust belt and vehicles like that were a challenge but doable. I'm sure there will be a sense of satisfaction for you when that project is complete!
 
Finally digging into this sweet old rig! The rustoration of my FJ62 is pretty much complete, as it's registered and on the road. That means there's an empty bay in the garage for this truck. So, the first challenge is to get it over to the garage that I rent, which is just a 2-minute drive from my place. I'm not above a late-night illegal tow, but I do want the towed unit to have some semblance of brakes, which this does not. But I'll get into that in a moment. The first thing I needed to do was remove as much junk and gunk from the unit as possible. So, off came the chopped top:

View attachment 3396202

That gave me my clearest view yet of what I'm up against:

View attachment 3396203

View attachment 3396213

Much of the tub is severely rotted, but from the firewall forward, things look pretty salvageable.

View attachment 3396212

Now, to the matter of braking: the truck still has the original drum brakes on the front. The master cylinder for this era of Land Cruiser appears to be discontinued, and none of my usual vendors have stock. Same goes for rebuild kits. So right now my plan is to swap in a used MC from an FJ62, and run a JT Outfitters disc brake swap kit. I'll probably plumb in a manual proportioning valve for the rears - that's what I did on my 62, with good results. It looks like the 62 master will bolt up to the 40 brake booster. If that doesn't work, I have a spare 62 brake booster as well.

Does anyone see any real issues with this plan? Still very green to the world of the 40 series.

Any real-world feedback on the JT Outfitters disc conversion kit?

View attachment 3396216

I'm also going to need a new clutch master and slave as well, but they seem to be available still.
What is discontinued about "this era of land cruiser" master cylinder?

I was able to easily source MCs from RockAuto, SOR and other places.
 
Finally tucking into the FJ40 project. I was able to install a spare FJ62 master cylinder and brake booster that I had lying around. Had to use some small spacers to get the pedal freeplay within spec. Being a disc/drum MC, it won't work with the stock brakes, but it after a round of bleeding it gave me enough brakes for the tow over to the garage that I'm renting from a friend. The eventual plan is to convert to front discs, at which time this setup should work well.

Got away with an illegal flat tow. The garage is only about 5 blocks from my house, managed to avoid any heat on route:
fj40007.jpg


All set up in the garage:

fj40008.jpg


The first thing I did was remove that mangled front bumper. Looking much better already!

fj40011.jpg


Then I set about trying to get the fenders straightened out a bit. The driver's side was pretty dented up and had one major crease to hammer out:

fj40009.jpg


After a fair bit of hammer/dolly work, it's looking quite a bit better!

fj4010.jpg


I'm hoping to preserve as much of the original paint as possible, as I love this colour and I think this truck has great patina. I'm going to be replacing a fair bit of sheet metal, though, so I guess I'll be watching some youtube videos on creating faux patina haha.

Next steps include removing the dents in the passenger side fender, and moving on the significant rust repair that this truck needs.
 
Got a little more work done on the 40 over the weekend.

Man, this thing is *rough*.

Anyway, one step at a time.

First thing was to bring the passenger side fender into a reasonable approximation of its original shape. It was pretty dented up and had a significant tear in the fender lip:

fj40012.jpg


After a *lot* of hammering and some welding, it's looking much better:

fj40013.jpg


Then I moved on to some of the more serious rust repair. I removed what was left of the driver's floor pan, and then started working on the structural pieces that will need to be nice and solid to support an eventual replacement pan. Found a fair bit of rust in the box section behind the front seats, so had no choice but to start cutting:

fj40014.jpg


Here's the first replacement panel I fabbed up: it's the piece that sits right in front of the rear wheel tub. It has to be super strong, as that's where the seat belt anchor is located. This is made from 16 gauge steel. I'm no engineer, but I think it'll do the trick:

fj40016.jpg


And here's the piece welded in. Please forgive my crappy welds: rusty metal always makes it tricky to get a clean weld. Anyway, I reckon it will hold.

FJ40018.jpg

My plan going forward is basically this: get the front part of the truck solid, which will mean replacing the floor pans, sills, and rockers. That should adds some rigidity back in to the tub. Then I'll reinstall the doors and lift the body off the frame to repair the cargo floor and rear sill, along with some of the rusted-out cross members that support the floor. It's big job, but at the end of the day these are very simply built and it should all be quite doable.

One last shot: I've been working on cleaning it up. I've loving way the paint has come back using some of the patina preservation methods I've learned on this forum.

fj40015.jpg
 
Last edited:
The front fenders came out great! Looking forward to the progress. Is that a Volvo?

Yes, that's my buddy's 240 wagon that he's been working on for years. I'm renting half of his garage, so the Volvo gets lots of cameos in my posts.
 
Productive night in the shop last night: got the driver's side rocker tacked in place and ready for welding. Since the floor pans on the 40 series are welded directly to the rocker, it's necessary for the rocker to be solid in order to properly measure and secure the replacement pan. The original rocker had all but disintegrated, and was bent and distorted by rust:

fj40019.jpg


After some careful measuring, I cut out the corroded metal and test fit the replacement rocker panel that I'd made from 18 gauge sheet.

fj40020.jpg


With the panel clamped in position, I used two sheet metal screws as registration points to ensure that I can return the panel to the exact same location every time I remove it (sheet metal screws are the poor man's Clecos).

fj40021.jpg


Finally, I welded the panel in using the "cut n' butt" method I learned from the Fitzee's Fabrications youtube channel. This technique involves tacking the new metal over top of the old, and then systematically undercutting and re-welding the panel in short sections. Keeping the old metal underneath keeps the panel aligned during welding and helps ensure a consistent gap, without having to resort to clamps or magnets to hold things in place. Once the tack is complete, the old metal can easily be removed from the back side. To minimize panel distortion, I decided to weld right along the break where the door jamb begins. The panel is a lot stronger there, and less likely to move under the heat of the weld.

I ran out of time to get it fully welded in, but super happy with the results so far!

fj40022.jpg


The next step is to rebuild the inner sill. That should put me within spitting distance of installing the new floor pan!
 
Welcome to another post-weekend photo dump! Got the rocker fully welded in over the weekend, and also fixed up the wheel arch.

Started by making a replacement panel for the lower front wheel arch. I don't have proper sheet metal tools, so I simply weld the curved lip on instead of trying to fold it over. Makes for a nice straight panel.

fj40024.jpg


Test fitting the panel, again using a sheet metal screw to locate it:

fj40023.jpg


Welded in place:

fj40028.jpg


Also decided to cut out the section of the door jamb that had rusted through:

fj40025.jpg


Still a bit of grinding remains on the jamb, but otherwise this rocker is good to go!

fj40027.jpg
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom