The Farm Fresh 72

[biggestlittle55]

New here with my 72 FJ55 purchased last summer. So the story goes it was brought over from Colorado in 2000 by the PO to BFE Nevada and then promptly taken apart to fix the Colorado pig rust. We are talking body off and everything. Nothing was really done other than taking it apart and it sat parted out in a barn for about 20 years before being pushed out into yard at some point. For the sake of getting this thread caught up I'll just summarize a bit.

Pretty much how it sat when I bought it.

Efforts of getting what I could put back on it, including the brand new 0 mile tires purchased in 2000. They had been stored in the chicken coup.

Took a few months but a buddy and I finally dragged it out of the ranch it lived for nearly 25 years.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Since October, I have fabricated a 3" exhaust, seat bracket for late model Subaru bucket seats, rebuilt braking system with new master and wheel cylinders, replaced seized HEI dizzy with point style OEM dizzy, carb tinkering/rebuild, Aisin plastic fan, H4 headlights and have begun some of the body work in the rockers and footwells.

Back in November, I got it running good enough to cruise down to a local 4x4 meet, which was the first time really driving it.

 

[RUSH55]

@biggestlittle55 , Merry Christmas and welcome to the IPPS! The 55 is looking a little more beast since you got ahold of it! Looking forward to seeing what you do next.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Thanks @RUSH55!
Small update... a friend got me matching pig whiskey and pint glasses. Definitely for refreshment purposes!

This weekend I managed to install my new DUI dizzy and cables, do a valve adjustment and make some progress on my front bumper.

It had a 1/4" thick section of C channel welded to the front frame horns by a prior owner, however one side was bent and I did not feel it to be very well attached. I picked up a HF universal winch plate which fit rather nicely on the exposed frame. considering I'll be running a small 9.5 K winch, no clearance issues at all. The plate is bolted to 6 factory holes on the top side, then cut out some 3/16th plate to start the mounting of the front bumper. Those side plates also butt up against the bottom of the winch plate and will be welded together. The bumper is a home made one my buddy ran on his 40; nothing fancy but is a good place to start. It is mocked up now but hopefully this week I can work on it some more.

 

[Ol Yeller]

Nice!

Love the glasses…will have to find them.

 

[greenbeast]

Nice!

Love the glasses…will have to find them.
View attachment 3809546

Tried some Peg Leg Porker whiskey last week. Would have been better in that glass!!

 

[biggestlittle55]

Not a whole lot to report. OEM carb is back on and seems to run "better" with the new ignition system. The front axle to frame brake line has been replaced with stainless line to match all other soft lines.

What I am dealing with on the passenger side footwell. Since the photo I have cut out a good chunk of floorboard here in order to cut off the remainder of the factory body mount structure to match the other side. I can then start with putting metal back in.

Crusty and smashed license plate light has been replaced. Definitely too nice.

This evenings project was cutting off the poorly welded C channel from the back. The rear section of frame was cut at very strange angles just behind the rear most body mounts. I cleaned off what was left, then used cardboard to see where my cuts need to be in the C channel I will be welding back in (the correct way) to extend the frame back to where it was. The extensions are just tacked back into place, but you can see the bubble gum that was left. I need to clean that up before final welding.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Not a welder by any means but I did put my new 220 Mig to work burning in my trailer hitch. With 33s and small shackle lift, its a little over 2' to the bottom of the hitch receiver.

 

[biggestlittle55]

A little more progress this weekend. Finally pulled the driver side front door out of the backyard. The issue was it would always require a hefty slam to get it to close correctly. Primarily it was because the actual latch on the striker was not really in alignment with the latch on the pillar, but the bubble gum from some prior repair when the door shell caved from hinge spring tension didn't help. The whole right side of the truck has what seems like general offroad body damage, vs auto accident. Given that it is a Colorado truck and spent some time on a volunteer fire department, I am not terribly surprised. I also wanted to weld up the holes left from there was possibly an attempt to pull out a vertical dent?

Needless to say, I am far from a body guy, but I also am not trying to make this perfect, I'm shooting for better than it was. Basically just cut out the bubble gum, make a patch panel out of 16ga, and slap it in there. I left the top side edge of the door alone as I felt like it was still decent enough. Yes, I did end up using additional 16 ga to make shims for the top and bottom, but after a bit of test fitting, the door shuts nicely now. Perhaps the body support below the a pillar where the hinges bolt up is tweaked, I donno. Holes in the door shell also have been filled in with weld and carefully ground flat ish.

The original carb is just all over the place if it wants to run good or not, but I did take a short cruise yesterday for a bit of dirt action. Looking forward to some good dirt road exploring in the future.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Not a lot of progress but the days are getting longer and it is showing signs of warming up. Perfect since my garage is definitely not heated.

Started the frame tie ins where there was a factory crossmember that originally came out and bolted up to the factory bumper. Since I'm reconstructing everything, I felt it best to tie it back in and gain some angular support to my hitch. On the actual tie ins, I will be welding plates to effectively make it c channel where it meets up with the rear most square tube in the hitch.

Dropped the tank as I have some goodies to install. Tank is in pretty good shape overall, just used some Simple Green and a scrubby brush to get most of the 25 year old mud off. I also am looking at installing a return fitting in the tank as well. While its out, I'm going to finish the hitch bracing and cleaning more of the mud and dirt off. If it warms up enough, I may use a bit of rust converter on the frame in addition to painting the hitch.

Piggy is about to get spoiled as well.

 

[PabloCruise]

Is there no return line fitting on the tank currently?

 

[RUSH55]

That must have become a thing later on.
The tank @greenbeast recently picked up doesn’t have a return port either.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Correct. Original setup with the carb was returnless.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Weekend update.

Hitch is painted and done for now. I do plan to have a friend help bend some DOM tube to protect the rocker corners. I need to cut off the rusty bits but that might be a down the road thing.

Switch controller installed. This allows for only once harness into the cab for the touch panel, but the controller on the engine bay can feed 6 different aux items. I will be running that to an inline fusebox.

Work on the sniper setup is underway. I am making all of my connections and starting to do cable management/ wire loom, but wont finalize anything until it's tested. Still need a few more fittings and I can start working on running lines to the tank. Will be running the inline pump for now but an intank setup is always an option down the road.

At the same time as the sniper install, I am doing my best to create a half decent wiring setup. Added a fuse block to the passenger side footwell. This whole setup is triggered by switched power of the factory harness, to a relay which then has a direct feed to battery. Currently, this feeds signal 12v to the aux switch system, sniper, and all of my aux gauges. Planning on making new battery cables with better marine style terminals to replace all the stock cables. May add an extra ground or two.

 

[biggestlittle55]

Dang, almost a month. Anyway, the Sniper is in and functional. Temporary air intake created, throttle linkage bracket fabricated and a Lokar universal throttle cable shortened and modified and hooked up. I made a plate for the factory firewall throttle cable pass through and also modified the factory pedal to utilize the clevis at the end of the Lokar cable.

Last item was relocating the entire front brake circuit to come out on the passenger side. Factory, the front brake line comes down the fender well on the driver side, right next to the header as it goes into a soft line to the axle. It might have been such an issue with the stock rubber line, but the new stainless braided line is slightly longer and does touch the header. Either way, probably for the best. No more risk of torching lines or boiling fluid. The new line follows the factory rear and clutch lines on the firewall and down the frame next to the clutch.

 

[RUSH55]

At some point, they routed the brake lines across the firewall and down to the passenger side of the frame, just not exactly sure when (another one of those small changes initiated over the years). I recall an overseas 1972 frame I picked up was setup the way yours was.

 

[Ol Yeller]

At some point, they routed the brake lines across the firewall and down to the passenger side of the frame, just not exactly sure when (another one of those small changes initiated over the years). I recall an overseas 1972 frame I picked up was setup the way yours was.

My 74 has it on the drivers side, I’m also looking at moving it over to pass drop.

 

[RUSH55]

My 74 has it on the drivers side, I’m also looking at moving it over to pass drop.

Does your frame have provisions for mounting two transition blocks on the passenger side?
It would be really interesting if it did.

 

[Ol Yeller]

I’ll have to look

 

[biggestlittle55]

I used one of those transition blocks down low on the firewall to separate the section of line on the firewall to the section of line that runs down to a little bracket which mounts the hardline/soft line transition. Not in pic but its an inch or two behind where the factory fuel line bracket was.