Episode 22: Removing the Body Mounts

Restoring an old vehicle comes with a lot of hard work. I also learn something new every time I work on the LandCruiser. For the past few months I have been intimidated just thinking about removing the Body Mounts. I am not sure why, but I have been putting this off for as long as I can. My buddy Scott came out to Illinois and helped me get through removing them. It wasn’t bad at all. Here is Episode 22 of my Restoring the 1970 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser Playlist. The body comes off next!

In Episode 22 of the 1970 Toyota FJ40 LandCruiser Restoration Removing the Body Mounts I remove the 6 Body Mounts, one each from the Driver Side Firewall, Passenger Side Firewall, under the Passenger Seat, in the Rear Passenger Side corner of the body, the Driver Side Rear side corner of the body, Under the Driver Seat, and under the Driver Firewall. I also removed the Body Mounts under each Running Board. All of the Body Mounts function to hold the Body to the Frame, and they each have rubber flanges to help cushion both the body where it meets the frame. In the case of my 1970 FJ40, they were all severely rusted and the bolts all had to be cut with a reciprocating saw. I am not sure any of the Body Mounts actually worked as I could feel the Body shift when I took sharp corners.

This is one of those faith building episodes. I have been thinking about the Body Mounts for months and, for some reason, they always intimidated me, so I put it off as long as I could. It actually wasn’t bad at all. We went through about 8 blades on the Reciprocating Saw, but all the Body Mounts came out easier than I thought they would. Thanks to my friend Scott who was visiting and helped on this project.

Do others have the same problem with the body side of the Body Mount rusting out and falling out when I saw through the Body Mount Bolt? I had 4 of them do that today.