Builds Wyoming 1979 FJ40 (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Apr 2, 2003
Threads
126
Messages
1,618
Location
Wyoming
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.

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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).🤣

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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.
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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.

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After:
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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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My next mod was replacing the rusted out quarter panels so I could get rid of the diamond plate. I traded some work with a guy that owned a body shop. It worked out well because I couldn't afford it, and he was going to pay me for some design work for a project he had going. I still had quite a few holes in my floor, but from the outside it looked pretty much rust free other than a spot on the front fenders behind the turn signals. Unfortunately he didn't quite match the paint so the rear quarters have always been a little different shade.


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after swapping springs side to side, installing shims, etc. I was having no luck getting rid of the lean. I even had a local guy put it on his rack to make sure the frame wasn't bent - it was spot on. I justified to myself that after 18 years the springs probably need replacing. ha ha. I had Alcan custom build me some with one side a smidge higher. It worked. No lean now. I replaced the shocks with some Bilstein 5100. Rides really nice and sits level.

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I came across a sweet deal on a 1976 40 and rescued it from a field. After a few months of tinkering on it I sold it to my brother. The same one who many years before sold me his mustard '76. He's got it nice and dialed in and it has a sweet patina from years of exposure to WY weather.

I had always wanted one of those ARB catchers mask style bumpers so when ARB did a special run a few years ago, I bought one and gave my brush guard to my brother - it was identical to the one that was on his first 1976.
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After rebuilding all the tie rod ends, I decided power steering would be nice. I had factory PS in my FJ55 so figured it'd be cool in the 40 too. My brother was also wanting to add PS to his. So we did a two-fer install. We sourced all the parts for a saginaw conversion and got it done without too much trouble. Since he has a Chevy conversion we had to get different parts, but the bulk of it was the same.

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After the power steering install I literally drove it down the drive way and back a couple of times, then decided to fix some holes in my floor "real quick" so I could drive it through the winter without water splashing up in the cab.

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It quickly escalated

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Good stuff. I sold my cruiser after high school to pay for my mission too. 24 years later I finally got another one and I'm slowly chipping away. Looking forward to seeing your updates.
 
The floor in the back was worse than I thought. The PO had filled rust holes with yellow spray foam insulation The joint between the wheel well and the floor was rusted out. The rust extended into the ribs. I knew I couldn't replicate the rib pattern with my skills. I decided to bite the bullet and replace the entire center section of floor.

At this point I wasn't committed to repainting the whole tub so I decided to salvage the wheel wells so I didn't have to cut, grind and ruin the paint where the wheel wells met the quarter panels. The wheel wells were actually pretty solid except for a few rust spots i cut out and fixed.
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This spot behind the drivers seat was completely rusted out when I bought it. On a tight budget then, i patched it with some wire mesh and JB weld. It held up surprisingly well over the years. It'll be nice to have solid metal there again and be able to mount the jack back in that spot.

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I ended up getting a new replacement floor panel for the rear from CCOT. It fit perfect, no trimming required.

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Before I could install the new floor I had to transfer/create some mounting points for the exhaust heat shield. I also transferred the hard line fuel tank venting brackets over from the old floor so I could re-attached the vents afterward. Don't be too harsh on my welding skills, I'm learning as I go.

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I decided to do a color matched bedliner undercoating on the tub. I left the tub on the frame, lifted the tub up 6" or so and coated it in place. It worked, but I can't say I recommend it if you have the room or ability to just remove the tub completely. It just made it harder to prep being underneath it. But I got it done.

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Rather than coat the new floor after installing, I did it before hand, leaving about 1 1/2" around the perimeter so I didn't ruin the finish when welding. It worked. Went back in and did the perimeter when I undercoated the inside of the wheel wells.

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The front wheel wells were in rough shape as well. Drivers had already been patched.

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Passenger side had holes in all the hardest places to patch. I ended up buying a Real Steel driver floor pan. It wasn't even close to fitting. But I was able to cut it into pieces and get the drivers and passenger footwells stock looking again.

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Fabbing up patches for pieces curved in two directions was a challenge for a novice.

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