Builds Two 62s Become One - Build Thread

[diesellibrarian]

For paint, I went with a Kapci high-solids acrylic enamel (single stage), mixed up in Toyota 4E9 Beige. It's not cheap at $240/gal but you don't need to clear-coat it. I can't spray clear in my yard anyway because it'll end up full of bugs and leaves. ANYWAY I couldn't find anyone in my town of 100,000 that would sell me anything other than 2-part urethane. I figured that the two-hour drive to Calgary was worth it not to end up with lungs full of isocyanates. Acrylic enamel still isn't great for you, but at least you can get a respirator that will filter most of the crap out.

Set up my paint shop under the now-leafless tree and got to work! Here's where I'm at so far:

I waffled a little on the colour choice, but as soon as I started spraying, I knew it was right. Such an iconic Land Cruiser colour. These panels will dry over night, and tomorrow I'll spray the back sides and re-coat as needed.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Am now starting to prep the body for paint, but have some rust to address first. Yesterday I cut out the windshield rubber (the windshield is junk) and was not surprised to find some rust at the base of the a-pillar. Thankfully, the window frame is otherwise clean. Younger me would have probably just put some POR-15 on this, but almost-50-year-old me is more inclined to do things right.

I don't have any fancy sheet metal tools, so I made the patch from three pieces of 18ga. I shaped the "middle" one first, and then worked the others to line up with it. Once the piece was built, I scribed around it and started cutting. In the pic below, you can see the three "steps." They're welded together on the inside and out.

And...the final product! Pretty happy with this repair, for my first go at it.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

two kinda junky 62s sitting in my driveway

I’ll look forward to reading this thread. Must find the time tho!

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

A little more progress to document.

Finished up the driver's side door bottom. Came out pretty good:

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Fabbed up a little panel and tacked it in.

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Little bit of filler and some high-build and it's almost not quite as good as new!

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With that done, I was able to get all of the panels in primer. Not having a garage, I've had to turn my yard into a de facto body shop. It's not great, but you gotta work with what you have.

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Next up: PAINT!

My god, I really wish some days I had more of me. I did a smidge of welding yesterday… nothing near as nice as your work! Just added a few feet or so of pipe onto my exhaust. No closeups of the welding even tho it really wasn’t bad. Heading up to NH in a few days w/ kid for a club wheeling event. Need to show him what real wheeling is since he’s under the illusion of his goofy Xbox Snowrunner game that wheeling is easy.

 

[diesellibrarian]

My god, I really wish some days I had more of me. I did a smidge of welding yesterday… nothing near as nice as your work! Just added a few feet or so of pipe onto my exhaust. No closeups of the welding even tho it really wasn’t bad. Heading up to NH in a few days w/ kid for a club wheeling event. Need to show him what real wheeling is since he’s under the illusion of his goofy Xbox Snowrunner game that wheeling is easy.

I'm sure your work is great! I have a long way to go but the tips I've learned from the Fitzee's Fabrications youtube channel have helped me SO much. I was able to take a few days off to get this work done - barely stopped to eat! That's how stoked I am on this project haha. It also helps that my kid has moved out and my wife's in Mexico City for the next while, so all I need to do is feed the cat and work on my Cruisers (edit: and go to my job of course).

Anyway if you're going to be welding sheet metal any time soon, check out Fitzee's channel and especially the video "Butt Welding Sheet Metal." It's so helpful and the results are amazing.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Here's a few more photos from yesterday's painting extravaganza:

Doors

Rear hatch looking prime:

Started some reassembly (these parts were painted last week, so they're all cured etc.). So fun to finally switch the ratchet to "tighten." The hardware has been soaking in rust remover for a while. Every bolt is treated with anti-seize before installation.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Will be starting in on the interior body work. There are a few holes in the floor that need patching, and also this:

For the love of all that is holy, please don't do this to your Land Cruisers lol.

 

[diesellibrarian]

As a bit of a funny aside: it looks like my neighbors across the street got tired of looking at my ugly, gutted-out Cruiser, so they put a giant painting in their front window haha.

 

[MarkBC]

As a bit of a funny aside: it looks like my neighbors across the street got tired of looking at my ugly, gutted-out Cruiser, so they put a giant painting in their front window haha.

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IMO the gutted out cruiser is art

 

[georgebj60]

Too funny. As I was reading through the repair posts, all I could think of is "this guy's been watchin' Fitzee!". He's really a wealth of good information. And he keeps it accessible - no fancy tools, and a thorough delivery that gives you the confidence to try it for yourself. You really want to "stick around".

 

[diesellibrarian]

Made a bit more progress on this project over the last bit. Got the fenders installed, mostly to protect the engine etc from the wintry weather that is going to be here all too soon.

Spent the day yesterday swapping the front axles. I rebuilt the axle in the 88 not too long ago, and the axle in the 89 is leaking and clearly in need of a rebuild, so I decided to just swap them. Didn't swap the springs though, as the 88's bushings were cooked, and the 89 has OME Dakar springs with poly bushings that appear to be in good shape. Thankfully had the help of a friend and also my kid, who, being between jobs at the moment, is happy to come and help in exchange for some ca$h money haha. This was a painful job. Woke up this morning feeling like I'd done some kind of epic workout. These axles are so heavy!

Sitting pretty on its new axle:

Also dropped the fuel tank and found some rusty spots to repair. More on that in my next update. Thanks for following along!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Spent the weekend working on the 62s. Thankfully the weather's been decent for October, but I've got to say that working in the driveway sucks. You folks with garages and shops don't know how good you have it, haha. Or maybe you do. Anyway, I'm posting some stuff just so I can feel like I've made some progress, because I don't feel that much further ahead, even after hours of work.

The first job was to pull the fuel and brake lines from both trucks. The fuel lines in the 89 were rusted out, and someone had really messed with it, as large parts of the evap system were missing. All the lines from the 88 are in pretty good shape, so they're getting swapped in. This whole process was a nightmare of rusted and seized bolts. Took way longer than it should have, but anyway. It's done. Lotta dang fuel lines in a 62.

Took a break from fuel lines to get after some sheet metal stuff. The body mount right behind the rear wheel on the driver's side is almost completely rusted away, so I decided to cut the one out of my 88 and weld it in. At some point, someone also make a dodgy repair to the cargo area floor in that same area, so obviously that needs to be addressed as well. Here's the bad repair:

Since the sheet metal in the 88 is actually decent in that area, I removed the panel and will prep it for re-installation. Some of the flanges need repair first. Cutting out spot welds:

The panel removed, more or less intact:

I needed about 19" of the body mount support, so did some more tack weld removal and then cut through the floor to remove the piece I needed. In this photo you can see that the piece has been removed. I also removed the lower quarter panel and inner quarter. Those are two panels that I'd made last year when I was working on the 88. I can re-use them in the 89.

 

[diesellibrarian]

A collection of sheet metal to be re-used in the 89:

Also made a trip out to the pick-a-part with my kid, who was looking for something for his G35. Found this transmission cooler that I hope will work for the 62. It's off a GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck. I figure if it can cool a transmission behind a big V8, it should work for my A440f. But if anyone sees any issues with it, please let me know. Haven't figured out the mounting yet. Just trying it on for size:

That's all for now. Hopefully next time I'll be able to show these panels welded in!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Busy couple of days working on the 62. Was tired of messing around with sheet metal so I spent yesterday swapping some parts between the 88 and the 89, and cleaning things up a bit. One the things I moved over were the hard lines for the coolant. Gave the new ones a shot of paint before installing:

Also finished mounting my aux transmission cooler, which entailed fabbing up a couple of small brackets. It's not plumbed yet: that's the next order of business.

 

[diesellibrarian]

As I mentioned above, one of the cross members is pretty rotten, so I've decided to surgically remove the one from the 88 and graft it into the 89. Initially I thought I'd just replace the body mount behind the rear wheel on the driver's side, but the troubles run a bit deeper than that.

As you can see, the body mount is loooong gone. The piece on the right is the one I'll be welding in instead.

The kid is keen to learn about working on cars, so he volunteered to come over and help me out. I put him to work cutting out spot welds:

Rained pretty hard today, so I moved the operation indoors and set about building a replacement panel for the rusty section behind the rear wheel on the passenger side. Started by making a plywood form to more or less reproduce the raised sections in the panel:

Here's the sheet metal clamped up in the plywood buck. I'll have to weld up the holes from the bolts afterward:

Still have a lot to learn about this sheet metal forming business. My panels are still looking pretty crap. But for this one, I'm not really worried about how it looks, because it'll be under the carpet. The main thing is that it's strong and has no holes. I think it's fair to say that no matter what, it's an improvement over the old one.

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to clear up, so hopefully I can get that crossmember back in! Wish me luck...

 

[MarkBC]

How are the c channels? I spent a few hours today chipping away at those.

 

[diesellibrarian]

They're actually pretty good on this truck! I was pleasantly surprised. The frame is in really great shape overall.

 

[diesellibrarian]

UPDATE TIME!

Been working quite a bit on this stupid rust bucket that I love so much. Honestly never thought I'd get this deep into a car project, but here we are. There is no way but forward.

First, an update on the inner quarters. The inner panels behind both rear wheels were all but toast. The passenger side one in particular is quite complex, so I wasn't sure how to approach its repair. In the end, what I ended up doing was cutting off the rusty bits at the bottom, top, front, and back sides of the panel, and saving the middle part, where the evap separator lines and fuel filler neck pass through the panel. A picture is worth a million words, so here you go:

This is typical of the rot I was dealing with. This section is where the crossmember/body mount attaches to the inner quarter, right behind the rear wheel well:

And here's the same panel overlaid with the pieces I had to cut out and rebuild. Probably 6 patch pieces in all on this one panel alone:

The final panel isn't pretty, and the welds are lumpy, but it's going to be undercoated anyway so I'd rather leave the welds rather than grind them down and lose strength:

After a coat of Tremclad enamel:

It'll have to do!

 

[diesellibrarian]

The driver's side was so far gone that I decided just to make a whole new panel from scratch (though I did graft in the top section, since it's kind of a complicated piece as well). I have yet to drill the holes for the drains and the wiring harnesses, but that will be next:

Don't judge my panel-bashing too harshly. I don't really care what these piece look like: I just want strong, new sheet metal where there used to be only rust.

 

[diesellibrarian]

With the return of spring-like weather, I moved the operation outside, and have been taking parts off the 88. Today I pulled the rear axle out of it:

Also pulled the brake lines and the LSPV etc for installation in the 89. I can't wait to have this hulk out of my driveway, and I'm sure the neighbours feel the same way.

Have been accumulating new parts for when I finally start putting things back together. New fuel pump and sender, brake master and wheel cylinders, some new gaskets and seals, new ARB u-bolts, Terrain Tamer greasable anti-inversion front shackles, and OME Nitrocharger shocks for all for corners. Also an array of fresh suspension bushings and 30 feet of silicone vacuum hose to re-do all the vacuum lines in the engine bay. Fun times!