Yikes! The truck has a ton of good parts on it and the frame might be pretty good still. I had big plans to buy it back after the insurance company totaled it out. The engine is still good and I've got shiny new fenderwell headers in there too. The payout was good and the salvage price was fair so I took what I had and bought a 1972 FJ40 from Chad in Florida. I really wanted to put the two together to make the best running Land Cruiser possible. Chad had a similar vision for his '72 I think. He put a nice Chevy 350 in it and painted it rattle can black with rat rod red trim. It looks pretty sweet actually.
This is the part where I talk technical mumbo jumbo so if you don't care about that stuff,
1. I'm surprised you're reading this blog at all and,
2. You can probably just skip this whole section
The black Cruiser has a real good body and a solid frame. Overall it's a real nice FJ40. The only problem with it is that, prior to 1974, Toyota Land Cruisers had a 3 speed transmission and a differential gear ratio of 3.70:1. 1974 and later models (like my crumpled up '76) had a nice 4 speed tranny and a 4.11:1 gear ratio which is better for bigger tires. 1974 was, in fact a big year of change across the board for these trucks. Other big differences include:
The older transfer case has a low range of 2.313:1 while the newer ones have a 1.992:1
The flanges for the driveshafts are different
The driveshafts themselves are different diameters by .01" (wow!)
The rear tailgate in the '72 has half doors while the '76 had full ambulance doors
The engine in the '76 is a 2F Toyota that has a little more oomph than the F engine in the '72.
The hard top is different as a result of the different rear doors
There's a bunch of other little differences that I've been grappling with too and they all play in to which chassis I'll be using as my starting point. Fortunately I had some expert help to help me figure it out!
Here's where I get to give my shameless endorsement of a local repair shop that I stumbled onto when my clutch went out a while back. L & D Transmission in Kingsland, Georgia is a good shop that sticks to their price quotes and won't fill you full of hot air. I appreciated that so I got a few repairs done there. My wife went to the shop to pick up a copy of an exhaust receipt for the insurance claim and the owner, Larry, told her that if I brought both Land Cruisers to the shop, he would do the body swap for free. For free?? I thought there was a breakdown in communication somewhere but he was absolutely serious. It turns out he wants to help out a guy in the military who had a cool project. He and I have gotten along pretty well but I can't believe somebody would be willing to do so much for a random customer. I suspect he's pretty amped up about the truck too. He hasn't let on too much though...
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