My first Land Cruiser

MGH2 · 09-20-07, 04:27 PM

Hello everyone. I just bought my first Cruiser Sunday in Southern Alabama. I drove about 3 hours to see it, then drove it home. It's a 1992 and has about 270,000 miles on it. It runs GREAT! There is some minor vibration at speed and a clunk when changin' direction, think it's the Dshaft. Other than that, a noisy speedo cable, a busted and shaky mirror, and a couple rusted ends on hard vacuum lines is all I have been able to find wrong. I've put a little under 1000 miles on it. I'm pretty excited about it. I love your forum and hope to contribute as often as i can. Does anyone know any members in South Georgia??

mot · 09-20-07, 04:41 PM

Congrats and welcome aboard!

Mot

MJADDICTION · 09-20-07, 04:42 PM

Looks great, welcome to the 3FE club!

Polak · 09-20-07, 05:01 PM

Welcome to the madness!

Check HERE for Georgianites

dcFJ · 09-20-07, 05:31 PM

Awesome! Nothing wrong with having another 3FE brother around

Looks great. Congrats on the purchase.

tomatopants · 09-20-07, 05:50 PM

You're missing some hubcaps.... But hey, congrats!

DanGood · 09-20-07, 05:55 PM

Congratulations on becoming a cruiser owner! GOOD CHOICE LOL

meckles · 09-20-07, 06:03 PM

how far south in GA?

I'm in Tally FLA

ERG80 · 09-20-07, 06:47 PM

Nice pic. Congrats.

turbocruiser · 09-20-07, 06:49 PM

Welcome to MUD !!!

1988 · 09-20-07, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MGH2

There is some minor vibration at speed and a clunk when changin' direction, think it's the Dshaft.

Congrats on your first cruiser! I'd take this clunk serious and check the hubs, birfields and bearings. Check tie rod ends too!

Have fun!

Brian

MGH2 · 09-20-07, 07:01 PM

Thanks guys. I'm from close to Albany, GA. Quick question.... Why do I find so many people complaining about the 3FE being slow? It is by no means fast, but when you're pushing over 2 tons with 6 cylinders what should you expect. Once this thing reaches cruising speed, I have a hard time keeping it at the speed limit. I didn't buy this thing to be screaming fast, just to take me where I want to go, something my 2wd had a hard time doing at times.....

turbocruiser · 09-20-07, 07:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MGH2

Thanks guys. I'm from close to Albany, GA. Quick question.... Why do I find so many people complaining about the 3FE being slow? It is by no means fast, but when you're pushing over 2 tons with 6 cylinders what should you expect. Once this thing reaches cruising speed, I have a hard time keeping it at the speed limit. I didn't buy this thing to be screaming fast, just to take me where I want to go, something my 2wd had a hard time doing at times.....

"Performance" is measured in many ways, you have one of the most well made and most very versatile of vehicles now. It is not a sportscar for sure but with the wisdom you present here you already know all that, and you also realize that it will "outperform" a sportscar ( or any regular car, regular truck, etc.) in many ways. Meanwhile as you already wrote, while not "furious fast", it is not a dog either. You sir are simply enjoying an extremely enjoyable vehicle! Congrats!!!

TiredIronGRB · 09-20-07, 07:14 PM

Slick looking rig, you should come to the Southern Cruiser Crawl at Gray Rock.

gray · 09-20-07, 07:24 PM

The clunk on changing gears; do you mean like from drive to reverse??
If so, that is common on all Landcruisers; they seem to have a bit of slop in the driveshafts.

The U-joints on these last forever, as long as you lubricate them properly and do not
swim your cruiser through 2 foot mudpuddles, or ford rivers. If you do, you must immediately
regrease everything; including taking the front wheel bearings out and cleaning them;
too much work for a few minutes playing in the mud for this old guy.

I would suggest that you change all the fluids;
I use synthetics only, and have so for 25 years.
Only thing; they do tend to seep a bit more than heavier standard oils; but the new Mobil 1 High Mileage
that just came out is much better than regular Mobil 1 in that regard.

I also completely flushed my auto tranny; with 16 quarts of Mobil Synthetic; it also has been
improved over the past 20 years; Best is to find a shop that uses a B&G flush machine.
Before I flushed my tranny, I put in two (2) bottles of LUBEGARD auto tranny flush;
it is good stuff; trust me (I don't sell it), but it works without hurting anything inside the tranny.

Be very carefull; most of the Quick lube shops NEVER change the filter inside their flush machines;
they usually do not even know that there is a filter inside. You could of course ask them to change
the filter, but that will just piss off Darrell and Darrell and their cousin Darrell, so they will throw some
mud in your tranny to show you that they know it better than you; you probably know the type.

I flushed all my differentials with engine flush; ie: two quarts gear oil; one quart engine flush;
drive it for 5-10 miles, then drain it; put in regular gear oil, run it 5-10 miles, drain again;
then put in the final fill; I use Mobil 1 75-90 Gear oil in all the boxes.

One caveat; the front axles on ALL solid axles LC's leak moly grease into the gear oil;
ie: the Moly from the hubs gets by a seal into the diff;
do not overfill the hub, but do not let it go dry; there is a bit of art and experience to know
how much to use.
Regarding the front hubs; there is a small square plug you remove to grease the hubs;
I use the NAPA brand Moly grease; ?PALLADIUM I think it what it is called; point here is that
it is 3% Moly; all the others that say Moly, are only 1% Moly. The only other place you use
Moly grease is on the driveshaft yolks and tie rod ends if yours are greasable; do NOT use Moly for the U-joints.

You should also flush the radiator and use premixed long life antifreeze, the Toyota brand is
specialy formulated for Toys, but it is much more expensive; do not use anything that has
Silicates in it.

Flush the brake lines also, and use Valvoline synthetic fluid; but FIRST, get a suction gun
and suck out the old fluid from the brake fluid reservour; put some fresh in the top,
so when you flush it, you are not flushing the old through the system;
bleed everything afterwards.

Last, pay special attention to the transfer case; use only the best gear oil; synthetic for this particularly

Also, look very very very closely at the condition of the tranny fluid under bright sunlight;
if you see a lot of little metal specks, you may have a rear output shaft that is wearing;
a small amount of specks is normal; a ton is not.
not to worry, yet; just flush the tranny real real well, even drop the pan if you have the time
before you flush it;
however, a good complete flush should clean out the pan, unless there is a ton of junk in there already.

I do not recommend any addtives to the tranny fluid if you use Mobil synthetic ATF; you cannot
get any better than that stuff.

LUBEGARD does make a GEAR OIL supplement; you can use that in the diffs and transfer;
I think it does help lower the temps inside the boxes.

Almost forgot; I also switched a year ago to the Iridium plugs; DENSO I think (getting old),
they were about 12$ each, but the car idles much better than before;
I have used about everytype of plug on the market at one time or another;
the only ones that I felt made an improvement over the Toyota OEM plugs were the Splitfire plugs(about 15 years ago,
and the Iridium plugs.

Good luck; print this out, a lot of stuff that I have learned over the last 25 years.

gray · 09-20-07, 07:33 PM

Regarding the 3FE; I have an FJ62 with this engine; nothing wrong with it, just have to push it a bit,
ie: keep the revolutions high to keep it near the top of the power band by manually shifting it.

Things you can do to get a bit more power;
try Splitfire or Iridium sparkplugs
make sure your distributor cap and rotor are new
consider new plug wires if the original ones are still on it
I do not recommend super coils; and be careful with any coil that produces a super hot spark; it can damage the engine.

Get a K&N air filter; like 7 more horsepower with that alone.

Use synthetics; see my other post; less drag from the drivetrain means more power to go fast.

Do not use some super swamper crush the earth tires; the engine has to work harder
to get them spinning; If you do not go off-road, use Michelin Crossterrain tires;
they are perfect for the road; but not good for off-road;
they are real expensive however(like 800 installed at SEARS), but they will last twice as long as any other tire; give you a better ride, and even about 1 extra mpg.
I got 92,000 miles out of my last set, got 60K on my current set.

Good luck.