I decided to do a sort of build thread on my FJ40. I joined Ih8mud soon after I bought my current 1979 FJ40 a little over 20 years ago. I've owned several cruisers but have only done build threads on my 200 and my FJ55 and admittedly I'm not great at maintaining threads. Before the build, a little backstory.
My first car was a 1976 FJ40 (below) I bought from my brother. He sold it to me so he could buy an FJ45. Soon after I met my wife and dated her for a couple of years in that cruiser. I taught her how to drive a manual transmission down by the railroad tracks in it. We had several cruisers in the family at the time (3 FJ40s, 1 FJ80, 1 FJ45) and have lots of memories in them camping, skiing, wheeling and Moab trips - actually for the mountain biking not wheeling. I was hooked on cruisers at a young age.
I ended up selling my cruiser to serve a volunteer church mission in Brazil for a couple of years. In 1994 they were still producing Bandeirantes in Brazil and I saw them all over the place. It made me miss my 40. When I returned home I soon married. I wanted a 40 but we were broke. I bought a 1986 Toyota Pickup instead - it was what I needed at the time. About 5 years later I sold the truck and bought my 1979 out of Carbondale, CO. After work on Friday we drove as far as Rifle, it was past midnight so we parked in a campground and slept in the car. The next morning we picked up the cruiser and I drove it 10 hours home. The 40 needed new rear quarter panels and it had some holes in the floor but it was mostly solid and just needed some cosmetic TLC. I was stoked to be in a 40 again. I missed that unique cruiser smell, until it was overpowered by my shoe melting to the floorboard (exhaust had been re-routed too close to the floor).
About 8 hours into the drive home the accelorator cable broke and I rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the freeway. My brother had had this issue before on our way to high school years before. He used a boot shoelace to connect to the carb and run into the cab controlling the throttle by hand the rest of the way to school. Remembering that we searched for some string. We determined a bike brake cable would actually make a good jerry rigged throttle cable.
I looked down the embankment of the freeway and spotted a couple of guys chatting by an El Camino. I ran down and asked them if they had a 3-4' piece of sturdy string I could use to get my 40 off the freeway. One of them said "Sorry bro, don't have any string. But I've got a brake cable off of a bike if that will work." I pulled the old cable out of the sheathing and replaced it with the bike cable, tied a knot at the top of the gas pedal (mine had been modified from the stock linkage) and fastened the other end at the carb. Worked perfect and got us home. I ran it that way for a couple of years, too broke to buy a factory cable replacement.
It was fun to be out exploring in an FJ40 again. My little girls had fun playing in it at home too.
eventually I replaced the old seat upholstery with a kit from Spector offroad.
The next mod was replacing the old worn out springs with a new Skyjacker 2.5" lift.
Before:
After:
Eventually I also rerouted the exhaust. My 40 had a lean to the drivers side. The lift accentuated it and it has annoyed me since. Recently I resolved that issue, more about that later.
My first car was a 1976 FJ40 (below) I bought from my brother. He sold it to me so he could buy an FJ45. Soon after I met my wife and dated her for a couple of years in that cruiser. I taught her how to drive a manual transmission down by the railroad tracks in it. We had several cruisers in the family at the time (3 FJ40s, 1 FJ80, 1 FJ45) and have lots of memories in them camping, skiing, wheeling and Moab trips - actually for the mountain biking not wheeling. I was hooked on cruisers at a young age.
I ended up selling my cruiser to serve a volunteer church mission in Brazil for a couple of years. In 1994 they were still producing Bandeirantes in Brazil and I saw them all over the place. It made me miss my 40. When I returned home I soon married. I wanted a 40 but we were broke. I bought a 1986 Toyota Pickup instead - it was what I needed at the time. About 5 years later I sold the truck and bought my 1979 out of Carbondale, CO. After work on Friday we drove as far as Rifle, it was past midnight so we parked in a campground and slept in the car. The next morning we picked up the cruiser and I drove it 10 hours home. The 40 needed new rear quarter panels and it had some holes in the floor but it was mostly solid and just needed some cosmetic TLC. I was stoked to be in a 40 again. I missed that unique cruiser smell, until it was overpowered by my shoe melting to the floorboard (exhaust had been re-routed too close to the floor).
About 8 hours into the drive home the accelorator cable broke and I rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the freeway. My brother had had this issue before on our way to high school years before. He used a boot shoelace to connect to the carb and run into the cab controlling the throttle by hand the rest of the way to school. Remembering that we searched for some string. We determined a bike brake cable would actually make a good jerry rigged throttle cable.
I looked down the embankment of the freeway and spotted a couple of guys chatting by an El Camino. I ran down and asked them if they had a 3-4' piece of sturdy string I could use to get my 40 off the freeway. One of them said "Sorry bro, don't have any string. But I've got a brake cable off of a bike if that will work." I pulled the old cable out of the sheathing and replaced it with the bike cable, tied a knot at the top of the gas pedal (mine had been modified from the stock linkage) and fastened the other end at the carb. Worked perfect and got us home. I ran it that way for a couple of years, too broke to buy a factory cable replacement.
It was fun to be out exploring in an FJ40 again. My little girls had fun playing in it at home too.
eventually I replaced the old seat upholstery with a kit from Spector offroad.
The next mod was replacing the old worn out springs with a new Skyjacker 2.5" lift.
Before:
After:
Eventually I also rerouted the exhaust. My 40 had a lean to the drivers side. The lift accentuated it and it has annoyed me since. Recently I resolved that issue, more about that later.
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