Salvaged 2005 GX470 Project - Now with Rebuilt Title & Plates!

All but 6 spot weld holes punched. There's a section I'll have to drill out because the metal bends and I can get the punch around the lip, bottom left section of QP

 

Welding has begun! Cut out a part of the old QP as a gap filler up top. Then got about 1/3 of the spot welds done. Break and then back to finish

 

Mostly welded in, and ground down. Not perfect but will do the job. Need to do the seams and roof next.

 

Verry cool!!

 

^^^^ Holy Moly! I second that. Very cool indeed!

It Has Begun!

 

It's not body shop good, but I'll take it. Drove it around the area for a bit and it's all solid. Have to find the taillight wiring, lost somewhere.

Will be researching bondo and body filler or whatever to buy next paycheck and start getting the whole thing ready to paint. Also need to get it registered so it's legal. That's a whole other thing I need to figure out for TX.

All in all, I definitely could have spent the money more wisely and gotten a good deal on a GX470 in much better condition. And a normal person should do that! I'm far from normal though lol. I've learned a lot about body work in this process. Things I know to do differently in the future.

Long term plans for the GX is to be a supercharged street focused weekend overlander. The Jeep is the streetable rock crawler. And the M3 is the car meet cruiser. Probably that's is until I buy a house in a few years.

 

Awesome!

 

Things it needs next besides paint:

Either learn PDR or body filler on various hail dings.

265/70/17 Tires to mount on thr TRD 4RUNNER wheels sitting in storage. Currently on stock rims and 265/65/17 tires.

Alignment

Replace the cracked windshield

Replace old and yellowed headlight housings, passenger side headlight is out.

Finish removing rust i didn't get to early on in the build

Drive it enough to let the suspension break in. Then adjust the stance. It's currently a little squatted in the rear. The front coilovers and the rear springs are height adjustable

 

Grrrr. Went to replace the headlight turn signal bulb and the glass part of the bulb came out without the metal base. Was stuck in pretty good. Grabbed the needle nose pliers to remove the rest and a bunch of plastic inside the housing crumbled getting it out. New bulb won't stay in now. Ordered a headlight wiring harness from the local Lexus dealership.

I called to check availability. They have it in stock. $78 over the phone...I was like, it says $44 online. "That's the online only price" wtf?! Said I can place it online and still pick it up today. That's some price gouging right there!

+ $48

 

Also saw this while at the dealership. I'm gonna see if I can find it in black. I've got a 35lbs mini lab mix that would fit in it

 

Lookin good!

 

My local dealer doesn’t participate in online parts ordering so I have to either pay shipping or drive an hour.

 

Did a parts swap with @nags. My extra rear hd sway bar for his old tesla style head unit, and a couple of 3d printed trim caps (for when you remove the side steps).

 

That'll do. Both look good.

 

Good job man!

Whats awesome about projects like this, is it helps you realize how capable you really are. The tools are an investment and the experience is invaluable!

 

I'd change careers if I were able to make 6 figures doing things like this instead of IT work!

 

Damn.. I do IT and don't make 6 figures. I'm doing something wrong lol

 

I only just got there after almost 20 years in "IT". 6 years doing desktop support, 6 years of data center tech (almost 3 years of that was overnights), then 7 more years of data center engineering. And now moving into Project management side of things nowadays. Less hands on, more meetings and headaches

 

I'm at about 20 years myself as a Network Engineer but I'm comfortable where I am and it would take a LOT of money for me to even consider a change. I'm full time remote and can go days without even talking to anyone else on Teams let alone a phone call.

 

I used to have that and would love to go back to it! That was my day to day in CO, but then they closed down all the North American data centers and I had to find something else. My new job here in TX was like that to start, but they just closed down this dc also...but moving into Project mgmt will allowing me to go back to 100% remote, and back to CO

 

I work for a very small company so don't have to worry too much about stuff like that. And being a wannabe bodybuilder, working fully remote is just too good to ever give up.

 

I'm IT too, coming up on 40 years, yup, I'm so old I went to Wang school in'82. That's 5k quickly in the toilet but got me networked into contacts I still have today. I'm 100% remote, manage a reasonable sized team, lots of meetings and not so much hands on but I pretty much do my job on autopilot. I miss actually figuring out odd issues and fixing things but hopefully will retire soon so it's OK.

Also, great work!

 

All of a sudden @M3Tundra-JK got a bunch of IT showing up at his door....haha

 

And he disappears, coincidence??????

 

This is how this thread tends to go. I get my fix and then jones for an update. Lol

Then I don’t get updated for some reason and binge a few pages. lol

 

Lol ok ok here's some updates

I was holding off on putting the taillight back in because i thought I was missing part of the wire harness. But not the case, it only uses one of the sockets and the other two are hard wired. So put it back in, but can't find the screws just yet. Used a random spare instead.

Was putting the interior back together and it seems the rear third row seat belts were seized so I just removed them. Tbh all of the seat belts should be replaced. They're kinda slow, gummy feeling.

The rear carpet was barely able to go back in all the way due to the thick layer of dynmat liner I used. It's pretty plush now..

Will figure out what type of body filler I need next, and get a cheap sander to prep for paint.

Also need to figure out how to swap the title to rebuilt and get it registered now that it's back together.

Also the interior needs a good cleaning again. Hasn't been detailed since moving it down to TX.

 

Try this:

Soak the seatbelts in Simple Green, then scrub with one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Cleaner-Cutlery-Replacement-Kitchen-Chopsticks/dp/B0C6F5D9NK?crid=1WPDS2M8GROU3&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Tx1L_gZFX2FxqWHTbJgaAh1ZJOCG_x8YpcbaucMt3V0L82-fSHCbIPKN2TsPYlSgz9-DcwwLqQieW3B_gKiAPDqb6bSNIqlznjVQ2NzvYYTiOor8SAJyxA-aVtV-bFPvoj5vEOGpqpHbYr6h6LfT87JMpPglCZLH9CkRskFRoalF9Fg7Cbh0OJ3sCiMKoD001adYtUszq2XqI3SBLbnNNA.v4RlCxo8lX8SbBs6DjaARmeGkCjrP76fDQ-sX_ckT7I&dib_tag=se&keywords=utensil+cleaner&qid=1732387135&sprefix=utensil+cleane%2Caps%2C154&sr=8-3

Worked wonders on my Highlander and they were gross.

 

Oh, nice! I was wondering how I'd go about cleaning them! I think there's a trick to getting the seatbelts to unlock also. The middle seatbelt in the rear passenger row was also locked at one point, and then magically unlocked itself after I installed the seats.

 

Yeah man it worked great. For the not so bad ones, I just left them attached in the car and pulled them out until they locked.

Then sprayed the Simple Green directly and scrubbed. Normally there is only like a 2 ft. Section of gross exposed seatbelt, so it’s not too bad!

My interior is the same color too.