Build The Rushing Turdle

[roadstr6]

Hi folks, my name is Dave Rushing. This turd brown '84 FJ60 followed me home last Saturday. I'll be making some improvements on it as I have time. Truck was out in Oregon near Portland most of it's life and spent time in Texas and South Carolina. The truck is rust free. Interior is in surprisingly good shape for 203K miles and it seems to run decently. It has an ARB front bumper, Warn M8000, OME lift and 33x10.5 BFG AT's. I plan to shine it up, get it running well and drive it for a while to see if it behaves.

 

[roadstr6]

I towed the truck home and began cleaning it up. Still lots to do but it is looking better.

 

[roadstr6]

This truck still sports its original coat of brown metallic paint with the exception of a shoddy repair done in '90 (according to Carfax) on the passenger fender and door. The repair was done with a base/clear and 25 years later the clear is roached. I decided to try to bring back the shine with a little paint correction. Knowing that the 30+ y/o original paint is thin, I decided to go easy on my cut, using a fine grit cleaner and following up with a machine glaze and sealant. This process is still in the works. I got most of the driver side and hood done yesterday. The pics pretty much speak for themselves.

My son, Nathan, is a great helper! Wax on, wax off....

 

[roadstr6]

Before/After paint correction:

Shiny paint sure does make the dents more obvious....Oh well. It does look better than it did overall! I've still got to do the passenger side, roof and rear tailgate. Slow and steady gets the job done. I'll be glad to get the paint baselined and get some protection on it from the elements. Crappy as it is, I'd like to preserve as much of the paint on the truck as I can and be able to keep it relatively clean going forward.

 

[ozarkcruiserfj60]

Looking good,keep it up.

 

[micruz60]

Root Beer bubbly shine!

 

[gregnash]

Wow that is quite the correction there! Very nice looking truck and welcome to the 60 madness!!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Looking forward to this!!

 

[klinetime574]

Woah! Expert polishing job there. Went from a turd to a polished turd!

The wheels look really good too!

 

[Output Shaft]

Klinetime you crack me up

 

[rrv333]

Congratulations on the 60. You definitely know your way around a polishing wheel. Good work!

 

[roadstr6]

I continued to work on the paint correction on the passenger side last night. You guys have been seeing the better side of this truck. The passenger side is not nearly as pretty! There was evidently some light damage on the passenger front fender and front door. Carfax shows a repair was done back in '90. The repair was done with base/clear instead of Mr. T's single stage. The paint match is not great and the clear is chalky and flaking. I can't seem to be able to wet sand and buff it back into shape. I may end up shooting the fender and door with an HVLP gun in my driveway. Besides the paint issue on the passenger side, it looks like one of the PO's dragged the truck up against a rock or stump. The scrape/dent is down low and goes from the front door bottom all the way to the rear quarter panel. Typical rock rash stuff. Anyway, I don't want to misrepresent this truck to be all rainbows and unicorns. It's still a decent truck but far from perfect. Besides the cosmetic stuff, the transfer case is noisy. I think I may have to put a new trans/transfer case in it. These things can suffer from a bad seal between the trans and transfer case. What happens most of the time is that the transfer case pumps all of its oil back into the transmission. The trans gets overfilled and case runs dry. I was looking through the service records last night and it appears that this truck had been diagnosed with the affliction. I think it was fixed but it may have been too late. This is something I need to look into before I start putting miles on the truck.

 

[landcruiserjunky]

Congrats! It's good to see you already diving in

 

[gregnash]

For the Tranny to T-Case seal issue, heard that it is a pretty easy job to split the case and get it taken care of with a new seal. Something that is on my list down the road but for now I have the SOR bypass pipe.

 

[roadstr6]

I finally got a chance to spend some time under the Turdle last night. I pulled the factory skid plate off and began assessing the transmission noise. I pulled the driveshaft loose from the transfer case and found the staked nut to be on good and tight. I actually unstaked it and tried to tighten it but it was tight as hell already. Check that off the list. Then I pulled the fill plugs for the trans and transfer case. Nothing was overfilled. They both were maybe a couple ounces low. Totally normal. Then I drained the fluid from both units. Fluid was perfect. No metal on the drain plug magnets other than the typical slight gray haze. Wiped them both off with my finger. Reinstalled and re-filled both units with new juice. Hooked the driveshaft up and fired the engine. Guess what? No transmission noise! WTF?

I haven't had any time to take the Turdle down the road to confirm but here's what I think the problem was....The flimsy !@#$% factory skidplate had been tweaked and was touching the transfer case, acting like the head of a steel drum and amplifying all the engine and transmission vibrations and sending them back into the cab by way of the shift lever...or maybe the shift linkage was touching the skid plate...I don't know. It's damn near silent now. Skid plate is still off awaiting a pressure wash. I'll check it tonight for shiny spots where metal had been touching metal and whack it with a BFH to bend those areas away from the transfer case before I re-install. Sometimes I don't give these old trucks enough credit. I am always expecting some major issue and usually it's something real simple.

I did take the opportunity to hit all the grease fittings while I was underneath. Everything looks good under there. Body and frame are rust free. There are a couple of leaks (timing cover and lifter covers) and everything was pretty grimy underneath but all in all, I'm impressed with the condition of this turd. I can't wait to get it tagged and give it a shake-down run.

 

[roadstr6]

Lots of work on the Turdle this past weekend. Changed the oil and filter. Changed the plugs. Did a compression check and all cylinders were within spec. Pressure washed the underbelly. Blocked off the EGR with some golf tees and, man what a difference that made! I'm working on a permanent solution for that. I fabbed an upright spare tire holder for inside the cab. Pulled the drums off to find an oily mess on the drivers side. I cleaned it up and reinstalled. I'm starting to suspect that the axle vent may be plugged up, causing pressure to vent out the wheel seal. I'm going to check into that tonight. Hope that's my issue there. I vacuumed out the inside and washed the windows. Pressure washed, painted and re-istalled the skidplate. The Turdle is coming around. I drove it to work today and it ran great! I did see this morning when I did a walk around in the parking lot here at work that the axle seal is still leaking. Gotta check that vent tonight.

 

[elkaholic]

I will be following this thread. Look forward to seeing this truck in person soon.

 

[roadstr6]

I went out during lunch to check the rear axle vent...yup. Gummed up solid. I took it loose and cleaned it out. I will pull the drums back off and re-clean everything and see if the seal stops leaking now that there is not pressure trying to push the fluid out. Here are some pics of my latest accomplishments and where the truck stands right now:

 

[roadstr6]

Interior all cleaned up:

 

[roadstr6]

...and finally some pics of the "not so good" areas:

Overall, it is a very honest example. No rust issues. All the Smog is still in place. Original paint. Above average interior. The truck has been maintained and the few mods (very few) seem to be tasteful and well done. I'm pretty stoked to be its new caretaker.