Build The Mountain Goat - An FJ140/2UZ-FE/Ute Build

[Well Sorted]

At this point I felt like the body was close enough to final shape so I moved on to the next phase - test fitting it to a chassis. I've been collecting 80-series trucks and parts over the last year so I decided to put together enough bits to get a rolling chassis and powertrain. I'm trying to keep the green turbo truck together for a while to use it as a test bed for the turbo setup so the parts all came from other donors. This FZJ80 was a recent score and donated the powertrain.

It hit pretty hard in the left front so the frame is junk and the axle is questionable but the engine is 189k and seems to be in fine shape. I'm also going to salvage the wiring and other odds and ends out of this truck. Motor out and ready for a new home...

I've had a chassis waiting for this build for over a year now, it's from the original donor truck I purchased and has just been sitting out in the weeds. I took the rear axle from it last year so I had to drag it in and bring in another set of axles. A few months ago I scored a set of factory elockers that have been sitting in the storage bin so they're now sitting under it. I'm probably going to keep them in for the final build unless a customer project comes along that justifies using them. I'll have to figure out a cool way to incorporate the OEM switch in the 60-series dash or center console.

With the chassis assembled I lifted the body off it's cart and threw on the front fenders and core support. Time for the first look at fitment...

I'm mostly keying off of front axle location for the body position. I want to run 37's on this truck and avoid modifying the front fenders if possible so getting that axle centered in the wheel opening is critical. With the front axle positioned here's where the rear axle ends up...

Not a horrible look overall, imho. As I've mentioned before, I'd like to avoid cutting the frame to shorten (or maybe stretch) it. Lots of the Aussie utes have significantly stretched frames but in the mountains here we've got some tight switchbacks and I don't really want to go longer than necessary. I'm thinking this axle position will look okay with some more tire in there to fill the gaps and a lift (these are stock springs). I could make a filler panel for the front portion of wheel well if it seems necessary but it's too soon to tell until it's got the right wheel/tire combo and is sitting on the proper suspension.

So I'm moving forward as-is for the moment. I'm going to borrow the 37's off the turbo truck and install those to get a better look at things before finalizing the body position.

 

[White Stripe]

Man dude in my opinion I would stretch it. It's your call of course. But I think as long as you don't stretch the wheelbase much more than a 4 door tacoma you'll be fine on Colorado trails. Otherwise you'll either have a very short storage area or a large storage area(which I assume was the point of all this work) with a lot of overhang. You do have the narrower dimensions of the 60 body to help with the tight trails. I would just put some rub rails on the bed to protect against rubbing against a tree or rock.

 

[Well Sorted]

If you've been following on Instagram you've seen we're making pretty quick progress. As noted above, the next step was to install 37's to get a better view on things. Frankly, it didn't change too much. I slid the body back and forth a few inches to see how rear tire clearances looked but still decided on letting the front axle location guide the overall position to avoid modifying the front fenders. The body mount that is below the B-pillar became my deciding factor. The location of that mount is basically identical on the 60 and 80 series, and positioning the 60-series body on it puts the front axle within a 1/2" or so of centered in the front wheel opening. So I let that be the anchor - one less set of mounts to make and a good solid frame reference point for squaring things up.

The axle location has been guiding things but there are other considerations - engine and trans being a key one. With this body position I moved underhood to see how things looked...

Tons of room (soon to be filled with turbos and plumbing). But seriously, the main question is fore/aft position. In a side view you can see the engine is a bit farther forward than necessary. The fan is sitting pretty close to the radiator position, I didn't bother to put a radiator in for mockup because it's pretty clear the fan won't work with a stock 60-series radiator. I could run slim electric fans but I'm not a huge fan of them in my trucks because we spend a lot of time in the desert and mechanical fans pull a lot more air at low speeds.

I plan a pretty beefy radiator for this truck plus I'm hoping to squeeze an intercooler in somewhere so I'm going to need all the clearance I can get. I could slide the body forward but again that hurts my fender/tire clearance so I think I'll end up moving the engine backwards in the frame. There's enough room at the firewall that I think I can safely go back 3" and still have plenty of clearance. I slid under the truck and the trans and tcase clearance to the tunnel both look like they'll accommodate a 3" rearward shift as well. I also did a quick hood clearance check and there's a good bit of room from the top of the engine to the hood insulator so no concerns there, and moving the engine back only will help that. I'll save the engine relocation for later when the body is back off the frame.

From there I decided it was time to move forward and fabbed up two new mounts for the main cab support at the bottom of the firewall, these replace the OEM pedestals but still use the rubber isolation bushing just like the factory.

I tacked those on and bolted the body down, then rolled her outside for a clean look at it away from the clutter in the shop...

It looks a little funny with no tray or canopy but so far I'm liking where it's going. Next I'll move on to working on the rear. I'd like to get the tray at least roughed out and then work on the canopy and fairing. I've got some ideas on how to make that angled back wall look pretty good with a fairing of sorts, time to mock some things up and see how it all comes together.

 

[MoCoNative]

You know TLC/Icon used to do 60 body swaps onto 80 frames years ago for a gazillion dollars. As I recall they either moved the axles, took a little out of the frame or something to make the wheelbase right. I suspect they also moved the engine as you are finding. Seems to be a similar dilemma as found with the FJUte body, to make the front axle out of center like an FJ40, the engine has to be moved.

Might see if you can find anything on that TLC process.

 

[changingground]

If you've been following on Instagram you've seen we're making pretty quick progress. As noted above, the next step was to install 37's to get a better view on things. Frankly, it didn't change too much. I slid the body back and forth a few inches to see how rear tire clearances looked but still decided on letting the front axle location guide the overall position to avoid modifying the front fenders. The body mount that is below the B-pillar became my deciding factor. The location of that mount is basically identical on the 60 and 80 series, and positioning the 60-series body on it puts the front axle within a 1/2" or so of centered in the front wheel opening. So I let that be the anchor - one less set of mounts to make and a good solid frame reference point for squaring things up.

The axle location has been guiding things but there are other considerations - engine and trans being a key one. With this body position I moved underhood to see how things looked...

View attachment 2294802

Tons of room (soon to be filled with turbos and plumbing). But seriously, the main question is fore/aft position. In a side view you can see the engine is a bit farther forward than necessary. The fan is sitting pretty close to the radiator position, I didn't bother to put a radiator in for mockup because it's pretty clear the fan won't work with a stock 60-series radiator. I could run slim electric fans but I'm not a huge fan of them in my trucks because we spend a lot of time in the desert and mechanical fans pull a lot more air at low speeds.

View attachment 2294806

I plan a pretty beefy radiator for this truck plus I'm hoping to squeeze an intercooler in somewhere so I'm going to need all the clearance I can get. I could slide the body forward but again that hurts my fender/tire clearance so I think I'll end up moving the engine backwards in the frame. There's enough room at the firewall that I think I can safely go back 3" and still have plenty of clearance. I slid under the truck and the trans and tcase clearance to the tunnel both look like they'll accommodate a 3" rearward shift as well. I also did a quick hood clearance check and there's a good bit of room from the top of the engine to the hood insulator so no concerns there, and moving the engine back only will help that. I'll save the engine relocation for later when the body is back off the frame.

View attachment 2294803

From there I decided it was time to move forward and fabbed up two new mounts for the main cab support at the bottom of the firewall, these replace the OEM pedestals but still use the rubber isolation bushing just like the factory.

View attachment 2294804

I tacked those on and bolted the body down, then rolled her outside for a clean look at it away from the clutter in the shop...

View attachment 2294805

It looks a little funny with no tray or canopy but so far I'm liking where it's going. Next I'll move on to working on the rear. I'd like to get the tray at least roughed out and then work on the canopy and fairing. I've got some ideas on how to make that angled back wall look pretty good with a fairing of sorts, time to mock some things up and see how it all comes together.

Any progress on this rig over the summer? I’m pretty curious...

 

[Well Sorted]

Any progress on this rig over the summer? I’m pretty curious...

Not really. COVID house projects started eating up some free time then generally trying to have a life on the weekends outside the shop cut into it as well. I was picking at it a little bit last weekend (mostly staring and thinking) but am contemplating some changes to the plan (yet again). My wife is pregnant which has me re-evaluating our fleet and trying to figure out what I want to keep/have in the long run for us+baby+dog to go camping, wheeling, etc. Stay tuned, I'll either get back to working on it or share the new direction if I decide to go that route...

 

[changingground]

Not really. COVID house projects started eating up some free time then generally trying to have a life on the weekends outside the shop cut into it as well. I was picking at it a little bit last weekend (mostly staring and thinking) but am contemplating some changes to the plan (yet again). My wife is pregnant which has me re-evaluating our fleet and trying to figure out what I want to keep/have in the long run for us+baby+dog to go camping, wheeling, etc. Stay tuned, I'll either get back to working on it or share the new direction if I decide to go that route...

Congrats on the family addition! Life is all about being able to adjust priorities in the face of change.

 

[2fpower]

I was out in Buena Vista a couple weeks ago and found myself looking on the backroads to see if I could find your cruiser heaven. I meant to reach out before I went that way.

Congrats on the new addition. It is an excellent fun adventure, so enjoy the ride. I would recommend to write down all the things you want to get done in the next year and try to get them all done before the trip to the hospital..... Sleep and free time seem to disappear; however, the big shift that I found was that nothing that I cared about before was all that important. That little bundle of joy was suddenly the focus of our life. Really a wonderful thing...

 

[Well Sorted]

I was out in Buena Vista a couple weeks ago and found myself looking on the backroads to see if I could find your cruiser heaven. I meant to reach out before I went that way.

Congrats on the new addition. It is an excellent fun adventure, so enjoy the ride. I would recommend to write down all the things you want to get done in the next year and try to get them all done before the trip to the hospital..... Sleep and free time seem to disappear; however, the big shift that I found was that nothing that I cared about before was all that important. That little bundle of joy was suddenly the focus of our life. Really a wonderful thing...

Our shop is up by the airport so a little bit off the main drag. Give me a shout next time you're in town though, we always welcome visitors. And yeah, I hear ya about free time drying up quick. I've got a business to run, I'm prepping our racecar again for this year's Baja 1000 in November, my daily driver FJ60 is down with a dead lifter (that I should have gotten finished up a month ago), I've got a massive Ute build I'm trying to move forward, and I'm trying to figure out how to get all this wrapped by Feb 6, 2021. Not gonna happen obviously so some choices will have to be made as to what's a priority and what isn't. Don't get me wrong, these are great problems to have and life is good but a man's got to know his limitations.

 

[NookShneer]

Not really. COVID house projects started eating up some free time then generally trying to have a life on the weekends outside the shop cut into it as well. I was picking at it a little bit last weekend (mostly staring and thinking) but am contemplating some changes to the plan (yet again). My wife is pregnant which has me re-evaluating our fleet and trying to figure out what I want to keep/have in the long run for us+baby+dog to go camping, wheeling, etc. Stay tuned, I'll either get back to working on it or share the new direction if I decide to go that route...

congrats!

 

[dr.pow]

After reading your whole fantastic thread today, and meeting Beach Boy a couple weeks ago while on my annual fall Cruise Moab and discussing his LJ70 you had, all I can say at the moment is a heartfelt congrats on the family changes Doug. Will look you up at some point as I am only a few hours south, though we may have met at SAS or CM. Get done what you can, but family is the most important thing at this time IMHO.

Mark

 

[Well Sorted]

After reading your whole fantastic thread today, and meeting Beach Boy a couple weeks ago while on my annual fall Cruise Moab and discussing his LJ70 you had, all I can say at the moment is a heartfelt congrats on the family changes Doug. Will look you up at some point as I am only a few hours south, though we may have met at SAS or CM. Get done what you can, but family is the most important thing at this time IMHO.

Mark

Thanks Mark! That LJ is pretty sweet, I just went out there this past weekend to run Hell's Revenge with Brian. All went well, which is a relief when you're riding shotgun with the owner of an immaculate project you just finished! Whew!

Baby boy is only about 15 weeks out now and life is going to change a lot but that hasn't stopped my Cruiser plans. There are some interesting things in the works but I don't want to post about it publicly until I can say for sure it's going to happen. Keep an eye on this space, if/when there's exciting news to post it will show up here for sure.

 

[Austrol]

Hey! Wondering how the new family is going on?
many news on the 60 and or these exciting new projects?

 

[Well Sorted]

Hey! Wondering how the new family is going on?
many news on the 60 and or these exciting new projects?

Well, family life is going pretty darn great, thanks for asking! We welcomed our little guy into the world on Feb 13 so he's about 6 weeks old now. Big changes in routines and all that, but overall it's been really good. He's a pretty chill baby which has made it seem easier than we expected. I took a week off of work but have been back at it pretty much full time since then.

As far as new projects... We've been pretty slammed with customer builds and between that and being a new Dad there hasn't been any real time to tackle in-house work. We've got two LS swaps going, a 1HD-T swap about to start, two FJ40 restorations wrapping up, a Jeep CJ5 restoration we just kicked off, a restomod FJ55 waiting it's turn and more small jobs filtering though. With all that plus one other major wrinkle I have decided to put the Goat on hiatus for a while. Some of it is due to general work busyness but to be honest a lot of it has to do with our growing efforts at desert racing with SCORE. We've got a Class 12 buggy that I race with some partners that we'll at least be racing at the Baja 1000 again this year and maybe some other races this summer. To support that I picked up a new project that has me excited...

Forgive the non-cruiser pic but that's a 1979 Bronco which will be built up for desert pre-running and to do the occasional Mexican 1000 with NORRA. Basically this, but in a more vintage body...

So until the Bronco is done and/or I somehow magically get more free time I'm going to let the Goat sit in cold storage for a while. I still would like to get it built so I'm not calling it a dead project but it's just going to have to wait for a better time for me to finish it up. When it does come back I may go more aggressive on the rock crawler side and shoot for bigger tires, 3-link, etc but we'll have to wait and see.

 

[dogfishlake]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with evolving plans. I though I had the lineup of forever Crusiers but I can see that changing for me too. Glad to hear your family is doing good. I might be able to get a visit in again in August on the way to SAS5. Would be good to catch up. That is, unless you are going to SAS5 then I will see you there!

 

[Austrol]

Brilliant stuff, thanks for what you’ve done so far!
Would you sell what you’ve done thus far?

 

[Well Sorted]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with evolving plans. I though I had the lineup of forever Crusiers but I can see that changing for me too. Glad to hear your family is doing good. I might be able to get a visit in again in August on the way to SAS5. Would be good to catch up. That is, unless you are going to SAS5 then I will see you there!

Truth be told I was a Ford guy long before a Toyota guy and I recently sold a 65 Mustang that I had built up so a 4WD Ford replacement seems appropriate. I still dig my Cruisers but variety is the spice of life, right? Definitely make some time in your trip to stop by, I expect you to be in that 70-series. SAS5 is TBD for me, I didn't register because we had already planned a vacation right after it and I didn't want to take two weeks out of the shop. COVID makes all plans fluid though so depending on how things go I may pop out and crash the party for at least a day or two. Save me a seat at the @Aloha Jen Luau.

 

[POTATO LAUNCHER]

Always welcome at SAS my friend. Come on over, I'll buy you a cold beer.

 

[SNLC]

Honestly I would stretch the frame. I just don’t think Ute conversions look right without it. On top of that the 80 is just a little short wb wise for that sweet spot and wheeling. At least for the rocks, ledges, waterfalls and such I like to play on. It gets the job done but 5” of more wb would do wonders for this kind of wheeling not to mention on steep hill climbs and descents. Plus then you can decrease the departure angle and still have a decent bed. FYI, a 70-series Troopy or pickup is exactly 5” longer in wb than an 80.

Sorry, I have not read the whole build yet. Are you going to customize the suspension at all too?

Great stuff though, always love these custom hybrid Cruiser built from Cruisers!

Cheers

 

[Well Sorted]

Brilliant stuff, thanks for what you’ve done so far!
Would you sell what you’ve done thus far?

Well, hadn't really considered that but maybe. Send me a message if you want to talk details.