Rusty fj45

[anothernz45]

Hi, this thread should save me telling the same story every time I take the old girl out, have had a lot of questions over here (NZ) about dealing to those areas that all dissolve over time. I've covered the roof and touched on others in the Finished Bitza thread but I'll go into some detail on the rest now, then I can point people this way, with pictures.
Had run FJ45s since 1979 as farm sprayers and had always said I wanted to save one good one, but this was all just a cunning plan until covid came along, then our shutdown gave me a bit of a kick in the arse to get going. I was running round in a 13b powered 77 with a better chassis, then as the cab rotted that got replaced with an earlier one, about a 72, then that decomposed to the stage the truck was farm only. I'd also owned a 71 with a chev 350, the po told me it was ex our Forestry Service and had been brought in as a ute from Australia. All locally assembled 45s were cab and chassis from Steel Brothers in Christchurch, I'm not sure a ute was an option.
What I found was the 350 was lots more fun on the road, in an antisocial way, but a turd round the farm - the old 2fs were a far better and less temperamental farm tractor. So I sold it, but not before swapping the pickup tray for a flatdeck as I hadn't seen another pickup and wanted it for the good one, so it got tucked away for 10 or so years.
Well, time to start and one thing I wasn't going to do was pull the whole truck to bits, don't ask how I know this is a bad idea, the plan was to do a body on tidy up and just work around the truck 1 panel at a time, starting with the tray. I purchased one of those flash new mig welder things, all I'd used up to this point was stick and oxy/acetylene, and figured with the tray being heavier and rustier than body panels mig would be a better option and I might have it sorted by the time I got to the tub. Here's pics from early on. I removed the roof and rear panel to give me some idea of what I was in for.

 

[anothernz45]

The 350 had been converted to dual fuel, with a large lpg cylinder fixed along the front of the tray and boxed in with ply. This caused a fair bit of rot underneath and I wanted to keep the bed profile rather than just weld in some treadplate. I measured it as 14ga, about 2mm and I couldn't do much to this with my little chinese brake. After a few dead ends I made up some dies and had a go at pressing patch panels - with a bit of fettling I ended up with something usable. I've just run a plate through them as a demo, they're getting a bit tired now but you'll get the idea.

 

[rlong]

That looks good!

 

[anothernz45]

There was a 4 inch hole in the side of the bed for the lpg filler and various other holes I welded up, the bigger ones I patched, small just hit with the mig - a copper backing plate worked well, too. Jacked and hammered the deck back to flat. Most of the spot welds had let go, I drilled and plug welded all these - drilled an 1/8 hole right thru then 1/4inch thru the top layer, I got a stronger plug this way, less likely to get a cold weld. Front and rear of the wheel wells needed work, I had to cut enough out of the top to give me room to repair the bottom layer, then repair the top. The tailgate had rot along the bottom, replaced a couple of inches along most of it. Then I had all the finished panels sand blasted and epoxied and all these new holes showed up. Had to replace a 4 inch strip along most of the bottom of the headboard and rebuild a lot more deck. I needed a bit of inspiration so had the local panel shop I use, Ellesmere Motor Bodies, colour match paint to an unfaded bit of door surround and then final coat the tray, gave me something to look at while I plodded away on the rest. I seam sealed it then blew Raptor bedliner over it, masking off drains in the tailgate first.

 

[Wayneraintree]

what is the original color of this rig?

 

[anothernz45]

what is the original color of this rig?

The truck was originally Spring green though the outside had been resprayed beige, the pickup tray was originally white. Have left the dash and inside doors in the original paint so it still looks like my truck when I drive it

 

[anothernz45]

Then I moved onto the join along the back of the cab, both faces were pretty rusty. I patched a few little spots first, just to get my eye in on panel steel. Was running .6mm wire, speed was flat out and volts on 19. Had to cut it back down the rear of the cab an inch or so to find sound metal and used a 6mm Wurth spot weld cutter to deal to spot welds - ripping paint off with a 5inch radial twist knot wire wheel showed them up, and also ripped out any rusty spots. Folded up some 18ga to fit then tacked every 3/4 inch or so, then went for it - 4 or 5 squirts in 1 go then move somewhere else. Then plug welded the top seam through the spot weld holes. Both corners were gone, I copied the top curve onto a piece of hardwood decking timber then hammer formed the flange and trimmed to fit. I recovered the old weld nuts and reused them, tho I used rivnuts on the middle section. I tig welded the outside corner, mig would have been fine but I prefer tig especially where you can get at the back of the weld, it can be worked a lot nicer.

 

[anothernz45]

Dealt to the front gaurds next - didn't take them off, was worried I'd weld a twist into them. Cut a patch panel much bigger than the damage and going in far enough that I could get at it behind the mounting bracket. Cleaned up and cold galved the bracket and the back of the patch - if I was doing another I would cut this bracket off just outboard of the rubber plugs at the top. Pre 71 FJs are like this, the later ones are a bad rust trap for no real gain. I tacked the patch in with a mig, sanded tacks down flat then fusion welded the join with a tig, just start one end and go for it.
JUST NOTICED!!! You can see the Mitsubishi diamond logo on the top leaf in the second pic. Chuffed I found a photo of this.

 

[anothernz45]

Couple more bits of rust under the sidelights - removed bracket under them, they were rust free so sandblasted them and reused. Made a cardboard template to locate the holes then cut out the rot and welded in new metal. Then moved onto the back of the cab - this is a complicated panel but only the bottom face was bad. My 69 has rot top, middle and bottom and I'll probably go repro there, but thought I'd have a go at this one. Cut the old skin up about 4 inches then welded a bit of angle across it so nothing moved. Folded up replacements for the bottom of the A pillar and tigged them in. Cut off the locating tubes and made new ones with a hollow spud inside to strengthen the join. The curved frame at bottom of the panel was tricky and I did it in 2 halves, used a shrinker to form the outside half of the frame then used the same curved bit of metal hammerform from the back corners of the tub and made the inside half of the frame. Trimmed this one to suit and fusion welded the 2 halves together. Could have used the stretcher for this but didn't want to make the steel thinner in this section.

 

[anothernz45]

You can see my shrinker/stretcher in the last photo above, the heads are cheap chinese things but it does what it's supposed to. Next I replaced the outside corner panels, the shrinker will only handle a 15mm or so flange so I formed this then welded an 18ga C shaped bit of steel to it. The tricky little bit round the door pillar I folded up separately and welded in last. Parts of the centre section were rotten but fortunately not the footings under the 3 vertical channels, I replaced the bottom skin and then the 2 raised sections under the rear window. Hope it doesn't look like all this happened in a hurry, took me a year to get the tray finished and then 3 more to finish the truck.

 

[anothernz45]

Roof was next, had no idea how well this would go but really happy once done. Here's the Readers Digest version, full volume in Finished Bitza thread.

 

[anothernz45]

More roof bits, then did the doors - the early ones are very weak and there were many small cracks along the top of the door skins and around the window frames - gusseted the frame and welded the rest. The door limit rod had ripped out, rebuilt this. The worst problem was a big oil can in the outside skin, probably caused by the door blowing round with no limit rod. The oil canning caused a lot of stress cracks round the bottom hinge, welded all these up. Then dealt to the large stretch in the door, you can see where I've heated each shrink - lots more detail in the Bitza thread. I stripped the outside of the door with 36grit stripper discs but left inside paint as it was, my truck still looks like my truck on the inside. I don't want a show pony, this truck gets worked (carefully). Running boards were easy, started making little dies so I could press the herringbone pattern into steel, then found NOS from Japan on Ebay and they weren't expensive.

 

[anothernz45]

Bit left field but I have a 1969 FJ45 as well, parts of it are better but the panel behind the seats is rotten along the top and bottom faces and around the windows. I can save the roof but will have to sacrifice what's left of the top face of the back panel to deal to the bolts holding them together so I thought I'd try the China Juncheng repro panel - The Land Cruiser Shop in Dargaville bring them in and the pricing is pretty good. Thought I'd get one now in case they've moved on to other cars by the time I get to this truck - they do a Datsun 240Z body along with some Kombi and ricerocket parts. There's some little bits I'll need to do to match up to the earlier tub but nothing tricky. Looks like there's a coat of epoxy on them, too. Shame the FJs rot at the rate they do, the 1924 Dodge the panel is resting on is completely original and has one rust hole the size of an egg. Panels twice as thick tho and very strong steel.

 

[anothernz45]

Dealt to the front bib next, repaired the best one I had - it was rotten through the front skin and the brace behind it. Drilled the spot welds then cut the front skin off wide enough to get into good metal on the brace underneath, plus 1/2 an inch each side so I could stagger the welds. Then cut the top off the rusty brace to give me room to weld in the top face of the skin, then cut out the remainder of the brace. I drew round a steel ruler to locate the front hinge holes, a corner marks each hole. Folded the brace up out of zintec sheet metal, I'm not that fond of it as it is higher tensile and a prick to work - you also have to flapdisk the zinc off anywhere you're going to weld, but zinc is good, then welded this in. Folded more zintec for the rest of the front skin. The Sharpie dots are for my panel shop, once I had all my repair work done I took the panels in and had them replace the spot welds - its quick and much neater than plug welding everything.

 

[anothernz45]

Now the original plan, the body on tidy up, went in the bin. I was coming up 3 years into the resto, all the nasty rust was dealt to and I was down to the chassis with just the tub on it - 4 more bolts and I could deal to the chassis properly. So the tub came off and all the repaired panels went to the sandblasters, Euroblast in Christchurch, for blasting and epoxy. While that was going on I built a new exhaust system, much easier with the cab off. Upped tube from 2 inch to 2 1/2 and fitted a flex joint at the manifold and decent sized diesel muffler, just bought elbows and straight and fabricated all the bends out of bits. Migged the flanges, tigged the butts.
Then the motor and box came out and the diffs and springs separated from the chassis. Dealt to a bent front spring, coming home one evening I misjudged our gateway and collected a concrete post one side. Beer may have been involved. Backed off and successfully negotiated it the next effort, but I had inverted the front shackle, bent the spring and lucky not to have knocked the transfer off. Tied the shackle to a tree and backed it out but the spring stayed bent for 12 or so years. The weird thing was that while cleaning these for paint I found Mitsubishi diamonds on them - just noticed, there's a pic in post #8 showing one.

 

[anothernz45]

Picked the tub and panels up from the sandblaster and just like the tray found I had more perforations to deal to - mainly the floor of the tub but there were a couple of holes in the fenders too. Migged or tigged the little ones up but there was more air than steel in one footwell so I had a go at pressing a new one. Made dies from 2 pieces of 3/4 plate with the formers glued on with mastic, anvil was a piece of 40 x 5, female bit was welded up 50 x5. The first pics show a test run, then the finished patch. I shortened the anvil up for the little raised section but misaligned it and found it made a good louvre punch as well.
Another mistake was not removing seam sealer first, blasting won't remove this, spend a bit of time with picks and a hot air gun first.
The bit that looks like a pork chop between the mig gun and the patch in the last pic is an old repair I did with oxy/acetylene back when I fitted this tub - the first time.

 

[charliemeyer007]

Wow nice work forming sheet metal. Welding looks good too. Drain hole looks OEM to me. My problem must be I forgot to install the label "PRESS" on my unit. Again awesome work and pic's. thanks

 

[anothernz45]

That press frame came out of a vocational woodwork shop used for glueing jobs and I fitted the ram to the top - all the tooling was labelled, be a Worksafe or H&S requirement.
Have left a lot of the welds visible on the finished truck, just polished the turds off, shows the history and I hate bondo.
Recorded everything in case I had issues getting the truck road legal again, but my paint shop is a registered repairer and eyeballed the work as I brought it in for spotwelding.
Jacked a piece of pipe up under the drain hole, held a ball pein hammer on the hole and bashed it down with a mallet.
I like .6 or .024 wire for panels tho welding is pretty personal, with a bit of fiddling anything can work.

 

[anothernz45]

That's about it for the panel rot - chassis was good, sandblasted and epoxied followed by fishoil to the inside then flat black enamel over the lot. Mechanical issues were minor, had brake master and front slaves stainless sleeved. These were driving me nuts until I worked out adjusters were mismatched, po had fitted a right hand threaded and a left on each drum. Give the adjusters a hone and some hi temp grease while you have them apart. Flywheel and pressure plate were skimmed, the 13B is matched up to a coarse spline input shaft and the clutch plate is a petrol one ground to the diesel diameter, it was good so it went back in. New spiggot and throwout bearings, diff and transfer seals, new park brake. Had the exhaust aluminum sprayed. Imported new Toyota genuine rubber seals from Oz, AllFourx4, along with front indicator and side lights. Rather than using Raptor under the fenders I went with a single coat stone protector, if they're ever damaged they will be easier to repair. Then the big reassemble - I pumped fishoil or lanolin into every cavity. Final cost? Bit ballpark but topcoat and prettying up my s***ty bits was $14,000. Sandblasting, epoxy prime and ali spraying $4,500. Rubber seals, lights, tyres, paints and oils another $5000 - NZD. Final job - priceless.
You can see the original dash and door insides in the first pic, these were masked off and saved.

 

[Greek Cruiserhead]

Great job done, congrats mate!

PS. Sweet 13B engine too!