Reworking Coyote 1973 fj55 (1 Viewer)

[61twpw]

Guess this is a start to a build thread. Bought this fairly stock 1973 fj55 in March of 2016. Not much histiry from PO. He had it for 3 years and never titled itto his name. Towed it to his prospecting claim on Mt. Princeton in central CO. Title said it was from near Steamboat, but didn't receive an answer from prior owner. I have only driven it about 200 miles since I bought it. Decided to do a 4 wheel hydroboosted disc brake conversion. Also doing a mini truck power steering upgrade. Cleaning out the interior resulted in a fairly significant amount of rust in front floors. Guess this changes the project even more.

 

[bobm]

More pics

 

[61twpw]

From CL ad

 

[61twpw]

And nowish

 

[scrapdaddy]

Pig Party 2018! get 'er done.

 

[61twpw]

Getting ready to cut out rusted sections of floor. Driver's side seems worse than passenger side. Some PO stiffened up driver side will some sheet metal.

 

[61twpw]

Doing some research about the disc brake conversion. I have a set of 1978 disc brake wheels to use. Was ready to take my 1973 wheels and tires to have them swaped out. Doing some measurments , I descovered the wheels were the same. Tried mounting one of my '73 wheels onto my son's '82 fj60 frount axle. No problems noted. Somewhere along the line, my '73 got an upgrade in wheels. Little triumphs!

 

[scrapdaddy]

Little triumphs

Take them when you can.

 

[wngrog]

Nice.

 

[61twpw]

The rear disc conversion went pretty smoothly. Differential fluid was pretty clean and newish looking. Started tearing the front down last week. Lots of crud built up on knuckles. Took a lot of pb blaster and heat tp break things free. The axle shafts came out with very little gear oil on them. A lot different than the rear. Got the 60 knuckles, hubs etc out of the storage box. Almost ready for reassembly, just need more cleaning up. Wondering when front hubs/bearings were last serviced on this old rig.

 

[61twpw]

Cut the driver side floor out. Some PO replaced a lot of rusted parts, including the rockers. Seems they only replaced the outter section, which means I need to replace the inner so I'll have something to weld crossmembers too. I've seen some great ideas on here, so I'm sure I can figure a fix out. Guess getting this old rig back on the road is just practice for reworking the '78. I just keep finding more I want to fix/upgrade. There IS a Mercedes om617 and Toyota 5speed/tcase in my storage container....

 

[61twpw]

Decided to go with 79-84 fj40 steering knuckle arms on my disc brake conversion. Will allow me to use fj 40/55 tie rod ends. Also trying to remember " this is a get it on the road" set of upgrades, not a rotisserie restoration yet. Floor rewnork would benifit from bob m's parts, but not right now. Arrrgh

 

[71greenpig]

Sorry if I missed it what rear disc did you use?

 

[61twpw]

For the rear brakes, I used calipers from an '86 4Runner. The brackets were from a seller on eBay. They needed some "adjustment" to work since they were for '79 and newer . I ended up having to use rotors from a '79 Chevy 1/2 ton. The fj60 rotors wouldn't fit over the axle flange.

 

[bobm]

These are fronts. Burned 1 up on Epic journey.

 

[61twpw]

It's been so hot here that garage time has slowed way down. Still gathering parts to finish up front disc conversion. Have a set of 1980 fj40 steering knuckle arms and a pitman arm on the way from Georgia. The landcruiser corral is watching the garage in anticipation.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Man, that green 40 is perfect looking. Nice shop, too!

 

[61twpw]

The green one is my youngest son's '69. Almost original, headers and new 2 barrel. Hoping to do a restore on it soon. Shop was my project last summer. My 62 year old brother and I (64 at the time) spent a couple of weeks building it. My sons helped as well. 32 x 44 and filling up fast.

 

[61twpw]

Got driver's side floor cut out and ready for new metal and cross sections. The birfields are harder to get apart than I thought. Great thread on mud about how to do it.

 

[61twpw]

I got my steering arms today. Passenger side looks to have been broken and repaired. Only problem is it is welded 180* out, curve goes up instead of down. Will try to cut and reweld into correct position. Gotta love meltimg metal.