Hello all,
After my last post regarding drive flanges, a few people had asked for a detailed post about my rig. So here goes it.
In August of 2022, I had the opportunity to buy my 1993 Land Cruiser at what seemed to be a bargain price of $6,000. I moved to Grass Valley where it snows and my FWD Chevy would not be reliable in the snow. Given that, I drove down to Livermore to go pick it up and it had essentially nothing done to it. I was a 5th owner with 326,000 miles and it had a really rocky past. Daily driven 50+ miles to the bay til mid 2000s til the lady passed away, given to Grandson who never drove it and sold to what turned out to be a narcotics dealer for dirt cheap and then bought by the lady I purchased it from, who barely got it put together to run. On the drive home, I picked up a set of 33’s on 16’s and a used OME 2.5” lift and threw it on the next day. Went and started wheeling that weekend and instantly fell in love. I ended up making an instagram to document my progress which you can go check out if you’d like!
Mallow_LC
I started to learn how to wheel and what I was and was not comfortable with, I didn’t really have too many issues with it at this point, but I swapped the fuel pump due to my belief it went out and later discovered the fusible link popped. I also did regular maintenance such as oil changes, spark plugs, and a paint correction.
Went to 35’s and continued to wheel realistically every weekend or whenever I could and just really enjoyed it. Ended up getting in an accident on a trail that destroyed my bumper, headlights, and grill as well as a dented hood. I came up on a great deal on here for a free set of eBay headlights and a black grill and the main man SolveFunction/Outsane hooked me up with a TrailGear front bumper for cheap and I snagged that and it started to transform a bit.
From here I started to chase a lot of creature comfort issues that I knew needed to be replaced as work was busy and did not have time to go break things. New Power Steering gearbox came quite soon as well as new ignition components from distributor all the way to spark plugs. Replaced water pump, belts and thermostat going into Summer for better cooling. Also secured some cheap pod lights for the fog mounts on the bumper as well as a Badlands 12K Wireless and Synthetic winch.
First major issue I started to deal with was the transmission. Although the A442F is seemingly bulletproof, the lead foot and adrenaline filled driving habits of a 21 year old can really test things like that. It was having issues shifting and I ended up finding out the filter was completely clogged. So I got to learn how to work on the transmission as best I could and cleaned the solenoids as well as replaced the filter and she was back together! Soon after, I found that the drag link is no match to a 35” tire dragging on a K-Rail, and ended up bending the drag link into a banana. Got a heavy duty kit from Trail Gear and threw it on and made my confidence doing my own work skyrocket!
I ended up getting a FrontRunner tundra roof rack and ProComp lightbar soon after from SolveFunction again, as well as a set of 17” Method 105V3 Beadlocks within a few weeks. Got to get together with the NorCal Bay Area Land Cruiser Group for a trip to Sourgrass where prior to this, I had to fix my exhaust as well as do a coolant system overhaul. Flushed the green coolant out and replaced with Zerex Red, new Fan Clutch and another Thermostat that opens up sooner and my temps started to stay where theyre supposed to.
I gathered a set of 37x12.5x17 Cooper Discoverer STT Pros for $500 due to wear and in order to clear the tires, ripped my fenders off, got a DVS 2” front spacer as its a cheap way to get some clearance and a 30mm Slee Polyurethane rear spacer and threw those suckers on! And enjoyed it for about 3 weeks… until the transmission went out. I thought it was the solenoids at first, so I sourced a set of Isuzu box truck solenoids which are a quarter of the price and work just as well but to no avail, I had to get another transmission. Thankfully TLK Contact had one with 235k miles on it for pretty cheap so I took the chance and decided to do the swap myself, as I didn’t think it would be that hard.
Due to time constraints, I gave myself a window of 24 hours to do the full swap, starting at 4pm on Friday. Got the TCase out pretty quick and the Transmission fell out around 1 A.M. so I was making good progress. Ended up bolting everything back together around 3pm the next day and got to take it for a spin to a wedding and then found the solenoids in it were bad, so I had to put the ones that I bought for the old one and it worked a treat!
I learned soon after this, caster angle does matter and if I didn’t want to look drunk while driving, I was going to need to figure something out. Delta arms were too much at the time so I settled for a set of Slee Caster Correction Plates which is where I then replaced all the radius arm bushings as well. From here, things went fine until I got a horrible case of death wobbles, which I found out to be the panhard bar upper bracket being completely cracked, so I welded it back together as well as replaced the bushings and got balancing beads which seemed to fix it for the most part. Adjusting the alignment a tad solved the problem completely so I was grateful it wasn’t a horrible case like I see some people deal with.
Did a speaker install as the previous owners claim of a bang up pioneer system didn’t work at all and went with Kicker 6.5” with tweeters on all 4 doors and a 10” subwoofer for the bass.
Ended up having to move soon after this and I didn’t have too many issues after this other than minor issues that took me an afternoon to fix, UNTIL I had my front driver side brake caliper bolts snap and shred the inside of the wheel as it was hanging on by a thread. I ended up trying to extract the bolts to no avail so I had to replace the knuckle. I never had the chance to tear into the axles but finally got an excuse to. So I got the whole drivers side front axle assembly out in one night and then went and picked up the new knuckle from TLK Contact the next day. Threw it all back together the next day, packed new grease in, put new diff fluid as I quickly found out gravity and a slight slope can really ruin a clean pair of pants. But I got it all back together in one day and was rolling down the road pretty quickly!
From here, not much breaking has happened, as this happened in November of 2023. I made the hard mistake of not putting the oil cap back on after topping the oil off before a mudding trip and got oil everywhere and started to deal with alternator issues. O’Reilly alternators do NOT work. The Voltage Regulator fails instantly. Thankfully a buddy gave me his old OEM one and that fixed the problem. I also had to weld the drive flanges to the axle shaft which I had discussed in my last post in order to get 4wd back which wasn’t that big of a deal. I have also upgraded lights to some Baja Designs Squadrons and SP2s.
In conclusion, this 80 has been a lot of fun. I’ve really gotten to test what the capabilities are with this platform on stock gears and no lockers turning 37’s and I’ve been so impressed. This community has been nothing but supportive and super insightful and took me in with open arms. The guys know who they are and if you’re reading this don’t talk crap
. Some call it a dumpster fire, some call it a Land Yacht, but it’s my ol girl and if it weren't for this truck, or this community, I wouldn’t have the confidence I have now to work on my own vehicle let alone take it off the pavement. Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoyed what has been such an amazing opportunity and journey I continue to pursue. Almost 20,000 miles later and it’s still going strong! (343k)
Upcoming projects are to rebuild front axles, get gears and air lockers, rebuild the motor, and keep on wheeling!
Cheers!
Mallow
After my last post regarding drive flanges, a few people had asked for a detailed post about my rig. So here goes it.
In August of 2022, I had the opportunity to buy my 1993 Land Cruiser at what seemed to be a bargain price of $6,000. I moved to Grass Valley where it snows and my FWD Chevy would not be reliable in the snow. Given that, I drove down to Livermore to go pick it up and it had essentially nothing done to it. I was a 5th owner with 326,000 miles and it had a really rocky past. Daily driven 50+ miles to the bay til mid 2000s til the lady passed away, given to Grandson who never drove it and sold to what turned out to be a narcotics dealer for dirt cheap and then bought by the lady I purchased it from, who barely got it put together to run. On the drive home, I picked up a set of 33’s on 16’s and a used OME 2.5” lift and threw it on the next day. Went and started wheeling that weekend and instantly fell in love. I ended up making an instagram to document my progress which you can go check out if you’d like!
Mallow_LC
I started to learn how to wheel and what I was and was not comfortable with, I didn’t really have too many issues with it at this point, but I swapped the fuel pump due to my belief it went out and later discovered the fusible link popped. I also did regular maintenance such as oil changes, spark plugs, and a paint correction.
Went to 35’s and continued to wheel realistically every weekend or whenever I could and just really enjoyed it. Ended up getting in an accident on a trail that destroyed my bumper, headlights, and grill as well as a dented hood. I came up on a great deal on here for a free set of eBay headlights and a black grill and the main man SolveFunction/Outsane hooked me up with a TrailGear front bumper for cheap and I snagged that and it started to transform a bit.
From here I started to chase a lot of creature comfort issues that I knew needed to be replaced as work was busy and did not have time to go break things. New Power Steering gearbox came quite soon as well as new ignition components from distributor all the way to spark plugs. Replaced water pump, belts and thermostat going into Summer for better cooling. Also secured some cheap pod lights for the fog mounts on the bumper as well as a Badlands 12K Wireless and Synthetic winch.
First major issue I started to deal with was the transmission. Although the A442F is seemingly bulletproof, the lead foot and adrenaline filled driving habits of a 21 year old can really test things like that. It was having issues shifting and I ended up finding out the filter was completely clogged. So I got to learn how to work on the transmission as best I could and cleaned the solenoids as well as replaced the filter and she was back together! Soon after, I found that the drag link is no match to a 35” tire dragging on a K-Rail, and ended up bending the drag link into a banana. Got a heavy duty kit from Trail Gear and threw it on and made my confidence doing my own work skyrocket!
I ended up getting a FrontRunner tundra roof rack and ProComp lightbar soon after from SolveFunction again, as well as a set of 17” Method 105V3 Beadlocks within a few weeks. Got to get together with the NorCal Bay Area Land Cruiser Group for a trip to Sourgrass where prior to this, I had to fix my exhaust as well as do a coolant system overhaul. Flushed the green coolant out and replaced with Zerex Red, new Fan Clutch and another Thermostat that opens up sooner and my temps started to stay where theyre supposed to.
I gathered a set of 37x12.5x17 Cooper Discoverer STT Pros for $500 due to wear and in order to clear the tires, ripped my fenders off, got a DVS 2” front spacer as its a cheap way to get some clearance and a 30mm Slee Polyurethane rear spacer and threw those suckers on! And enjoyed it for about 3 weeks… until the transmission went out. I thought it was the solenoids at first, so I sourced a set of Isuzu box truck solenoids which are a quarter of the price and work just as well but to no avail, I had to get another transmission. Thankfully TLK Contact had one with 235k miles on it for pretty cheap so I took the chance and decided to do the swap myself, as I didn’t think it would be that hard.
Due to time constraints, I gave myself a window of 24 hours to do the full swap, starting at 4pm on Friday. Got the TCase out pretty quick and the Transmission fell out around 1 A.M. so I was making good progress. Ended up bolting everything back together around 3pm the next day and got to take it for a spin to a wedding and then found the solenoids in it were bad, so I had to put the ones that I bought for the old one and it worked a treat!
I learned soon after this, caster angle does matter and if I didn’t want to look drunk while driving, I was going to need to figure something out. Delta arms were too much at the time so I settled for a set of Slee Caster Correction Plates which is where I then replaced all the radius arm bushings as well. From here, things went fine until I got a horrible case of death wobbles, which I found out to be the panhard bar upper bracket being completely cracked, so I welded it back together as well as replaced the bushings and got balancing beads which seemed to fix it for the most part. Adjusting the alignment a tad solved the problem completely so I was grateful it wasn’t a horrible case like I see some people deal with.
Did a speaker install as the previous owners claim of a bang up pioneer system didn’t work at all and went with Kicker 6.5” with tweeters on all 4 doors and a 10” subwoofer for the bass.
Ended up having to move soon after this and I didn’t have too many issues after this other than minor issues that took me an afternoon to fix, UNTIL I had my front driver side brake caliper bolts snap and shred the inside of the wheel as it was hanging on by a thread. I ended up trying to extract the bolts to no avail so I had to replace the knuckle. I never had the chance to tear into the axles but finally got an excuse to. So I got the whole drivers side front axle assembly out in one night and then went and picked up the new knuckle from TLK Contact the next day. Threw it all back together the next day, packed new grease in, put new diff fluid as I quickly found out gravity and a slight slope can really ruin a clean pair of pants. But I got it all back together in one day and was rolling down the road pretty quickly!
From here, not much breaking has happened, as this happened in November of 2023. I made the hard mistake of not putting the oil cap back on after topping the oil off before a mudding trip and got oil everywhere and started to deal with alternator issues. O’Reilly alternators do NOT work. The Voltage Regulator fails instantly. Thankfully a buddy gave me his old OEM one and that fixed the problem. I also had to weld the drive flanges to the axle shaft which I had discussed in my last post in order to get 4wd back which wasn’t that big of a deal. I have also upgraded lights to some Baja Designs Squadrons and SP2s.
In conclusion, this 80 has been a lot of fun. I’ve really gotten to test what the capabilities are with this platform on stock gears and no lockers turning 37’s and I’ve been so impressed. This community has been nothing but supportive and super insightful and took me in with open arms. The guys know who they are and if you’re reading this don’t talk crap
. Some call it a dumpster fire, some call it a Land Yacht, but it’s my ol girl and if it weren't for this truck, or this community, I wouldn’t have the confidence I have now to work on my own vehicle let alone take it off the pavement. Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoyed what has been such an amazing opportunity and journey I continue to pursue. Almost 20,000 miles later and it’s still going strong! (343k)Upcoming projects are to rebuild front axles, get gears and air lockers, rebuild the motor, and keep on wheeling!
Cheers!
Mallow
