Stay-cation Mod Week

[Wilkinson]

Well, I decided to take a "stay-cation" (a vacation while staying at home) and work on the FJ40 project that has been sitting in my garage for years. I started years ago my taking the body off the frame, sand blasting and putting POR15 on and inside the frame rails. Top coated the frame with chassis black and there she sat while I pondered welding sheet metal.



Well, this week I have made some progress on actually burning some metal. Welding is like painting, I think. 2 hours of prep and 10 minutes of welding.


You know, there are alot of holes in the rear quarter that Cool Cruisers leave to the user to drill! I need a laser for spot weld removal.


After taking the rear quarter off that middle box section (1970 tub) needs something inside to coat it. Maybe a rag on a stick soaked in POR15.

I'm not looking to do a showroom stock FJ40 but I do want it to look nice when done. Well, at least I am making progress.

 

[LDowney]

Nelson,
Your progress looks good. Regarding your need to paint the enclosed are; could you use weld through primer while it is disaasembled and you have better access to these areas? With my tub, I tried a paint 'gun' that Eastman sells. It has tubes with nozzle type openings at the end for spraying under coating deep into enclosed areas. I used self-eching primer rather than the under coating. This allowed me to "sloop" paint into these enclosed cavities. It was not pretty or perfect, but it was the best solution that I could find. The tub was attached to my
rotisserie at the time so I also 'rocked' the whole tub back-n-forth in an attempt to help the wet primer flow rather than puddle.

I do have a question. Your tub is off the truck and you cut some sections off for replacement. How are you going to square up the tub without a jig (of some sort)?

 

[Wilkinson]

Thanks, Larry. I did weld a piece of angle steel across the back gate opening before I started to hold the back in place. I think there is enough structure left that the CCOT quarter will pull it all back together when I put it on. Of course never having done this before I may be setting myself up for failure.

The driver's florr pan from CCOT comes with a straight right endge insead of the cut out around the tranny like the original. I think they wanted me to save that right edge for reuse but I may have to fab something up since I think that original floor pan is too far gone.

 

[LDowney]

Thanks, Larry. I did weld a piece of angle steel across the back gate opening before I started to hold the back in place. I think there is enough structure left that the CCOT quarter will pull it all back together when I put it on. Of course never having done this before I may be setting myself up for failure.

The driver's florr pan from CCOT comes with a straight right endge insead of the cut out around the tranny like the original. I think they wanted me to save that right edge for reuse but I may have to fab something up since I think that original floor pan is too far gone.

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Thanks for the pictures of your progress. How well are the CCoT panels fitting up?

 

[Wilkinson]

Yesterday had alot of "daddy" stuff to do. I did get POR15 into the box section of the tub. I hate working with POR15. It's good stuff but the can glues itself shut after opening. I had a gallon can that I split into quart cans I bought from Home Depot after opening and resealing a gallon can that glued itself shut. The metal will fail bfore you can rip the top off again. The "trough" in the top of the can was dry. It is just the lid sealing itself to the can with POR 15 in it. I have heard the negative reports on POR15 but I have nothing negative to report except use it all when you open it!

I mocked up the quarter panel and it fits like a glove from the rear hatch to the side of the bed. It looks like it will take some torque to get it the panel to mate flat to the door post.



There is a small amount of extra length on the back. It looks like the factory did some customizing on the other side to match it to a shorter height. This may be by design.


There are ALOT of holes to drill/cut in the new quarter. Door hinges, badges, marker light, reverse light... I'm glad that is over!

 

[Wilkinson]

Here is a couple of shots of the driver floor pan. I will have to fab up a right side to match the factoy cut out. I imagine there are too many varieties to make one to match all years. My old pan has too many hole to cut off and use it. Maybe I can just use the lip and add flat 16 gauge to fill in the rest...




Here is a look at one of my patches to the tub. Added a patch tot he under side and filled and ground it smooth on top.

 

[Wilkinson]

So getting the quarter on was not too bad. I hooked the panel at the back tailgate opening and put sealer on the seam that joins the door post. Mr. Toyota was smart making this a bolt on joint. I wondered why. Know I know! You need the bolts to draw the panel tight.

Seam sealer on the joint:


Top view before joining the quarter panel:



View of gap before pulling it together with the bolts:

 

[Wilkinson]

To flex teh body into place I used 2 floor jacks under the back of the bed to flex the body to allow the quarter to pull together with the door post:


I used some clamps to pull it all together and line up the holes for the bolts:


All bolted up and ready to weld!


Tomorrow is a good day. I get to burn metal.

 

[Wilkinson]

Well, I found out after my previous post the the round part of the quarter panel had fallen off the flange where it mates to the top rail. I had to seperate the bolted joint with the door post and re work it. It won't quite pull up tight now. There is a small gap between the top of the door post and the quarter panel. I considered cutting the weld at the top of the door post to the rail at the top of the tub to get the last 1/16 of an inch but I don't want to mess up the hard top mating to the tub so I left it. I'll just fill it with a little seam sealer.


I tacked the quarter from back to front to make sure it was pulled tight all the way:

Pic of the back:

 

[Wilkinson]

Welded it up and ground the welds smooth:



Measured the bed to top rail distance on the original side and tightened the new side up and tacked it in place.


More next week. More staycation

 

[LDowney]

Nelson,
Your finish looks like you did a fine job on the welding and grinding. The pictures don't show any warping due to excessive heat and no visible porosity either. Congratulations.

 

[Wilkinson]

Day 1, Week 2

Finished teh tack wels on the wheel well to the quarter panel and filled the gap on the rear tail gate post.




I'm getting pretty good at bridge welding rust

 

[Wilkinson]

Day 1, Week 2 continued

On to the driver's side floor pan. Since the CCOT pan did not come with the tranny side edge, I needed to repair it and cut it off to weld onto the CCOT pan.

Old pan and hole that needs filling:



Hole patched and ready to cut off:



Old edge tacked to the new pan:

 

[Wilkinson]

Day 1, Week 2 continued

Floor pan mocked up into the cruiser to I could weld it in place:




Welded and ground down:

 

[Wilkinson]

Week 2 Day 2

Not much to show from yesterday. Put in the drivers floor pan and welded it in. For a guy who is used to woodworking where an 1/4 of an inch is plenty close enough for most work (furnature excluded), sheetmetal has taken some recalibration of my tolerances.

Floor pan in:



I am going to have to bend up a patch if I want to keep this horse shoe feature. It lives under the seat but I'll do something to patch it.



I did a heck of a lot of wire wheeling on this under floor brace yesterday. I can't tell you how much time I have spend on the bottom of the tub over the years cleaning rust and that black undercoat that Toyota put there. I only ready I can see for that undercoat is to hold the rust onto the truck. So another hour (at least) of whizzing rust off and metal etch to clean it all up and I put some Zero Rust on the under side.



Gonna work on the rear sill today.

 

[Atlanta Cruiser]

Man - you are making serious progress!! Good work! I wish I had the skills to do all of that.

 

[Wilkinson]

Me too!

Seriously I have never welded before this project. Some times you just got to step out there and do it. Some times you fall, get up, brush yourself off and continue on. But thanks for teh compliment.

 

[Wilkinson]

Week 2 Day 3

I felt like I didn't get much done Wednesday. I was going to replace the rear cross member today. The CCOT sil came with a piece of sheet metal bent to replace the sheet metal at the rear of the bed. I was just going to replace the rear cross member but while doing some straightening I found that the seam between the bed floor and the rear peice had cancer:



Here are the CCOT rear cross member and sheet metal. The sheet metal has been in my garage for several years and has some surface rust.



After cleaning it up with metal ready, it looks better:

 

[Wilkinson]

Week 2 Day 3 continued

So while the metal ready was working I went to put on the floor pan cross member support on the driver's side floor pan I put in the day before. I had it preped and ready to go:



I fought with this thing to get good solid contact with the floor pan and the cross member. I didn't have clamps big enough to get to the middle of the floor pan. After tacking it in place and using c-clamps, blocks of wood, a floor jack and my daughter's foot I finally got it spotted in:





I bet at the Toyota factory that half a day of labor is done in 30 seconds!

 

[Wilkinson]

Week 2 Day 3 continued

So I never got to the rear cross member on Wednesday, I will try again today.

Here is a look at the comparison of the old rear sheet metal and the new:



I also have to do some custom bending of the rear lip of the new quarter panel. It come a little long to account for tolerances of the manufacturing process. Here is the new one and where it will have to be bent to match the rear sil:



Here is the right side the is original. You can tell that Mr. Toyota did some custom bending at the factory so I guess this is expected that the CCOT quarter will have some custom bending, too.