Resurrection of a pair of 78s (2 Viewers)

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Joined
Jun 25, 2012
Threads
12
Messages
389
Location
South central NE
I figured I'd best start a build thread for a pair 78 fj40s. The blue one is my cousin's and it just so happens to be the very first landcruiser i had any experience with. The other is a 78 Frankenstein build.

I'll start off with the blue 78. My cousin picked this one up when he was 14, which was about 1990 or 1991. It had bolts for fuses but the body was solid other than the rear bed which he replaced with diamond plate. He had sandblasted the undercarriage and undercoated it too, which has kept it in surprisingly good condition.

The Frankenstein machine is titled as a 78, the 3/4 tub is an aqualu. The front fenders are also going to be aluminum. I haven't gotten too far into it quite yet but i am wanting to make a toy out of it.

I started the bodywork on the blue one and that's about as far as I've gotten.

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The floor is permanent now so i moved on to the rear sill. I removed the body mount bolts and measured rear opening before i removed the original sill. I cut the bed section out then removed the horn pieces from the quarters.

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I am going to replace the quarters because they are REALLY rough. The wheel openings have been cut and had flares installed. Rust is starting along the wheel well flange and I think replacing is going to be way easier than repairing the originals.

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I got the driver's side cleaned up, i had to weld a couple patch strips on to the wheel well flange. The quarter is spotwelded into place i just have to finish the seam on top of the replacement.

I'll have to finish later because i have one kid getting moved in for college today. One kid has a birthday on Sunday and he's under the impression that he gets to do whatever he wants to all day and the small town I live is having the local "day" on Saturday.

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I've gone ahead and blown it into a million pieces so i can get things media blasted. I want to get the 3 or 4 paint jobs stripped off so i can start getting things straight. I'm going to get the lsrge body parts to the blaster tomorrow.

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I also received my lift springs from alcan last week and started to get things fitted to the other frame and body. I couldn't get body bolts to line up at all. I started to measure and the frame is pretty much junk in my eyes. Things are too far out of whack to fart around with. If i had a frame table to push things around i would but i don't want to mess with it anymore. I strated getting things moving when i noticed its more of a parallelogram than a rectangle. I have found a replacement though
 
You move fast!

About 50% of the Mud folks would like to drop off their FJ40s at your house in case you'd just restore them so quickly you wouldn't notice that the truck wasn't yours.
 
You move fast!

About 50% of the Mud folks would like to drop off their FJ40s at your house in case you'd just restore them so quickly you wouldn't notice that the truck wasn't yours.
Thanks, but once you've done one from the ground up the process becomes more efficient.
 
I've been chipping away at the blue 78 for about a week now. I got my saginaw power steering plates made and welded on to the frame and now it's stripped down and ready to go for a zinc bath.

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It took me a couple days to get the rear bumper/cross member straightened out. It had been really abused and was pulled out at the bottom and twisted with a few cracks. A porta power and log chainworked pretty well to get me back to nearly perfect. Sorry i didn't grab any decent before pictures.

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