Builds The Clustertruck Rides Again - Refurbishing a 1975 Chevota

[brian]

Don’t be afraid of that cutting and patching, it’s only metal.

You can out think it

 

[bikersmurf]

I know, I know. Go back 20 pages in this thread while I was gemming and hawing over engines insead of just doing the damn thing. I get this way before any big can of worms is opened.



I’ve likely got a 12x20 shed going in this summer (it was supposed to go in last summer) that should free up a bay in the garage, but I’m 100% out of wall space for tooling.

Ultimately if money were no object, the plan would be to add a 24x30 or so shop/second garage across the driveway and transfer FJ40 operations there, but that’s a long way out. My wife and I bought about the smallest house we could tolerate (intentionally, our mortgage is phenomenally low) But with the baby here now 2100 square feet is starting to show its limitations. Long story short - I need to finish the shed, to get crap out of the basement, so I can finish the basement so we have somewhere to put the kid when she’s older and needs a playroom.

Alternatively, we may just move - the school systems suck here anyway...which is one of the reasons we have held off on throwing any major money at huge renovations. Unfortunately, second detached garages don’t carry their own weight in terms of resale value.

Finishing the basement will increase resale value and if done sensibly you’ll not break the bank.

Hang in there, it’ll happen. For now enjoy the rig. I’d suggest breaking the body work down into chunks you can do in a short time... so life doesn’t get in the way and your rig doesn’t get driven for 5 years.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Finishing the basement will increase resale value and if done sensibly you’ll not break the bank.

Hang in there, it’ll happen. For now enjoy the rig. I’d suggest breaking the body work down into chunks you can do in a short time... so life doesn’t get in the way and your rig doesn’t get driven for 5 years.

Yup, basement I can justify, though I wish I was converting it to a wood shop and not a play room. I tend do do everything myself (within reason) to cut labor costs and improve ROI - though anymore time is getting to be the limiting factor.

The plan is to start on the doors and hard top first. I already picked up a Real Steel tailgate. That way I can work on the worst of the metal work (top and doors) while still driving the truck.

Plus, it’s an excuse to buy a bikini top and maybe some half or tube doors.

I may actually cut my bodywork teeth on the hard top, before I chop up the doors. The hard top, in reality, is trashed so I can’t make it much worse. If I can make the top presentable, then I’ll be less concerned with the doors.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

I’ve likely got a 12x20 shed going in this summer (it was supposed to go in last summer) that should free up a bay in the garage, but I’m 100% out of wall space for tooling.

Ultimately if money were no object, the plan would be to add a 24x30 or so shop/second garage across the driveway and transfer FJ40 operations there, but that’s a long way out. My wife and I bought about the smallest house we could tolerate (intentionally, our mortgage is phenomenally low) But with the baby here now 2100 square feet is starting to show its limitations. Long story short - I need to finish the shed, to get crap out of the basement, so I can finish the basement so we have somewhere to put the kid when she’s older and needs a playroom.

Alternatively, we may just move - the school systems suck here anyway...which is one of the reasons we have held off on throwing any major money at huge renovations. Unfortunately, second detached garages don’t carry their own weight in terms of resale value.

whatever I do, it's going to be mobile - because the shop adds to my property value, but more shops don't. That said, if money were no objection; I'd buy out my neighbor, raze his house and put a shop that covers his 3 acres....

 

[waiting for time]

Just start with one part and try to fix it, look on yt for tips and tricks and don’t be afraid to start over if a patch does not fit properly.
You will learn how the steel reacts to what you are doing to it just take your time to learn.
If it doesn’t do what you want just ask here what to do.

Enjoy its a great journy.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Met up with some like minded individuals today. I decided to brave the road salt and crashed the Keystone Cruisers’ annual meeting in Lancaster. It was cool to finally meet some of the folks who have been helping me along the way.

There was a pretty good contingent of 40’s in attendance:

My 40 did pretty well on the drive. 86 miles round trip. It pulled ALMOST 11.5mpg

It definitely helped build some confidence in the work I’ve done so far. The one niggling issue I still have is that my rear heater’s fan keeps hitting the edge of the duct - I can push it off but it slowly finds its way back - sounds like a Clangy blender when it contacts. It was down in the 30’s today - having both heaters ALMOST made up for the complete lack of weather stripping. It was a cold drive...

 

[bikersmurf]

Met up with some like minded individuals today. I decided to brave the road salt and crashed the Keystone Cruisers’ annual meeting in Lancaster. It was cool to finally meet some of the folks who have been helping me along the way.

There was a pretty good contingent of 40’s in attendance:
View attachment 1883379

My 40 did pretty well on the drive. 86 miles round trip. It pulled ALMOST 11.5mpg

It definitely helped build some confidence in the work I’ve done so far. The one niggling issue I still have is that my rear heater’s fan keeps hitting the edge of the duct - I can push it off but it slowly finds its way back - sounds like a Clangy blender when it contacts. It was down in the 30’s today - having both heaters ALMOST made up for the complete lack of weather stripping. It was a cold drive...

I’ve heard that noise. Usually can be fixed by adjusting the fan height on the shaft and ‘duct’ on the heater.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

I’ve heard that noise. Usually can be fixed by adjusting the fan height on the shaft and ‘duct’ on the heater.

Yeah I may need to fool with the fan height. If I reach behind me and lift up on the duct the noise stops but it “clanks” every time I hit a bump.

I also constantly have tools, jugs of oil, backpacks, etc constantly sliding into the heater when I hit the brakes which really gets it screaming. I’m thinking a rubber mat back there might fix that.

 

[Honger]

I've been jumping back into the 40 section here and there... and have desperately needed to catch up on your thread.
New engine, new baby, new tires and wheels... well done Rick! Extra congrats on the new baby of course!

I vote give yourself a year of driving... I recently was forced to drive my 40 daily for over a week. I'd totally forgotten how much fun these are to just drive.

Love that shot with the other 40's... your's fits right in.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

I've been jumping back into the 40 section here and there... and have desperately needed to catch up on your thread.
New engine, new baby, new tires and wheels... well done Rick! Extra congrats on the new baby of course!

I vote give yourself a year of driving... I recently was forced to drive my 40 daily for over a week. I'd totally forgotten how much fun these are to just drive.

Love that shot with the other 40's... your's fits right in.

Thanks, @Honger!

Yes, it was nice spending this summer driving it, and taking it out a couple of times over the winter in between road saltings. It is looking like the next "big" trip will be to Pottstown, PA in April (another club meeting). The goal is to start putting some longer distances on the truck to see what shakes loose. So far, there's a few niggling issues to go back and take care of:

1. Slow, annoying leak that will require me to pull the transfer case
2. I really want to see if I can re-jet the carb and improve fuel economy a bit, 11.5MPG is pretty rough...
3. Rear heater fan contacting the rear heater duct.
4. Still have a weird situation in which the alternator belt squeals ONLY when the alternator is under load. Also think I'm starting to hear a drone out of the alternator so I'm wondering if it's failing. It's only got about 2000mi on it, but it ran badly aligned on the 283 for about 1000 of them so I may have cooked a bearing. It's also a crappy parts-store rebuilt alternator so it was no doubt rebuilt with crappy Chinese parts. For now, it seems to charge, so I'll re-tension the belt (for the 10th time) and see if that resolves it first.

I also plan to tear off the top and doors next. I can drive it topless while I tackle that portion of the bodywork. At the rate I'm going, the repairs to the hard top along will take years - and I'll have plenty of time to drive it in the meantime.

 

[FJBen]

I know, I know. Go back 20 pages in this thread while I was gemming and hawing over engines insead of just doing the damn thing. I get this way before any big can of worms is opened.



I’ve likely got a 12x20 shed going in this summer (it was supposed to go in last summer) that should free up a bay in the garage, but I’m 100% out of wall space for tooling.

Ultimately if money were no object, the plan would be to add a 24x30 or so shop/second garage across the driveway and transfer FJ40 operations there, but that’s a long way out. My wife and I bought about the smallest house we could tolerate (intentionally, our mortgage is phenomenally low) But with the baby here now 2100 square feet is starting to show its limitations. Long story short - I need to finish the shed, to get crap out of the basement, so I can finish the basement so we have somewhere to put the kid when she’s older and needs a playroom.

Alternatively, we may just move - the school systems suck here anyway...which is one of the reasons we have held off on throwing any major money at huge renovations. Unfortunately, second detached garages don’t carry their own weight in terms of resale value.

There are 5 of us in 2600 sq feet. That includes 2 teenage daughters! We use all the space in our place, however we have 10 acres and multiple outbuildings. My shop is 40x80 and for some reason keeps getting more and more filled.

Finishing basement will help with resale for sure even though refinancing/banks don't value it that much...makes no sense to me.

Having the shop to store parts, vehicles and work with all that room is really nice. On previous builds, stuff was just stacked and packed like tetris.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

There are 5 of us in 2600 sq feet. That includes 2 teenage daughters! We use all the space in our place, however we have 10 acres and multiple outbuildings. My shop is 40x80 and for some reason keeps getting more and more filled.

Finishing basement will help with resale for sure even though refinancing/banks don't value it that much...makes no sense to me.

Having the shop to store parts, vehicles and work with all that room is really nice. On previous builds, stuff was just stacked and packed like tetris.

This is how we grew up - My parents' house was about that size and there were 5 of us - it always seemed like a big house to me, but with mom, dad, 3 boys, 2 dogs, and 2 cats, it definitely saw a lot of wear, tear, and clutter. I figured since we only plan on having 2 (max) a 2200-2300ish square foot house would suffice. It's got plenty of room, I just have some gripes (in hindsight) with the layout - specifically that there isn't a single closet on the first floor.

With the way my lawn is laid out, I'm limited to about a 30ft deep shop at some point in the future, so 30x30 seems about right to me. That said, if the schools systems down here stay bad for another 5-7 years, we may end up selling, so it will be at least that long until I start expanding. The goal is to get the basement done in that timeframe. Of course, the argument to staying is that we bought this house in foreclosure in a low-tax area at the bottom of the market crash (crazy low interest rate, good equity in the property) so our mortgage is literally $100 more than we were paying to rent a townhouse on the other side of town...Private school makes a lot of sense with one kid. With two, paying more property taxes for better public schools starts to edge out an advantage financially.

Decisions decisions. In the meantime, just procrastinating calling Georg to tell him I somehow manage to screw up my transfercase reseal and I need another gasket set. The poor guy put up with a lot while I was rebuilding it.

 

[FJBen]

This is how we grew up - My parents' house was about that size and there were 5 of us - it always seemed like a big house to me, but with mom, dad, 3 boys, 2 dogs, and 2 cats, it definitely saw a lot of wear, tear, and clutter. I figured since we only plan on having 2 (max) a 2200-2300ish square foot house would suffice. It's got plenty of room, I just have some gripes (in hindsight) with the layout - specifically that there isn't a single closet on the first floor.

With the way my lawn is laid out, I'm limited to about a 30ft deep shop at some point in the future, so 30x30 seems about right to me. That said, if the schools systems down here stay bad for another 5-7 years, we may end up selling, so it will be at least that long until I start expanding. The goal is to get the basement done in that timeframe. Of course, the argument to staying is that we bought this house in foreclosure in a low-tax area at the bottom of the market crash (crazy low interest rate, good equity in the property) so our mortgage is literally $100 more than we were paying to rent a townhouse on the other side of town...Private school makes a lot of sense with one kid. With two, paying more property taxes for better public schools starts to edge out an advantage financially.

Decisions decisions. In the meantime, just procrastinating calling Georg to tell him I somehow manage to screw up my transfercase reseal and I need another gasket set. The poor guy put up with a lot while I was rebuilding it.

Good plan. I was actually wrong, ours is more like 2400 or less. Either way there is almost always something you want to change and redo on a house. Our old real estate agent said it usually takes 3 times building a house to get the one you want.
I hear you on schools.

I’m rebuilding a whole engine and slightly worried about messing up some seals. I feel your pain.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Good plan. I was actually wrong, ours is more like 2400 or less.

I’m rebuilding a whole engine and slightly worried about messing up some seals. I feel your pain.

Yeah I’m not actually sure what ours is - ours was listed at 2372 square feet when we bought it - but a house down the street with an identical floor plan was listed at 2197 last year when it sold. Never bothered to do the math by measuring rooms.

As for seals - yes, this has been my great nightmare. I’ve already had to reseal the intake manifold. The transfercase weeps down the bolts (even though I sealed them), and also leaks badly from the Welch plug I must have installed poorly. They always seem to leak for the most pain in the ass gasket to replace.

I’m also still fighting coolant leaks that, as a whole, don’t make sense to me - every time I get a good swing in temperature I lose coolant from at least one hose. It’s like the worm gear hose clamps are loosening up from thermal expansion/contraction. Always annoying to walk into the garage and find a new random puddle of antifreeze.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

(Third) GM 12si alternator in three years installed tonight. The first two were both remanufactured. I got about 500 miles from the first one and about 800 from the second. The second one was still charging, but had devolved a gnarly groan and would get absolutely scalding hot after running for about 3 minutes.

This time I went with a NAPA “100% new” alternator. A bit annoyed that all the threads were metric, instead of SAE but otherwise it’s installed and seems to be running alright.
Also took the opportunity to try out a Krikit gauge to set belt tension (previously the alternator belt would squeal ONLY when the alternator was loaded up (ie: headlights on).

Dayco recommends ~120lbs of “re-tension” on a used belt - it took a lot of work to get it to about 110ish and even that made me nervous - it’s a LOT more tension than I’d have expected - but, specs is specs. No belt squeal under load so far...perhaps the “calibrated thumb” method of testing belt tension previously wasn’t so calibrated...

 

[reddingcruiser]

You've GOT to get that thing dirty! It's never going to run right until you do.

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

You've GOT to get that thing dirty! It's never going to run right until you do.

The closest places to get it dirty (legally) are a 4 hour (Wharton state park) drive or five hour (Rousch Creek) drive, round trip. I have no tow vehicle which means my 40 need to get me there, get abused on the trails all day, and get me back. So far I’ve only been getting about 500-600 miles before something breaks. Doesn’t instill confidence to start taking it on road trips...

I am hoping to spend some more time with the folks in Keystone Cruisers this year and maybe ride along on a couple of trail days to get a feel for it. Maybe my own truck will follow. I’d really prefer to have a tow rig to get it to and from the trail though.

 

[reddingcruiser]

Let's look at this from a positive perspective. If we are optimistic and assume 600 miles between breakdowns, that's only about 4.75 breakdowns to get to the Rubicon Trail and the TLCA Rubithon in June. My navigation says about 39 hours travel time from your place, so roughly 4 - 5 days at Cruiser speed at 10 hours driving per day. For the sake of argument let's say each breakdown takes half a day to fix, and you rest the remainder of each of those days, just because you might want to. That means if you leave about 10 days before the Rubithon, you'll be golden. And there's the added bonus that all that work will pay off, and by the time you get to the trail you'll have most of the bugs worked out. Once you're here you can run the trail, rest up for 2 or 3 days at Rubicon Springs and enjoy the company of other 'Cruiser owners that know your pain and sacrifice. There's another possible bonus to be the winner the "Iron Butt" award, for traveling all that way in your trail rig (heck, maybe the "Hard Luck" plaque, too). Then I'll buy you pizza and a beer when we get off the trail, and you can head home the proud owner of a Rubicon-tested FJ40.

Just lookin' out for you, Rick...…..

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

695 would work!!

 

[RWBeringer4x4]

Let's look at this from a positive perspective. If we are optimistic and assume 600 miles between breakdowns, that's only about 4.75 breakdowns to get to the Rubicon Trail and the TLCA Rubithon in June. My navigation says about 39 hours travel time from your place, so roughly 4 - 5 days at Cruiser speed at 10 hours driving per day. For the sake of argument let's say each breakdown takes half a day to fix, and you rest the remainder of each of those days, just because you might want to. That means if you leave about 10 days before the Rubithon, you'll be golden. And there's the added bonus that all that work will pay off, and by the time you get to the trail you'll have most of the bugs worked out. Once you're here you can run the trail, rest up for 2 or 3 days at Rubicon Springs and enjoy the company of other 'Cruiser owners that know your pain and sacrifice. There's another possible bonus to be the winner the "Iron Butt" award, for traveling all that way in your trail rig (heck, maybe the "Hard Luck" plaque, too). Then I'll buy you pizza and a beer when we get off the trail, and you can head home the proud owner of a Rubicon-tested FJ40.

Just lookin' out for you, Rick...…..

Man that’d be one hell of a trip - I would definitely need to reinstall the long range fuel tank. Otherwise it would be 14.5 stops for gas one way plus whatever I’d burn on the trail.