Rusty Wagon Rebuild (4 Viewers)

[Kanatii]

Can you see a graceful way to get some ATF into those upper corners without cutting in? Could you squirt some atf in there with a syringe and a thin hose threaded in from the strengthening holes in the underside of the roof?

 

[kevinmrowland]

I'm not familiar with Oregon.. It's hot a steamy here which leads to water collecting in the areas you just fixed. A and D pillar corners were the roof pinches onto the pillars. I just drilled weep holes on those spots. It helps the roof "breath" or drain the collected humidity/condensation.

Ah, I've just never run into that much trouble with the D pillars, seems like every A pillar is an issue. Lets put this on hold for a bit and I'll actually take a section cut from the old d pillar so we can see exactly what there is to deal with back there.

Those area that become enclosed after welding, I usually hit with at least some weld through primer before closing up. Just to have something on the metal.

Yup, I thoroughly clean and prime everything I can get to.

Can you see a graceful way to get some ATF into those upper corners without cutting in? Could you squirt some atf in there with a syringe and a thin hose threaded in from the strengthening holes in the underside of the roof?

Absolutely, as long as the headliner is out of the way you can squirt the stuff in where you need it all around the truck.

Some photos to show the progression on the corner fix:
(note the new drain hole right above the seam, and my trusty ATF squirter.

And the lower corner, a good tight fit on the patches really makes all the difference.

There are patches all around the windshield frame now, some better than others, but they all should work, that part's done at least and I cut out some spots on the passenger rear quarter window frame as well and replaced them.

 

[kevinmrowland]

Thought you might like to see the difference between two factory lug nuts of the same age, one has been in NJ, PA, NY, VT for it's life, the other has been in OR. Can you tell which is which?

I borrowed this ol' piece o junk trailer from a cruiser-head down the hill so I could take the frame to the acid dipping place. They will get it all cleaned up and taken over to my powder coater.
(the frame, not the trailer, the little trailer actually worked great [thanks Tim!], even if I did have to weld on it when I got it back here..... )

Haven't made any more progress than that, had a bunch of panels and tailgates to weld up. Of course- as soon as I tear the trucks apart I get swamped with orders... ;p
Thats quite alright though, I've got to try and pay for this somehow.....

If you are waiting on a panel or gate right now, here they are!

KR

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Good work Kevin!! Love the FJ60 seat chair

 

[NorCalBorn]

Plenty of time spent working on bikes, but I never made my own frame..... yet.

Looks like you're making good progress, going to clean up the rest of the upholstery while it's all apart too?

FWIW pm me if you ever need places/shops to visit and Geek Out, I'm still connected w/ that industry even though I've finally moved onto other career and life goals.

 

[kevinmrowland]

Looks like you're making good progress, going to clean up the rest of the upholstery while it's all apart too?
FWIW pm me if you ever need places/shops to visit and Geek Out, I'm still connected w/ that industry even though I've finally moved onto other career and life goals.

There's really not much upholstery to work with, I've obviously got no tailgate or side panels to worry about, the seats are from a Subaru but I might find a new option there, my door panels are in great shape and we didn't have any carpet.
Looking forward to having carpet again though, I'm going to sound dampen the heck out of it and top that off with a new rug.
I know there have been a few threads on carpet options but not sure where things stand on that these days...... Will have to do some searching when I get the chance.

As for the bikes, I try to stay away from them these days, cruisers are expensive enough and my knees thank me.

Good work Kevin!! Love the FJ60 seat chair

Got to work with what you have!


And on that same note, I realized I do not have a press to push the studs out of the front hubs, had to look around for a minute and improvise:

Spent the evening cleaning and masking parts to get them ready for the sand blaster, will head to the powder coater after that.

Not taking any chances this time around, I've been sorting through and collecting all the bolts and small hardware, these are ready to head out and get acid cleaned and I'm having them all re-plated. Yeah, it's personal this time....

 

[klinetime574]

This is getting extreme. I like your style.

I didn't even know you could powder coat third members haha

 

[tblume]

I borrowed this ol' piece o junk trailer from a cruiser-head down the hill so I could take the frame to the acid dipping place. They will get it all cleaned up and taken over to my powder coater.
(the frame, not the trailer, the little trailer actually worked great [thanks Tim!], even if I did have to weld on it when I got it back here..... )

KR[/QUOTE]

HEY! I resemble that piece of junk comment!



proper build Kevin, when do you want to borrow my '80 for the side storage mockup?

 

[TS888]

Hey Kevin,
Looks like you've made huge progress since collecting the truck from Bend! I haven't been on Mud for a while, but I'll keep an eye on your build now.

Cheers!

 

[kevinmrowland]

Hey Kevin,
Looks like you've made huge progress since collecting the truck from Bend! I haven't been on Mud for a while, but I'll keep an eye on your build now.
Cheers!

Hey Tony!
I keep meaning to send you a link to this thread...... and then forgetting.
We are getting there! She just sat in the driveway until after the holidays and then I jumped in on it.

For those that don't know; Tony was the last foster parent for this particular cruiser before we adopted her.
She was posted for sale here originally: https://forum.ih8mud.com/parting-out/526707-parting-out-1985-fj60-bend-oregon.html
Funny enough, I was the second to last post in that thread, but he never got back to me!
A mutual friend of ours is actually the one who made the connection.

 

[kevinmrowland]

Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates, been a bit busy with all kinds of stuff, have a bunch of photos though.

Got all those parts I masked back from the sandblaster.

And....... I then had to remove all that masking. ;p

And then I decided that the parts weren't clean enough so I went over everything again with a scotch brite pad on the grinder.

And..... then I had to mask everything all over again for the powder coating.

 

[kevinmrowland]

All clean and ready for the trip to the powder.

Time to start in on cutting some body parts off, put the body up as high as I could in the garage to get things at a better working height.

Rocker cut:

All kinds of good stuff in there:

Jack the new rocker in there.

 

[klinetime574]

Nice! That photo of your cleaned up axle housings got me thinking...

Chrome.

That'd be pretty trick and oh-so-not-practical.

Keep up with the photos. I like watching these threads

 

[kevinmrowland]

To make a good fit there are two spots where you need to clearance the internal sheet metal a bit, no need to cut it out though.

Rear cut, note the clearanced pinch weld lip, it's important to not make too many places for water and mud to sit and collect, that cut will let the wheel well drain better.

Go ahead and cut off the bottom portion of the body beams......

Since all this dirt came out of only one end of one beam. Good to have them open more to drain better.

Some things to note about this part of the project:


Rockers are an integral part of the strength of the body, it's not a good idea to just cut them out (unless you don't mind your doors squeaking all the time).
But it's also important to note that what I am doing here are not "sliders" they are; "dent-resistant rocker panel replacements."
On a good clean truck there is no reason to do this, but in this case (and many others) the rockers were already somewhat smashed and starting to harbor rustiness) so off they come and this is a good strong way to patch them back in.




....

 

[kevinmrowland]

Grind, grind, grind.
I grind off all the fire scale from hot rolled structural steel like this, really helps them last a lot longer, paints will stick, welds will be clean. It's a noisy pain in the butt, but worth it.

Once that's done I prime them with etching primer on all four sides, jack them back into place, get it all lined up and start welding them in.

If you line up the outside edge with the body lip you will average about a 1 inch ledge. It will be mostly square to the center body beam and if things are lined up well you will have a 3/16 to 1/4" gap between the tube and the rear body beam, this is structural stuff so patch that in with some plate and weld it all up solid.

Pretty much in place, I'll get some shots of the underside and things to note there.

It's humid out, don't like leaving the steel bare for too long.

Got the other side in place this evening as well, still need to trim the ends, and cap them on both sides.

...

 

[kevinmrowland]

Originally Posted by beaufort-fj60
I'm not familiar with Oregon.. It's hot a steamy here which leads to water collecting in the areas you just fixed. A and D pillar corners were the roof pinches onto the pillars. I just drilled weep holes on those spots. It helps the roof "breath" or drain the collected humidity/condensation.

Ah, I've just never run into that much trouble with the D pillars, seems like every A pillar is an issue. Lets put this on hold for a bit and I'll actually take a section cut from the old d pillar so we can see exactly what there is to deal with back there.

And on this note, while I had the cut-off wheel spinning the other day I did a bit of exploratory surgery on the old body:

You can see that the rear corners have the same Toyota style issues as all the other problem spots, not quite as bad as the front pillars with their many layers, but still a moisture catching spot.

Only three layers in the worse area.

The good thing is that in these spots you have fairly direct access to the seam from the inside, if you pull just the back edge of the headliner down you can squirt oil in there.

Screwdriver from the outside:

And on the inside:

...

 

[kevinmrowland]

Next on the chopping block is the rear quarters.
Lots of good stuff hiding in there as well.

Both sides are cut, you can see how I cut with enough metal left to bend it in and match the body line at the back of the quarter.

Making the bend:

Relief cuts needed to flatten the return on the original body line.

The jack comes into play again and I press the new bend up tight to the new profile cut in the wheel well and weld that tight.

Relief cuts welded back in.
It's obviously not a bondo-free fix method, but this one looks a bit worse than it could since there was already a bit of bondo repair on the quarter from an old smash.

..

 

[kevinmrowland]

That's it for now on the quarters so I moved on to the rear hatch sill.

The lower seal lip was all rusted out and I could have just cleaned that off and replaced it, but I cut the whole thing off anyway.
I prefer this since I can weld in some custom bent thicker metal and that way I have a better place to mount tie-downs.

When I was cleaning up I found a few rust spots on this side that only got bigger the more I ground them, cut a little inspection window; more lovely Toyota steel layers.

Drivers side was pretty bad so I checked the passenger, this one is much better.

Just cutting on these parts, no new steel yet
More to come as I try to keep things rolling.....

...

 

[2rivers]

Gross! Have a pretty sinking feeling right about now - road crews love salt and sand round these parts. Interesting disection of the panels.

 

[jzilla]

Great stuff!