My winter project

[Crush]

All

Thought I would share what I’ve been working on since I am musclecarless for the moment. Hopefully this is appropriate, as I know this is primarily a muscle car site, but thought this might be a little diversion during the long winter many of us face near this part of the world.

I have always been into four wheelers and trucks. A bucket list item for many years has been an FJ 40. I don’t know if this has happened to many on this site, I suspect it has, but I found myself enjoying the research and history of older Toyotas, especially the Land Cruiser‘s , and as I tend to do, dove in headfirst.

I picked this up a few years ago as a two family owned vehicle in Northern California. It is a FJ40 that was made for the US. Needless to say it was a nice survivor that needed some paint restoration, general cleaning and updating.

The goal was for it to look day 2ish with appropriate period correct updates along with safety and drive ability in mind. Here is what it look like to begin with, not too shabby from 10 feet but definitely needed some paint and interior restoration, along with some deep cleaning.

[jer]

Looks like a sweetheart of an FJ! These are super fun and gives you plenty of excuses to run all year round, which we seldom do in our hotrods. I'm having a blast in my just finished CJ. Like nothing else on the road.

[Crush]

Cool Jeep had a CJ5 in HS and four wheeled the heck out of it!

Ok so needed to correct some suspension issues. Often times when your lift these FJ’s with shackles the steering gets sketchy. You need castor shims so on they go

[Crush]

Also put Bilsteins to keep from losing more teeth

[jer]

Your FJ is a 90in wheelbase and that coupled with the mods you've done should make for a great ride.
The CJ, pre '72 is much shorter, 81 factory, I stretched it to 82 since virtually everything is a tossed salad. I used a '80 widetrack front and rear, the front puts my caster at around 7*, without shims....also did a reverse shackle which aids in the highway stability. Lots of guys will cut, rotate and reweld their ends so they can maintain a good caster and driveline angle with a lift over 3 inches. It's actually fairly cheap to have done.

[Crush]

Wanted to throw some 15” “ steelies” on to look more stock. Little did I know that it would change again!!

[napa68]

Originally Posted by Crush

Wanted to throw some 15” “ steelies” on to look more stock. Little did I know that it would change again!!

That's it......right there Bary!

[jer]

Now that's a good look! Liked the white wagon wheels also, but these rock.

[CamaroNOS]

Dog dish caps on a FJ, love that bone stock look.

She is perfect just the way it is.

Paul

PS - the CJ looks very sharp as well.

[Crush]

Thanks for the comment so far. Tim, while I agree these wheels look good, they will be changing again but I think you’ll give me a thumbs up once you see them! Stay tuned.

So with the vehicle being 70% original paint I wanted to do what I could to revive it. Many of the tips and tricks I used came from many on this site and some other research I did.

Meguiers #7