When Becky Pardee was little, she frequently went four-wheeling with her father in his old Land Cruiser. So it came as no surprise, when the time came for her to get her own rig, that she wanted a Cruiser, too.
In November 1999, Becky bought a '67 FJ-40 that had been left sitting for seven or eight years. The paint was faded, the tranny was on the ground, the valve covers were missing, and the pistons were rusted to the cylinders. Within a few weeks of picking it up, though, Becky and her father had a stock '71 2F motor and an SM420 transmission bolted in. Soon thereafter, the pair took the Cruiser apart to do a spring-over conversion, swap in a disc-brake frontend, and bolt up a power steering pump, the tilt column from a Chrysler LeBaron, and a set of 35-inch tires. For her high-school graduation, Becky received an ARB Air Locker for the rearend.
Bolton's Welding bent a front hoop and crossbars to be used with the existing roll bar and made a full 'cage, which Becky painted Smurf Blue. Somewhere along the line, Becky put on a late-model windshield frame and a hard top for winter. After four seasons of 'wheeling, the 1/4-inch-thick Bondo on the fenders began cracking off and the oxidized powder-blue paint still had no luster, but it had gotten her where she wanted to go.
After painting a trailer for her dad in March 2004, Becky had the bright idea of painting her Cruiser. Her dad thought it sounded like a good idea and told her she could use the bay in his garage. So, once again, the duo got to work tearing the Toyota down. Becky hadn't planned on an in-depth rebuild, but her dad kept pushing her to do it right. So with his help, Becky began transforming her ugly duckling into a beautiful rig.
After some meticulous cleaning and prepwork on the tub with a wire-cup brush, Becky finally decided on installing a Line-X bedliner with a light-gray topcoat so that she'd never have to touch the inside again. Becky had always wanted to learn how to weld, and she got her chance by having to fill about 120 holes in the bottom of the Cruiser tub. She said it looked like a porcupine, but was happy to do the work herself. Becky and her father then built custom seat brackets to hold a set of Honda Civic bucket seats down.
The biggest challenge to repairing this rig was replacing the back part of the body, which was completely rusted out. For this, Becky used a piece of square tubing, which runs the width of the Cruiser and wraps about 1 foot around the corners. The old fenders were replaced with new aftermarket components so she wouldn't have to do anything to them. This modification, however, turned out to be somewhat of a challenge in getting every hole slotted and the fenders lined up with the hood and grille. All the priming and wet-sanding was completed by Becky, and by the time she was done, she hardly had any fingerprints left.
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