Reviving My 1975 FJ40

[ranchdawg]

It’s been 21 years since my 06/75 FJ40 has seen the road. Time to wake it up. I don’t even have a photo of it put together except for my avatar photo, so I can’t even show you what it looked like when it was running.

Backstory…I bought my rig sometime in 2001 for $5000 in Folsom CA. Pretty rust free and a hardtop. Rear fenders were cut and about one inch of sheet metal cut off the bottom on both sides. It had some homemade steps made of thick angle iron and steel diamond plate. Front fenders were chopped to the first bolt hole in the rear for added clearance. Anywho, I drove it daily for a little over two years. Then the overheating problems started. I changed out the water pump, radiator, thermostat, and flushed the block. Kept having the same problem. After the second or third tow truck ride home I parked it and bought another vehicle. Then life happened and before you know it, it’s parked in the garage being used for storage.

But now life’s not in the way anymore. Kids are grown and I’m retired, and I have time to do things; this being one of them. Not going to be a speedy rebuild by any means but I’m not completely unprepared. I have been accumulating parts for the last several years and of course reading these forums daily. So here we go.

 

[ranchdawg]

I have been tearing down the engine bay to get to the head. I have found some interesting things along the way. My plans are to pop the head off, get it refreshed, and work on some other areas that need attention. Plans are to desmog the engine for simplicity sake, repair sheet metal, and spruce this thing up. I don’t want to do a full blown resto, but pretty much everything needs attention, which will require taking everything apart anyway.

 

[charliemeyer007]

I think mine sat for 11+ years. Fresh gas and scraped the points. Pulled the plugs and cranked it over until it built oil pressure. Put them back in and it fired right up. Installed new clutch master, slave and hose. New master and slaves plus shoes and new front drums (need to get new rears too). Fixed roof. Need to do the wiring and new tires.
Tons of sheet metal to fix. Learn to weld and form metal.

Can hardly wait to actually drive it to town again.

 

[ranchdawg]

The first thing that jumps out at you is the front crossmember. This rig hit something somewhere prior to my ownership and this was the resulting patch job. You can seen the driver’s side frame horn is a little tweaked. I have a new crossmember to replace this one.

 

[ranchdawg]

The second thing that jumps out at you is the smog pump.

Rather, the NLA only one time produced smog pump bracket that was attached to the motor mount with two extra large nuts.

Gonna need a new smog bracket I think.

 

[ranchdawg]

Got around to getting the head off today. All in all, everything came off fine. Exhaust side head bolts were a lot of fun to remove, the other side no issues at all.

 

[ranchdawg]

More photos of cylinders…

If anyone would like to chime in and assess what I have. First time for me looking at something like this, but it looks like water was getting into the cylinders at some point? And do I need to dig any deeper, or would a thorough cleaning suffice before buttoning it back up after the head gets checked. All comments appreciated.

 

[Green Bean]

Subscribed.

 

[Sky King]

My tendency with a new to me old motor is to get it running and then do a leak down and compression test to see what condition it's in. With it apart like you have it now the more chance crud will get down in the cylinders from having removed the head or trying to clean that are and will be trapped in the rings and now score the cylinder walls when they move As you have it now I would want to tear it down more and check the taper in the cylinders, drop the crank and spec the bearing surfaces and then go from there as to what additional machine work it may need.

 

[Geezer Cruzzer]

Got my popcorn going. Really interested in this wakeup. Looks like a lot of "fun". Glad it is you and not me. Good luck!

 

[ranchdawg]

Not a lot to report this weekend. The head was dropped off at Yota1 in Riverbank for a once over.

Then I got to cleaning some stuff in my high tech parts soaker.

And then I finished removing the rivets from my replacement front crossmember.

 

[firemanj92]

Not a lot to report this weekend. The head was dropped off at Yota1 in Riverbank for a once over.

View attachment 3607284

Then I got to cleaning some stuff in my high tech parts soaker.

View attachment 3607285

And then I finished removing the rivets from my replacement front crossmember.

View attachment 3607286

Great people over there!!!

 

[ranchdawg]

Soooo, it’s been a little over a year since my last post. And just like this thread, my build progress was lacking as well. But, I still spent plenty of money over this last year acquiring parts, standing over my project, and imagining myself turning some wrenches and such.

I am happy to report that I’ve started working on it again. So here it is in it’s current state…

Since this photo, I have taken more odds and ends off and started putting things back on/back together. My plan is to work front to back, so long as I don’t go full on chasing squirrels because I get sidetracked by something shiny. Wish me luck!

 

[ranchdawg]

I did do this last year.

Purty.

 

[ranchdawg]

I rebuilt my front knuckles. I have 4 wheel drums. Here is a before pic.

They were nasty. The knuckles and brake backing plates were left in purple power for a week just to soak. The plates once clean were sent to powder and the knuckles were cleaned, tapped, and fresh paint.

And yes, I don’t have any brakes at the moment. Gonna go through the cylinders first. I’m also gonna get new brake lines. Some of the old line don’t want to come apart and I don’t want to risk damaging some of the NLA stuff.

 

[ranchdawg]

I also “rebuilt” my coarse spline hubs. I’ve read it before and can now confirm, the WARN rebuild kit for these units are severely lacking. Luckily my rubber parts were still intact, so I was able to re-use them. The paper gaskets do not fit without alteration. I had to bust out my specialized tools for this fix…

The only other thing I used out of the kit was the new allen head bolts.

 

[ranchdawg]

Lucky for me (not my wallet), I drive past Valley Hybrids every day on my way to work. I stopped in one day and talked to @orangefj45 and he sold me some stuff. And then he pointed me in the direction of Terrain Tamer and they sold me some more stuff. In all, new FJ60 motor mounts, knuckle rebuild kit, wheel bearings, and a new suspension. Smooth talking devil also suggested a front disc brake conversion but I stayed strong.

I also replaced my front crossmember. My old one was pretty beat up, so I scored one on ebay a couple of years ago for a good price. I broke out my specialty tools again for the job.

I removed the top bolts on the motor mounts and jacked up the motor. I then spread the frame apart just enough to slide in the new piece.

I’ve got it secured with bolts for now, but I will replace the bolts with rivets in the near future. You can also see my new motor mounts and suspension.

Here’s also a shot of my rear pucks for comparison.

And the bolt from the driver side

I don’t think I’ll be reusing it.

 

[orangefj45]

Lucky for me (not my wallet), I drive past Valley Hybrids every day on my way to work. I stopped in one day and talked to @orangefj45 and he sold me some stuff. And then he pointed me in the direction of Terrain Tamer and they sold me some more stuff. In all, new FJ60 motor mounts, knuckle rebuild kit, wheel bearings, and a new suspension. Smooth talking devil also suggested a front disc brake conversion but I stayed strong.

I also replaced my front crossmember. My old one was pretty beat up, so I scored one on ebay a couple of years ago for a good price. I broke out my specialty tools again for the job.

View attachment 3892444
I removed the top bolts on the motor mounts and jacked up the motor. I then spread the frame apart just enough to slide in the new piece.

View attachment 3892449

I’ve got it secured with bolts for now, but I will replace the bolts with rivets in the near future. You can also see my new motor mounts and suspension.

Here’s also a shot of my rear pucks for comparison.
View attachment 3892451

And the bolt from the driver side
View attachment 3892452

I don’t think I’ll be reusing it.

Thanks for the compliment?!



Georg @ Valley Hybrids & Terrain Tamer

 

[ranchdawg]

Messed around with this and that this weekend. I did notice some stuff that may or may not need some attention, feel free to chime in. Chunks of metal are missing from my fuel pump and my distributor.

I also found that I was running an electric fuel pump (when it was running). From what I have read not necessary. I don’t even know if it worked when it was running

 

[orangefj45]

The factory mechanical fuel pumps are ultra reliable. I would suggest going back to one of those.
We probably have a good use distributor for you. And we stopped new fuel pumps. Happy to help if you need either item or both along with anything else for you, Cruiser.

Georg @ Valley Hybrids
Shop 209-475-8808
Sales@valleyhybrids.com