Shane Hook

Every once and a wile I would scrap a rock and it would deform my retainer ring, which holds the felt gasket and rubber gasket in place. I would then have to replace it with spares. Well, somebody finally has addressed this issue. Enter the Trail Gear rock ring.

Introduction This is the first of many articles on the rebuilding of a new FJ40. I have always wanted an early FJ40, as it was in a 40 that I had my first off roading experience. So, after 5 months of searching I finally found one. Cheap, full of rust, and not running very well. The cruiser has a Chevy 327 mated to the stock trany and transfer case. It has seen better days, but I hope to make it trail ready again within the next year. So, while waiting for parts to arrive, I decided to take care of some of the rust problems.

My FJ40 had no rear protection, it needed a rear bumper bad. After looking at a lot of pictures of cruisers, I came upon somebody that had a design that I liked. I really liked it as it kept the styling of the original rear lights, yet offered major protection.

Along with a friendly stop by the local PD, driving my FJ40 around with no side mirrors was getting old, The officer let me know, that I was in violation of the local vehicle codes since I didn't have a side mirror. Rather then argue with them, I gave Cool Cruisers of Texas (CCOT) a call, and ordered up a pair of their Telescoping Hinge Mount Mirrors.

After driving the FJ40 for a few miles, I realized that I was in desperate need of power steering. Yea, I am weak, and am used to using just one hand to steer :-). So, being that I still live in a studio apt, and had limited fabrication abilities I decided that I would purchase a power steering bracket kit for my truck. After looking at all the options out there, I finally decided on what looked to be the strongest, best designed kit avilable.

When I bought my FJ40 it had on some fiberglass ford bronco flares on it. Those just had to go. The only problem with removing these, was that the PO (previous owner) did a hack job on the fenders.

This all began when I started looking for custom length power steering hoses for my FJ40. it seemed that everybody in town wanted about $70 for just the high pressure side of the line. This just seemed too high for me. So I set out to find all the correct parts to make my own custom length hose. I purchased everything through www.summitracing.com so that the average person could also replicate these hoses. It took about 4 orders to get all the correct parts I needed, I kept having to send back all kinds of parts as they were the incorrect fittings I needed for the job. I finally got all the parts, and below is a list with part numbers of all the correct parts to match up a Saginaw power steering pump to a Saginaw power steering box. I chose to use all Earls fittings as they seemed to be the best quality of all the parts I received. I also picked up a power steering cooler just so I wont have any problems in the future with overheating.

Well after driving for a while, my exhaust was always loud, and the fumes would come into the cab all the time. I couldn?t stand it. So, I gave my friends at summit racing a call. And in 4 days, I had two new shinny 40 series flowmasters. Summits service is top notch, and is super quick. (yea, I know, this was not cheap, but I wanted something nice)

After driving my FJ40 around for some time, I finally hooked up some gauges. Its been about 100 miles or so with-out gauges so I thought it was about time. Once the new gauges were hooked up, I noticed that the oil pressure gauge was reading real low, about 5psi at idle. My FJ40 has a Chevy 327 swapped in place of the stock engine so what follows is a "How to remove and reinstall a new oil pump in a Chevy small block".