Damaged a spring plate/shock mount and decided to replace with a flip kit. Finished up Monday night.
don't forget to re-torque in 2 weeks and again in 2 more weeks
What have you been doing with your Toyota? (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter JohnnyOshow22
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don't forget to re-torque in 2 weeks and again in 2 more weeks
I had thought I had all my coolant leaks figured out but that was incorrect. The seal on the impeller shaft of my water pump failed pretty impressively. So got a new water pump on this weekend. The truck is now running significantly cooler than before, but that might be as much due to the outside temperatures as it is the new water pump. @elkun1 let me borrow an electric fan and radiator shroud to see if that would help my low-speed heat issue and I haven't tried it yet. The new pump might have actually solved the issue. I think I might tear the old pump apart to check the condition of the impeller blades. I also got my TIG welder out and combined a $5 choke cable kit with the OE dash knob, which worked out pretty successfully. The previous owner had cut the choke cable off about 2" off the firewall.
Sounds like you're gaining, lower that radiator and build a shroud and i'd bet you'll be ready to crawl
Since I broke my driveshaft and still needed to drive, and I’m too cheap to buy a center diff lock switch but want it to show what the switch is actually for, I macgyvered a 3rd gen 4runner diff lock switch with a 1st gen Tacoma hazard light (and it works):
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I shared my lunch with my dogs on Tuesday at 9988 ft on top of the Tobacco Root mountain range above South Meadow Creek Lake. We left town at noon for a quick trail ride and ended up driving up a trail climbing over 5000 ft and playing in the snow and then back down and at home by 6:00. It is a steep and rough old mining trail and I should not have done that trail by myself, so don’t tell my wife. Take a right turn just past the Missouri mine. I could smell by brakes on the way down so take that as a warning about angle and duration.
90WT
SILVER Star
Gave this old timer a lift.
I'm nearing a really cool milestone. I've driven my 40 enough this year than it's going to actually need an oil change. Not like a "oh it's been a while it wouldn't hurt to change the oil" oil change. I'm talking a real "I've driven enough miles to need to change the oil" oil change.
I also spent a couple hours moving my wife's 'projects' out of my winter parking space in the garage because that's coming a lot faster than I'd like.
I also spent a couple hours moving my wife's 'projects' out of my winter parking space in the garage because that's coming a lot faster than I'd like.
It takes like 8 quarts! Haha it likely doesn’t need one yet.
but good on ya for racking up the miles!
but good on ya for racking up the miles!
On my '78 FJ40, there are two screws just above the windshield and underneath the overhang of the fiberglass top. These two screws secure the fiberglass top to the windshield frame by way of a formed steel piece that matches the top of the windshield frame to the underside of the fiberglass. The previous owner had the top off at some point and never replaced these screws. The result was a lot of air moving between the windshield frame and the top, making for a bad draft at the least, and sometimes you could see the top flexing up at high speeds or driving into a strong headwind. When driving in the rain, moisture would find it's way through the gap and hit me in the face. Not ideal. Not real pleasant. A real risk of the fiberglass top pulling up and folding. But also, compared to the overheating, the lack of brakes, the disaster of the wiring harness, the lack of a functional charging system, the ill adjusted carburetor, etc.....not the highest on the list or priorities.
It was probably a year ago that I used this forum to figure out what screws were needed and purchased them, but, when they didn't just immediately fit, they got tossed into the glove box and forgotten while I worked on all the other issues. Since then I've sorted out the overheating, had Overland Cruisers fix the brakes, redone much of the wiring, rebuilt the charging system, tuned the carburetor, done a bunch of other smaller jobs, and put a few miles under the tires.
Last night I decided that it was time to get those two screws installed. A simple enough job. Put the screw in the hole and tighten it. Repeat. Done. Nope. Remember how the previous owner had the top off at some point? Well, when they reinstalled the top they shifted the formed steel piece between the fiberglass top and the windshield frame approximately 1/4 inch toward the passenger side. Okay, well I can fix that too. Nope. That formed steel piece should have been riveted to the fiberglass but they drilled out the rivets and filled the holes, then they drilled new holes (approximately 1/4 inch off) and attached the formed steel piece with machine screws and silicone. Fantastic. Now I'm facing the prospect of removing the fiberglass top, removing the formed steel piece, welding up the holes in the formed steel piece, repairing the fiberglass, fitting everything so I can drill the rivet holes properly, riveting the formed steel piece to the fiberglass, might as well replace the gutter trim while I have the top off, and putting it all back together.
But I didn't do that. The wife wants to take a fall drive in the 40 this weekend and we can't very well do that with no top when there's rain in the forecast. Instead, I further bastardized the formed steel piece with a pencil grinder; opening up the holes enough that I could get the screws lined up properly with the holes in the windshield frame. It was at this point that I recognized how little space there is between the windshield frame and the underside of the fiberglass top overhang. My screws were a bit too long to be started. So I cut them down, put a new chamfer on the end of the screws, and cleaned up the threads with a triangle file. Success. I can get them started....buuut I can't get my wrench into the space to tighten them. So I cut a wrench down and got them tightened 1/8th of a turn at a time.
It was just shy of 2 hours to put 2 screws in. I'll have to repeat that process in the future when I take the top apart to replace the gutter trim and weather striping and to properly repair the things the previous owner (and now myself) did.
It was probably a year ago that I used this forum to figure out what screws were needed and purchased them, but, when they didn't just immediately fit, they got tossed into the glove box and forgotten while I worked on all the other issues. Since then I've sorted out the overheating, had Overland Cruisers fix the brakes, redone much of the wiring, rebuilt the charging system, tuned the carburetor, done a bunch of other smaller jobs, and put a few miles under the tires.
Last night I decided that it was time to get those two screws installed. A simple enough job. Put the screw in the hole and tighten it. Repeat. Done. Nope. Remember how the previous owner had the top off at some point? Well, when they reinstalled the top they shifted the formed steel piece between the fiberglass top and the windshield frame approximately 1/4 inch toward the passenger side. Okay, well I can fix that too. Nope. That formed steel piece should have been riveted to the fiberglass but they drilled out the rivets and filled the holes, then they drilled new holes (approximately 1/4 inch off) and attached the formed steel piece with machine screws and silicone. Fantastic. Now I'm facing the prospect of removing the fiberglass top, removing the formed steel piece, welding up the holes in the formed steel piece, repairing the fiberglass, fitting everything so I can drill the rivet holes properly, riveting the formed steel piece to the fiberglass, might as well replace the gutter trim while I have the top off, and putting it all back together.
But I didn't do that. The wife wants to take a fall drive in the 40 this weekend and we can't very well do that with no top when there's rain in the forecast. Instead, I further bastardized the formed steel piece with a pencil grinder; opening up the holes enough that I could get the screws lined up properly with the holes in the windshield frame. It was at this point that I recognized how little space there is between the windshield frame and the underside of the fiberglass top overhang. My screws were a bit too long to be started. So I cut them down, put a new chamfer on the end of the screws, and cleaned up the threads with a triangle file. Success. I can get them started....buuut I can't get my wrench into the space to tighten them. So I cut a wrench down and got them tightened 1/8th of a turn at a time.
It was just shy of 2 hours to put 2 screws in. I'll have to repeat that process in the future when I take the top apart to replace the gutter trim and weather striping and to properly repair the things the previous owner (and now myself) did.
and you're still hours ahead ofwhat you would have spent taking the top off and then refitting it back on, unless yours hasn't been tweaked.
I get it, for some reason a lot of the 40's have been bastardized. Not sure why past owners did half assed repairs on the old girls, but it seems to be a very common thing with them.
When I worked at Overland Cruisers I saw this a lot and it became the norm when working on the old 40's. I even remember saying something to Stephen about it, he told me yes it was a problem and the norm. That may have been why Keith at Raising Sun would not work on them and always sent them back to us at Overland Cruisers to work on. Well, that and all of the leaking grease, oil and rusted on parts too
! Hell, when doing a front diff rebuild on one it seemed like every 40 had at least a couple of different nuts and bolts missing or they had nuts and bolts that were not even OEM or metric that were just forced on to hold something in place. It was like who ever worked on them before thought that no one would ever work on it again, so lets just use what ever we have to get it rolling. Maybe the old 40 owners just wanted to get back to wheeling?
so you're saying the row of bolts on the top of the windshield frame that attaches to the piece that's riveted to the fiberglass top are missing? if that's the case besides fixing that asap my other suggestion is don't go to an automatic carwash that uses the rolling brushes. the more i'm thinking which usually is not good, don't those 2 bolts attach the windshield to the top rail of the hardtop? then the roof is riveted to that rail. i'll go out and take a look and a picture of mine but maybe the 69 was designed different
If our roofs are the same id guess the bolts you installed are the bolt to the far right in this picture, you’re missing the row that is at the top of the windshield in the picture.
So after searching on the web i see that they used a different setup to attach. I will now slither back into my cave and cuddle up with pete the hound dog. sure does sound like a good winter project fixing that roof though, i have a rivetor for attaching the rain gutter if you decide to go all out.
@elkun1 Yours is bit different than mine. I've got my windshield wipers at the bottom of the windshield. It looks like you have twice as many fasteners holding your top to your windshield frame as mine does. And don't worry, my weather stripping is reason enough to never take it through an automatic car wash.
The wife and I left the house yesterday morning at 10 and drove over to Ennis. We topped up on fuel and then headed out onto the Gravelly Range Road. We made a wrong turn 12 miles after the Call Rd turn (went right over the cattle guard when we should have gone left) and ended up sliding down a muddy and snowy hill to a little cabin. I got us turned around and we crawled up the hill carefully. It was snowing pretty hard at that point so we decided it was probably better to move back to lower ground. We got back to the Call Rd turn and decided to follow the road south. It's a slow and bumpy track and I lost count of how many gates we had to open and shut, but we came out 9.5 miles later at Imery's Talc. We made it back to the house at 4, having covered 174.9 miles.
Overall, the old 40 did really well. I thought it was getting a little hot on the slow climb up but it never got out of the (rather vague) operating range on the gauge. Losing traction and sliding on the hill was operator error. I had a bit too much speed for the conditions and then applied the brakes like I would in a vehicle with anti-lock brakes. As soon as I realized what was happening I got off the brakes and gave it a touch of throttle to gets the wheels moving again. We stayed mostly straight and entirely on the trail until I was able to get it stopped. If my tires were in better condition it probably would have been a zero drama situation, so new tires are on my Christmas list. I was worried that getting back up the hill would be a problem but I just made sure not to spin the tires, slowly built up some momentum, and crawled right up.
I figure we've got a couple more weekends before I put it away for the winter. My wife asked on the way home if we could do Flathead Pass soon, so I'd say that was a pretty successful trip.
The wife and I left the house yesterday morning at 10 and drove over to Ennis. We topped up on fuel and then headed out onto the Gravelly Range Road. We made a wrong turn 12 miles after the Call Rd turn (went right over the cattle guard when we should have gone left) and ended up sliding down a muddy and snowy hill to a little cabin. I got us turned around and we crawled up the hill carefully. It was snowing pretty hard at that point so we decided it was probably better to move back to lower ground. We got back to the Call Rd turn and decided to follow the road south. It's a slow and bumpy track and I lost count of how many gates we had to open and shut, but we came out 9.5 miles later at Imery's Talc. We made it back to the house at 4, having covered 174.9 miles.
Overall, the old 40 did really well. I thought it was getting a little hot on the slow climb up but it never got out of the (rather vague) operating range on the gauge. Losing traction and sliding on the hill was operator error. I had a bit too much speed for the conditions and then applied the brakes like I would in a vehicle with anti-lock brakes. As soon as I realized what was happening I got off the brakes and gave it a touch of throttle to gets the wheels moving again. We stayed mostly straight and entirely on the trail until I was able to get it stopped. If my tires were in better condition it probably would have been a zero drama situation, so new tires are on my Christmas list. I was worried that getting back up the hill would be a problem but I just made sure not to spin the tires, slowly built up some momentum, and crawled right up.
I figure we've got a couple more weekends before I put it away for the winter. My wife asked on the way home if we could do Flathead Pass soon, so I'd say that was a pretty successful trip.
Great write up, wish you'd let me know I need to get out. Been stuck here working on a attached shed so i can move the air compressor and stuff out of the shop. Finally just waiting for the electrician to wire in the generator to the panel. need to make a shroud and i'm sure any heat issues will be solved, think i might have one in the pile that i used on the 55 that might work. plus it really sounds like the top should come off and fixed at least closer to right. I should have room for the top if you want to do it this winter
Teaching the 14 yr old to drive stick on Moser Saturday
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nice, good times both of you will remember.
just a tip, have him keep his thumbs out of the spokes, it hurts when the wheel spins. and worse case it can break a thumb
Good freakin call!! Will do. Thanks Puppies
