Sometimes you get excited about a project and your hands can't move fast enough for brain. Your imagination and creativity take over and supercharges your senses and makes you skip steps and make stupid decisions. It's sometime difficult to slow down and do things right.

During the pandemic I started to visualize and dream about owning a Toyota Troopy or FJ/HJ 47. I was starting to see some of these showing up in the States since they were now legal to import from Australia or South America, but I still couldn't afford what these rusted out hunks were selling for. I had come across some extra parts when I was restoring an earlier project FJ40 and I happened to have a rusted out frame and another good frame, so my brain started working overtime. I had some time off work due to the pademic and in a few weeks I had a frame cut upand pieced together and I started going to town mocking up rusting sheetmetal. I kept telling myself that I was just trying to see what it might look like and just wanted to see if I had the parts to make it all come together. I stalled out when I was trying to figure out what drivetrain I would put in it.

Once the pademic was over, my neighbor came over and saw it and we were talking about drivetrains and he said that he had a Toyota 4 Runner that was rusted out but that had a good engine and trans that he would give me. The wheels started turning again and In a couple of days I had a Toyota 5VZ 3.4L leveled up and had the transmission and transfer case mounted. I even got the crossmembers welded in and started thinking about a gas tank solution. The front axle on a stock FJ is passenger side diff but the 97 4Runner requires driver's side dif to make the transfer case hookup. My neighbor and I had talked this over originally and he was urging me to use the 4runner frame, but I really wanted the solid axle setup and the measurements would require widening the FJ40 body which I think ruins the proportions. Would you think that this hurdle would have stalled me out, but I I figured I could take the stock from axle, cut the dif housing off, cut the axle knuckle end off and flip it all around and weld it back in place. One might think that it's just a simple flip of the axle, but that would give send you in reverse when trying to drive forward. Anyway, I go through this and I was one step closer.

Now in my mind, I kept hitting a hurdle as the logical side of my brain knew that I had not previously buttoned up all frame issue from the initial stretch and moving forward with the body fitment didn't make sense until I had had a proper rolling chassis. I had gotten parts for a disc brake conversion, but the frame just wasn't a strong foundation to build on.

That brings me to this week. Now that I was off school, I decided that I needed to strip the body back off and address all of the issues with the frame. I could box the frame while I was at it, figure out my gas tanks mounts, reinforce any of the crossmembers, put in my front carrier bearing for the front driveshaft, paint the frame, run brake lines, run fuel lines, install power steering, and finalize the disc brakes, axle rebuilds, and get this mega long frame into a rolling chassis.

In the past few days:

I made box sections for the middle of the frame where I added 26" of frame. I cut holes similar to the stock frame in these sections and got them tacked in place. I finalized the position of my chevy blazer gas tank, adapted the 4runner style sending unit and made a crossmember and mounts for the tank. I still need to make lower straps, but I'm close on this.

Welded nuts to the inside of the frame for the bump-stop mounts.

I made plate sections to box in the frame over the axles and got them welded in.

I ordered some POR 15 to paint the frame and I started cleaning up surface rust on the frame.

I finished welding in the motor mounts and fully welding the crossmember for the transmission mount.

After today, I still need to:

Make some more plates to box in the rear section that is added onto the frame ( I have made templates for these).

Finish welding the diagonal braces at the rear of the frame.

Patch any unused holes.

Weld in a plate for the power steering box mount.

Take a stab at re-arching the leaf springs and cleaning each individual leaf in all of the leaf packs.

Machine my Chevy truck brake rotors.

Make rear caliper mounts for the Mote Carlo brake calipers

Check the 3rd member gear lash.

Order a saginaw steering box

Order a set of shocks

Order new leaf spring bushings

Order a new set of tires

Order brake line material

Order axle seal kit and possibly axle bearings.

I know this doesn't look like much but it feels like a big step in the right direction. There's still a lot to do, but I feel like I've at least slowed my brain down a bit and I'm working on getting the foundation right before moving onto the body. However, I'm excited to get to the sheetmetal because I'm planning on making some tooling so I can recreate some of the sheetmetal from scratch so that the final result is better crafted. I'm stocked to get all the welding on the frame finished so I can lift the drivetrain out with my hoist and I can drop the axles and do a full on quality paint job on it. I'm trying to think of the frame like a piece of sculpture, so I'm going to try and smooth everything on it.

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