Stockton Beach VIDEO

Just a short clip with the brief footage we took whilst on the beach.

Stockton Beach (Again)

Brendan and I headed to Stockton Beach once again with a new motor and paint job. Heaps better at driving on the dunes. FJ went really well.

Video Review

I submitted a video for the TopGear downunder video competition. I'm one of the top 20 finalists.

 

Trip to Parkes

Brendan and I went for a 837km drive over 3 days staying at a dodgy caravan park in Parkes, seeing The Dish, meeting a hooker. Followed by replacing suspension bushes on the side of Wyangala Dam and camping the night.

The Landcruiser is back together!

Spent all day putting all the pieces back on it with Brendans help, definately worth it, looks great.

Finished Primer, Colour and Clearcoat on the tub.

Started cleaning up the fibreglass roof and got white undercoat on.

I forgot to update a few times. So obviously not everything happened in a day.

Got primer on headlight surround, wheel arches and other bits.

Not able to fit the tub and the other bits in the garage at once, so I started spraying the bits and hopefully get the tub masked for primer tomorrow.

Did a heap of sanding on the tub, wheel arches, headlight surround and other bits. More sanding to come...

Finished off all the clearcoating. Looks very nice. Removed all the masking and put the glass back in the doors along with other bit and pieces which were taken off for painting. Started dismantling the chassis to begin the paint process again.

Bit of a delay with all the crap weather lately, either too cold, wet or windy to do any spraying. Finished off the bonnet and started spraying clear coat.

Had a bit of a problem wet sanding the colour coat, little white specs showed up so I sprayed another coat of colour and not gonna worry about wet sanding.

First lot of the DUNE BEIGE paint.

As I was leaving the auto store the guy is on the phone, all I heard was "sorry mate, might have to wait a while, we just mixed some shit coloured paint"

Hahaha

Finished off priming the side panels, front window surround and bonnet. So far so good.

Got some primer happening today. Really impressed with the spray gun, easy to clean as well. Did about 4 coats, still need to do the other side.

Masked all the glass, bought primer and paint. Should be right to start doing some spraying real soon. Have to practice a bit first though. Hopefully tomorrow.

Started sanding the doors. Sanding initially with 240 grit which shows up any rust problems, then i'll sand it again with 400 grit prior to primer.

Started sanding the doors. Sanding initially with 240 grit which shows up any rust problems, then i'll sand it again with 400 grit prior to primer.

Started sanding the doors. Sanding initially with 240 grit which shows up any rust problems, then i'll sand it again with 400 grit prior to primer.

Got the roof off, snapped about 4 bolts and found some really nasty rust that I don't want to deal with just yet.

Many layers of car filler and lots of sanding to get the shape back into the front of the bonnet. It's looking much better than before.

It's about time I painted the cruiser so it's just one colour. Going for the original Dune Beige.

Started on the bonnet as it had the most serious rust that needed reparing.

Passed REGO again!

After chasing a brake leak for a week, it turned out to be the piston inside the drum.

Newnes VIDEO!!!

When we were at Newnes we also had the video camera, just worked out how to insert Flash video so here it is!

Brendan and I went to check out the powerline track at Wollemi National Park near Lithgow. We also saw the lost city, glow worm tunnel and Newnes.

The left rear corner took a couple of hours to fix but I'm extremely happy with how the repair job turned out. Had to cut, bend, tack, weld, fill and paint.

The rear corners were very badly rusted, while I had the roof off I made sure to fix it. Cut, weld and paint.

Attacked the rust underneath the wiper motor along the windscreen, wasn't as bad as I first though.

After getting to correct engine mounts it was a simple swap over to fit the new ones.

Woohoo the 100 dollar engine runs!!

Swapped all the necessary bit from one engine to the other. This included dizzy, starter, oil filter, alternator, flywheel, bellhousing and fuel pump. Put the new engine back in the cruiser but forgot to take photo's.

Pulled the roof, gearbox and engine out.

Picked up a 1981 2F engine for $100. Also bought an engine crane.

While Brendan and I were down the coast, I was getting some strange noises in either steering or suspension, eliminated a possible cause being the Tie Rod Ends. Found out later that the noise was caused by loose shackle bolts.

Got a new electronic voltage regulator fitted, fixed up my charging problems, works a treat.

Argh, blue exhaust smoke, so I checked the compression, not the best.

Cut out a hole in the dash and fitted a tachometer. I'm interested to know what it's doing when screaming at 100km/h on the highway.

Had to test out the shocks so I went on a local track and did some 4 bangin. It seems to get over things a lot easierr now, there's still a few noises here and there but it wasn't struggling to flex as it was before.

Nothing technical, just 4wd photo's

After my 3wding experience I got four new shocks to help the cruiser properly flex. They're a little longer which should help. Surprised that they didn't come with new washers, nuts and dust boots...

Rebuilt the centre arm assembly to eliminate the steering slop that was noticed on rego inspection. Should also stop it from floating on the road and go in a straight line.

Had to swap the locks on the doors so my keys would fit. The passenger side latch was broken so I swapped parts out of the old door.

FJ40 now features a front windscreen! New glass and new rubber installed by Windscreens O'Brien.

It's now one of the most expensive parts of this buildup.

MY CRUISER PASSED REGO!!!

Got the spare tyre carrier back on, for some reason it's latching on better than before. Had to get some longer bolts for where I re-inforced it at the lower hinge.

Wahoo, I got doors again. They're off the same cruiser that the roof/sides and rear doors came from. Thanks Al.

I've seen the light! New indicators front and back, required some wiring but it all works now.

Had some problems with the charging system, alternator and regulator had dodgy connections which took a day to figure out. Electrical troubleshooting takes ages.

This has been the longest amount of time I've not been working on the cruiser. I was able to fit the rear barn doors as well as bolting all the seat belts in and fixing the drivers seat bracket. Not worth fitting the front doors as they're rusted busted.

Luckily I was able to get a new windscreen surround, instead of wasting time putting the glass in we aimed to get the roof on and get the glass sorted out later. With the floor dry all the seats went back in and fitted the roof.

Cleaned and painted the inside floor with brushable bituman paint. Got a headache from the fumes but it looks great. Started work on replacing the front window only to find that the entire window surround is badly rusted and needs replacing. Argh.

Exactly 1 month left to get a pink slip for the FJ40. I finally got the front driveshaft in after busting my wrists last Thursday trying to compress it. Dayne helped me out with the idea of using a ratchet tie down. It worked! Had to test it so I did some stump climbing in the backyard.

Comparison before/after 2" suspension lift.

Applied some car filler to the lower rear corner where the tyre carrier bolts to. Also finished off welding the floor.

Need to get the 4wd back together in order to get a pink slip then work on the panels/paint later. Started putting the front body parts back together. All the mechanicals seem to be working however i'm having trouble getting the front driveshaft in because of the lift.

VIDEO

A video of the FJ40 driving around the yard. First time it's been driven in about 2 months.

1:12mins 2.25MB WMV9

This time I got the car to run AND drive! Bled the brakes, fitted handbrake cable, battery tray and front fender. Set the idle and timing and took it for a spin around the yard.

Made a battery tray out of sheet metal. Needs to be attached to the battery bracket which bolts to the chassis.

Gave the bank account a workout, got all the necessary bits to get the motor to run. Up until about 7pm we were doing small boring time consuming stuff then gave it a couple of cranks. It fired, and I mean backfired a 20cm flame out of the carby. Have to have a look at the timing.

Ohh yeh, instant inspiration. Got the tub back on the chassis! We spent half the day going back and forth to Penrith chasing bolts, thread tapper, welding wire but in the end it was worth it!

Another day of cutting and welding sheet metal into various parts of the tub. Spent an hour or so fixing up the corner where the spare tyre bolts to. Once finished I applied thick bituman paint all over the base of the tub. Got around to painting the extractors and got my new homemade coolant pipe joiner from Neil the plumber.

Time to start working on the tub. We flipped it upside down onto the trailer. It was kinda awkward but we made it alright. Snapped the windscreen wiper switch. Dad made a garbage bag raincoat and I hit the tub with the gernie.

Bought a new compressor so I could do some sandblasting, started on the extractors. Takes a bit of time and it's messy but it's working!

Busted my back putting the transfer case back in. Hooked up the linkages and driveshafts. Cleaned and painted the radiator surround.

Getting back into the FJ40 full steam, finished seals in gearbox, put gearbox back in, fitted sump, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned for painting engine and gearbox. Been going from about 10am-10pm.

Headed about 5hrs down the coast and picked up a roof, side walls and rear swing-out ambulance style doors. They're not rusted! Also fixed my seatbelt problem. Thanks to Dads mate Alan in Narooma!

Gearbox seals didn't turn up, cleaned up the clutch fork and fitted new release bearing. Was hoping to have gearbox back in and painted today. Going to Narooma next week to pick up some body parts off a BJ40.

Painted the oil sump, installed the flywheel, friction plate and pressure plate. Fitted the new steering damper, it will need further adjustment later when the car is running.

Spent hours with the wire wheel just cleaning stuff. Started on the engine then spent another couple of hours on removing the oil sump.

New bolts for gearbox mounts. Cleaned chassis again, started painting with the chassis black paint. Cut the ubolts and removed the steering damper.

One month of restoration.

Test fitted new muffler, removed extractors and replaced gearbox mounts. Couldn't get the steering damper off, might need to buy a special tool.

Unfortunately Brendan is blowing snails out his nose so I tackled the rear suspension on my own. I'm not real happy with how it's turned out, the U-Bolts are way too long and the shackle angle just doesn't look right. It's given me an increase from 615mm to 690mm at the rear though!

Plan for the week!

Created a masterpiece for separating the transfer case from the transmission. Got the idea from here. It worked brilliantly. Unbolted various parts of the transmission and started cleaning the surfaces. Found out I need new seals as well as gaskets so i've ordered some of them from RooDog.

Finally after 16 days of waiting the suspension arrived at the 4wd shop. As we'd removed the old front suspension on Tuesday it was rather easy to install.

Started changing the gaskets on the transfer case. Buggered one of the nuts and couldn't work out how to separate the transfer case from the transmission. It was interesting though.

Woohoo found a trick to remove the bearing, sprayed the chassis with fish oil and put new rear main seal and pilot bearing in.

Was told the suspension would arrive today, pulled the old stuff out and waited around. Wasted the day trying to remove the damm pilot bearing. Didn't get suspension either.

Started treating the rust in the chassis. Received parts that I ordered from RooDog 4wd spares. Got the gearbox removed! So happy with the progress, didn't break anything today!

Finished adjusting the rear drum brakes. Did some shopping. Started wirebrushing the chassis and welding in a piece of angle. Picked up a 2nd hand muffler.

Adjusted the drum brakes on the front, took ages. Fixed up two bolts that I snapped when taking the wheel arch off. Phoned suspension place, won't have it till next Thursday. Bugger.

Finished off the front brake shoes and got the drums machined. Painted the drums black with caliper paint. Ordered a bunch of parts from RooDog 4wd spares online. Also ordered some heat insulation tape for the exhaust under passenger footwell.

Cleaned up the chassis with the gurney. Changed the rear brake shoes and got the drums machined.

We finally got the tub off, it came of rather easy. We managed with 3 people however 4 would've been preferred. This is now the turning point where the teardown stops and the cleaning starts...

Started unbolting the main tub/chassis bolts. Snapped 2 bolts and had trouble with another 2. Disconnected other various things such as: speedo, handbrake, more wires.

After finishing the workshop and cleaning up the garage I've now got plenty of room with power and lights to really get things going. We took off the windscreen, bonnet, fenders and disconnected a heap of wires along with fuel, clutch and brake lines. In the garage till about 9:30PM!

First day of the teardown. After a couple of hours Brendan and I managed to get the roof off. Did some stump climbing in the yard topless :)

Today was my last day of registration. I went 4wding with Dayne. We went to Chapman Pde and Greens Rd.