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Rear wheel well
rust is a common problem on FJ40s, it almost seems as if it was a
factory option. This ’67 was pretty bad, with a quart of bondo filling
the holes on each side. We looked into buying correct replacement
panels, but (like everything on a land cruiser) they weren’t cheap.
About $150 a side. Since I don't care if my truck is "factory
correct", I started wondering if we could make our own panels
out of sheet steel. It would probably be ugly, and not have those
little ridges anymore. It would also be any thickness we wanted and
would be lots cheaper.
We
found out that a local steel place would cut sheet steel to any specifications
we wanted, the steel is sold by the square foot and they charged by
the foot for the cut. We decided on 1/8” steel and made our measurements.
1 week and $65 later we had ourselves a new wheel well. Some assembly
required.
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all good projects, this one started off with a hole saw and a saws-all.
Disassembly is simple, basically you cut out the panels, but leave enough
on the edges to align the new pieces. If you look at the assembly from
the bottom, you will see 2 brackets in the corner of the quarterpanel
along the top of the wheel well. I don’t recommend cutting these off,
they will be good anchors for the new steel. Something else that should
be kept if possible is the seat belt anchor bracket. Ours was too rusted
to keep. I’ve marked these 3 interesting items with a “here”
next to them in the picture to the right. |
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The towel is on the tire to protect it
from hot metal chunks; we ended up using a cutting torch in places.
The rear curve and the previously mentioned brackets were tough
to cut. A jigsaw worked well most of the way around, but we needed
the saws-all to cut through all that bondo and rust. The large
rusty bracket in the bottom left of the picture below is the seatbelt
anchor.
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We wanted to leave enough of the original
metal to properly align the new pieces. After everything was cut out,
Jason decided to sandblast it. Wise choice, I think. Looks pretty
good, will help with the welding and gets rid of all the old rust to
keep it from spreading. When we do the next side, we aren’t going to
bother keeping this frame of metal. The lip from the top of the old
wheel well where it joined the quarter panel and the lip of the inside
piece where it joined the floor are enough to line it all up.
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Here it
is tack welded in place. We welded it entirely, as in every seam was
completely welded. It is very strong. I weigh 220lbs, and I jumped
up and down on it with all the viciousness I could muster and it didn’t
budge. I jumped on the other side (still stock) and put a big dent
in it! Why is this cool to me? Well, mostly because this is where
the roll bar (soon to be roll cage) mounts. Below is a picture of it
mostly finished. It was cold and dark by this point, so this is the
last picture I took of the project.
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Completely welding every edge was strong,
but the heat warped the quarter panel. When we get around to doing the
other side, we will weld it in short sections to the quarter panel,
around one inch every 4 inches or so, with time between welds to let
it cool. 1/8” steel is pretty heavy for body parts, and after welding
the 3 pieces together and then to the floor it should be rigid enough
to get away with the short welds to the quarter panel. Also, since we
now know not to cut off the stock reinforcement brackets, we can also
weld to those for increased strength.
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