I know it's not a Landcruiser, but an 85 toyota pickup is like a cruisers little brother. Anyway, I bought the 85 from a guy in Chicago, but it's originally from Colorado so the body and chassis are in VERY good shape considering the rust we get around here on the east coast. It was in a minor accident before I got her, and the hood was slightly buckled. The LS headlight bucket is cracked and the rad support is pushed in a smidge. Probably would have been a total loss if the previous owner went through the insurance company ONLY on the fact that it's an 85 toyota pickup. Other than that it's in really good original shape.
So within the last few months I've been gathering parts at the local junkyards and am going to start redoing the suspension and interior within the next couple months. It's not going to be a frame off or major resto by any means, but I will be making a nice clean original daily driver.
I started with the used hood I got for $20. It has some issues as well, but leaps and bounds better than current hood. I decided to use chemical stripper instead of media blasting because I knew it would be fairly easy to do. The hood had alot of fading and sun damage and absolutely no clear left to it. I put a sparce amount of stripper and scrapped the rest off with ease (see pics). I use a meat block scrapper that butchers use to scrape the paint off and then cleaned it with lacquer thinner. I had it down to bare metal within 45 minutes. After that I sanded it with a DA sander using 80 grit paper making sure to get any surface rust or pitting smooth as I could. That took about an hour, but overall it wasn't back breaking. I then shot it with Montana Big Sky epoxy primer which I now swear by. I was a diehard PPG DP series user for years, but got turned onto Montana Big Sky from a friend in the body business and have no complaints. The best part about their products are they are usually about 25-30% cheaper than PPG and with the epoxy you get 2 gallons since the catalyst is also a gallon with a 1:1 mix ratio.
The hood needs some body work on both ends (looks like someone closed the hood with something lying across the engine) along with a couple small dings and normally I would have left it in bare metal, but my father's shop holds in moisture in the summer months and I didn't want to go through the stripping process for nothing. I will get some more pics of those repairs in the next week or so.
So within the last few months I've been gathering parts at the local junkyards and am going to start redoing the suspension and interior within the next couple months. It's not going to be a frame off or major resto by any means, but I will be making a nice clean original daily driver.
I started with the used hood I got for $20. It has some issues as well, but leaps and bounds better than current hood. I decided to use chemical stripper instead of media blasting because I knew it would be fairly easy to do. The hood had alot of fading and sun damage and absolutely no clear left to it. I put a sparce amount of stripper and scrapped the rest off with ease (see pics). I use a meat block scrapper that butchers use to scrape the paint off and then cleaned it with lacquer thinner. I had it down to bare metal within 45 minutes. After that I sanded it with a DA sander using 80 grit paper making sure to get any surface rust or pitting smooth as I could. That took about an hour, but overall it wasn't back breaking. I then shot it with Montana Big Sky epoxy primer which I now swear by. I was a diehard PPG DP series user for years, but got turned onto Montana Big Sky from a friend in the body business and have no complaints. The best part about their products are they are usually about 25-30% cheaper than PPG and with the epoxy you get 2 gallons since the catalyst is also a gallon with a 1:1 mix ratio.
The hood needs some body work on both ends (looks like someone closed the hood with something lying across the engine) along with a couple small dings and normally I would have left it in bare metal, but my father's shop holds in moisture in the summer months and I didn't want to go through the stripping process for nothing. I will get some more pics of those repairs in the next week or so.
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