The Build Part 1: Body and Paint

 This build took a year and a half at the nation's top Toyota offroad truck fabricator, Demello Offroad in Corona, CA. It started in March 2007 when I called up Demello to get a Total Chaos long travel kit installed.  Over the next year and half the project continued as I decided to the take the opportunity to build a truly outstanding FJ.

This build was inspired by the Baja-winning Donahoe Racing FJ. It turned out to be a streetable version of this famous truck with many additions.

Dylan Evans from Donahoe (now president of Icon) located a set of spare fiberglass from the Baja racer for us. This fiberglass was not an easy fit and took a few months to get in place correctly.

The plan was basically to build a SCORE Class 7 truck that was still usable for the family. We would begin with body, send it out for paint, then complete the mechanical after paint.

First the truck was completely stripped down. We had to evaluate any apron damage, figure out how to put on the glass (which was not a do-it-yourself kit) and start on the cage.

Other mechanical projects were the installation of the Total Chaos kit in the front and prototyping of a tube prerunner bumper. Above the Total Chaos spindle gussets are welded on to strengthen the FJ front spindles. Test fit of the new bumper.

The fiberglass took a lot of grinding and cursing, as it was a rough race kit without even attachment points. It went on after a lot of protest and epoxy. The FJ does not have removable rear fenders, so it was attached to the body sheet metal at the rear with Dzus fasteners.

At the same time Demello's full body cage was turning out to be a work of art. The goal was both rollover protection and longitudinal strength for this long-travel truck.

Because I would have the family with me, Demello carefully designed the structure so that non-helmeted occupants would not hit anything.

It turned out later that one of the hardest parts of the build was to get the factory interior to fit around the cage for a factory look. For now the interior sheet metal was completely covered in Second Skin Damplifier Pro. Demello developed special reinforcing for the fiberglass hood so that the factory hinges could still be used - with hood pins at the front.

After the fiberglass was rough-fit we took it to Crown Valley Auto Body in Laguna Hills, CA for fine bodywork and paint.

The glass was removed and a lot of fitting and sanding was about to begin. The owner Armando Besne wondered why he ever said "yes" to this project.

With the supercharger, underhood temperatures have to be kept down as much as possible. It's just about 1 hp per each degree that you lose or gain. I got a Summit Racing hood scoop and faced it backwards to draw hot air out behind the intake.

Then we cut out the false hood intake the FJ has and screened it off. This ended up working great as my underhood temps are only a few degrees above ambient. Cool air comes in the front intake to the air filter a few inches behind. Then the scoop draws hot air out behind it so the filter only gets the cool stuff.

After the pieces were individually sanded and fine-fitted they were removed and primed.

The fender wells were undercoated and body masking begun for the topcoat.

There wasn't much reason to stick with the factory "Voodoo Blue" since the body would need repainting anyway. I picked BMW Topaz Blue after looking at hundreds of different metallic blues. This is the very first coat of the very first section.

The pieces were coming out gorgeous. I was freaking. Or it could've been the fumes from taking pictures in the paint booth.

Time to paint the engine compartment and rear fender wells black.

Almost starting to look like a car. It was beginning to hit me how much work was still ahead.

I hoped that this color was not going to get scratched up too much on the trails. But then, that's the whole idea.

Next: Reassembly ->