I've been wanting a 4WD for a while now and my brother has an old FSJ. He bought this gold one for parts. However, last year i took it over and decided to restore it. So this is what it looked like last year on 13/04/2008. It suffered from rust in both front foot wells, rust under the rear windows, rust in the roof, totally destroyed - mouldy and wet interior, no rear drive shaft, no exhaust (in the vehicle), very rusty tailgate, a few electrical problems, non-working sunroof, window mechanisms broken, ruined door seals, springs a bit sad, leaking water pump and timing gear cover etc etc:
I started by working on the roof. I did a full respray and repairs of the rust. I also fixed up the roof racks and got new gromits etc:
I got a tailgate from another FSJ wreck we have. It was red, so i resprayed it:
I worked from the top down. So next i did the black on the pillars and around the rear windows:
We had pretty much a full interior from the red wreck which was pretty mouldy but in more or less good condition. So i gave that a really good clean up and they looked pretty sweet:
It seemed to sag to one side a bit and one of the spring packs wasn't quite together properly. It creaked a bit so i bought new springs and shocks - front and rear:
I sprayed the drivers side first starting with the black:
I did some rust repairs to around the rear windows and front 1/4 panel then sprayed them:
I did the same to the other side:
I decided the front grill needed to have the black put back into it, so I resprayed the grill and light surrounds. I also got a new light from an XJ:
I resprayed the doors - they were relatively easy because they did not really require any repairs. I put all the doors on and the tailgate back on:
I repaired some dents to the bonnet, resprayed it and put it on. I also tried some big mud tyres on it - however they scraped on the guards:
All but one of the windows needed work. So i got new window lifters and rubbers and attached them. I fixed the sunroof problem and repaired some holes in the tray below it:
I decided I wasn't going to be putting carpet underlaying in the vehicle, so to help with noise reduction and to tidy up the floor a bit I gave it a coat of body deadoner:
I purchased the front and middle row carpet but i wasn't able to get the boot carpet. So i purchased some from Bunnings and cut it to shape myself. I put all the seats in and the roof hood liner back in (with some modifications from one without a sunroof). I wired up some speakers and new wires for the headunit. It had a big hole cut out of the dash so i made a wood insert covered it with foam and vinyl:
I installed the new springs and shocks. It was a bit fiddly due to the front bolts that go through the spring and shackles not wanting to come out of the sleeves in the springs:
I cleaned up the interior a bit more:
I put a new steering wheel on the vehicle using a boss kit. The water pumped was leaking so i replaced that but soon realised that the timing chain cover / cast leaked. So the next weekend had to pull it all off and replace it using one from a Rambler motor we had. I put a rancho steering dampner on to replace the original one. I also took it for a test run:
The next week after a few more issues were sorted out such as starting in gear, reverse lights, indicators and an oil leak from the oil pressure sensor i got it registered:
That's my restoration story - it took around 1 year and 2months. I'm currently building it up and preparing it for touring. I'm planning on taking it up to Cape York in July this year so i'm running it as my daily driver to try and squash any issues that may come up! I'll post up my progress since registration in the next couple of days. I have a gallery with more pictures if you're interested in it,
check it out here.
Feel free to give me feedback / questions / comments etc.
FSJ: 1982 Restoration
You did a fantastic resto job on it.I will be on the lookout for you when you get up here next month.
