Errols FJ40 Build Thread

[feistl]

Hey guys,

Thought I might as well post up a build thread for my FJ40 seeing as I never got around to posting one up properly for the VX. I know its not LS1 based, but it does have a V8 in it .

I originally purchased the following FJ40 in May this year as a bit of a project car. It was a pretty good buy as it has an engineering certificate, LPG certificate, roadworthy certificate and a FULL service history for the last 12 years. The engine, diffs, gearbox, transfer case and suspension have all been rebuilt recently with less than 10,000km use. While it’s been fantastic off road, it did lack a few features that I wanted… Namely Power Steering, 5 Speed Gearbox, Diff Lockers, Aircon, Decent heater as well as a few creature comforts.











I have since added a Runva winch, 120 amp alternator and wiring and a few minor fixes to get it working well off road. Overall it’s been very reliable and trouble free.

So anyway I have been keeping my eye on gumtree and ebay for a donor vehicle since. I was very lucky to pick up this bargain on eBay a few weeks ago for just $5000. Originally the owner had it listed for $13k, then $11k, then $9k before finally putting it on ebay with no reserve/starting price of $5k. Luckily no one else bid, so I picked up this great bargain. (The owner was moving overseas literally the next day, so hence needed it gone regardless of price). He had owned it for the last 20 years and it was his first car and daily driver for a while.

It wasn’t running when I picked it up and the clutch had failed, but it did have the following…
Original FJ40 Powersteering
5 Speed Manual Gearbox
Very nice Aluminium wheels and decent rubber.
“Sporty” rollbar
350 V8 Chev engine
Decent sound system (Speakers, sub and amp)
Decent seat conversion (Not sure what their out of).
Decent condition body/paint.

[feistl]

So when i got the White FJ40 home it needed a bit of work, as i said it wasnt running and the clutch master cylinder was stuffed.
First step was to check compression, change the oil and inspect the old oil.

First bit of good news, all 8 cylinders measured around 165psi cold (Lowest was 158psi). The oil also looked in pretty good condition, with no metal particles visible.



Next step was to pull the carby apart as it had been sitting for a while and was pretty filthy. Got a friend who is a bit of a pro to assist as its the first carby I've worked with.









Next step was to look at the distributor and coil pack. Both had seen better days, so decided to swap in a new "All in one" High Output distributor, new leads and new spark plugs.







As the previous mechanical pump had died and been replaced by a VERY agricultural electric pump, i also decided to get a new mechanical pump, filter and put some fresh fuel in it. (Dont have a pic of this).

Hooked it up to a fresh battery and it fired up after a couple of attempts . Video below... (Sorry cant embed as i dont have a youtube account, filesize is ~27MB)

http://s1224.photobucket.com/user/fe...n70jh.mp4.html

Engine sounds really healthy (Doesn't sound good on the video), has a nice deep rumble to it like all old school V8s do.

[feistl]

I changed the clutch cylinder over and took it for a bit of a drive. Seemed to drive pretty well, all the gears worked although a couple of the brakes were sticking. Couldnt get it to work in 4WD, later found out push button for 4WD mode uses vacuum to switch between 2WD and 4WD. The hose had perished hence wasnt working from engine vacuum. Did manage to switch into 4WD using a brake bleed vacuum hooked directly to the transfer case.

Once we had the engine running, it was time to stripping it down starting with the front end.







Next was windscreen, doors and softtop



Then the rollbar and seats



Then the sound system....





Once most of the body was clear, i started to pull apart the dash.







Then it was a matter of pulling up the carpets and removing the remaining wiring and anything else until i was left with the bare body.











Mmmmm, check out these sexy rust holes lol. Actually for a 30 year old car thats spend most of its life outside, its not too bad.



Next step was to test out how good the new fridge will look....

Its a Waeco CDF11, the smallest proper fridge/freezer on the market. Will hold a 1.25L drink or 10 cans, and has a temperature range from -18 to +10.







Next stage was to remove the steering column and pedals







Then the big moment of removing the body from the chassis.

[feistl]

Next stage was to spend 4 hours with a karcher pressure washer removing as much dirt and crap as possible.







Next stage will be to strip back as much old paint as possible, fix the rust then give it a coat of galvanizing paint with a top layer of bituman stuff to form a protective waterproof layer.

Now unfortunately i dont have an awesome shed like Ian, so i have to be a pleb and drag the chassis around the back of the property like some sort of neanderthal...
Although a winch certainly makes it easier





Anyway i think Dad was getting a little jealous of my FJ40s, cause a truck arrived this morning..... lol



Might be a bit of a shit fight over the garage for a while.

Anyway its his new FJ40 project, and he did point out to me (several hundred times) how his doesn't have any rust. Pff, it aint a real rebuild if you dont remove your own rust.

Heres a couple of pics from the ad.

















I am also enjoying my collection of cars...

FJ40 with 308 V8 (Manual)
FJ40 with 351 V8 (Manual)
VY Berlina Wagon with 346 LS1 (Soon to be Manual)
VX SS with 427 LSX and HTV2300 Charger (Manual)

That's 22.7L / 32 pistons of V8 goodness.

Anyway that's all the updates so far, ill keep posting as i make progress. Hoping to knock this build over before Christmas so shouldnt be too long till the next update (Although i suspect several weeks of rust removal and sanding, so may not have an exciting update for a while).

Cheers, Errol

[IJ.]

Thanks for posting

Please tell me the Bonnet Scoop is going....

[VTClubSprtR8]

Whadya mean Errol, it's got all the heating and cooling you'll ever need it's an FJ40.

Nice project. It's making me itchy to get stuck into doing my Diahatsu F10 now.

[Pickles]

Very interesting, you are obviously a man of many talents. If you were my next door neighbour, I reckon I could keep you busy!
Thanks, Pickles.

[feistl]

Please tell me the Bonnet Scoop is going....

Maybe, In not a huge fan of it but it depends how much i can find a replacement hood for and if i decide to repaint it.

Whadya mean Errol, it's got all the heating and cooling you'll ever need it's an FJ40.

Nice project. It's making me itchy to get stuck into doing my Diahatsu F10 now.

Yeah, Remember on one of the first times i took it out it was around 5 degrees in the morning, i was freezing my ass off while my mate in his new prado was telling me via CB radio how he was adjusting the climate control as he was getting a bit warm lol. So big heater and aircon are a priority.

Wow, id never heard of the F10 but that looks like an awesome little car. Kerb weight of 1250kg means it would be pretty nimble. Im not sure exactly how heavy the FJ40 is, but i suspect its over 2000kg (especially once i add all the extra equipment).

What are your plans for it? Its worth spending a day on it, cause once you get started you find the motivation pretty easily.

Very interesting, you are obviously a man of many talents. If you were my next door neighbour, I reckon I could keep you busy!
Thanks, Pickles.

Cheers, although a lot of it im learning along the way. The more time i spend working on cars the more i realise how simply designed and built they are. Im loving the simplicity of the FJ, although rust and preparation is a bit boring...

[feistl]

Update:

Was busy on Saturday so only got to spend Sunday working on the FJ. Was a pretty hard day, spent pretty much all day stripping paint and tar from the body. Only probably 25% done so far, so a couple of long weekends coming up .

First step was to move the existing FJ "Fleet" around to make it easier getting cars in/out.



Next step was to use paint stripper, chisel, sand paper and a wire wheel on the grinder to remove as much shit paintwork and tar from the rear tub as possible. While the tar coating was doing a pretty good job, the original owner didnt do enough preperation so there was some rust underneath.





At least on the firewall at the front there was only a single layer of paint which the paint stripper seemed to take care of pretty easily.





Still a bit more prep work to be done, but its a start. Im a little worried with how hard/slow progress is, especially considering how complex the under side is.

Cheers

[V28VX37]

Now unfortunately i dont have an awesome shed like Ian, so i have to be a pleb and drag the chassis around the back of the property like some sort of neanderthal...
Although a winch certainly makes it easier

LOL Gold, almost choked on my dinner reading this

[feistl]

Spent the last 3 nights driving around the countryside picking up stuff to add to the collection....





Also got a few new parts... Rebuilt 5 speed FJ60 gearbox/transfer case and bellhousing/clutch to suit a Chev/Holden V8.



Plus a few steering boxes and bits a pieces

[IJ.]

NOT a well Man

Must say I've been tempted to pickup a "spare" or two for the current project!

[XUV]

Hmm, had too much to do with these things indirectly, cousins and his mates all had them and somehow i was the mechanic ??
dirty 4.2 6's which made it's v8 counterpart look economical

and the last time I commented on this type of vehicle , you guys are a certain breed , lol
it was to a guy dad got to rebuild his Fordson Majors gearbox, ultra clean overalls, amish type beard , tools you could eat with type of guy ( IJ )

So I says ' most times I see an FJ40 it's got it's bonnet up ' then got an explanation that it's a BJ40 not an FJ40 and a list of model numbers that put a ford nut to shame.

So all I'll say is great pics

[VTClubSprtR8]

This site might interest you Errol, if you havn't found it already. They also do the panels for European models (RHD)

You could almost build a brand new one with what they supply, with a good chassis.

http://citroa.com/

[feistl]

Ok, well update time. Once again I seem to be hopeless at keeping these things updated, no idea how IJ does it so regularly. Anyway there has been a change in plans since I last updated, so ill outline what we’ve done and what we plan to do.

So the original Fj40 that we purchased (The beige one) had a good driveline/engine and was registered/engineered, but the body/wiring needed work.

The second FJ40 (The white one) body is in great condition, but being a later model had the fuel tank relocated under the body. This meant we were limited in how low/far back we could mount the driver’s seat, not good when I’m 6’3”/110kg.

The fourth Fj40 (Green one) body is in pretty good condition, but has a crappy engine and needed a lot of work to get going.

So the plan changed to the following…
We would rebuild the first FJ40 using the original chassis, engine, diffs and combine it with the Green body, upgrade to a 5 speed gearbox, add power steering, do a rear disk/handbrake conversion, completely rewire it, add custom seats/seat frame, custom dash and a general tidy up/rebuild. This would be completed first as a “prototype” so we can see what does/doesn’t work, and also allows us to drive it while we are rebuilding the other two.

The 3^rd FJ40 (The hardtop version) will be rebuilt as planned.

The 4^th FJ40 (Originally green) chassis would be used with the body from the first FJ40. The reason for swapping the body’s over between FJ40-1 and FJ40-4 (as they are essentially the same) is it seemed a shame to strip back the green paint and repaint it and we didn’t want to repaint the FJ40-1.

The white FJ40 body/chassis will be sold as spares.

I know that seems a bit complicated to follow, we actually have a spread sheet documenting where each part would go, as essentially we have 5 different FJ40s that we are stripping down to end up with 3 really good ones.
So now to the pictures….

This is the FJ40-1 on its last outing before being rebuilt.







Here are a couple of interior pics of the FJ40-4 (Green) when we originally purchased it. As you can see, the body is structurally pretty good but the interior needs work. The original engine was a 6 cylinder Ford 250ci “Crossflow” engine. It had no exhaust system and while it did run it was unknown condition. It had a 60 series 4 speed gearbox.













We stripped the engine/gearbox out and sold them off for beer money.



I didn’t grab any photos during the process, but here is the body once removed from the chassis in preparation for the swap over.





So now it was time to strip the FJ40-1 down and get it ready to swap bodys/start the rebuild.











Here is the FJ40-1 chassis meeting its new body. Still a lot of preparation work to go (On chassis and body)