77CruiserDog
GOLD Star
One thing lead to another and I ended up finding a partially restored (running and driving) 1977 FJ40 just a few hours away in Portland. The guy wanted a bit too much but I agreed to drive down and take a look at it. As soon as he opened the garage, I knew I had to go home with it.
The PO and I had talked about the history he knew and what had been done to it, everything checked out after a 15 minute inspection so I took it for a drive. It ran, but not well.
I drove it for a few miles to make sure all the basics worked, all gears, 4x4 and so forth. It checked out, so I paid the man and headed back to Seattle.
On the drive home, we encountered some weather. For the last 2 hours of the drive it snowed so hard the wipers had a hard time keeping up. I didn't mind because the speed of the freeway finally slowed to a more FJ40 friendly speed of 50mph.
After 6 hours (2 hours longer than it should have taken) I park it safely in the garage and contemplate what I've just done. The entire inside was soaking wet from the many jump seat bolt holes in the rear wheel wells left open to the elements. Unbeknownst to me, for 6 hours the tires sprayed dirty snow melt through these jump seat bolt holes and on to the fresh new headliner. I was pretty frustrated as the shiny new interior had just been hosed with dirty water for the entire drive.... first order of business was dry and clean the interior, then plug the holes so this didn't happen again.
I looked through the receipt that he gave me from a very reputable Land Cruiser restoration company and felt happy that someone who knew what they were doing had comprehensively looked over this rig and repaired or replaced what was needed.
Here are the items I knew based on what I was told:
1 - The prior owner bought the vehicle sight unseen and shipped it to the restoration company.
2 - The restoration company spent 3 months (and an obscene amount of money from the prior owner) completing a "stage 1" restoration.
3 - Most of the items repaired or replaced were in the category of "cosmetic", which was fine because I'm better at the mechanical items.
4 - The engine needed to be rebuilt as it smoked quite a bit.
5 - The tub had been painted, including the outside of the doors but not the top
6 - The inside of the tub had been Vortex lined a matching color
7 - The engine had been partially de-smogged
I decided to start where the PO left off by finishing the de-smogging. I looked it over and it appeared they did a pretty terrible job. The air rail was still hooked up but broken off and each of the 6 connections were only finger tight (I suppose it could have been worse). A myriad of vacuum hoses had been plugged or were left dangling and the EGR pipe connecting to the exhaust manifold was lose. The smog pump was long gone, thankfully replaced with a Sagnaw power steering pump.
I removed the air rail and plugged the holes with some pipe plugs I found at the local hardware store.
I removed the EGR system and welded the EGR tube closed.
I followed the directions for the vacuum routing procedures found here on MUD to make sense of the remaining lines. (Thank you everyone who posted information here, it was very helpful!)
I then drove it and it ran the same but somehow 10lbs of non functioning smog equipment made me feel like it drove slightly better. It certainly opened up the engine compartment so I could see and work much easier!
More to come soon.
The PO and I had talked about the history he knew and what had been done to it, everything checked out after a 15 minute inspection so I took it for a drive. It ran, but not well.
I drove it for a few miles to make sure all the basics worked, all gears, 4x4 and so forth. It checked out, so I paid the man and headed back to Seattle.
On the drive home, we encountered some weather. For the last 2 hours of the drive it snowed so hard the wipers had a hard time keeping up. I didn't mind because the speed of the freeway finally slowed to a more FJ40 friendly speed of 50mph.
After 6 hours (2 hours longer than it should have taken) I park it safely in the garage and contemplate what I've just done. The entire inside was soaking wet from the many jump seat bolt holes in the rear wheel wells left open to the elements. Unbeknownst to me, for 6 hours the tires sprayed dirty snow melt through these jump seat bolt holes and on to the fresh new headliner. I was pretty frustrated as the shiny new interior had just been hosed with dirty water for the entire drive.... first order of business was dry and clean the interior, then plug the holes so this didn't happen again.
I looked through the receipt that he gave me from a very reputable Land Cruiser restoration company and felt happy that someone who knew what they were doing had comprehensively looked over this rig and repaired or replaced what was needed.
Here are the items I knew based on what I was told:
1 - The prior owner bought the vehicle sight unseen and shipped it to the restoration company.
2 - The restoration company spent 3 months (and an obscene amount of money from the prior owner) completing a "stage 1" restoration.
3 - Most of the items repaired or replaced were in the category of "cosmetic", which was fine because I'm better at the mechanical items.
4 - The engine needed to be rebuilt as it smoked quite a bit.
5 - The tub had been painted, including the outside of the doors but not the top
6 - The inside of the tub had been Vortex lined a matching color
7 - The engine had been partially de-smogged
I decided to start where the PO left off by finishing the de-smogging. I looked it over and it appeared they did a pretty terrible job. The air rail was still hooked up but broken off and each of the 6 connections were only finger tight (I suppose it could have been worse). A myriad of vacuum hoses had been plugged or were left dangling and the EGR pipe connecting to the exhaust manifold was lose. The smog pump was long gone, thankfully replaced with a Sagnaw power steering pump.
I removed the air rail and plugged the holes with some pipe plugs I found at the local hardware store.
I removed the EGR system and welded the EGR tube closed.
I followed the directions for the vacuum routing procedures found here on MUD to make sense of the remaining lines. (Thank you everyone who posted information here, it was very helpful!)
I then drove it and it ran the same but somehow 10lbs of non functioning smog equipment made me feel like it drove slightly better. It certainly opened up the engine compartment so I could see and work much easier!
More to come soon.
Last edited:
My wife will like that! 
