Firewall Tubing

Nice. I think I saw you mention that in your build thread. How’d you melt it back together? I won’t lie I almost cut mine in half, super glue it back together, then wrap it in flex tape. But decided on this one instead.

 

Thanks. I wanted to use 4”. Every time I went to Home Depot they had it. Of course the time I went into actually buy it they only had 3”. Good enough though. Probably worked out better with 3” anyway. Takes less room.

 

Ha yeah I hear you. I put it off for a while. I don’t live too close to the beach but every AM my windshield is covered with sand and was staring to bother me a bit.

Plus I wanted to see if it would work which is probably the main reason I made it. Easy project and making something you visualized is always fun to see how it turns out. Well, most of the time.

 

I used a soldering iron and a bunch of time. a plastic welder would have been way better.

tried epoxy originally and it fell apart and started leaking after a few months.

 

Plastic welder would be sweet. Glad to hear the epoxy didn’t work (glad for my benefit not yours) since I would have been in the same scenario.

Mines seems to be okay. Passed a 24 hour leak test. Just need to improve the pump mount.

 

What did you guys do for washer reservoirs that couldn’t fit the stock one?



I just layed mine down on an angle and secured it.

 

Started my tubb process this weekend for 37's

 

Keep track of the hours please just want to know how long it takes. It took me over 40 hours both sides

 

Will do! I'm about 7 ish hours in so far. .

 

Thank you I remember welding small pieces together in stead of one big piece.
Best of luck with it.

 

Thanks, never really welded thin sheet metal so it'll be a slow learning process for me. What did you use to strip to bare metal without taking away too much material?

 

I did not strip anything.just cut and welded in small pieces. Used .025 wire and it was a pain. I wish I had another one to do because this time I would do somethings different.
1. I'd completely take out all carpeting
2. I'd remove or move away all wiring
3. I'd also take the front seats out.
4. I'd use a weldable primer too.
These were All my mistakes
Ingot the job don't buy it could have been better.

 

@Windigo, how I left it after this weekend. About 12 hours in at this point. FYI welding 22 gauge is ass. Couple more spots need stitch welded and I still need to plate the upper firewall area then it's on to passenger side. Probably be done and started on passenger side next weekend

 

I used a wire brush on an angle grinder and sand paper on a pneumatic die grinder for those harder to reach spots.

 

Wire brush on my drill did the trick. I do need to pick up a die grinder though. So I can focus on flattening the welds

 

I think its a great job..

 

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about that, I never did. You're going to be covering them in copious amounts of sealant anyways that it won't be the prettiest thing. I shared this in the beginning of the thread, but this is a 3rd gen 4runner I did, no grinding of the welds, and came out looking really good IMO.

 

Glad to hear it, what did you coat with? I was thinking of using 3m rubberized undercoating. Or should I go with like a hurculiner spray?

 

I've done two trucks, a friends 4runner and my second gen tacoma. On his, I used some roofing sealant, which looks really good being black and textured. On mine, I used some general purpose sealant that I found at the hardware store, and then followed up with tons of layers of spray on flex seal.

 

@EatSleepTacos, I've just got some

$23 3m 550 , Grey Color, Permanently Elastic, Fast-Skinning, Non-Staining, Non-Sagging, 12 oz

3m 550 autoseam sealer and rubberized undercoating I was gonna use. Hoping it'll do a good enough job of sealing up whatever pinholes are there