Some of you may have been aware that I crashed my FJ Cruiser on the freeway.
Totally my fault.
EARLY in the morning (even for me).
I changed lanes to the left because of a wide load on my right.
The lane that I changed INTO came to a screetching halt.
I did not.
Nobody was hurt, but I managed to CRUSH the rear end of a Kia minivan, plow it out of the way and STILL ram a small gray car in front of it.
When it came to rest, the FJC had stalled, been pushed into neutral, and started right up to drive to the side of the road.
No airbags deployed. I barely felt it.
The Kia was DESTROYED!!!!
Kia vs. FJC = FJC wins BIG TIME.
(note to self: ARB bumpers ROCK!)
I was mildly miffed that the brakes seemed so wimpy when I tried to stomp on them. They seemed so touchy in traffic when I was going slower, before. Why were they different?
My conclusion is that had just obtained my introduction to "antilock brakes".
I parked my FJC at a body shop for almost a month while they tapped it back into shape. I basically needed fenders and a bumper.
In the mean time, I started thinking... why not start a new 4x4 project? I have been thinking about building a dedicated crawler for YEARS. Of course the mechanical wherewithall to do this is COMPLETELY beyond my current skills or experience, but I'm clever and resourceful. I'm doggedly persistant, and now that I'm done with my surgical training, I actually have an income that would support such a project.
This is *why* I stayed in school... right?
I had been looking for a pre 84 Toyota mini truck so that I wouldn't have to solid axle swap it. I was basically thinking: crawl box, birfield upgrades, big tires, tube cage... and I'm good to go.
That's when I put "Toyota" into the search mechanism on craigslist.com.
I realized that I had one of two choices. Either I buy something for cheap that is unbelievable crap and drag it home where I could work on it, or else I could pay a bit more for something that would limp home under it's own power, but then in working on it, I'd basically destroy what value it had left... so all I'd be getting extra for the additional money would have been not begging some buddy to help me tow it.
That's when I came across an ad for a 69 FJ40 that had been languishing on the list through 3 price reductions. It was down to the same price as mini trucks that would have required being lifted onto a flat trailer with a forklift.
It had the magic word "runs".
I switched my plans.
Time to build an FJ40 - based rock crawler.
How do you do that?
Simple.
Start by buying the FJ40.
Figure the rest out as you go along.
