[kevinmrowland]

My Dad bought a family hauler 62, we liked that so much that I bought an old 81 60 with delusions of fixing the completely rotted body and rusted out frame. It was about as far from road worthy as you could get, so I mustered together the most complete set of hand tools I could find and started disassembling…that one never really made it back together, but that was how I learned to take apart front knuckles, remove a carb, pull a steering wheel, drive out bearings, separate a T-case, torch u bolts, swear, kick, grunt and bloody my knuckles all while learning to love the cantankerous beasts that are Land Cruisers.
I suppose it never made it back together not due to a lack of motivation, but rather reality sinking in, rust is a bitch.

With my ever growing pile of parts to draw from, I felt armed for my next Cruiser purchase, a grey 85 that I spotted sitting outside a local auto parts store. I bought that one right away, it was only the second one I had ever seen for sale, spent all my savings on this one since it was in such mint condition. I thought it was mint since it only had fist size rust holes, that was an improvement from the head sized ones in the previous cruiser. This one is technically my Cruiser, despite the Frankenstein it has become. I’ve made a lot of mistakes with it over the years, done things just plain wrong, learned lessons, struggled along quite a bit before finding LCML, MUD and good vendors (back when I still threw money away at $OR).

It was barley running, I used the parts from my 81 to get it going and drove it with sagging springs, rusted frame and numerous other safety violations for a few years, all the while convinced that I had the ultimate 4x4, go anywhere vehicle. And even in the abysmal shape it was in, it really did go anywhere, it amazes me just how capable that rusted out shell with 29” street tires really was.