Build Salted Pork fj55 family wagon build

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Not a whole lot done this weekend! last weekend I adjusted valves and the choke and fine tuned the weber and this thing lights off on the key every time and runs the smoothest its ever run. I had one intake valve that was pretty far out that caused rough running. I also finally marked the flywheel with a white paint pen making life easier. This weekend I installed and "bench bled" the new clutch master and then pulled the clutch slave and inspected the bore an the guts of that. Its brand new on the inside rubber looked good so I put it back together and used the Newer slave I already instaled previously. its great it was good because I bought the wrong slave... now I have 2 of the older style slaves... I always forget when I am ordering that the drivetrain sans the axles is 1976. but the master is 1971 and the slave is 1976. But its whatever I got it working after an adjustment of the pushrod.

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Annoyingly my tubes still have not shown up yet. should get here today but IDK if Ill get to the tire till next weekend. However my questionable spare is holding up for the time being and I am really not going faster than 25mph around town and on the beach. After I adjusted the slave cylinder we took the trash to the dump and then went to the beach where I shot these two shots! also on 750 r16 tires this 55 does really well in the sand. its really like a tractor!
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Of course I gotta include a shot of little Margot Monster! After all she is the reason I ended up trading for the 55!
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I got my tubes in yesterday. I am going to try and start on that project on Wednesday after work. One thing I think is cool is that the tubes valve stem cap has a little valve stem remover! way cool.
 
Make sure you inspect the liners (flaps) before you put the tubes in. Good luck changing them. I have watched the guys do them several times when I was in Saudi. Looks easy enough but I would still be tempted to take them to a truck tire shop and have them do it. My hats off to you for taking it on yourself. Also, you mentioned a tube repair kit earlier. FWIW I would just keep a spare tube.
 
WarDamnEagle said:
Make sure you inspect the liners (flaps) before you put the tubes in. Good luck changing them. I have watched the guys do them several times when I was in Saudi. Looks easy enough but I would still be tempted to take them to a truck tire shop and have them do it. My hats off to you for taking it on yourself. Also, you mentioned a tube repair kit earlier. FWIW I would just keep a spare tube.
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I would take it to a tire shop too if it was worth how far I would have to travel. Where I live there are no tire shops within at least 5 hours of travel one way. the little shop here will mount regular tires but the last time their air compressor was broken and their bead machine ran on that so I ended up mounting the tires on my samurai my self and taking the wheels back later for balancing. and what a bear that is by hand with hand tools. I have never been so sore and those were only 30x9.50 15s.

But the liners looked good. I m going to clean them up really good though. The rubber for the liner is not dry rotted or anything but has some what I would call rust dust stain that I am going to clean up. this makes since becuse the tires are basically new. even still have much of the dimples on them still.

The rim I already wire wheeled and painted and it cleaned up way better than I expected. we will see how it goes. these things scare the s*** out of me. Going to be extra specially careful and my plan is to wrap chain around the tire and rim in a few spots then fill the tire up with one of the Milwaukee portable tire compressors because I can be away from it. Ill probibly do 10psi then go to 20. The tires are at 20 now for beach riding. the good thing is its pretty obvious if the split ring is seated correctly in how these rims work.

Honestly if I had some spare change I would buy the city racer rims and mount those myself. In the future maybe.

But yeah I think you are right on just keeping a spare tube. I actually bought some tire irons and a split ring tool from harbor frieght to keep with the truck too.
 
welp ripped my tube liner in half some how...super annoyed. I just ordered another off of walmart of all places . Looks like it will be another week before I get it together.
 
Roastchestnuts said:
welp ripped my tube liner in half some how...super annoyed. I just ordered another off of walmart of all places . Looks like it will be another week before I get it together.
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Sure you don't need 3 more? Had to ask.
 
Four, there’s a spare 😛
 
WarDamnEagle said:
Sure you don't need 3 more? Had to ask.
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middlecalf said:
Four, there’s a spare 😛
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haha I know. Well it was my fault. I was too tired after work so I shouldn't have been messing with it but I wanted to set everything up. I am still learning time management with new fatherhood I guess. the liner got hung up when I was trying to install it and I forced it and ripped it.... lesson learned. It really was in good shape I promise...

other 3 tires are holding air at the moment and seem fine. But also I am thinking I am not going to have these rims on it forever. Like I said previously the one I took apart is way more rusty than I would have liked. and in thinking of the split ring design I dont think they will hold up well where I live rusting from the inside out. I really really like the idea of splits but Like I said I kinda want to get the cityracer ones eventually. hell maybe Ill buy one at a time overtime till I have 4 rims and keep a split as a spare.
 
Alright yesterday I had some good news with the side quest: we got the old isuzu pup engine going again. we still need to do some finishing things like hook the clutch cable back up and the fan shroud and a few small things but hey big win. its running like its suppost to. no backfire through the carb this time around. Idling high but thats easily fixable. .

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My tube liner came in on saterday and after watching and following the video attached I got some baby powder and went to town! holy crap the baby powder made this easy. also the correct size tires on these rims made mounting the split back in easy. I walked it on the split wearing my trusty Osha approved flops. I still was sketched out filling with air so I wrappped it in chains and filled it to 5 then to 10 then to 15. then I took the tire outside and filled it to 25psi with it mounted to the truck with the little milwalkee compressor.

Just took the 55 for a spin and it seems to be perfect. I take back what I said. with the addition of baby powder and my new liner this was so easy.



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Side quest updates: the Isuzu pup Lives! I drove it to work this morning and took the trash that was in the bed to the dump with the wood shop teacher yesterday.

The students and I finished it enough where I think we are good to go. I need to move on to another project with them so I will button up the rest of it at home. The things I need to do are more minor. Put the shifter boot back on. hook the speedocable back up, temp sender wiring and clean up the old girl. Its been sitting not driven for almost a year. I hate when that happens... well after pulling the engine 3 times, Machining the head, replacing 2 head gaskets, 4 intake valves (all at once), 2 oil pan gaskets, 2 front cover gaskets, 2 water pump gaskets, rear main, timing chain tensioner, reverse switch, and a valve cover gasket the pup is running good. And after I give it a good wash and get it looking presentable again I will be selling the pup for the next project here soon. Cant wait for the next project!
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Took the 55 and the family to the beach yesterday for the first real summer taste! The first sunday funday of the summer! Margot felt the sand on her toes for the first time, I went surfing and had fun, and the 55 did great on the beach!
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It was a big weekend! first I met up with fellow land cruiser nerd @tromz and his Land Cruiser crew on Saturday briefly on a work break! it was pretty cool to see pretty much all the north American solid axle cruisers in one place. and a JDM surf!


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This fj40 had a really well done sniper kit. Kida gives me thoughts on doing that again. I was drooling over that engine bay. I cant remember but I think he said he had a HEI dizzy too. I like the oem dizzy but again the engine bay was really clean.
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Then On mothers day we took the 55 to the beach again and had a fantastic beach sunday funday. Margot loved the beach. It was her first beach sunday! first of many! Hung out with friends, I went surfing, we had some good breakfast on the beach. It was a good time.


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My vintage 1970s colman cooler finally got used too! Ohh and OSHA approved footwear.
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Sweet meeting you, We did discuss about making an annual event . I'll get everyones mud handle and cross reference
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