More Land Cruiser 40 topics: land-cruiser-40
A 40 hardtop is usually rusty around the windows, especially at the bottom of the window. In the rear part, the post towards the rear doors is rusty at the bottom, and especially the rounded bracket towards the tub. In addition, there is rust inside the double panel because water has penetrated through the windows.
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The rust around the windows is usually relatively easy to fix as long as the curved parts are not completely rusted away. Smaller holes can be welded or soldered with body solder.
When welding holes, put a piece of copper or aluminum behind to prevent you from burning the hole larger. For soldering see Body Solder for details and movie.
For rust around the windows, cut out many small parts rather than a large piece. It prevents twisting during welding and helps keeping the shape.
The rear door posts are easy to make from 2-3 steel pieces with one bend. Bend over a square tube for the right radius of the corner. See also Sheet metal work.
The rounded part against the tub is more difficult.. This is rounded and bends several ways, and must be built up of many parts. Build up a thick weld on the inside and then grind on the outside until you get the right curvature.
At the bottom of the double panel there were many deep rust pits and a number of small holes. Ideally, new steel should have been added here, but there would have been difficult parts to make. So instead I chose to solder it with body tin, watch movie. Solder is much stronger and sticks much better than putty. Putty is not a good solution here because the steel will rust from the inside, and the putty will eventually fall off. Solder, on the other hand, prevents further rusting much better.
There is, of course, rust inside the double wall. But splitting up the wall to sandblast inside is unrealistic. Instead, I drilled a series of 10 mm holes and sprayed an anti-rust agent to limit further development of the rust. Normally I would use Fluid Film, but I was afraid that the window whether strips would swell so I used the Canadian product “Corrosion Free” instead. It is supposed not to damage rubber. I closed the holes with painted plastic plugs.
More Land Cruiser 40 topics: land-cruiser-40
