Builds The Mountain Goat - An FJ140/2UZ-FE/Ute Build (1 Viewer)

[Well Sorted]

Dave follows our Instagram so he's on top of things - finally got going on this again.

Jumping back a few months... I've been pondering engine choices for this build. As you see in the early days I was planning a 2UZ/H55 combo but over the winter I started to have second thoughts about it. First off, the 2UZ integration with a manual is pretty tough to get parts for and I don't think there's enough market to justify making my own. Secondly (and probably more important to me) I think the truck will feel underpowered. The more I drive 100-series trucks the less I feel like that's the right engine for a pretty heavily built rig rolling on 35's or 37's. My wife has been expressing some interest in driving too so I also started thinking about running an automatic trans instead of a manual.

All that brought me around to two choices - an LS (the easy button solution) or a 1FZ. With Joey's kits starting to make it out into the world and getting positive feedback I started thinking a turbo 1FZ might be the optimal choice. The truck would have a more reasonable power level (and be better suited to the 8000' altitude we live at), still have Toyota under the hood, and it actually simplifies the build quite a bit to just run a full FZJ80 frame and drivetrain. As I was thinking through all this over the winter, I got a call from my buddy @bdyer12 who mentioned he'd decided to sell the kit he ordered from Joey (and was scheduled early in the delivery sequence). It seemed like a sign so I quickly told him I'd take it. A few weeks later, goodies arrived...

Unfortunately I had already sold the 1FZ from the donor truck back when I first picked it up. With turbos in hand the excitement started to pick up again and I began searching for another FZJ drivetrain for the build. I've had a few false starts and so far not found the right one yet but if things work out I should have one in hand by the end of this week. I plan on doing a full teardown/rebuild so that the whole drivetrain is fresh on this truck. I'll put low range gears in the tcase but probably leave the rest mostly stock.

 

[BMValentine]

What preliminary power numbers and fuel economy number are they seeing with the turbo’d 1FZ?

 

[Well Sorted]

What preliminary power numbers and fuel economy number are they seeing with the turbo’d 1FZ?

Well, the best thing to do would be to check the turbo thread for the latest news. No one has built one and put it on an engine dyno so exact measurements aren't available so the advertised hp depends on what you assume for drivetrain losses. I think it's safe to say it will be in the low to mid 300's at the flywheel though, which is good enough for this build. My FJ60 has a 335hp 5.3L in it so I'm gauging based off that and the anticipation that the turbo 1FZ will be better at altitude.

 

[Seth S]

couple years ago when I was down in Greenville SC I met up with @JToobe and we went for a ride in his 62 down to see Trollhole. While we were at the shop they had an 80 there with a supercharged 1FZ-FE. I believe the toyota supercharge ran at 7psi of boost. They may be able to comment on power, driveability, mpg etc.

 

[Well Sorted]

A couple weeks ago I dusted off the body and started back in on the metal work. We left off with the C pillar on the driver's side being mostly finished. The passenger side is pretty much a case of just repeating the same work. Here's how it was sitting - roof section grafted on but none of the lower portions worked yet...

From here I first trimmed off all the excess sheet metal. I used my donor piece to gauge the cut lines up top. At the door opening I decided to make the join right at the corner of the door jam.

Fitting the new corner is slow work, I used cleco's in a few spots to secure the skin in the right place and let it overlap at the edges. From there I slowly worked both sides until I had butt joints all around. I used the body line that flows through the doors as a key guide to set the vertical location of the panel as well as the tilt, gotta have that line look consistent from the front all the way to the rear corner. After lots of time fitting the welder comes out and a million little tack welds follow to join the two pieces...

As you can see in that last pic there's still one open section I need to fill in near the top. That will be a pretty simple straight strip bridging that gap. From here I'll move on to the rear cab wall, I have a few upper hatches ready to cut up and section as needed to keep some of the factory body lines but I don't plan to have any sort of hatch that actually functions. We'll see how that works out, if it looks weird or gets too complex I'll just run a more simple flat panel since most of this will be hidden by the rear storage box anyway.

 

[NookShneer]

Amazing work. Keep it up! Excited to see this moving along.

 

[dogfishlake]

A couple weeks ago I dusted off the body and started back in on the metal work. We left off with the C pillar on the driver's side being mostly finished. The passenger side is pretty much a case of just repeating the same work. Here's how it was sitting - roof section grafted on but none of the lower portions worked yet...

View attachment 2255163

From here I first trimmed off all the excess sheet metal. I used my donor piece to gauge the cut lines up top. At the door opening I decided to make the join right at the corner of the door jam.

View attachment 2255164

Fitting the new corner is slow work, I used cleco's in a few spots to secure the skin in the right place and let it overlap at the edges. From there I slowly worked both sides until I had butt joints all around. I used the body line that flows through the doors as a key guide to set the vertical location of the panel as well as the tilt, gotta have that line look consistent from the front all the way to the rear corner. After lots of time fitting the welder comes out and a million little tack welds follow to join the two pieces...

View attachment 2255165

As you can see in that last pic there's still one open section I need to fill in near the top. That will be a pretty simple straight strip bridging that gap. From here I'll move on to the rear cab wall, I have a few upper hatches ready to cut up and section as needed to keep some of the factory body lines but I don't plan to have any sort of hatch that actually functions. We'll see how that works out, if it looks weird or gets too complex I'll just run a more simple flat panel since most of this will be hidden by the rear storage box anyway.

Nice work! Tedious stuff but you will be so glad for the time spent now. Glad you're back on it.

 

[Tank5]

This is a cool build. I have always thought that a 60 bobbed like you are doing with a bed made from another body would be nice. I look forward to seeing more.

 

[Well Sorted]

This is a cool build. I have always thought that a 60 bobbed like you are doing with a bed made from another body would be nice. I look forward to seeing more.

Thanks man! I saw on Facebook that @joekatana has some 70-series beds for sale...

 

[Well Sorted]

Well, when it rains it pours. I scored a 97 FZJ80 two days ago with some collision damage that was going to be a major parts donor (haven't even picked it up yet), but then I stumbled across this...

SOLD - 1995 Turbo FZJ80

I took a drive over to Colorado Springs to check it out and a short time later...

The truck runs pretty well as-is, it's maxing out at about 8psi but can go higher with the boost controller. I'll probably keep it in this range but it will need the injectors downsized a bit (it's running WRX injectors instead of the stock 1FZ ones). Or maybe I'll turn the boost up.

My thinking is that I'll pull the body off this one as-is and do the fitting of the chopped 60-series cab on to it exactly as it sits. Before the project is finished the whole drivetrain will get some love to clean things up but for now it's a pretty great platform to do a mock up build and get everything fit. Before I'm done I'll swap in some rebuilt parts (axles, trans, etc) that I have in my stash and these will go back in the inventory for rebuild. I'm kind of hoarding 80-series parts these days so it's never bad to have more supply on hand.

 

[dogfishlake]

Well, when it rains it pours. I scored a 97 FZJ80 two days ago with some collision damage that was going to be a major parts donor (haven't even picked it up yet), but then I stumbled across this...

SOLD - 1995 Turbo FZJ80

I took a drive over to Colorado Springs to check it out and a short time later...

View attachment 2261190

The truck runs pretty well as-is, it's maxing out at about 8psi but can go higher with the boost controller. I'll probably keep it in this range but it will need the injectors downsized a bit (it's running WRX injectors instead of the stock 1FZ ones). Or maybe I'll turn the boost up.

My thinking is that I'll pull the body off this one as-is and do the fitting of the chopped 60-series cab on to it exactly as it sits. Before the project is finished the whole drivetrain will get some love to clean things up but for now it's a pretty great platform to do a mock up build and get everything fit. Before I'm done I'll swap in some rebuilt parts (axles, trans, etc) that I have in my stash and these will go back in the inventory for rebuild. I'm kind of hoarding 80-series parts these days so it's never bad to have more supply on hand.

That's cool. I sold the PO the flange to build that log manifold. Never did hear how it worked out. Pretty well I guess!

 

[Well Sorted]

That's cool. I sold the PO the flange to build that log manifold. Never did hear how it worked out. Pretty well I guess!

It seems to work, not the prettiest piece but no obvious leaks. I just grabbed a 6-Boost manifold off the classifieds that's going to replace it though so it'll get a little bit nicer when I get that swapped out.

 

[Well Sorted]

Back to the metal work...

With both C pillars roughed in I moved on to the rear of the cab. First order of business was to get the roof spliced back in. Earlier in the thread I pointed out that the trucks taper in the rear so where I've made the chop it left a gap in the center. I took a small piece of the original roof cross brace and cut it to 20mm wide to fill the gap. I'll have to do a similar splice on the actual roof skin later on.

With that done I started looking at the lower corners and taking measurements. The sheet metal was bowing out a bit due to the shrink effects of welding on them at the seams. A little creative use of ratchet straps allowed me to pull them in to be flush with the main body sides and get measurements for the opening in the rear.

I have a few old hatches I've been saving for donor parts so I spent some time looking at those and trying to decide the best approach for putting a rear wall together. In the end I decide to only use the lower cross beam section. This gave me the body lines to match the corners and also a decent beam structure to provide some stiffness to this back wall. The upper section will just be made from plain sheet to fill the opening once this cross bar is in. I took the measurements from the cab opening and cut two hatches off center to make one wider piece.

For test fitting I put on a couple support plates with clecos so I could quickly mock up the cross bar and fine tune the fit. A little bit of grinding was necessary on the sides to get the edges to line up just right. Since the hatch has a 1/2" flange where the outer skin wraps over the inner structure I had plenty of material to work with.

This is close to being ready to weld, but as I looked at the whole area I decided it would be better to do some of the filler panels inside the C-pillar first while I had easy access to the area so this is where we sit at the moment. The fillers shouldn't take too long and then I'll be ready to weld in this cross beam and start to figure out the portions above and below it. I may drop the cab on to the frame at that point, I'm thinking I may want to see how it sits on the 80 frame and where the wheels and frame rails are before I decide on a final shape for the lower portion. More to come soon!

 

[dogfishlake]

Back to the metal work...

With both C pillars roughed in I moved on to the rear of the cab. First order of business was to get the roof spliced back in. Earlier in the thread I pointed out that the trucks taper in the rear so where I've made the chop it left a gap in the center. I took a small piece of the original roof cross brace and cut it to 20mm wide to fill the gap. I'll have to do a similar splice on the actual roof skin later on.

View attachment 2266063

With that done I started looking at the lower corners and taking measurements. The sheet metal was bowing out a bit due to the shrink effects of welding on them at the seams. A little creative use of ratchet straps allowed me to pull them in to be flush with the main body sides and get measurements for the opening in the rear.

View attachment 2266061

I have a few old hatches I've been saving for donor parts so I spent some time looking at those and trying to decide the best approach for putting a rear wall together. In the end I decide to only use the lower cross beam section. This gave me the body lines to match the corners and also a decent beam structure to provide some stiffness to this back wall. The upper section will just be made from plain sheet to fill the opening once this cross bar is in. I took the measurements from the cab opening and cut two hatches off center to make one wider piece.

View attachment 2266060

For test fitting I put on a couple support plates with clecos so I could quickly mock up the cross bar and fine tune the fit. A little bit of grinding was necessary on the sides to get the edges to line up just right. Since the hatch has a 1/2" flange where the outer skin wraps over the inner structure I had plenty of material to work with.

View attachment 2266062

This is close to being ready to weld, but as I looked at the whole area I decided it would be better to do some of the filler panels inside the C-pillar first while I had easy access to the area so this is where we sit at the moment. The fillers shouldn't take too long and then I'll be ready to weld in this cross beam and start to figure out the portions above and below it. I may drop the cab on to the frame at that point, I'm thinking I may want to see how it sits on the 80 frame and where the wheels and frame rails are before I decide on a final shape for the lower portion. More to come soon!

Awesome work man! I need to plan a road trip to your shop anyway once this lockdown is over, so I hope to get a look at it up close!

 

[bigboiimigel]

This looks sick

 

[Well Sorted]

These filler panels were pretty simple to make, just a little time templating and cutting. They tie the original C-pillar in to the new rear sheet metal D-pillar section so everything is coming back together as the new (and much larger) C-pillar.

I put in another section below the one above so that it's solid metal down to the wheel well and repeated the process on the other side. After that I welded in the cross beam.

From there I moved on to the next problem - fixing an earlier mistake. When I originally cut the truck in half I didn't make the floor cut in the right location, it's a bit too far forward. At the time I didn't account for the slope of the rear cab wall and how far back it would need to go. Thankfully, I kept all the cut off pieces so I took the rear floor section of the truck and trimmed out another 9 inches or so to extend the floor and wheel wells. I lined everything back up, clamped it in place and tack welded it back in.

With excess floor hanging out the rear of the truck I was then able to start planning the lower finish panel. The rear of the truck has a bow to it so I can't just strike a straight line across. Using a plumb bob I transferred the bow shape down on to the floor section. After putting a series of dots all the way across the floor and on the wheel wells I took a cutoff wheel and cut the floor to match the curve.

 

[NookShneer]

These filler panels were pretty simple to make, just a little time templating and cutting. They tie the original C-pillar in to the new rear sheet metal D-pillar section so everything is coming back together as the new (and much larger) C-pillar.

View attachment 2279462

I put in another section below the one above so that it's solid metal down to the wheel well and repeated the process on the other side. After that I welded in the cross beam.

From there I moved on to the next problem - fixing an earlier mistake. When I originally cut the truck in half I didn't make the floor cut in the right location, it's a bit too far forward. At the time I didn't account for the slope of the rear cab wall and how far back it would need to go. Thankfully, I kept all the cut off pieces so I took the rear floor section of the truck and trimmed out another 9 inches or so to extend the floor and wheel wells. I lined everything back up, clamped it in place and tack welded it back in.

View attachment 2279465

With excess floor hanging out the rear of the truck I was then able to start planning the lower finish panel. The rear of the truck has a bow to it so I can't just strike a straight line across. Using a plumb bob I transferred the bow shape down on to the floor section. After putting a series of dots all the way across the floor and on the wheel wells I took a cutoff wheel and cut the floor to match the curve.

View attachment 2279463

View attachment 2279464

Attention to detail is amazing Doug! Looking forward to seeing this one on the trails.

 

[Well Sorted]

Attention to detail is amazing Doug! Looking forward to seeing this one on the trails.

Thanks Dave, you give me too much credit perhaps. I feel like I'm moving through this pretty quick and dirty right now. I really want to get the body dropped on the 80 chassis and see how it all comes together. I am cautiously optimistic things are going to work out but if it does end up looking out of proportion I'll have to rethink the plan and make some changes. I'm hoping to get to that point in the next few weeks if things work out.

 

[dogfishlake]

Looks super cool, nice work.

I've got a 6boost manifold sitting in a box waiting to make my bw turbo sing but the project is sidelined again(!). Looking forward to how it works out.

 

[TUNEUP]

Definitely glad to hear you picked up that manifold. Its a work of art. Glad to see my old cruiser is in good hands!