LJ70 Build Thread!

[Ben]

I stripped the car down ready to do the bodywork.



I screwed pieces of wood to the base of the roof section as unlike last time when I painted it, this time I wanted to keep it the correct way up.











These are the issues I wanted to fix.

The small read door had a few small dents.





The passenger rear quarter has a few areas where the paint was damaged in the container moving down.





The marks I did when I foolishly tried wiping a run.





A small chip around the filler cap.



A nasty area on the drivers door where the paint had been worn through in the container moving down.





The inner arches needed seam sealing where they meet the guards.



The drivers side guard needed fixing where it meets the panel below the grill as it wasnt the correct profile.



The roof section had a couple of runs and also a few small areas where some polythene blew into the wet paint and got stuck in it.





I got to work fixing up the damage.

First I tackled the front guard, it turns out the high spot was in fact the metal panel and not filler, so that just needed a bit of panel beating following by a tiny bit of filler.



Next I cleaned up the couple of rust spots on the roof sections.





Next I needed to remove the windscreen so I could sand down and paint the screen surround.

And in keeping with the last few screens I've removed it didnt come out in one piece.



Fortunately my car insurance company allow me to have one replacement screen per vehicle per year, so I will just get a brand new one when I'm ready.





I masked up around the guard.





And applied some seam sealant.







It came up OK after being smoothed out with a finger.





Other side.



The screen surround got a good sand down.



As did the roof sections which then got hung up.



The original soft top screen surround has a section on the top that the 75 series ute/mid wheel base 70's dont have, a sail track section spot welded along the top.



I will need this section so I can slide in a soft top roof that I'm going to make which will just cover the front seats, just to keep the sun off my head if its a hot day.



The canvas soft top has a length of wire sewn into the edge of it which feeds in along this sail track section.



I drilled all the spot welds out and carefully levered it off.



Unsurprisingly it was quite rusty underneath.





I will get it shot blasted, then electro plated then I will paint it blue and stick it onto the top of the new screen.

The repair on the front of the guard came up OK.







As did the drivers door.



I also filled and sanded the small dents in the rear doors.



And filled the chip next to the fuel cap.



Bit more work on the other side rear quarter.



I filled and sanded some small holes in the rear flares.





I'm out of time, more soon.

 

[doyle61]

Cracking work Ben.......

 

[Ben]

Thanks mate.

I hung everything up to paint.







And gave everything a coat or primer.













Then I sanded it all down with wet n dry paper to get a nice glass smooth finish.





Even though I had been really pleased with how I had previously painted the bonnet and front guards, I decided I'd give them all a light coat of paint anyway.

This would prove to be a big mistake.









I pushed LJ back a bit and hosed all the paint residue off.



And also hosed the other panels down.











It was then time to mask everything off ready to get some colour on it all.















I mixed the paint.





Then got painting, but as I couldnt get the lid off my paint gun as there must have been some paint residue left in the lid last time I screwed it on and it was now stuck solid, I decided to use the guns from work.

That was my second big mistake.





The paint came out ridiculously thick and I ended up with lots of runs on panels that were previously fine!











So the next morning I attempted to sand all the runs off.



The windscreen frame only had one run.





My previously perfect bonnet was now a mess!





It took a lot of sanding but I thought I had finally got all the runs out.













So then I was ready to try again.

I set up a plastic sheet above the car to stop any leaks from the roof dripping on the car.

 

[Ben]

I hung everything up.



One mistake I previously made when painting a lot of these panels is I didnt hang them in the direction they will sit on the car, so this panel that goes below the windscreen was hung up long ways and never got any paint on the 2 ends, which was then visible when fitted.









Then it was paint time again!

This time things went much better as I used my own gun and didnt get any runs, just a nice thin mist of paint with every pass!














Things went much better this time but annoyingly you could still see where the runs had been and there was quite a bit of overspray in places.











At this point I had wasted 2 days of my life and $300 on paint and the car looked worse than when I started!

So I decided to do something I rarely do........

Give up and just pay to have it done professionally.

Now I'm back in Melbourne I can get really high quality paint work done at a very reasonable price!

As I want LJ to be perfect, especially after the work I put into fixing the rare soft top body, I decided I should pay and get a perfect paint job done and the money I had allocated for the aftermarket ECU that I'm no longer buying will cover it.

I temporarily bolted the windscreen surround on.





So I could bolt the windscreen restraints to the bonnet.





I wasnt sure of their exact position so had to google KZJ73 as very few softop KZJ70's exist, they are super rare!

But KZJ73's were sold around Europe so are reasonably common.






I put some masking tape on the bonnet and clamped the sail channel to the screen.





And marked 2 long lines along which the bolt holes could be.





Then after checking on the underside of the bonnet where the bolts could come through and measuring I drilled the holes through the bonnet.













I then removed the bonnet and screen surround and took them along with the roof hoop section, the 2 roof pieces that connect the hoop to the screen, louvered panel below the screen and the panel below the grill to the paint shop we use at work and left them with him.

Once the car is back on the road I will drive it down to him and he can mask off the centre of the car, everything from above the back doors forwards and then just repaint all the doors, front guards and sides of the body.

I did a bit more seam sealing in the rear arches.





And thats as far as I got on the body work.

 

[Ben]

I started building the 3" stainless steel mandrel bent exhaust system.

The pit proved invaluable for this job and it made the whole thing so much easier to do!

This was the first lot of bits that got delivered.



I bolted the flanges to the manifolds on the engine and started cutting and tack welding bits of pipe to them.





I had been dreading the next part but it actually ended up being incredibly easy!

I held one bend against the other and marked roughly what needed removing to make it fit against the other bend.

I then cut it and tried it in position then took a bit more off until it was perfect. Then I marked around it onto the other bend and then cut out just inside the line.







Tack welded them together.







Tack welded them to the other sections already on the car.







Then removed it ready to take to work to fully TIG weld.





I didnt get much spare time to weld it at work, but I managed to TIG most of it.





Brought it home for the weekend so I can continue with the next section.

Which requires the silencer that has just arrived.



Annoyingly they have MIG welded it together so I'm just preying they used stainless steel wire in the gun, otherwise the welds will rust.





My job for today is to get the silencer welded in and work out what other mandrel bends I need to order to finish the system.

Some of you may remember from when I started this engine conversion in my RJ70 Build Thread that I had built a rad cowl and had got the rad, cowl and viscous fan all fitted and looking good.

Well it turns out the earlier round headlight front 70's put the rad forwards an inch or 2 of where the rectangular headlight models do.

Which means my fan is now hard against my rad now its all fitted in this rectangular headlight front.





So after having a measure and a think I've decided I need to get a new rad and ideally one that sits above the front cross member rather than behind it, that will mean the rad can go forwards a few inches and give the fan blades enough clearance against the rad.



Thinking of getting one of these and the fact you can move in the inlets/outlets is a bonus!



More next week.

 

[AndyCook]

I wouldn't have patience and certainly not the skill to paint car panels like that ether - getting a pro painter defitnely a good move
I have used rattle cans to paint wheels and a Subaru boot once, and results weren't that good....

 

[doyle61]

Ben I know it's a pita about the paint but tbh I think it was a good mistake to make. Your after learning a LOT about a skill you didn' have before and you know what, a few more practice runs (parden the pun) you'll be painting your cars perfectly. You have to make mistakes to learn new skills, God knows I have with my project and I bet €1000 to €1 everyone here is in the same boat. That car is looking better than factory by the day lad, keep it up

 

[Bund]

That exhaust is a work of art!!!

 

[Ben]

Thanks guys.

 

[clivehorridge]

As above with the paint, every cloud an’ all that.

A good paint job will show all your hard work at its best Ben. I can’t believe how good this truck has turned out, and its rare, and you can stand back when it’s done and say I built that, just about from scratch.

Brilliant! Well done!

Can’t wait to see the after paint shots...

 

[Ben]

Thanks Clive.

No paint shots yet as the guy hasnt started any of it, but thats OK as I told him there is no rush and if it takes him a few weeks thats cool.

I did get some deliveries of parts though.

A guy in South Australia sent me some parts off his LJ78.

An aircon condenser.



And a bracket that connects the radiator support panel with the slam panel and the panel below the grill.

I had tried buying the bracket new, but Toyota have discontinued it!





Then today a big box got delivered from Amayama in Japan!



The box was so big as it contained these!





I was amazed they are still available, especially as the new soft top 70's no longer have the removable door tops!

I was also amazed at how cheap they were.



And I was super impressed with the fact they come already painted!




Yeah I'm totally made up with those!!!!

My original ones were quite rotten so to have new removable window frames is awesome!

I also got load of smaller bits I needed.

Seal to go between the windscreen and the firewall/body.



Windscreen hinge covers.



Seals that go between the roof hoop section and the body and some little clips for the louvered panel below the windscreen.



Inner axle oil seals, I didnt need any but they are so cheap out of Japan I always grab a few.



1KZ rocker cover gasket which is actually for The 78.



One of my favorite parts of the order..........

A sticker that goes on the side of the dash board.

As I'm using LJ's original UK dashboard it obviously doesnt have the sticker, which all soft top models got.



And finally some headlight surrounds.

The lights bolt into these and I wanted to fit my new headights but found they wouldnt bolt into LJ's original UK ones as they are fancy height adjustable ones and are a bit different to these standard ones.



I'm waiting on an order of more stainless steel mandrel bends and I still havent ordered the radiator as I'm still debating what to buy. I've found a Subaru Impreza STI one is the perfect size, but I want to check a few more details before ordering.

Tomorrow I'm spending the entire day at work building/working on things for this project.

 

[Ben]

A LJ tiny update.

I fitted the new clear headlights into the new housings.













Next was these little clips.









I tried the seal in place that goes below the windscreen frame.





I now have all the seals for the roof hoop section and the roof parts that join the hoop to the screen.



I fitted the sticker to the dash.







And bolted the new/old aircon condenser and pipes in place.





The spray painted did an excellent job on all the panels I dropped off to him!

They're now living in the lounge room until the rest of the car is done.









The wife has been very understanding and supportive of the car parts in the house.

The spray painter came out and looked at the rest of the car and said if I wanted to save some money I should paint all the door shuts and interior body sections myself and he will do a closed door respray on it.

So that was the next job................

I rubbed it all down with 1000 grit wet n dry paper.









Masked everything off.







And gave it a few coats of blue.











I also painted the end of the radiator support panel as the paint work wasnt perfect and I wanted to coat where my spacer is.





I also painted these sections.





And bolted them on.





On Monday morning I am dropping LJ off at the panel shop and the guy will respray it for me!

I've been doing lots of other work like designing and building a battery tray for it, modifying the fuel tank to take the Lexus fuel pump, working on the radiator and doing more work on the exhaust.

But I will update you on those bits next time as I'd rather wait till I've finished them and then I can detail it all together.

I've also had some exciting projects on at work recently and again I will update on those when I get chance too.

 

[Ben]

I borrowed a trailer from my mate and used The 78 to tow LJ to the paint shop.









While it was gone and the garage was empty I sanded down and repainted the grill as it had a few runs in the paint from when I painted it before and I decided to paint the rear flares at the same time. (I couldnt do the fronts as they need modifying first.)













Then it was time to go and pick LJ up!











Got it loaded back on the trailer.



And took it home!









And back into the garage.



Then it was time to start bolting all the parts back on.







Door tops on.



Other side.





I spent a lot of time sorting parts out and trying to find parts! It was over a year since I last fitted/removed a lot of these parts and my memory isnt great!



Starting to look like a car again!







The door tops fitted perfectly!







Lots still to do but I'm pleased with how its looking!

 

[StarCruiser]

I don’t mean this to sound like a criticism but that paint job looks so much better than the best you were able to achieve at home. Proof that some things are a bit of a black art and best left to someone else.

Says he who has sanded clean through the etch primer on the Cursed Smart Car for the fifth time today.

 

[Ben]

I agree!

It would be interesting to see what sort of job I would do using a proper spray booth!

If I ever decide to paint another car I think I will hire a booth and give it a go!

Obviously it would never be as good a job as this guy has done! There is definitely a lot of skill in spray painting and in body work and this guy has been doing it for over 30 years!

I havent found a single run anywhere on anything he has painted for me!

Hes going to sort The 78 out for me soon as there are still a couple of areas that that cowboy in Qld didnt do properly/missed. Theres also an area on each side of the body next to the plastic vents where the previous painter painted the paint far too thick and it has sagged and cracked along the body line!

But this guy is only going to charge me $300 to fix it all up, so its not too bad.

 

[StarCruiser]

I have exactly the same with mine. After £1000 spent there are runs, sags and revisits that have ended up with over spray on new mouldings and seals.

No booth, I should have known but he was spraying classic Jags and Bentleys and lead filling so I thought I’d found an old school gem.

We live and learn.

 

[Ben]

Thats not good Rich!

Its terrible when you put your money and trust in a business and they don't deliver what they are supposed to!

 

[StarCruiser]

It sounds bad but it’s me being picky as most of it is almost invisible. It’s the overspray and paint on brand new mouldings that’s annoyed me. The stupid thing is I had quotes from two others, one the same who came recommended and one from the Best in the area for a bit more. We live and learn.

 

[Pat]

Many years ago I had a TK Bedford tip truck and it needed a tidy up so got an expert to do the panel work and then I hand painted the whole truck.I never had any runs in it and it was cheap but looked good.I have a D600Ford tip truck and may just do that again to save a couple of bob.

 

[Pat]