1969 FJ40 hot mess to minty fresh or..spring green fresh?

[simps80]

so..the rear jump seats mentioned earlier with the rotted out feet/leg...
that same area on the tub was affected. Basically there are scab plates under the wheel wells that are spot welded into place underneath to reinforce for the jump seats.

the metal between those plates and hte wheel wells was compromised from that construction.
so i drilled out the scab plates, cut new metal for the wheel well sections, plugged a bunch of other drilled holes in the area. Also cut and bent new scab plates, that were welded in, later cause those pics aren't with these .

this first pic shows the scab plates that are underneath that caused the rot, again new ones of those I made and later welded into place:

 

[simps80]

the tunnel sucked to do, but turned out good. doing all the work with cutoff wheels, grinders, vice grips, adjustable wrenches, hammer and dollies takes forever. but I got good at imagining shapes and how to duplicate them
had to scrape off all that petroleum based undercoating cause it stunk like hell when burned. you can see 6 other holes in the 'body' of the tunnel. presumably at some point for shift boots? they were round drilled holes for something...anyway welded those up too

 

[simps80]

patched up some spots on the door, they weren't bad, they were still solid, but I had gutted the doors so figured I might as well cut those out on the face and replace, then the one on the inner edge I found after removing all the weatherstripping.

the PS door was full of bondo because of this one square that was rough,
so I cut that out and put in new metal. this picture kind of shows the areas that were bondo'd on the doors and fender.

Also the rocker spots weren't rusted through but were wavy, so I cut them out, which gave me access into those inner channels to blow out and spray with rust converter and rust inhibitor as well. once I cut those access holes I could reach all the way to the other side of the truck in those channels which was well worth 2 patches.

 

[simps80]

I realized after crawling around underneath it for the step work that the PS rocker had rotted in the middle because of an angled brace that was trapping water.
so I cut out the patch and a larger area to gain access to the triangular brace behind that section that braces the step.
made a new one, put it in, sprayed the whole area, then welded in a larger nice plat piece of steel in place of the little patch I had previously done.

 

[kurtnkegger]

Mike, glad to see you're including the "one step forward, two steps back" that is more ordinary (at least for me) than I like to think with rust repair, and welding on fresh steel.

Really enjoying this thread!

 

[simps80]

steps
so the steps were pretty crusty, so Mike D. came over and gave me some pointers on the first one which I then used the process to duplicate the repairs on the second. Especially some creative hammer and dolly work to get them relationaly flat and square after welding in all the new metal on the top. With good metal on the steps themselves and the old mounting brackets removed (just spot welded in a couple places to the step treads) I set out coming up with an new way to mount them.
I got some c-channel from the supermarket, then using the new mounting screw plates that are in the energy suspension body mount kit, I mocked them up on each side, clamped them to the tops, spot welded while on the truck to make sure the location of everything stayed put. then took them off and finish welded the c-channel and screw plates to the tops. The c-channel is way overkill from stock, but damn solid for sure.

luckily the trim rings for the top were all in good shape as far as rust was concerned, just needed some straightening. You can also see the whole new rocker that was put in on the DS as a result of having to cut the whole rocker out to remove the floor pan. so my early on piecemeal patches on the rocker all got replaced on the DS also.

eventually I'll get to the steps with new vinyl pictures but that was post paint.

the insides of the c-channels and the steps were coated with rust preventer and weld through primer on the lips that were welded.
the weld through primer was good to have for all thee bare metal that needed welded together, scab plates, these channels, etc.

 

[simps80]

a bit of overkill, but I wanted to replace the hardware on the rear barn door latches at some point and figured they were all seized anyway. After fixing the hinges, I wanted the latches to be done as well. So I went to town with an impact screw driver removing the latches, then cut away the sheet to gain access to the captured nuts, and the floating steel plate that allows the latch to be adjusted. cut all that out, replaced the captured nuts that were stripped or broken, coated the inside with the holes cut, then welded that all back together. this turned out good. plus now later during assembly I was able to use the new stainless hardware. (I bought stainless hardware from overland metric for everything on this car that is an "outside" fastener. the stuff in these pictures was temporary for fitment.
this all got disassembled and blasted as individual pieces.

 

[simps80]

I found a guy on mud who was doing steering wheels and he offered to fix them for free for the first few that volunteered just pay shipping both ways he charges now, and does other nice small part resotration. he cerakotes for the finish etc blah https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/early-fj-steering-wheel-restoration.972941/

anyway, he did the steering wheel for me. it turned out good.

 

[simps80]

I found the bondo picks
this was 1/4" thick in some spots. I basically just chipped it all out in ever-widening spaces until I got to no bondo.
I mean..I can see why it was there in some spots, to smooth out some lines...but the person who painted this just didn't need to make all the lines perfect imo, anyway, chipping and grinding it all out is why a lot of the pictures show so many 'patches' of differing or no color as compared to when it showed up.

 

[simps80]

one of hte other things that needed fixed was the parking brake,
it didn't work
the cable was busted.

I rebuilt it with new OEM pads, cleaned it all up, painted the backing plate and drum, then replaced the leaking rear seal and installed the new oem cable.
one of the things with the cable was it wouldn't stretch long enough to get the clevis in the lever with the PB assembly mounted no matter what I did...
so Mike D. came up with the idea of take the assembly down off the output, attach the cable end to the lever, then put the assembly back on, which worked.

 

[simps80]

here's the scab plates I made for under the jump seat mounts.
there are 4 of these that go in under the wheel wells.

 

[simps80]

mid-bed mounts had rust so we cut these out (the mounts are double layer) then replaced the the two layers of metal with weld through primer and the mounts with the new ones from the kit once the metal was replaced.

Mike had the good idea for the double layer of cutting the first layer (top visible layer) bigger than the bottom layer, so that it exposes good and bad metal in the bottom layer, replace the bottom layer, coat it, then replace the larger portion of top layer metal as the final step, that worked much better

 

[simps80]

I think second hardest part of the metal work of this truck was believe it or not, getting the spare tire carrier to mount square, level, having the latch line up without scraping, and allowing the hinges to operate. I spent at least 12 hours on this portion...

2 things had occurred:
the rotten sill had allowed enough flex and movement over time that it wasn't anywhere near correct alignment anymore.
and second. the one fault with teh awl_teq rear sill is the captured nuts for the lower spare tire bracket hinges are in the wrong place. so...
had to:
1. cut through the quarter skin we had replace
2. relocate the captured nuts in the sill channel, weld those back in from behind (blind and upside down)
3. redo the location of the upper hinge captured nuts on both the tire swingout as well as on the tub to get it all squared, lined up, and functional. then weld them in place and dress the visible side.
4. and then I actually shaved a cut-off wheel's thickness off the bottom lip of the swingout, heated it up, pounded it flat, then re-welded the swingout with that much less metal on the leading edge to finally get it close without rubbing on the latch catch that connects to the sill. but now the latch sits dead center top to bottom of the catch.

also both hinges were seized so I had to buy new ones from a guy off mud.
but it is worth it now, it operates as it should, is solid

you can see in the last picture how much the tub captured nuts had moved, I filled all that in with weld, as well as on the swingout

 

[simps80]

after that, tear down began.
the collective decision was to change the color to spring green, since this thing was 3 or 4 different colors at some point, and 1969 data badges don't include color, it was a good option to get rid of the 2 blues, 1 silver, some red on the hardtop, green on the doors.
so we made the decision to tear it down as much as possible so the color change would be thorough.

that also meant stripping the petroleum lining crap off the inside of the hood etc. etc. etc.

at this stage (actually months before), my wife was losing patience
that folks right there is a 3 car garage full of sh**, and even SHE was parking outside at this point. LOL

we got the inside tore all the way down past here as well, with heater ducting etc all pulled out. and removed the front windshield, breaking it in the process. I guess I didn't take a picture of that..when it was stripped down, welded 2 non-oem holes in the dash while it was down.

 

[simps80]

sent every lose part to blaster.
they came back nice.
only had to fix one split on a braised repair on the base of one fender after this.

 

[simps80]

about the only metalwork left to speak of was the bottom corners of the hard top sides had rusted out.
we busted the hard top down to its components for blasting, but had to fix the corners which had filled with water and rusted at the bottoms.
so I busted through with a hammer cut out the bad.
was able to complete the outer facing inner structure, skin and side, but the inside facing structure and skin was too complicated a shape couldn't get it right, Mike had to do those

 

[simps80]

finished patches, fun with power washers.

 

[simps80]

very last repair was this brazed split that failed.
welded that up, that was it.
you can actually see my new 45lpb in this shot..so I guess I did get the pickup before this one went off to paint so this is mid-august 2017 or thereabouts ..

 

[simps80]

so fast forward to december 19, 2017
Gonzalo finally finished it.
Mike and John went and picked it up.
but the owner still doesn't have enough room in his 4 car garage for it
lol just kidding Jake if you're reading this.

so even though I promised Hannah it would never return...it returned. is a saint.
which is good, I don't want this to stall out...I want to see it to completion because it is a nice result, and will make someone a nicely preserved cruiser, not a cream puff restoration you can't take out of the garage, but a nice preservation.

but the assembly documentation will have to wait for some more time.

the hard top sides were painted separate, just transported this way


the last shot is just us posing it for how it 'could' look when its done.

 

[simps80]