Lj70, slow progress project:)

[Anders Ernst]

Hey,

Having bought an old 70, which needs quite a lot of love, I thought i would share some of it in here.
I haven't got very much time, and definitely not a lot of money, but I try to make the best out of it
As an electrician I'm not quite a mechanic, but fortunately my best mate is, and myself, no projekt is to big, failure is better, than not having tried!

The base car

Started up with project rust, by cutting out a long piece of my roof rail.

Seems to be a common weakness for the 70's, seems like the sealing going bad, around the joint.

Looks much better already

Prepared for welding

My best mate, with his huge Golf Mk1 GTI projekt

Having cut out a piece of my spare car, I finally was able to weld it in

And then my camera went out of battery
So the pictures of welding, and filling is missing...

But here comes the result, painted black for now, because the plan is to paint the entire car later on.
Also i got my 33*10,5 BF Goodrich Mud Terrain KM2's fitted, without gas I've never got them fitted

Actually, they are not any more noisy than my old A/T's

I'm very impressed by their mud capabilities, and mud is just increddible fun

Next projekt, will be a 2" bodylift, I hope to get it done next week.

I'll keep you updated

 

[Ben]

nice work.

your 70 reminds me a little of this one for sale in OZ.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/toyota-landc ... _500wt_949

same colour and Turbo graphics on the side.

 

[Anders Ernst]

nice work.

your 70 reminds me a little of this one for sale in OZ.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/toyota-landc ... _500wt_949

same colour and Turbo graphics on the side.

Thanks, actually i don't think that I have seen a 70, with the 2l-T without the Turbo graphics in DK, and we also has quite a lot in this color.

 

[Anders Ernst]

Set out to the local scrapyard today, to get some parts for my 70. I have a very good deal with the owner, by fixing things for him, due to the electric in order for me to get spares, which saves me a lot of money.

He has only one 70, in Quite poor condition, but still it contains many good parts. The engine for example seems quite good.
But today my goal was the rear doors. Mine is nearly gone, but even though the donor car is very rotten, the backdoors are in incredibly good shape.

Is this picture size better?

The donor car:

And with the backdoors:

Sometimes I miss the extra space in my old VW Transporter:

He has a whole lot of cars, and they are all nearly complete, as only a little group of people are allowed to collect parts, and only a fraction of the parts is used to fix cars for customers at his garage:

Started stripping the doors, this one I thinks will need no welding at all:

And also got myself a set of proctive covers, even though im not sure that it's an advantage to use the two for the front hubs?
Also reminds me, that I still need to find myself a cheap sandblasting guy...

All for now, but hopes to make good progress during the weekend.

 

[Ben]

ive never seen a UK model with the big turbo graphics down the sides.

if your back doors are rusting through, how are the bottom of the B pillars looking? at the rear of the sills?

thats where all the UK models seem to rust through.

seems like your making good progress on yours.

ive never managed to find an LJ70 in a scrap yard, so have to rely on people stripping them for parts, for all my second hand spares.

 

[Anders Ernst]

ive never seen a UK model with the big turbo graphics down the sides.

if your back doors are rusting through, how are the bottom of the B pillars looking? at the rear of the sills?

thats where all the UK models seem to rust through.

seems like your making good progress on yours.

ive never managed to find an LJ70 in a scrap yard, so have to rely on people stripping them for parts, for all my second hand spares.

Thanks
It's probably also rusty at the bottom of the B pillars, I thinks it's rusty everywhere But fixing a little every day, I might get there

Actually we got plenty of 70's round the scrapyards, but I've never seen a model neither driving or at the scrapyard later than 87' for some reason..

 

[Roger Fairclough]

There were a lot more LJ70's in Europe than the UK. Some years ago, in Denmark, I saw 10 in one day! In the UK you might see one a year, except at a specific gathering. I never saw a 3 litre model abroad and when I spoke to a Toyota dealer in Norway, he told me that they had never been imported there. If I saw an LJ or kzj in a scrapyard, I would probably negotiate for the whole lot.

On a personal basis, I would not fit any hub covers, front or back.

Roger

 

[Anders Ernst]

There were a lot more LJ70's in Europe than the UK. Some years ago, in Denmark, I saw 10 in one day! In the UK you might see one a year, except at a specific gathering. I never saw a 3 litre model abroad and when I spoke to a Toyota dealer in Norway, he told me that they had never been imported there. If I saw an LJ or kzj in a scrapyard, I would probably negotiate for the whole lot.

On a personal basis, I would not fit any hub covers, front or back.

Roger

The spare car is mine, more or less, I am the only one allowed to take what I want, and then I can leave the rest.
I've never seen any danish Kzj's. We though have some Bj73's. But, LJ70's are quite common over here, the same with the 80's 90's 100's and 120's and 150's. The 200 is not officially imported..

I might go for the rear hub covers just for the look, but the front one's stays of the car.

 

[Anders Ernst]

Today I found myself, the perfect test for the Mud Terrain's. A real nice, and very soft field with nearly pure clay. And I must say that I am really impressed. Just good revs on the tires, and they clean themselves even when they in the real sticky clay. Great fun!

Unfortunately this gave me an incredibly dirty car, and a reminder of why, I need to get the bodylift done. The tire grapped the fenderflare, and tore it off

But as shown there wasn't a lot below to keep it to the car:

So started with a cleanup with my pressure washer:

And then i started unmounting the front wing:

I feel quite confident that there must be an easier way of taking off the fender. It took me good 2 hours, and was a terrible job. But off it came, and now it's easy to fix both the inner and outer fender.

Also I managed to get the wastegate to run more freely (it didn't close properly before), but at the same time I found that the turbo is leaking quite a bit of oil , can't figure out wether to try with the one from my spare car, or simply find one, I'm sure works
That was all i reached for today, but found that the front end of the car was a lot less rusty than I had feared. Found myself a bending machine (have no idea what it's called in English) today, to make the job a lot easier, so I hope to come much further tomorrow.

 

[Ben]

nice to see you getting dirty, but damm it scrubs up well with the pressure washer.

i tore most of my fender flares/arches off on my first trip out in my truck.

will see if i can find some pics.

 

[Anders Ernst]

nice to see you getting dirty, but damm it scrubs up well with the pressure washer.

i tore most of my fender flares/arches off on my first trip out in my truck.

will see if i can find some pics.

Thanks again

Yes the pressure washer is effective, even though I just found out now that I have access to a much more powerfull steam cleaner. So it's the plan that I will have my engine compartment cleaned until it shines. It is also usefull for getting all of the underbody coating of the fender before I start welding

 

[Anders Ernst]

Wasted a lot of time today. Decided to start reparing the outer fender, and came a long way, actually I think the result was good. But realising that it would take me half a year, having it welded up, sanded, painted refitted and so on, I found myself a new original one. Had to pay around 145£ for it, but considering the amount of time I save, i think they were well spent. And taken in consideration that Toyota wanted 502£ for it, I think it was cheap. So looks forward to getting it on. Pictures will come as soon, as imageshack is running again.

 

[Ben]

my first laning trip.

pic at the start of the day when all fibreglass arches were intact.

i think due to the fact the light duty 70 series have the narrower 8" diff axles, the same as the hi-lux's, the wheels are too far inside the body work as standard.

so when in deep ruts, the arches and body work hit the banks before the tyre/wheels do.

this results in damaged arches.

my solution was to remove all the fibreglass arches as i got sick of repairing them after every trip.

i then fitted wheels with a huge negative off set. now the tryes and wheels usually take most of the hits and not the bodywork.

where did you get your new wing from?

 

[Anders Ernst]

Nice pics

Found the wing at an old man, who had bought it years ago.

I really can't decide wether or not, to get rid of the flares

My tires will stick out from the body, and in Denmark, that is punished by death, if you are caught by the police. Alternatively I could go for at set of thin rubber flares?

I am not yet shure, it also depends if I can find a left wing in good shape..

 

[Ben]

i do like the look of the standard flares, but there very brittle and prone to damage off road.

there also very bad for the bodywork and will almost always cause rust behind them.

im going to go down the rubber arch route, but i wont be using any mechanical fixings like screws, rivets, or bolts as these will cause rust.

im going to stick them on with sikaflex.

 

[Anders Ernst]

Yes, the flares are not ideal for our northern climates. I often wish that I lived in a country were the roads wasn't totally white of salt each winter. Denmark is I think properbly the worst country in the world to own a car...

Sikaflex seems like a good solution, when you run out of WD40 and cable binders, Sikaflex is the only solution left

Came to think of this one: http://www.verticallimits.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2011/11/engineering_flowchart_7841.jpg

 

[Ben]

Came to think of this one: http://www.verticallimits.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2011/11/engineering_flowchart_7841.jpg

 

[Anders Ernst]

Now Imageshack is working again, so here is a couple of pictures of the new wing , and a single one of the old one, that i scrapped, due to lack of time...

And a picture of Emil still working on his Golf MK1 GTI (huge project, makes mine seem like nothing)

Today i started by shopping some nice Sika products, sealer and underbody coating. At the garage i started with removing the just as rusty inner fender Also reminds me, that i need to find another Turbo since it is lacking too much oil...

Cleaned it up with the heated pressure cleaner, boiling water makes it a hundred times more effective.

Nice and a lot cleaner.

Found a hole in behind the inner fender.

Hole gone, a bit hard to see:

Started welding up the inner fender:

All for today:

Hopes to finish welding tomorrow. The frame might look rusty, but to my luck, I found that underneed all of the dirt the frame looks as new

 

[Ben]

nice work.

what do you plan on doing to try and prevent any future rusting?

it must be a nightmare with the amount of salt on the winter roads there.

im planning on pouring a few litres of used engine oil in each sill and each chassis leg. i will then drive forward and brake sharply, then reverse and brake sharply. i will do this quite a few times, and hopefully the insides of the chassis and sills will have a nice coating of oil.

hopefully this will prevent any rust from forming.

 

[Anders Ernst]

Thanks
Firstly my plan is to seal it up very well, with the new bought Sika sealer, and then ad a wax based coating, and at last ordinary underbody coating. And then, when I finish my rust project, I think the scrapyard owner who also does underbody protection can spray the whole car, then I think I am as well protected as I can be. But overhere you can't be 100% sure. VW suffers from rust on 2-3 year old cars, along with other brands too. I recently saw a three year old VW Touran, with holes underneed

Here is an album showing what Danish conditions can do to cars, all VW's driven less than 100.000km.'
http://bilgalleri.dk/alb_vis.aspx?albumid=86563