My 1975 Toyota FJ40 Landcruiser...

Well, I've always wanted an FJ40. I had resigned myself to the knowledge that I would never own one unless I suddenly came into a few thousand dollars (and I had nothing else to spend it on). As we all know, I have a dozen (or so) project vehicles (and daily drivers), and if I came into a few thousand dollars, I would definitely spend it quickly on various toys anyway.

So, I have always wanted an FJ40 and I knew that I would never own one.

Then, a chance conversation on the bus to work (yes I own 5 daily drivers, but I take the bus to work... $90 a month for a bus pass beats $490 in gas in a 30mpg car any day) with a woman who works at the University (and who happens to have connections to my family in various crazy ways) mentioned that she had one. She had an FJ40 that sits in the horse pasture behind the house. It ran when it was parked. She wanted to get rid of the $650/month payment on her new FJ-Cruiser. She needed a reliable daily driver to get her to the bus stop. I had one of those in the wings. I had a 1985 Honda Accord with clean paint and a dirty interior that needed a timing belt replacement. I replaced the timing belt, I cleaned the interior (and fixed a handful of broken things) and presented it to her as a trade offering for the FJ40 (with no wheels, that hadn't been started in 5 years) and she was happy to trade. This means that she can get rid of her FJ-Cruiser payment and she can still drive the mile to the bus stop. I was - of course - ecstatic.

This past Saturday, I went and dropped off the Accord and "picked up" the FJ40. I say "picked up" in the most euphemistic way possible... the correct way to specify what I did goes something like this;

1. Squeezed my 3/4 ton Ford pickup with an 18' car-hauler in tow through a gate in the horse-pasture that was roughly 1" wider than the fenders on the car-hauler.
2. I proceeded to thread the trailer through a series of ridiculously spaced trees in an attempt to point the tail-end at the front of the FJ40.
3. I started mounting wheels on the Landcruiser. This involved
a. Jacking up each wheel with a hand-crank bottle-jack balanced on a 2x4.
b. Installing the wheel with 3 lug nuts per wheel (the originals were missing)
c. Removing the cinder-block under that leaf-spring.
(These things don't seem very difficult, but I would like to remind everyone
that this involved wallowing in damp ground littered with literally thousands of
piles of horse manure, it was roughly 50 degrees outside, everything was wet, it
was drizzling the entire morning, and I had no help.)
4. Configuring and assembling the cable / power / chains / etc. for the winch.
5. Winching the FJ40 for roughly 15 yards in order to line up the vehicle with the trailer's ramps.
6. Noticing that the front wheels were not turning due to the wheels having the wrong backspace.
7. Loosening the front wheel's lug nuts in order to facilitate their turning.
8. Kicking leaves and dirt back into the muddy trenches left behind the dragging wheels.
9. Winching the still-dragging FJ40 onto the car-hauler.
10. Having the 1/4" steel winch-cable snap whilst the FJ40 was half-way on the trailer. (By the way, I strongly recommend not being near the whipping end of a snapped steel cable.)
11. Winding and knotting the frayed steel cable through the winch-hook eyelet.
12. With no gloves.
13. Hiding behind the truck while winching using the MacGyver'ed cable.
14. Chain-binding the FJ40 to the trailer.
15. Negotiating through the trees, back to the extremely narrow gate.
16. Finding another set of wheels to swap out tires and mount to the FJ before rolling it off at the shop.

BUT I now have an FJ40, with temporary wheels, which is ALL THERE, mostly stock, and it cranks over.

I spent about 2 hours with a high-pressure water-sprayer just cleaning all the moss, algae and lichen off of the damned thing. Turns out that the Cruiser was mustard-yellow underneath.

Next up...

Changing the oil, replacing the fluids, adding a battery, rebuilding the carburetor, and driving to the house. I should also get a matching set of wheels and tires. For the record - 15", 5.5"x6 lug pattern, 4.25" hub center, 3.5" (88mm) (or less) backspacing.

I also still need to get the soft-top, half-doors, trailer yoke, and various other bits and pieces (along with the pink slip) from the old owners... and i need to give them their pink slip for the Accord.

BUT I have an FJ40.
Amber (my wife) is less than enthused.