FJ40 Nut: 60 degrees Fahrenheit during the Winter Solstice!!!!

Back to the grind!

It's a few days before the BIG holiday and what better way to avoid the malls than to get dirty in the MAN CAVE. I've planned the week off to get back under, over, and beside the Land Cruiser and see if I can make some head-roads toward making this hunk of steel a running truck. Over the past month or so, I've been ticking off some other minor stuff, like adding the lubricants, but next week I want to get'r running!

Lubricants

So, about a month ago I purchased 2 gallons of gear oil at NAPA which was, by my calculation, the perfect amount for topping off the transmission, transfer case and rear end. Yeh, they all use the same lube, a pretty basic 80W90 product with the API classification of GL-4. GL-5 is a heck of lot more available, having superseded the GL-4, but NAPA had it (go NAPA!). My calculations didn't allow for a whole lock of spillage in the village, so I employed a helper to prevent too much overfilling. For those of you who care to know but don't, you generally add oil somewhere and wait until if spills out of somewhere else (often the same place). When working alone, it is customary to exceed the absolute minimum amount necessary. That small amount that drips into your bucket or rags is usually insignificant, but here I had only a few ounces to spare. Anyway, it was a good thing I trusted the manual because I used it all!!

The Mystery Part!

There was this curious little cover that I had stripped and painted that just didn't seem to fit anywhere. When taking on a project of this magnitude, you tend to emphasize tagging and bagging, but for body panels and large pieces it is not usually necessary. But here was a cover that I had taken great care to coat with impact protection paint, that clearly went under the truck somewhere. But where? I checked all my documentation and the 100's of photos, but nowhere do I find reference to that cover. Where's Waldo?

I must have searched (altogether) a good 4 hours! But, there the cover sat. Then, one day I was under the chassis admiring my "artwork" when... four threaded holes in the body screamed out to me: "What the heck goes here?". This is when the light came on. Ha! It's the cover that protects the fuel fill, overflow and evaporator lines! I must have removed it before commencing with the photo documenting. Doh! So, here it is:

What? Bondo in the holes?

My paint guy did an awesome job, but it was clear that he was unfamiliar with the FJ40. He straightened out all the little wrinkles and dented sheet metal, and just a few rust holes. But there were many holes that belonged, places where badges, the antenna, side lights and two rear reflectors mounted. After repairing a small area of corrosion on the right rear quarter, he apparently skimmed the area with bondo, closing off two holes into which mounting bolts for the rear reflector went. No problem as the bondo 'oozed into the cavity behind which was a perfect tell-tale to guide my drill. The pics don't show the paint I applied to the exposed raw steel.

60 Degrees means PAINT!

I had found s few parts I neglected to paint in the fall before the weather turned cold, and with a stretch of warmer weather, I set to remedy this. My friend Orlando has a Snap On sand blaster in his shop and he was open to me firing it up (clearly this wasn't his plan, but he is a great guy for doing so), The parts were the bump stops, the e-brake "bucket" where the lever attaches to the cable, and the extension rods for the jack (not shown). The rear stops are two piece.

Note the corrosion resulting from pooling H2O

Wish I had one of these!

Self-etching primer is the key!

Indestructible

Over my heater to cure the paint overnight

Funky shift lever retainer

The shifter is held in place with a collar that locks onto two pins in the tranny tower. It is not clear how to remove it nor install it. You had to be there when I was taking this thing apart (ha!). Even with the assistance of the blogs and my manuals, I played with this bugger for a very long time to get it apart. I think I got lucky. Now, I decide to use the old noggin to get it back together. That's right... a hammer!

The way this works: The collar presses down on a bushing which rests on a spring which presses down on the lever and keeps it firmly locked in place. However it's critical that the collar is locked down by the pins. This is accomplished by two slots in the collar which interlock by pressing down and twisting the collar. The problem is, the collar has a perfectly smooth surface which falls just below the edge of the tower when installing. So, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU GRAB TO TWIST THE SMOOTH COLLAR? One of the pictures shows this predicament. When the going gets tough, the tough get going! So, I think about some way to emply the two flats in the collar (you can see them in the photos). I measure the width between them, then consider some plier or wrench that could be wedged into that space. I search the blogs and I find another nut who made a wrench for this very purpose. The tool was crude and was welded together, so It wasn't something I was doing today. But the concept seemed good. Did I have anything that could do the job? I needed something that could slide over the 3/4" diameter shifter while fitting between the 1.10" spacing of the flats. After a bit of deep thought, I figured this would be some kind of weird PLUMBING fitting, and don't you know I had just that fitting! This is KARMA. It pays to save everything. Jesus, if I live long enough, I'll own (at least) one of everything! The fitting "fits" between the flats and allow me to depress the spring perfectly. Job done in 20 seconds flat.