Little update seen as I've got no jobs on today.........
I fitted the prop shafts and brake pipes.
I'm not sure LJ's original brake bias valve has ever worked properly since I've had the car, 20 years of salted British roads had made it pretty crusty.
But I got a replacement from a KZJ78 I stripped for parts a few months ago.
I'm confident this one will work well.
Then yesterday evening LJ's chassis got pushed back outside.
Still a few more bits to bolt to the chassis, but its mostly together.
The engine and transmission got wrapped in a tarp to keep the weather out.
The trailer full of scrap and donor body has been moved under the gazebo ready for me to start cutting bits off it.
And the rotisserie has been pushed back into the garage ready for the body work.
I managed to clean some of the bitumen paint off the underside with my little pressure washer, but its a shame I'm not back at Piranha yet as their big diesel steam pressure washer would have likely taken all the bitumen off very easily.
I need to clean all the black off to get it back to the original red paint and I can then assess which bits need rust repairs before I paint the whole lot in the Raptor paint.
I've been using a scraper mainly and it comes off reasonably easily, its just time consuming.
After a few hours scraping I had done about a third to half of the underside of the floor pan.
Quite messy work.
But the floor pan is looking much better.
Apart from the few areas of rot the rest of it isnt too bad.
The drivers foot well has some holes where its rotted out.
But the passenger side is worse.
I even found a couple of tiny rot holes at the back of the floor pan next to the sill.
Any areas that have rot will be getting sand blasted so I can see the full extent of the damage and then I will decided how much metal to cut out.
I will also blast any areas of surface rust to make sure I get rid of it all, but I didnt want to just blast the whole floor pan, preferring instead to leave the original Toyota paint if its not rusty and going over the top of that once its been sanded down.
I discovered something I didnt know about 70's today, despite messing around with them for the last 8+ years.
There are little removable access flaps to get to the very rear body mount bolts.
In the past I've struggled with a socket or modified spanner through the bung hole above as I didnt realise these access holes existed.
My plan is to keep going cleaning the underside of the floor pan.
Then get it outside for one final degrease and pressure wash.
Then get it back in for sand blasting and cutting the rot out.
Then cut and weld all the new metal in.
Then paint both sides of the floor pan in the Raptor paint.
Then remove the body from the rotisserie and paint the body with it on my big axle stands.
Then fit the cab back onto the chassis.
Then start phase 2 of the body work which is repairing and painting all the removable body panels such as doors, guards, arches, windscreen surround, bonnet etc.
Then once all their done and bolted on I can refit the wiring loom, dash, seats etc.
8 weeks and counting!
