Build The Monkey is Back

[FloridaLife]

Does anyone have any experience using the Cool Cruisers (or anyone else's) receiver hitch with the factory Toyota step? I want to put one on mine but if the ready-made one is too long then I'll have to make one. I'd rather just buy one than make one, but I don't want to buy one just to find out it doesn't fit.

I bought the ccot receiver hitch and it's in one of the many many boxes at MIKKELSON's shop.

And before somebody jumps all over trash talking CCOT, I am an equal opportunity shopper. I have bought parts from all of them. And vendors here on mud. I've probably spent enough money with the various parts companies to put their kids through college.

 

[FloridaLife]

When I get to that point I think I'll go 6H9, maybe 6L4 like my old LX. That's going to be the final touch. I plan to beat it up a bit on some ghost town loops and Moab first though.

I like the current blue/grey, but they didn't use any primer to spray it on, so it chips. So when the time comes I'll bite the bullet and go for Toyota's best green.

I like a durable paint job because I've never been one to treat a 40 series like a piece of art. I need something that will take New Mexico, Colorado and Utah pinstripes without exposing metal.

Plus I was inspired by @frankenyota to do a three wiper conversion like my LX had - once I get the donor screen ...... so she'll have to be painted.

The fun continues. I shouldn't be suprised: in fact, at this point I'm not. I'm rebuilding my doors (felts, handles, weather strip, etc).

First, the bottoms of the doors are filled with trash: used sand paper, bolts, clips, pieces of rubber, foam, a cigarette butt, etc). Much more annoying is it's missing critical parts: the vent window is missing all the hardware for the bottom bolt (which I suspected). Much worse is it's missing the window track which bolts to the aft part of the door- where the window felt goes and into which the window slides when down. I haven't pulled the left door panel off yet, but I'll have to assume that's the case there as well (update, I pulled the left door panel and the track is there: minor miracle). The bolt which holds the track to the door is there, but there's simply a nut holding it in place inside the door.

Does anyone reading this have a right side one these they'd like to sell?

I was also hoping I'd be able to clean up and rebuild the window crank, but it's in awful condition and has been 'welded' by someone with the skill of that part of the world.

Maybe if they'd had bacon for breakfast they would have had the energy and drive to do it right rather than just doing a Pakistani chop shop spit shine.

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That's terrible, but ROFLMAO on the bacon! Indeed!

 

[FloridaLife]

The fun continues. I shouldn't be suprised: in fact, at this point I'm not. I'm rebuilding my doors (felts, handles, weather strip, etc).

First, the bottoms of the doors are filled with trash: used sand paper, bolts, clips, pieces of rubber, foam, a cigarette butt, etc). Much more annoying is it's missing critical parts: the vent window is missing all the hardware for the bottom bolt (which I suspected). Much worse is it's missing the window track which bolts to the aft part of the door- where the window felt goes and into which the window slides when down. I haven't pulled the left door panel off yet, but I'll have to assume that's the case there as well (update, I pulled the left door panel and the track is there: minor miracle). The bolt which holds the track to the door is there, but there's simply a nut holding it in place inside the door.

Does anyone reading this have a right side one these they'd like to sell?

I was also hoping I'd be able to clean up and rebuild the window crank, but it's in awful condition and has been 'welded' by someone with the skill of that part of the world.

Maybe if they'd had bacon for breakfast they would have had the energy and drive to do it right rather than just doing a Pakistani chop shop spit shine.

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At least I have you beat on the inside of the doors... No trash gathered in the bottom of the door!

But, that's because the rust holes in the bottom allowed anything like that to fall out!

 

[FloridaLife]

I have those sweepers @cruisermatt, thank you though. I'm after the channel felt which goes in the door and in which the window slides. It goes up, across the top and down the aft side of the vent widow frame. It's what keeps the window from rattling when it's up (see pic with my finger). Can we get that? Sorry for the confusion Matt.

On a positive note, it's starting to feel more like my Cruiser though: every car I've had since I was in college has had a steal your face sticker.... just didn't feel right without it.

Tint turned out nice, new weather stripping I bought before I got the 43 fits well. Still waiting for the slider frames to be powder coated.

Also installed the new Toyota door latches (Chinesium on left). MUCH better.

Next step is to pull the roof off (please Lord, don't let it be glued on with silicon) and install all the weatherstrip. I may do the raptor line while I've got it off, though I had wanted to wait until Matt is done with it.

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I've tinted the windows on all my vehicles myself until this one. I was going to tint them all while they were removed (I removed all the glass, and had a new windshield made since this one was milky). Since I now have these da-n tremors my wife says "No way!" She says not to tint it, but man with the heat here I think some UV protection would be good.

 

[FloridaLife]

I have those sweepers @cruisermatt, thank you though. I'm after the channel felt which goes in the door and in which the window slides. It goes up, across the top and down the aft side of the vent widow frame. It's what keeps the window from rattling when it's up (see pic with my finger). Can we get that? Sorry for the confusion Matt.

On a positive note, it's starting to feel more like my Cruiser though: every car I've had since I was in college has had a steal your face sticker.... just didn't feel right without it.

Tint turned out nice, new weather stripping I bought before I got the 43 fits well. Still waiting for the slider frames to be powder coated.

Also installed the new Toyota door latches (Chinesium on left). MUCH better.

Next step is to pull the roof off (please Lord, don't let it be glued on with silicon) and install all the weatherstrip. I may do the raptor line while I've got it off, though I had wanted to wait until Matt is done with it.

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Woohoo!!! Those seats look GREAT!!! I like that color too!

 

[FloridaLife]

Missed out on the jack handle clips off the wrecked 84 HJ47RV years ago. It also had the clips for handle to lower the spare tyre.

Few years back I started collecting shifters, boots and inspection covers for H55F conversion into a 40 series. 4/85-7/87 FJ62 inspection cover, boots and transfer shifter. For the transmission shift came would go with a 70.series for the H55F. Because not using a 3F bellhousing not sure if the 60 or 70 series RHD would be a better fit.
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@Living in the Past - what are you going to do with your great and large stash of parts? Just for personal use? Sell them?

 

[FloridaLife]

Well , as to be expected with this pakistani pig , the window channel has come back from the blasters and the rust shot through.

I've told them to powder coat anyway and see how it looks when it's done.... but I need to find a new slider window frame. In australia , I would have no trouble at all finding one , but here in america that could be like finding rocking horse manure.

I'm rapidly growing to dislike this 43..... serves me right for buying a third world cruiser, i ought to have known better.

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Since I'm way behind and trying to catch up on this thread, I'm sure you've already resolved this issue, but for future reference, when redoing my old Super Chief motorcycle and track down a headlight bucket in his salvage yard but When the powder coating shop sandblasted it, it had rust holes and pits in it. What the owner of a powder coating place told me was to take it home and get the old original JB Weld, not the kwikset but the original because it could hold up to the temperature of the baking oven for powder coating, and fill in all the pits and holes with JB Weld and then bring it back to there. I did, and when it was done it looked fantastic! You would never know and had any holes or pits in it.

 

[FloridaLife]

Dang talk to text error! NOT super cheap motorcycle, Super Chief motorcycle.

 

[FloridaLife]

I picked up the window frames from the powder and they are both bad. I knew about the one with the rust holes because I found that at the last minute. The other one, unbeknownst to me, had quite a bit of bondo making it look decent. After the blasting and the powder coating it now looks like garbage.

So I now have freshly tinted windows , new Toyota felts for the runners, new Toyota sweeps and outer rubber weather strip. But I am now missing the window frames to hold them all together. Six hundred dollars in and I have no windows.

So given the chances of finding those window frames are almost nil before I go back to Australia in July..... I am thinking about the Spector 40 series slider windows. Unfortunately it doesn't look like they're available at Spector anymore. I may just put '76 and older solid side window glass in until I eventually find that frame. Of course that means buying the weather stripping for a '7 and older 40 series.....

This is the first Land Cruiser I have ever regretted buying. My advice to anyone looking to purchase a third world vehicle is to only do so if it is being fully restored in America. If you do buy one that is proclaimed to have been restored in South America or some other equivalent cultural mecca then anticipate that it is hiding all sorts of problems. It may look good but that beauty will only be skin deep.

Labor is so cheap in these places that fixing things properly is almost a waste of money. One can make it look good for pennies. If that means you have to redo it every couple years then the cost is negligible. There must have been at least 5 hours worth of labour in the Bondo work to make these window channels look good. But that was probably cheaper than the $10 it would have taken to purchase a straight one from a wrecking yard in a place where these are common; not to mention it would take logistics to obtain those channels, and that takes planning. Planning is only done by the 'boss', and he's not going to waste his time on that when he can make it look good for probably $1.50 labour cost.

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Plus the ride back from the salvage yard on a scooter and hope they don't drop one or get hit by another motorist.

 

[FloridaLife]

You wouldn't have wanted the old seats. They were over-stuffed with old prayer rugs or goat blankets or something which smelled of wet wool and faintly of body odour.

I love RHD for wheeling, especially in the US. Passengers here seem to pay more attention when sitting on the left side of the car when wheeling, so being on the right has added benefits. Plus RHD is just cool.

When my 32 year military grandfather was stationed in England he had his wife (grandma) & 4 kids so he needed a bigger car with more room. The guy at his local petrol station said an old man had died that had a big car with lots of room in it, and gave my grandfather directions. He waited a couple of weeks and then paid the widow a visit to inquire about the car. The place was massive, and a butler in white gloves answered the door and showed him in. She (the widow) was in her 80's at the time (my mum in Australia was 14 at the time and is 80 now) and she HATED automobiles! She grew up riding in horse-drawn carriages. She told the butler to take him (my grandfather) out to the carriage house and sell it to him for whatever they agreed was fair. He looked it over and paid $2,500. When my grandfather passed away in August of 2004 that car was still sitting in the right side garage bay there at his home in East Texas. I used to hide in it when there was a big gathering and a bunch of us kids were playing hide and seek because the other kids wouldn't touch it. I remember riding in it when I was very young, but he parked it and drove cars like a '69 Buick Skylark, Dodge Omni, Chrysler LeBaron, and a couple of fuel economy cars, and the big car just sat there. When I had my '34 Coupe & '34 4-Door I used to tease him that my cars were older than his, and I'd have them back on the road before his. It was, of course, right hand drive too. It was a black 1948 Silver Wraith Rolls Royce. BEAUTIFUL car! And the guy at the petrol station was right... It had lots of room.

 

[knuckle47]

My daughter’s friends father has 1929 Packard…restored with the crystal vases on the B pillar and a back seat you could easily fit 4 people. It is low and long and deep burgundy color with camel velour interior.. those kinds of cars are so regal looking. My bib overalls don’t cut it

 

[FloridaLife]

Dome light that operated off a switch on the A pillar is different. It requires second wire going thru the windshield frame then across the door header. The dome light has a three position switch not just two.
I found a couple pictures with mount for the A pillar switch. Switch itself was used on other Toyotas.
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3 position switch...? Off, On, Bright?

 

[Living in the Past]

3 position switch...? Off, On, Bright?

On/Off/Auto. Off is always off. On is on with the switch. Auto works on the door switch. Very common on later vehicles.

 

[Living in the Past]

@Living in the Past - what are you going to do with your great and large stash of parts? Just for personal use? Sell them?

If I was any kind of a salesman they would mostly be gone. Instead they are tosses into the garage of misfit parts.

 

[Chamba]

They are stored in Phoenix, so will never age there. I'm incredibly grateful for guys like John @Living in the Past who are making sure that parts will be available for years to come.

Unobtainium keeps perfectly in the desert Southwest.

 

[FloridaLife]

New reflectors installed.

Quiz: how do they install Chinesium reflectors in Pakistan?

Who guessed " with a drywall screw siliconed into a machine screw"? You are correct.

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I would have guessed that Plus at least a dozen flat washers based on earlier pics:

 

[FloridaLife]

If I was any kind of a salesman they would mostly be gone. Instead they are tosses into the garage of misfit parts.
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Wow! . Does your wife tell you that you have a problem, or no????

 

[FloridaLife]

Thanks Matt. Since you'll be digging into that handbrake when you have the Paki Pig, can we add the knob to the list please (and maybe the cover too, unless it's made of platinum) @cruisermatt ?

Got quite a bit done today, putting the Cruiser back together. Still waiting on a few parts. Hopefully, I'll have the roof back on by next week. I made the spacers for the windscreen bolts after cleaning up the mounting brackets: I've attached a picture of "Pakistani restored" vs correctly restored for giggles.

I painted the defroster vents because the originals were sun faded. But I discovered the the left one is broken and melted together (rather than glued, I guess because it's cheaper to melt stuff together rather than gluing it). So I'll need to find one of those when I'm back in Australia in July.


I spent about three or four hours cleaning silicon out of my rain gutter so I could put urethane in there. These guys really loved silicon; I'm SO sick of scraping silicon. The roof will eventually have to be repainted though because it is not cygnus white: more of an antique white. I'll polish it and see if I can live with it.

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Is there some type of special occasion in Australia for you in July? Or just a good rate on flights?

I told the local idiots to paint my top, bezel, and wheels Cygnus white and the wheels came out looking almost like primer. I thought something must be wrong.

 

[Chamba]

@FloridaLife Wheels are meant to be pewter grey.

No, the family always goes back to Australia in July because that's when the nephews are on winter break (when you want to be in South Australia as the summer is inhuman). The kids can also go skiing, but this year there was almost no snow.

There is no 'cheap' time to fly to Australia: 3 tickets was nearly $8000. I fly free because I can 'jump seat', but that's on a space-available basis only. The family needs the tickets.

 

[FloridaLife]

Wheels are meant to be pewter grey.

No, the family always goes back to Australia in July because that's when the nephews are on winter break (when you want to be in South Australia as the summer is inhuman). The kids can also go skiing, but this year there was almost no snow.

There is no 'cheap' time to fly to Australia: 3 tickets was nearly $8000. I fly free because I can 'jump seat', but that's on a space-available basis only. The family needs the tickets.

I remember the good old days of $600 tickets!

I wish I had met you sooner and known that wheels are meant to be pewter grey. If I have you and the family over some day, I'll have to park the '40 in the garage and close the door because it will not be ANYWHERE close to your 'correct' standards.

But, hopefully it will serve me well. I'm learning a LOT by reading your thread!