Ratty fj40 Land Cruiser clustertruck....

I'm glad you took the time to post all the this - that thing is so cool!!! Some neat ideas and fabrication too.

I may of missed it but what are your front springs out of?

Your build looks awesome btw.

Thanks.

4" lift heap grand cherocar coils on the front.

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Got an aussie locker installed in the front third yesterday so it matches the rear. Easier than I thought it was gonna be, lets just hope my diff doesnt grenade due to shoddy workmanship lol.

Also got the windshield out and all of the wiper linkage/assorted hardware stripped off. The windshield took a **** kicking but it was already cracked, managed to save the seal though.

Thats it for updates, gonna be hammering on the body for a bit next.

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Aussie is in the front third, threw some side view mirrors on, made up some front fenders (still need some work), and got a cool skull emblem goin (bolted to the dash for now).








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Hey Darwink

Not sure how I missed this build but cudo's to you...awesome fabrication skills shown here...I venture over to pirate4x4 site to see what those folks are doing to the old flatfender Jeeps and other stuff too...

you 4x4 guys have a lingo all to your own thats for sure...please keep posting...I am loving a ratty 4x4 build....I have 3 ratty 4x4 Willys in my back door yard...glad you could join the craziness on here...

Thanks for sharing your build with us...

MikeC

P.S. love the garage dog too

Late viewer here too. Nice work! [P

is it done yet?

Thanks guys.

Not done yet man, I need more time to work on this thing but my job keeps getting in the way. I dont know how you guys with kids and wives manage to get any time at all in the garage...

May get on it a little this weekend but probably wont be doing anything too interesting. ****ing body work sucks!

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Nice build. Thanks for posting. There are a few off road guys on here. I don't get to go out as much as I would like. The fabrication stuff you posted will always give a hot rod guy some new ideas.

I keep thinking about using Currie Johnny Joints in a hot rod. That might be a little overkill though.

gold03 said:

Nice build. Thanks for posting. There are a few off road guys on here. I don't get to go out as much as I would like. The fabrication stuff you posted will always give a hot rod guy some new ideas.

I keep thinking about using Currie Johnny Joints in a hot rod. That might be a little overkill though.

Click to expand...

Haha, when I look at some of the suspensions the guys round here are using I realize just how beefy the 4x4 stuff really is.

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Got the hip bars installed between the a and b pillars of the roll cage, spent half a day making 4 gussets for the cage, fixed up the ****py fitting ds fender thing, mounted the overflow bottle to the inner fender..... Did some more hammering and welding on the ds firewall, its all attached now but still kind of lumpy. May have to finesse it a little here and there.


Front axle is rebuilt, 529'd/aussie locked third is in (locker seems to work good to boot). While I was in there I eliminated the backing plates, had a couple extra rotten ones that I made spacers out of. What a greasy mess man. Every single tool I used is coated in grease, my garage floor is coated in grease, ****, I was coated in grease.... Also got the ruff stuff diff cover painted and put on the rear axle.

Just have to rebuild and clean up the calipers now. Pistons dont seem to be seized, thats as far as I got. Looking at the calipers close for the first time two are stock looking yota ones and two have some cool looking scallops on the top and outer sides. Should look kinda cool.

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Pics.








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There is an old land cruiser for sale outside Monroe and every time I drive by it I think of this project and how much fun it would be to build that!!!

Do it man!

So of the two sets of calipers I had I chose the fancy ones ones. The other calipers have 4 pistons but theres one small one and one big one on each side, these have 2 big ones on each side. Dont know what that means but it must be good. Havent seen these before but I like the way they turned out.

Ugly ones.



Pretty damn cool lookin ones. Anyone know what theyre off of? Im thinkin maybe F/BJ62?




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Did some parts hunting yesterday w Derek and found a 4 spd tranny/tcase thats the same as mine so I snagged em for spares. Got worried when I saw the three speed shift knob, I couldnt row through the gears cause po had the shifter in the tranny the wrong way but he threw in a set of shortie jump seats to sweeten the deal so I jumped on it. Opened up the tranny when I got home after it thawed out and sure enough its a four speed, nice. Anyone need a 3 speed knob? lol She shifts pretty good now that she has all her springs and the shifter isnt all mucked up and jammed.




Seats, didnt see any rips, one is missing the rubber cushions that rest on the wheel well but otherwise they look good. Donno If I can get em to work with the cage so they will probably end up in the classifieds.




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Sold the jump seats for a hun so I got a free tranny/xfer.

Made a couple few gussets out of 1/4" to tie in the rub bars to the rear cage plates, drilled/sleeved/welded the hard top mounting holes around the edges of the tub, welded some angle over the rear inner fenders... and threw some cool brass fittings/grease nipples on the knuckles to make grease jobs easier.

My buddy has an lt1 350 hes willing to give me for a good price so now Im thinking of ditching the 2f..... Decisions. So far the plan would be to keep the 4 speed/one piece case, throw in a ranger overdrive or use the AA adapter to the 350..... Replace one piece cases as needed (have a spare now) then upgrade to a split or an orion 4:1... Dreamin.








Test fitted some super cool flaps Randy got me....



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Looks like you're coming right along on this cool truck. Nice work.

Gettin somewhere anyways lol, thanks.

Messed around a little more yesterday.

Got the hand throttle hooked up using some mountain bike brake parts (brake lever barrel adjuster at the pedal) and a few scrap pcs of steel. In the pics the adjuster is facing the drivers seat but its now facing the firewall. I think I ended up with a real hillbilly cruise set up lol, the pedal gets close to full travel when the throttle knob is maxed out. Could come in handy if I ever have to fake my own death.......

Sunk some strips of steel into the doors where the window rollemup used to live to make some stash pockets. I was lazy so I just pre bent the steel, traced it out on the door then made cuts w the grinder and slotted it in. Got some drain holes in there and whatnot... Took the time to fill in the 10 000 holes in the inner door panels, that was fun. Still have to figure out what to do with the other gaping door holes. May just leave them to stash bigger stuff, maybe make a door/flap of some sort to make it look better...

Also started patching the holes at the bottom of my wind shield frame. Rust sucks, I feel like just cutting the bottom lip off and replacing it w a strip of 1/4" lol.









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So a bunch of crap got crossed off the list this week. Got all the mechanical push pull cables routed and hooked up, only one left is the throttle cable but thats gonna take some creativity since my carb is set up for a linkage not a cable. Made up a heater valve bracket, clutch slave soft line bracket, e brake cable bracket......

Got the fan on and the rad shroud modified to fit around the new rad/ps box (still needs a little more trimming to clear the box) then mounted all the splash shields. Everything fit except the ps one under the distributor but after a small carefully thought out chop she slid in and bolted up like butter. Made a little rpm gauge bracket off the cage... A new e brake cable to lever pin since I seem to have lost the one I had.... A new steering column gasket since mine was fallin apart, redid the retainer plates at the same time and just cleared them bare steel style. Heater and duct work is in. Took me a while to figure out the part of my datch intake I brought down wasnt part of the 40 ducting lol. Finally saw the chrysler star on there, 10 minutes after trying to find out where it went..

Was kinda fun draggin all these parts down from the loft then trying to remember where the hell they all go.



Pictars.












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Couple shots of the van without doors.






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