Yikes! This might be a more than a one afternoon project!

[fjc man]

Zep, I saw this on Mud price reduced to a 1000 bucks for a 81 FJ60 frame in Sharon, Tn. His avatar is Anthony Miller, give it a look. It’s in pretty good shape and ready for pickup. Just saying, Bill

 

[74fj40]

Turn the heat up, wire speed down and slow down your technique

 

[74fj40]

Also, trail tailor makes a reinforcement kit for the rear section. I’d consider installing that as well as fully boxing the frame back there as well.

C-Channel Kit 60 Series

Toyota Land Cruiser 60 series rear C-Channel Kit Strengthen up that rusty rear frame 3/16" channel reinforcement rails with Grade 8 hardware Bare metal One kit includes a right and a left side

trail-tailor.com

 

[Rzeppa]

I have absolutely no interest in a body swap, easily 25x more time and effort.

Can't turn the heat up, it's already maxed out. I can turn the feed rate down, it's about in the middle, gas is about 2/3. My biggest challenge is access/angles, it's hard to squeeze in there, on the inside it's right up close to the muffler and tailpipe, on the outside of course the outside frame rail and inside of the body are in the way. Plus, welding upward on my back sucks. As I mentioned upthread I had to go find an old leather coat to keep from burning my chest.

Based on decades of welding experience, I have no doubt about the strength of these welds or penetration, it just doesn't look as pretty as if I had decent access.

 

[Rzeppa]

So, after 3 days of snow blowing (oh yeah the reason it wasn't doing much is that BOTH shear pins...sheared! No auger action ) and shoveling, I finally got after it again tonight.

Prelude, this was before I headed to work on Friday morning

 

[Rzeppa]

So, I have been making cardboard stencils for the shape of the steel sections. With the inside frame rail sections done and welded in, not I am working on the outside frame rail.

 

[Rzeppa]

Now mark it on the steel plate

 

[Rzeppa]

Fit the steel plate up in there, lots of fine tuning with the grinder.

 

[subzali]

Way to go Jeff! So you've been driving the FJ40 while you've been doing this repair?

 

[rover67]

Looks great Jeff! make sure you wear something to breathe through with all that grinding! Also, if you can use CO2 it might help with penetration on the Mig since it sounds like ya got 'er turned up and it still needs more. It'll be a bit messier tho.

 

[Rzeppa]

Way to go Jeff! So you've been driving the FJ40 while you've been doing this repair?

I had been driving both the 40 and the 45, but right now the 45 is snowed in and I'm tired of shoveling!

 

[Rzeppa]

Looks great Jeff! make sure you wear something to breathe through with all that grinding! Also, if you can use CO2 it might help with penetration on the Mig since it sounds like ya got 'er turned up and it still needs more. It'll be a bit messier tho.

I'm using 75/25 argon/CO2. Are you suggesting that pure CO2 would work better? Right now the gas is running at around 60/100. I did slow the wire feed from 70/100 to 50/100, but that didn't really make much difference. My main issue is access/angles, it's really tight in there next to the muffler and tailpipe for the inside frame rails. They're done now, so the outside ones should be a bit easier. And yeah, I should have gotten a 230 volt welder, but I don't have 230 in my garage, and adding it would involve a whole new service panel, both the the garage and for the house ($$$).

 

[Rzeppa]

I do have some flux core wire, I used it once when I ran out of gas. Ya, very messy, lots of splatters! But I've done some very nice welds on thicker stock than this for bumpers, etc.; when I can weld downward it is WAY easier.

 

[Rzeppa]

In Boy Scouts, they taught us the 6 Ps: Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

I spent about another hour tonight grinding this piece just right. Here's a picture of how it is fitting, with the magnet for welding holding it into place:

 

[Rzeppa]

Welding it in was soooo much easier on the outside frame rail with some room to move around and get good angles. After grinding it relatively flush, here's what it looked like. Oh and I cleaned up the contact surfaces of the teeth of the ground clamp with a little sandpaper love, and I think that probably helped get more current into the welds.

 

[Rzeppa]

Last night I was able to cut the last cardboard template for the last section of outside frame rail. That little gap you see at the top was an accident and when I outlined the template on the steel plate I made sure to account for that.

 

[Rzeppa]

Shout Out to @Capriblue45 for the tip on using a (I didn't know they even made them) thin wheel on an electric angle grinder, way faster than waiting on the air compressor to recharge with the cut off wheel on a die grinder. The 3" wheel on the air powered die grinder still has its place, but for long cuts that don't involve small radii, it goes way faster. This was from last night.

 

[Rzeppa]

Rough cut, will still need to shape it precisely.

 

[Rzeppa]

Tonight I worked on getting that last piece of steel plate shaped just right. Even with Mechanix gloves, a little slip here or there is a quick slice. That was my pinky. Fortunately it wasn't deep.

 

[Rzeppa]

Test fitting. It is close but not quite. I decided to hang it up around ten, get back after it tomorrow night. Hopefully, get it fitted perfectly and weld it in tomorrow night.