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HJ61 Body-off Rebuild project

Jente

Active Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2014
Messages
83
Country Flag
netherlands
Hello,

As promised to some of you guys I met @ Lincomb I decided to share my project on the forum.

About two years ago I bought an original HJ61.

Having my friends of Cruiser World living and working close by, I test drove a few cruisers both 60 and 61.
I decided to go for a 61, as I was afraid I would regret not having the 12-HT under the hood after a while.

Eventually this 61 came across and I decided to go for it.
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First job was to get it MOT worthy which involved some welding to the chassis, and getting all brakes to function.

It took about 5 days of work, and the MOT certificate was there.

In the weeks that followed the gearbox has been overhauled, as the fifth gear was no where to be found. In the process I decided to also overhaul the transfer case, and install a new clutch plate.

With the suspension being worn out, I installed a second hand set with new bushing and greasable shackles.

Her first try-out was in the German pay and play site Furstenau:

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I was real happy about the car, and after this trip we started preparing to go to Wales with 5 cars, where we met up with Iwan and Matt
I made some mods to the interior allowing me to sleep in the car.
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We had a cracking time in Wales with approx 400 miles of greenlaning
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Unfortunately not all went well, as one off the guys made a roll on a very steep hill going down..... :icon-cry:
lots of duck-tape and ratchet straps made it more or less road worthy again, so we could continue
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The cruiser luckily made it back home in one piece, and plans could be made to make her last for the next few decades.
I'm still in the process to sort out the hundreds of pictures being made since I started working on the cruiser.

What started as patching a few rotten spots is now ended up in a body off restoration! Main goal is to get rid of ALL rust :naughty:, make her reliable for on-road trips and make her well prepared for the more serious off-roading trips.

I'll sort out all the pics of the last 8 months and get you guys up to speed as to where I am now:
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The cruiser is still called 'she', 'it' or 'him' as a proper name for the car is still missing :think:

Hope you guys appreciate watching this build,

Jente
 
Thats awesome Jente! :clap:

You will have a great LandCruiser when your finished! :thumbup:
 
Hey Jente, great to see the start of the build thread & your holiday photos :icon-cool:

Nasty looking roll there :icon-sad:

Looking forward to the future posts - thanks for taking the time :icon-cool:
 
Last time I went laning in wales, we met a Dutch group on the Strata Florida with a couple of 60 series. Wasn’t your group was it by any chance, May 17[SUP]th[/SUP] if I remember correctly.
 
nice rebuild!!

Andy Lomas is a very good source of hard to find parts and an encyclopedic knowledge of the marque. It's suprising how many parts can still be got from Toyota for competitive prices.

Amayama is a good source for smaller parts, but freight prices prohibit the transport of larger parts.

Good luck, as I know from experience, you will never be rich again!! Toyota prices are eyewateringly expensive. But you will have a nice truck:thumbup:

very jealous of your 12HT engine! a very good choice. I have heard it said the body panels on the 61s seemed a bit more corrosion resistant, but I don't know if that's just heresay.
 
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Hey Jente, great to see the start of the build thread & your holiday photos :icon-cool:

Nasty looking roll there :icon-sad:

Looking forward to the future posts - thanks for taking the time :icon-cool:


It was a shocking reality to off roading Gav! I can say I could not sleep the following night after leading Niko in the BJ40 to that place in the Dovey forest! :wtf:

Appart from that, I can recommend highly a trip to the Dovey Forest. The forestry access tracks are excellent..:icon-cool:
 
Still waiting for my invite to come & pop a few routes with you dude ;-)
 
Last time I went laning in wales, we met a Dutch group on the Strata Florida with a couple of 60 series. Wasn’t your group was it by any chance, May 17[SUP]th[/SUP] if I remember correctly.

I believe it was us you passed on the Strata Florida on that date. We were in a red 70, a gold 70, a white 80, a blue 40, a maroon high roof 61 and Jente's silver 61! :icon-biggrin:

Were you in your 80 series? :think:
 
Still waiting for my invite to come & pop a few routes with you dude ;-)

We've got our 70's roadworthy now, so a plan needs to be hatched bud! Just need to work on permission from my girlfriend now!!!! Lol
 
I believe it was us you passed on the Strata Florida on that date. We were in a red 70, a gold 70, a white 80, a blue 40, a maroon high roof 61 and Jente's silver 61! :icon-biggrin:

Were you in your 80 series? :think:

Yep that’s me……….
 
We've got our 70's roadworthy now, so a plan needs to be hatched bud! Just need to work on permission from my girlfriend now!!!! Lol

I'm wild camping in Wales on the 18th July then laning all day on the Saturday back to Lincomb.

I'm sure Steven (SAE70) would be happy for you to join us, you too Gav. :thumbup:
 
I'm diary watching for your Lincomb weekend dude... Hoping to be able to make it along B-)
 
Hi wood he like side panelr and back doors for £350.00 thanks tonytoyota?
 
So, it must have been about a year ago when I decided to get things started.

Since I found a donor Left driver door, I decided to get it out and get rid of some rust.
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The lower side of the door was pretty much gone :think:. As the original construction with all it's bends didn't really prevent rust, I decided to make my own creation.

By bending a two mm plate I managed to get the two surfaces (inner and outer) aligned, and the outer dimensions are very close to original.

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Right in the middle of the door, the paintjob and striping was damaged, and after some investigation I found the complete metal to be rotted away, and covered with plater. Time get a new piece of metal in :icon-cool:

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Unfortunately at the time the pictures were taken I didn't have in mind posting them all over here, so sometimes the overview pics and end-results of certain jobs are missing....

one more rusty spot on the driver door:
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All has been welded fully. Where putting to much heat into the panels was an issue I cooled after each tag with water and compressed air.

I'll need to reorganize all the pictures and find some of the other doors
 
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Great looking repairs mate, brings back similar memories!

Repair and reuse is the way to go!:icon-cool:
 
I'm wild camping in Wales on the 18th July then laning all day on the Saturday back to Lincomb.

I'm sure Steven (SAE70) would be happy for you to join us, you too Gav. :thumbup:

Sounds like a plan! I'll give Steven a shout! :thumbup:
 
Followed by the driver door, were the rear doors and the back doors.

On the upper back door, the biggest problem was the window groove (if that's the right English word for it? :think:)
a 1mm plate did the trick, and a flap-disk made all seams smooth after welding.

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Another issue were the corners on the upper door. After adding some new material, it looks good as new :)
On each corner some holes have been left to get rid of water. These will need some attention in the future, in order to keep the holes free from dirt to keep the inside dry.

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Let's give you guys a look at where all the magic happens.
Together with a good friend, I hire an old chicken barn. During the last four years we've been making it to what is now:

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The shed (145 sq. mtr) has been divided into two sides, with each our own workbench, with the central 'warehouse' :icon-biggrin: in the middle. My buddy is restoring a Porsche 944 at the moment on his side of the shop.
We've got our own spray booth for doors and other small stuff, a sand-blast unit and since a few months a ramp.
The ramp definitely makes life a lot easier!!
Oh, and off course there's the canteen (relatively oversized.... :think:) with a good coffee maker and a few beers from time to time! :icon-wink:

After the first few doors, the cruiser started to get a bit windy whilst driving :drool:
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I started removing all the interior, and needed a car to bring it home. Some I drove the Cuiser whilst using the spare tire as a seat, to bring it all home.

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To prevent getting bored, I needed to have different jobs at the same time. All plastic stuff was taken off the cruiser, and could be painted black. The colours after her new paint job will be almost the same, silver-grey. To make it bit more usable offroad I plan use an industrial coating, 70% matt. This makes the body being better protected against scratches from bushes and trees. Plus, eventual scratches will be less noticeable on a matt finish.

Here are some pics of the grill and headlight frames plus all other plastic stuff getting blacked.

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All plastic stuff has been threaded with scotch brite, plastic primer, black gloss pain and then followed by matt black paint. Adding the gloss layer makes the paint stronger so I've been told, so that's what we did :icon-wink:
 
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