Builds Rescuing a Basket Case '72 FJ40 (1 Viewer)

[6f40j9]

Yes, they're seatbelt anchors. The locations don't really make sense to me, but I put them where the original anchors were. I think I used 8.8 or 10-grade nuts that I welded to a 1/8" backing plate. I think it would be possible to add something similar to your truck, as long as it was far enough back to be behind the boxed-in section that runs behind the front seats. I hope that makes sense?

I have the holes, I just wasn’t sure what were which, since they’re so far back from the outside holes. Thanks!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Well, I think I finally have this area sewn up. After a marathon session of welding, grinding, filling, and sanding, it's finally in primer.

I spread some filler over the weld joints, mostly, just to cover up any inconsistencies.

After sanding, there really isn't too much Bondo left. Other minor inconsistencies will be smoothed over with a couple of coats of high-build primer.

So glad to have this section complete. It's not perfect, but to be frank there are lots of other janky things on the truck that people will notice long before they pick this out as an obviously amateur repair.

The most exciting thing about this is that I'm almost ready to throw the fuel tank in! I'm also going to have to come up with a strategy for my front seat. I have a bench seat that I was going to install, but it doesn't have sliders or anything, so I'm not sure that's the best plan.

 

[diesellibrarian]

I have the holes, I just wasn’t sure what were which, since they’re so far back from the outside holes. Thanks!

Yeah it's weird. The passenger side one is more forward, and the driver side is quite a ways back. Not sure why?

I did delete the rear heater mounting holes, as I'm not running a rear heater. They were in the same general area, so I would just double-check that you're not using those to anchor your seat belts, as I doubt they're strong enough.

 

[6f40j9]

Yeah it's weird. The passenger side one is more forward, and the driver side is quite a ways back. Not sure why?

I did delete the rear heater mounting holes, as I'm not running a rear heater. They were in the same general area, so I would just double-check that you're not using those to anchor your seat belts, as I doubt they're strong enough.

Are these correct for seatbelts, as far as you know?

 

[diesellibrarian]

@projectTuRD I think so. I just happened to be reading @21NDone's thread, and he has a pretty good pic of the seat belts and where they mount. His truck is a '72, like mine. If there are differences between the '69 and '72 model years, I wouldn't know. On the face of it, though, they look to be in the same spots.

 

[MOTOV8R]

I should have read this thread sooner. Love the color of your 40. Great job fabbing all the pieces up yourself, looking great!

 

[6f40j9]

@projectTuRD I think so. I just happened to be reading @21NDone's thread, and he has a pretty good pic of the seat belts and where they mount. His truck is a '72, like mine. If there are differences between the '69 and '72 model years, I wouldn't know. On the face of it, though, they look to be in the same spots.

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Thank you, now I just need to round up some bolts. Apparently 11x1.25 is hard to find, so it’s 7/16x20 if I can’t find some OG bolts…

 

[cruisermatt]

I moved the tire carrier to the other side because I wanted to, and because it's fun, and because I don't have the time or the $$ to hunt down the correct one. Where I live, up here in rural Canada, the supply of used Cruiser parts is dismal. As far as I know, I'm the only Land Cruiser guy within 150+ miles. I had to drive a hundred miles just to get that "wrong" tire carrier. This truck will never be anything but a mongrel, so I'm not fussy about keeping it period correct.

Trust me dude, I get it, I would consider all of my personal projects to be way tighter budget then most on here. I just thought it was odd as the 75/76 tire carriers are getting pretty rare and usually command a lot more money.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Trust me dude, I get it, I would consider all of my personal projects to be way tighter budget then most on here. I just thought it was odd as the 75/76 tire carriers are getting pretty rare and usually command a lot more money.

See that's something that I would have no idea about. Still pretty green to the world of 40 series Cruisers. As a result, I'm probably doing some dumb stuff, but I'm at peace with that, haha.

 

[bikersmurf]

Good to see another one being saved North of the 49th. When I started in ‘91 mine was in much worse shape. I built my 1/2 tub in Radium in the driveway with essentially no tools, and am still plugging away. I worked that summer for Invermere Forrest District RO of engineering.



I’ve now got one son in Trail and one in Calgary… so I’m quite familiar with the area.

 

[bikersmurf]

Still sneaking off to the garage here and there to work on the Cruiser.

The other night I seam sealed the driver's side floor pan and transmission bridge, then laid down a couple coats of red oxide primer. I like the red oxide for how it will look as the paint scratches or wears through. The factory primer on this truck is sort of an off-white, but I haven't been able to find a primer in that colour, so red it is!

View attachment 3558815

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I also moved the back-up light from the driver's side (where it is now hidden by the spare tire carrier) to the passenger side. Used the old "drill and file" method to cut the curved parts of the mounting hole. I feel that files are an underrated tool in metal working. It's amazing how quickly a sharp file will remove material.

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Here the light looks crooked, but that's just because it's not fully mounted. I've been given to understand that replacement lenses are very hard to find, so I've got mine stashed away in a safe place until pretty much everything else is done.

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If you find a file handy... you'd like an air file even more...

At 16,000 rpm, that has the belt moving at approximately 90 mph. It gets into corners and spots hard to reach with almost any other tool.
Yes I could do the same things with files and a die grinder… but it’s way easier on my broken body.

 

[bikersmurf]

duplicate post

 

[diesellibrarian]

Haven't been able to log much shop time lately, but I've been slowly working away at cobbling together my remixed Bestop. As mentioned before, I'm trying to make it look less "Jeep" and more "FST." To that end, I removed the front tub rail mounting brackets and tack welded them to the top of the chopped b-pillars:

I think this system will work well. I narrowed the Bestop bow by about 2 1/4" to match the width of the b-pillars. The temporary pin will be replaced by a couple of bolts or clevis pins. I'm hoping to make the system easily dismountable so that I can enjoy roofless Cruising on a moment's notice.

Mounting the rear uprights proved to be a bit more of a challenge. I repurposed the Bestop b-pillars, exaggerating the bends so that the uprights align quite closely with the outside of the tub. I then fabbed up a couple of brackets to anchor the upright to the inner fender. Once the position of everything is finalized, I'll make some brackets that will tie the assembly to the inner tub rail, using the stock FST mounting holes.

I then cut down the rear bow so that the height matches that of the front bow, and connected it to the uprights using some tubing I had lying around that happened to have the same ID as the bows' OD (the white sleeves). At this point, everything is just held together with tape. I still need to do a bit of a adjusting to the rear uprights, but overall it's coming together. This photo gives an idea of how it'll look when done.

 

[KRGfab]

I too rescued a basket case 72. Spent a lot of time fixing panels and floors on it, ended up finding a frame/tub with minimal rust for a good price as a donor. Now I get to do a frame-off, lol. Your thread has been fun to watch and I’m excited to see the final product.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Back on the rust repair! Finally bit the bullet and started working on the passenger side rocker. In my naive optimism, my plan was to cut out this small section, and weld in a simple patch and be done with it:

Of course, it's never that simple. Here's what was lurking behind the rust:

The floor pan flange, which attaches to the rocker, was also Swiss cheese, so I had to enlarge my patch in search of solid metal.

In the end, I had to replace about 10" of the floor pan flange. It was a tricky spot to weld, so I ended up doing a lap weld instead of a butt weld. It's nothing that anyone will ever see, since it's inside the rocker cavity, so I'm not concerned about how it looks. I'll be plenty strong, though.

Here is the final outer patch, partially welded in place.

There is a brace behind the rocker that connects the rocker panel to the floor cross member, and of course that was rusty as well, so I recreated it as best I could:

Here is the brace welded in place behind the rocker. Probably some of my worst welding yet, frankly! Haha. I blame the tight quarters (the passenger side of the truck is crammed against the wall) and poor lighting. Anyway, it'll do the trick. I also plug-welded the floor pan flange to the rocker.

Finally, the patch fully welded in and filled. Definitely not my best work, but still quite satisfactory. Nearing the end of the rust repair, finally, with only the driver's side quarter panel left to fix! Then it'll be on to mechanical stuff and wiring.

 

[diesellibrarian]

I too rescued a basket case 72. Spent a lot of time fixing panels and floors on it, ended up finding a frame/tub with minimal rust for a good price as a donor. Now I get to do a frame-off, lol. Your thread has been fun to watch and I’m excited to see the final product.

I wish I had access to a cleaner truck! But up here in Canada, clean FJ40s don't exist south of the $30,000 mark. So that's why I'm fixing up this junk, haha.

Thankfully the frame on this one is super solid - otherwise I wouldn't bother doing all this work.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Still plugging away at things on this old beast. Over the weekend I did a bunch of seam-sealing and some sanding and paint stuff on the body. I put self-etching primer over any bare metal, and then some red oxide primer over top of that. My goal with the red oxide is to have a rusty-coloured substrate for the topcoat, to make it easier to blend the new paint with the old, either by scratching it up a bit or hitting it with 600 grit until the red just starts to show through in spots. So that's why I'm going a bit crazy with the red oxide.

I'd added some filler where I plug welded the passenger quarter to the inner fender, so that got some paint:

Same with the newly repaired rocker panel:

Also laid it on the floor pretty thick. I still have one section to plug weld, but I've been putting it off because I hate crawling under the truck to weld stuff. Otherwise, the cabin area is all seam sealed and good to go.

Still looking pretty rough, but more handsome by the day! I'm currently on the hunt for a set of OEM steelies, which I will mount with skinny 31s - at least that's the plan right now. The tires that are on it have zero miles, but they're ancient and totally the wrong look IMHO.

My goal is to have the truck running by the end of April. I will be cruising in this thing by summer! (famous last words)

 

[CruiserTrash]

@diesellibrarian Question for ya:

I understand putting the red oxide primer down so you can faux "weather" the finish when you're done. But what is red oxide primer for in the first place? How about self-etching primer? Clearly they're formulated for specific purposes, but I don't know anything about all that. Any idea?

 

[diesellibrarian]

I'm not an expert, but this is what I've been given to understand: self-etch is designed to create a strong chemical when applied to clean bare metal, making for solid adhesion for subsequent layers. I think red oxide is often applied over metal that has started to rust - probably more commonly in industrial applications?

Anyway, my truck has both bare metal and rusty metal, so I'm kind of spot-painting depending on what's happening on what part of the vehicle.

Maybe someone with better info will chime in!

 

[CruiserTrash]

I'm not an expert, but this is what I've been given to understand: self-etch is designed to create a strong chemical when applied to clean bare metal, making for solid adhesion for subsequent layers. I think red oxide is often applied over metal that has started to rust - probably more commonly in industrial applications?

Anyway, my truck has both bare metal and rusty metal, so I'm kind of spot-painting depending on what's happening on what part of the vehicle.

Maybe someone with better info will chime in!

That makes sense on both accounts!