Good to see that you are working on something and not let anything sit around and collect dust. Starting to work on the FJ8C and am running into some problems. The roof support area above the sliding doors have collapsed down and now I can not get either door to slide open. I am going to have to find someone who knows how to work with aluminum and make new support frames for the roof and above the sliding door area. I should be getting a media blaster within the next few weeks and start sand blasting and fix what I can and get someone else to weld in new metal where it needs it. I am thinking of going with that new Camaro Synergy green inside and out. I will take my time working on it because you get what you put into it. Work too fast then it looks like crap and if you take your time it will look a lot better and you also can afford the correct parts that will fit and last instead of paying for something cheap that will last to the day the warrenty runs out. Still like to see the pics of the vehicle that you are now working on. If you could paste the link here I would appreciate it. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Sarge!!!!
Falcon, do you have any new pictures to share with us. Seeing your work in progress is definitely a motivation tool for me to work on my little mail wagon. It will definitely going to be nice when finished (what I see in my head of what I want it to look like). It will definitely be a home away from home for those days/nights when the wife and I have those verbal fights over nothing and when its time for me to sleep somewhere for the night. Put in a power converter in to power a 40" flat screen TV, VCR player and a little mini fridge filled with Cherry Dr.Pepper. I cant wait to get the medium blaster so that I can start sand blasting inside and out and fix what I can and have someone else who is a good welder to replace the major rust damage. It will be nice to have something to drive from one side of this Island to the other side of the Island so that we can start to shop Sams club and Costco in which we don't have on this side of the Island. I will be asking you questions in the near future for when the times come and I don't know how to do something, I can get your advice on how you handled the situation during your build off. Anyways, I hope you and your family are doing fine and most of all I do hope that your son is getting his hands dirty with you on your rebuild. Sarge!!!!
Sounds cool, Sarge; should be a neat truck when your done! I haven't worked on this one for a while but if you go to my home page you can find the thread on my 49. That one is coming along pretty good.
First real progress in a long time on this. I did the final wet sand on the hood and should be painting it this week.I also decided to relocate the coils away from the valve covers for a cleaner look so I removed them and started building some brackets, plus ordered some aluminum valve covers, a fuel cell and pump, and some other misc I'll need to get the engine running. As soon as the hood is painted, the front is going up on blocks to fix the motor mounts and build some inner fenderwells. Well, nothing like restarting a project and running into a huge goof right off the bat! I bought a set of stainless block hugger headers a few years ago and once I put them on I wondered how in the heck I was supposed to get the front spark plug in as the front tube was directly in front of the hole. I contacted the manufacturer and they said to use an Accel short header plug. So a couple of years and projects later, I finally picked up two of them today and tried it. Not even close! Ok, so it's been 3 years, probably can't return them. Now it hits me that maybe I've got them on the wrong side. So I pull them off, switch sides and that's it! But no, there's more! I built the motor mount pads (now securely welded to the frame and painted) around the reverse placement of the headers. Now that the headers are on correctly, the collectors land squarely on top of the motor mount pads. !!#%&$@!!!!!!!! So, time to chop off my nice, painted motor mount pads and start over. Oh well, at least it's a cheap fix. Man, I love cars. I though I had something but I ended up right back where I was. I cut off the motor mount and bolted the header on only to find now a different plug is blocked; even after i tried to ding the tube for a little clearance. I just got a crappy made set of headers, I guess. So I'm debating of either trying to cut the one tube on each header and do a little rerouting or just buying another set and starting over. The other three tubes fit fine and I hate to just pitch them. I found a few places to buy stainless header bends so i ordered a couple of 1 5/8" 45 degree bends. Looks like it will be a fairly easy fix once they get here; I just cut the one tube off both headers and angled it down more. I had cut the one motor mount off so I had to rebuild that one. I went with a little different design and made this one bolt on rather than welded on. I've got the whole week of Labor Day off so I'm hoping to make some serious progress.
I've got the week off so I hit the boneyard for a day and spent today on the 48. Cool stuff in the yard, found a 55 Dodge with a Poly of unknown size, a 73 Olds with a 455, and a old convertible that was a shame to see being scrapped. I got my headers altered and found out that MIG welding stainless takes some finesse. They look like a 3 year old welded them but at least I can get the plugs in now. Also got the steering staft connected to the rack N pinion. First time in 7 years you can turn the steering wheek and the front wheels turn! Tomorrow im going to install the radiator, trans cooler I pulled off of a Suburban, and plumb the trans lines. Maybe more if time allows.
Got the fuel cell and pump mounted today along with lengthening the wiring for the coil packs. Hoping to get the fuel system plumbed over the next few days and a battery tray built for the trunk.
I've been hitting it hard this week and am hoping for a test crank tomorrow. Wont have the cooling system piped yet but at least I can see if it will start. Got my battery box in and wired, fuel system finished, some temporary oil and temperature gauges hooked up plus lots of miscellaneous stuff done. Also bought these wheels from a late model Mustang. I think they'll look good although the fronts are hitting the tie rod ends so I'll have to figure out something there. Maybe some wheel spacers.
It's alive! I didn't run it very long as I don't have the radiator hooked up yet and the float in my Holley was hanging up. But it fired up, built oil pressure, and sounded pretty darn good. This thing may get finished after all.
Haven't updated this in a few years so not sure if anyone is still interested. Lots done, just basically down to getting all the stainless trim polished and installed and finishing up the interior. Shooting to be on the road this spring.
Thanks; it's nice to see an end in site after working on this thing on and off for 8 years. I'm ready to drive it instead of thinking "Someday it'll be on the road."
Hit it hard this weekend; I finished the mounts for the rear seat and made some final alterations to the base. Now it's ready to go to the sandblaster. I also built mounts for the console along with making a shifter trim plate from some aluminum scrap and mounted a Plymouth emblem to it. Now its ready for a skim coat of filler and some primer to get it ready for color. I also dug out all the grill pieces and put the grill together. That was a bear; had to sort through a big box of extra grill pieces for the best ones, fix multiple broken studs, and polish each piece. There's about 20 separate pieces to this grill; glad I have some spares just in case.
Hope you all had a Merry Christmas! I got a lot of little stuff done plus finished up the console and got some more trim polished and put on. I'm hoping to have all the trim on the car except the bumpers and rockers trim by the end of the week. One of the rocker moldings needs a lot of straightening and I've decided to order a set of Briz aluminum ribbed bumpers. They look pretty cool and are 1/2 the price of re-chromed stock ones.
Finished up polishing and putting on the last of the stainless today. That is one hideous job I'm glad to have finished. If I ever build another car of this era, I'm welding up all the trim holes.
I've been working on doors the last few weeks; got my window fuzzies and channel put in, power window mechanisms put it and all the associated wiring tidied up, speaker wires ran, dome and courtesy lights wired; plus several other door related misc items finished. We just got some upholstery samples in the mail so we'll be ordering a headliner and stuff to make seat covers and door panels soon. I've got a four day weekend so hopefully lots will get accomplished over the next few days.
More wiring done; console and sound system wires lined out along with other misc wiring. Built some rear speaker mounts that go where the rear window regulators used to be. I put in new tack strip for the windlace and new grommets for the headliner bows. Also got the front seats stripped to get recovered; should have my rear seat springs back from the sandblaster/powdercoat guy this week. I took a box of plastic body plugs and went around plugging several factory holes in the floorpan. Also bought two sheets of masonite and started working on door panels. One more day off tomorrow, we'll see how far we get.
Got all my door panels cut out of masonite, trial fit, and trimmed today. Still some holes to cut for front speakers but they should work pretty good. My wife and I are going shopping for seat foam, then I'm hitting the recliner for the rest of the day.
Thanks! My carpet and windlace came in, just waiting on the headliner and vinyl before we start putting the interior together. I finished my seat risers and got them painted along with putting some off brand dynamat on the roof. Still need to insulate the floor and firewall.
Several things done this week; I finished insulating the floor. the guy that was sandblasting my seat springs once again put me off a couple more weeks. I finally said the heck with it, picked them up and just sprayed them with POR-15 after wire brushing off the rusty spots. I was looking at my air cleaner and was worried that even with the dual snorkels, it wouldn't get great airflow. So I saw this idea on a factory Ford high flow air cleaner. Should be much better now. All my upholstery stuff is here except for the headliner, which is another week out. As soon as it gets here we'll start putting stuff together.
Finished up my air cleaner and the rest of my upholstery supplies came in so here goes nothing. I got the windlace on and just hung the headliner on the bows. It's been folded up in a box so from what I've read you should leave it like this for a few days and let it relax before you start attaching anything. I also have been having a major carburetor battle. I bought a factory rebuilt Street Demon 1900 carb to replace the old Holley 4160 I had on for a temporary. I fought this thing to no end trying to get it to run right, even called their tech line and had them send me some documentation on how to do all the initial set up adjustments but it kept flooding constantly and ran like crap. I finally said the heck with it and threw some rebuild parts in the the old Holley and threw it back on. Starts as soon as you hit the key and runs like a champ. Go figure.
You should wait till you have a nice sunshiny day,,put the car out in the sun for 2-3 hours ,then do the headiner...its much eaiser then,,,headliner just hanging like that wont be of much help unless heated
It's getting there. Got carpet and headliner in this week and bumpers on. I'm off work all this week and am planning an all out blitz to get as much as I can wrapped up and start road testing.
Didn't get as far as I hoped this week but it's getting close. I was having a lot of trouble getting the foam carved into the shape I wanted for the front seats so I put those aside for now and bought these buckets off of Ebay. May finish the others up later and keep these for something else. I was getting frustrated and decided to just let someone else do them but the local upholstery shops said they were 2-3 months out because everyone wants their cars done at the beginning of spring. The back is coming much better; hopefully I'll have it done this week or next. Back door panels and kick panels are done along with a mile long miscellaneous list. I spent five days doing 10-12 hour days on it and have to be at work Monday so I'm taking a couple days breather.
The Jalopy Journal
