My son and I restored a 1970 Corvette Stingray convertible and completed the project in 2017. For this next project, we went in an entirely different direction. A 1976 blue Toyota FJ40. Unlike the Corvette where we did 30% of the work, we are going to do 80% of the work in our home shop. Yep, to my wife's frustration, we again have turned the garage into a shop.

After several weeks of searching and looking at half a dozen FJ40s from Virginia to New Jersey, we decided to purchase a 1976 blue FJ40 located in Philadelphia. The owner was the second owner of the FJ40 and he purchased the vehicle in 2012 with the intention to restore it. The previous owner is a very nice guy and was sad to let the FJ40 go. He had another buyer and the guy wanted to turn it into a rock crawler. No offense to you rock crawlers, but I could not let that happen.

The 40 had been partially disassembled and had not been worked on or started in 3 years (put some gas in carb and she fired up). The 40 was originally purchased in southeastern PA. Life got in the way for the previous owner and he just did not have the time to continue the restoration.

I plan on giving the 40 a name, but want to spend some time with it first. Something will come to me when I'm working on it.

Also - quick shout out to "Project Wrong Way" Motivated me to create this site. That dude is crazy.

FJ40 is now in the home shop and ready to be dismantled down to frame. I plan to leave the engine and transmission on the frame as well as the cowl. I have hired a local guy to do the welding and painting. My local speed shop is going to do the drum brake conversion as well as change the exhaust header and install a Weber carb. Mechanic is awesome and has experience working on FJ40's. He also works on the Corvette. Rest of work is going to be done at home.

Made some big progress this weekend. Shout out to my nephew Trip (was a power lifter in college) for helping with the heavy stuff. It's time to get the tub off. So, good story here. When taking off the windshield, the wiper motor has to be removed. I had to grind off the 4 nuts on the cover (they were painted shut). Was able to save the cover. Then I unscrewed the motor. I pulled the motor out and it is attached to the internal wiper arm. No screws or way to remove the motor from the arm. Well, after looking at it for 5 minutes and swearing at the Japanese engineers, I had to turn to the awesome MUD site (https://www.ih8mud.com). Sure enough, someone already plowed this road. Looks like you just pull on the motor and the ball joint just pops out. Go figure.

I have not posted on this blog for a week or so. Was a bit bummed out about the welding job but I'm over it now. This update starts with the frame welding fiasco. I started a chat on the IH8MUD site asking for what a cost to weld the frame should be. Received tons of feedback. I went out and asked for three quotes from mobile welders. One was for $1K, one was for $550 and one was for $450. I went with the $550 guy. Well, he cut off and welded on the new end sections. I then posted the work to the MUD site and then the fun started. I found out that the welder did several things wrong. First was he welded "downhill" instead of "uphill" on a straight line weld that was also a critical weight holding section. Second, I asked him to make the external weld look seamless. So he ground down the weld. Big mistake. Third, he should have used a fish plate on the inside and outside of the frame to make the frame super strong. So, enter welder #2. I called the $1K guy. He came and fixed it for $400. So, moral of story is that I should have called him in the first place. He has expertise in welding car frames. I then posted the updated work. The fun started again. Gosh, there are lots of jerks in the world who love to just bash people's work and not offer any advice. Several people said he did it all wrong. Funny thing is, the welder followed the directions of the manufacturer who made the fish brackets. So, beware of know it all people as well. I'm not going to post any more work to that site. Life is too short to deal with assholes.

Been a few weeks since I posted work on the FJ40. The rear is all done with leaf springs in and new shocks installed. Was a lot of work and it is safe to say that leaf springs really suck to not only remove but to install as well.

I took off the manifolds. That was a chore. I'm not going to use the stock exhaust manifold and, instead, going to install the high performance exhaust from SOR. Adds about 15% more horses to the engine. So I soda blasted the intake manifold and then coated it with high temp ceramic primer and then coated with 1,000 degree ceramic paint. Next, I have to bake it in the oven to get the paint to fully cure. Wife is going to love that....... I will tell her I'm baking her a cake.

The valve cover turned out really nice. I soda blasted it and then sanded it down. I spent a ton of time making sure all oil was off of it before painting. Not getting the oil off could cause it to flake later. So I hand sanded it. Then sprayed it down with Eastwood parts cleaner and then rubbed it down with Eastwood pre-paint prep. I've never rubbed something so hard.... Once it was cleaned, I hit it with engine ceramic primer and then engine ceramic paint. Two coats of the paint. One final trick I learned from some research was to then coat it with a high-gloss coat. This makes sure that any oil and grease will not penetrate the paint in the future.

The air cleaner is done. Sand blasted, rust encapsulated, primed and painted. I did the inside as well. Note that it has two gaskets inside. One in the bottom part and one in the top. If you plan to use them again after taking them off, be careful when removing them, as they will stretch if you just pull them off and they will not fit when you try to put them back on.

I found myself sitting in the shop and laughing at myself. I'm not going crazy, I just can't believe I missed something so clear on the FJ40 and did not notice it until now - after I have spent over 100 hours working on it. Where the red arrow is pointing, 1976 models had a vent in the cowl. My FJ40 is a 1976. There is no vent. In 1977, they made the cowls with no vent. In 1978, the cowls had no vent and had side defrost vents. This cowl has no side defrost vents. So, the math would say that this is a 1977 cowl on a 1976 FJ40. This is a critical find, as the original owner (not the second owner) must have done a partial restoration or had to replace due to some sort of accident. I now have a ton of questions. Someone did a partial restoration on an FJ40 that had only 85K miles? What if it really has 185K miles, or 285K miles? Could it be a 1977 and not a 1976? The VIN tag shows it is clearly a 1976. I will never know. This cowl also has major rust issues on the foot rest and bottom of the pillars, so this replacement cowl also did see some time on the road. Big pant soiling moment. As one IH8MUD person commented to me - "you have a mongrel on your hands". Well, it's my mongrel and I will make it beautiful again.

I next want to see if I can some how validate if the cowl was, in some way, original to the FJ40. Lookie what I found. With the cowl now off, this picture is where I took off the steering shaft. I have found 3 colors. One is sky blue, one is rustic green and one looks to be beige (the section at the top of the picture). I also found the beige color way under the cowl on the under side of the top of the cowl. Sky Blue, Rustic Green and Beige are all 1976 colors. So, here are some possible scenarios:

• The beige color could be a primer?

• The green color could be the original cowl color.

• The green color could be the original color to the FJ40.

• The blue color could be the original color of the cowl or the FJ40. I do know that the FJ40 has a blue spray over paint job, as evidence from over spay on the motor, engine lines, etc. However, how did the blue get under the steering shaft and other brackets? Usually on a spray over, the painter would not take off a steering shaft. So, the blue may have been added as a full paint job over the green when the cowl was put on (as steering shaft would have been removed) and the spray-over was done and applied over the blue.

What I plan to do is remove some paint from various other parts to see if I can find green. When I took some paint off the front fenders, I did not see green. I did see tan or what could be a primer. I will also sand off the area where the green is to see if it is under or over the blue.

The gauge cluster and glove box came out very nice. Going to have to get a nice pair of gloves to put in the glove box.

So I spent several hours fixing the underside of the bib. Cutting out the rust, replacing with new metal and then filling in the gaps. I then started to blast the bib. When I started to see yet again more bondo, I soiled my pants and I'm out of Depends. Moral of the story is to first blast the entire part and assess what you have first. Because if you do not first assess, you will be an ASS...... There seems to be a think section of metal welded to the bib that goes for nearly a foot across the entire front half of bib. By the time I cut this off, hire a welder to put on a new bottom, I may as well get a used bib. So, this one is beyond my repair so I will be looking for a used bib.

When in doubt, take it apart. So I went to work on the windshield and noticed after blasting some very minor surface rust along the outside of the rubber seal. I thought "eh, probably just surface rust and no big deal." Well, my gut told me to take out the seal and the window and take a look. Since nearly every other part on this rig has rust, why should this one not as well? Sure enough, there were two parts inside under the rubber that were rusted through. I fixed them up and good as new. So TAKE EVERYTHING APART!

Took a quick drive up to Scranton, PA to get an original bib. Was in great condition and only surface rust under the original patina. I will media blast it and prep it for painting and all will be good. Looks like crap in this pic, but it is solid. I'm going to use my old bib as wall art. going to paint it and hang it on the garage wall.

In like "what the hell" happened to this FJ40. It should not surprise me by now that nearly every square inch of body metal on this rig is messed up. What you see here is the driver's side door. See the spots of white bondo? This is a major dent in the door and a hole punched through the metal. I have to give serious credit to whoever put the bondo on this rig. That person was a master at his or her trade. Well, with the rust on the bottom of the door, the big dent and the hole - as well as the shotgun holes, I think I might have to get a replacement door. I lost count of the paint soiling moments, but I'm sure I'm at dozen or more now.......

Ring the cowl bell, as the cowl is done. New lower firewall is in place and the pillars and side kick panel rust rot has been cut out and replaced with new metal. Now waiting on the tub to be delivered and dry fit. I can't forget to seal the seams with seam seal. Say that really fast 10 times as a tongue tie.

Here is a picture of what the fire wall bottom of the cowl looked like before repair.

Pushed the old boy out for some sun today. Finished covering the exhaust with heat wrap. Had my first accident (can't believe it took 4 months). Was using a tightening tool to tighten the metal bands that hold the heat wrap around the exhaust and sliced open my finger when the band broke. A little pressure stopped the bleeding and some Gorilla glue held the skin back together. Who needs a doctor......

After agonizing for nearly two months on what tub to put on the FJ40, I ultimately went with an aluminum tub from Aqualu. It arrived 3 weeks after purchase (from Canada so had customs slow it down). Why aluminum? Well, the only tub manufacturer that I would have trusted buying a tub from is CCOT. They use the original factory stamp and nearly 99% original detail. They wanted nearly $10K for the tub. If I was going for a trailer queen original restoration, that would have made sense. So the next two options was to get a tub that is manufactured in Columbia or go aluminum. Well, after doing research and reading how low quality stuff in Columbia is made, I just did not trust them. Cost shipped to me would have been around $5,500. With both of those options being metal, I would have to fight rust on the tub for the rest of my life and then my kids would inherit my rust battle. So I went with aluminum. Shipped to me was $4,400. I have to say, this tub is really well made. Yes, I know it will not look original from the inside. But I'm going to use the original trans cover that my welder is modifying to fit. So all I'm missing are the ridges on the floor and wheel wells of the back. I actually like the smooth look. I'm adding a drop down tail gate from Real Steel Cruisers to make it look very original from the outside.

Well, Franknstein is bolted back together. The driver's door still needs a bit more tweaking to fit. The bottom of the door where the newly welded section is seems to be bumping on the tub. I will make the final adjustments post painting when I fit the doors.

So it took me 6 weeks to paint the FJ40. Nearly every weekend and 1-2 nights a week. I learned a ton. Made a crap load of mistakes. But I learned that painters have a very tough job. It's a total art form. Takes tons of patience. Eye for detail and TIME. Speaking of time, next time I will pay someone to do it.......

Use a gardening kneeling pad. So several years ago my wife bought this (at the time) stupid kneeling pad. I laughed at her. She never used it. I found it the other day in the basement and thought that it might be useful. Wow is is great to sit on the floor or when kneeling to do work around the 40. Who's laughing now.

With the brakes done, the tub is back on for good. Now it's time to start really putting it back together. I know I should have waited a bit yet to put on the plates and other items, but I wanted to see how it looked.

The new gas tank is in and the fuel hoses all hooked up. I decided to run the gas vent line to the rear of the FJ40. Emissions would have called for a charcoal filter in the engine bay and then a way to push the fumes to burn off in the engine. Since it is exempt from emissions, we don't need no stinking charcoal filter...

Decided to work on the seats that have arrived. Had to take a break from the electric stuff that is just not fun anymore. I used the original seat brackets and purchased new sliders that go with the seats. The seats recline as well.

Put most items back on the engine to fit the parts. Will soon be ready to head off to the shop that is going to set up the carb, fuel pump, clutch and other core items.

Loaded up and heading to the shop to have the engine setup. You can also see that the roll bar is in and looking good. Expect to be on the road by Memorial Day 2021. That would put me at spending 17 months on the restoration. Would most likely have taken much longer if no Covid (stuck at home with little to do).