Dad's 1978 FJ40

[Nate]

Dad passed away too soon and too young a few years ago. When I was a younger fella we had three FJs. A 1968, my 1972 with a 350 and a 3-speed trans, and the 1978. The 78 was by far the cleanest of the three and is the only one that remains in the family. It sat since the mid-90s at his place on the Grand Mesa as one of those things we would get to when time allowed. It never quite allowed. Feeling some pangs of regret for not making the time to get it done, I started on it last October. I tried capturing some videos with the intent of making a YouTube channel, but that was more work and skill than I cared to take on. Instead, I have a lot of photos. Here is what I have accomplished with it in the last year, starting with the cleanup.
This is the walk around after I had it towed home.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao0zvQUnZFAu1imilsj9347NKw9r?e=C2nHYa

 

[Nate]

Some more short clips of the clean-up.

The driver compartment: https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao0zvQUnZFAu1ihEOyKpsq50yQ5t?e=cgrJcP

The air cleaner was home to about 10,000 hantavirus mice it seems:
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ao0zvQUnZFAu1ip6RvJsfs1yV5vB?e=Rnz3nY

 

[Nate]

Once all the garbage, parts, wasps, mice, and other sundry were out.

 

[Nate]

The only thing salvageable on the seats was the frames.

 

[Crash]

Great stuff man. 👍

 

[Nate]

I knew the engine was going to be a mess, heck most of it was going to be a mess. It was around this point, as I am doing nearly all the work myself, that I decided this would be a frame off resto-mod, with the mod part limited to Old Man Emu suspension. I wanted to keep everything as close to how it was as I could.

 

[Nate]

I got a little out of order, in retrospect, and started getting body parts blasted before I probably should have. The jury is still out on that one. But have been super happy with Blast Tech in Englewood.

 

[Nate]

The teardown process is "quick and easy" lol but I needed to see some progress and spent some time restoring parts too. Plus getting some parts out of the garage and into the basement gives me a little more work room.

 

[Nate]

Did a little investigating on the quarter panels. They'd been replaced many years ago. It looks like there was too much heat on the spot welds and created a lot of wrapping. There is a metric ton of bonos in some spots. Still have not decided on new quarter panels or a new Aqualou tub.

 

[Nate]

Here is the part where things get rough. Again, I am doing this by myself. After hours of fighting to get the head separated from the block, I found this mess. AFAIK this is the correct engine for this truck and has been rebuilt at least once.

If you look closely, you can see some pine needles resting on the #1 piston. They were rusted to the cylinder. It took a week of soaking with various penetrating oils to get them to break loose.

The head was not much better.

 

[Cruisertrash]

Great thread, looking forward to more. For what it’s worth - and you may have already gotten the engine work done, your posts are all retrospective - Gunn Automotive in Denver did a nice job on my 2F head. Those guys know F Series motors.

 

[Nate]

Great thread, looking forward to more. For what it’s worth - and you may have already gotten the engine work done, your posts are all retrospective - Gunn Automotive in Denver did a nice job on my 2F head. Those guys know F Series motors.

Yessir, I came here to RS to find that a lot of us have used them. Looking ahead in the thread, I took to engine to them around February or March of this year (have to look at the photos to be sure) I got it back mid-October. Lots of explaining on that one.

 

[Nate]

At this point with the head off, I had a reason, can't recall what it was beyond A.D.D to remove the rest of the body. Maybe it was easier for me to pull the engine? Anyways, the trusty? Harbor Freight cherry picker and straps and I were able to get the tub off the frame and sitting, temporarily on some saw horses.

And then over to its side.

Oh yeah, now that I look at the photos I wanted to drop the trans and transfer before I pulled the engine. That's why I pulled the the tub.

 

[Nate]

Yup, that was it. I needed to remove the tub to get the trans and transfer out easier. This led to a whole new saga. How damn many are there going to be...

More on that later.

 

[Nate]

With the transfer case out of the way, it was time to drop the trans. The HF hydraulic lift cart was amazing for this part. Slid it right under the trans and unbolted it. I was able to lower the cart and wheel right under the frame.

I was not surprised to find more of those mud wasp nests on the flywheel either.

 

[Nate]

It was finally time to yank the engine. I know, I know, I did use the lift points. But I did not think I would be able to get the head free and pistons broken free with the engine on the stand. That process was easier with the engine still mounted to the frame.

 

[Crash]

So good to see your thoroughness. BlastTech is who did the 40 I restored a few years ago and I give them two thumbs up as well.

 

[Nate]

So good to see your thoroughness. BlastTech is who did the 40 I restored a few years ago and I give them two thumbs up as well.

Do you have a thread on your build?

 

[Nate]

With the engine out, I fought for several hours trying to get it onto the HF engine stand. The bolt patterns do exactly line up from what I could see. Once it was on the stand I was able to get the tear down started. This was in January of 2023.

 

[Nate]

We had a warm enough day last January that I was able to roll the chassis outside and take the pressure washer to it. Once I was cleaned up and back into the garage, this is still heavy as hell in case you're wondering, I gave the frame a thorough inspection and found the inner frame rails, on both sides, were split. The splits were at the back end where the inner frame terminates.