New member saying Hi + few pictures of the Cruiser (1 Viewer)

[Josh NZ]

Hi folks, my names Josh. I'm a new member from way down under in New Zealand.

Proud owner of an '87 BJ71, basically standard with 300,000km on the clock.

Bio:

Bought the truck about 1 year ago on 270,000km. I am the 3rd owner in NZ, truck was imported from Japan in the mid 1990's with under 100,000kms. Since purchase, I have just been tidying it up and using it as a daily driver/holiday trip maker. Problems included Springs completely sagged out, bushings all shot, heater blower only worked on highest speed and LH wing mirror wobbly to name a few.

Work done up to this point:

-Good underside clean and underseal
-Replaced 29" Cooper STs on white steel wheels with 31" Bridgestone Dueller MTs on factory alloys
-Wired in a 12V cig lighter socket for phone charger etc
-Wired in CB, central locking on key, and replaced many blown dash bulbs
-2 new 850CCA batteries
-KZJ78 manual centre console/gear stick surround. (Cup holders are a must in my books!)
-Replaced LH wing mirror. Last one literally blew off on the motorway!
-Factory leaf springs re-arched and all bushes replaced.
-Drained and cleaned oil out of PTO winch, refilled.
-Factory massive steering wheel swapped for a smaller Prado version.
-Fitted a roof rack for the skis/kayak

Work planned for the future:

-33x10.5x15 BFG KM2
-1" body lift
-Get A/C working
-Get rear heater blower working
-Find and fit the little fender mounted parking mirror
-Swap steel winch cable for Plasma rope
-Possibly an ARB front bar
-Sort oil pressure gauge so it actually reads properly.
-Gearbox overhaul

Also planning a Hella spotlight install with 6 lights, and rocker switches running an auxiliary fuse box in the cab.

After new tyres went on

After alloys were fitted

Short CB aerial, and roof racks

And during a weekend trip into North Canterbury with my partner.


Anyway, I'll be around asking all sorts of questions about this and that. There's plenty more work to do yet!

Josh

 

[ozcrusier]

Josh welcome to the forum.
Nice clean truck mate love the new look with Toyota wheels

 

[gkanai]

Nice rig! How do you like the 674 MTs? I'm thinking about a set in 255/85R16 but also considering the BFG MT KM2 in the same size.

 

[Josh NZ]

Thanks guys!

@gkanai - The tyres are very good. Cost me $240 NZD each and have a lifetime "free replacement if damaged" warranty. They were very quiet when first fitted, but have now done around 25,000kms and are markedly noisier, especially under braking. Not had any horror moments on wet tar seal yet, and just fine in the times I've had them in offroad.

The only reason I'm upgrading to BFG is because, well, its BFG! Plus i love the look of a 33'' tyre on a SWB cruiser (and the extra 2" doesnt hurt!) and these were the only decent brand i could find locally which had them to fit a 7" flavour rim. I was a Land Rover driver before this truck, and my experiences were that tall skinny tyres suited me better. I considered BFG A/Ts, but didnt want to caught out spending the best part of $2000 and still getting stuck on a flat driveway that a mob of cattle have torn up moments beforehand!

 

[kbushnz]

Welcome aboard. Nice to have another Kiwi on the forum. There are a few of us lurking around... Nice rig....

 

[B Point]

Nice classic rig..!!

 

[Josh NZ]

Thanks for the nice words guys!

Have a couple of queries regarding little things around the truck.

I found the heater blower resistor had blown the lower 3 speeds, so I twitched the broken ends back together and all the speeds work again. Can't help but think it's not a long term fix, are they available online somewhere?

Also, my spotlight install is beginning as soon as the lights arrive. So I'm going to do a pre wire. My aux fuse box is a waterproof 10 way type with a main bus bar type power feed. When I run the wire for the bus bar into the battery, it will be longer than a metre at a guess. Should I fuse it?

Cheers

 

[sadam_husain]

the heater resisters are pretty pricey from Toyota, you can get aftermarket ones from Lineside in Christchurch, allfourx4.com.au in Oz, Ebay, if your heaters 12v I go up to the junk yard and get the resisters out of similar year Toyota cars you usually have to do a bit of minor cosmetic filing on the edges of the plastic mount to get them to fit but they fit and work fine

 

[Josh NZ]

@sadam_husain

Cheers for that, the trucks 24V all throughout so I'll give Lineside a ring later on.

 

[Josh NZ]

Thought I'd put a couple of interior pics up for anyone who is interested.

KZJ77 gear stick surround

Dash with CB and multi-volt ACC outlets

Finally, a couple of in cab photos. The view over Lake Tekapo, which is around 4 hours south of Christchurch.

Josh

 

[Billyfj7312ht]

The interior looks in good nik mate. I was at Lake Tekapo a couple of months ago, my missus is from Timaru. Is the stick far left for your winch?

 

[Gun Runner 5]

P.M. Sent

 

[Walletclan]

Welcome! Nice rig.

 

[Josh NZ]

Holy thread revival batman!

Thought I'd put in an update.

Cruiser has been going great! Had a couple of little incidents over the last 6 months however.

First one was the radiator bursting a weld and emptying itself whilst I was pulling up a steep incline on my way to work. I had it repaired and got the whole cooling system cleaned right out. The shop pulled nearly a KG of crud out of the water galleries in the block! The rad was 20% blocked as well, so a good job done!

The second has been a fair few service parts failing very quickly after one another, which is hard on my wallet!
- Tie Rod ends
- Rear wheel cylinders which contaminated the rear drums
- Front brake discs warped and killed the brake pads
- Rear prop UJ

On a more enjoyable note, I decided to splash out a little on the truck. I bought an Oil Pressure and a boost gauge, both from Autometer's Sport Comp range. I'm currently waiting for my matching EGT gauge to arrive, but I plumbed the other two in anyway.

The boost gauge was very straight forward, but the oil pressure gauge caught me out due to the fact that the row of blank plugs next to the oil pressure sender on the block are tapped 1/8" BSPT and the Autometer's pressure fitting is 1/8" NPT. Still trying to sort an adaptor of some description.

So with the boost gauge installed, the CT-26 was shown to be puffing around 8psi. I knew my injectors were worn and it was overfuelling slightly so I picked up a GFB boost tap and plumbed that in. Wound the boost up to 13psi and WOW! What a difference! Soo much more power and a lovely little whistle from the turbo too! No smoke anymore either. The EGT gauge will inform me if I'm in the right place hopefully.

I've purchased a set of BFG 33x10.5x15 A/Ts as well. I know I said I wouldn't go A/Ts previously but I have since learned that the muddies simply don't last on the road. So just waiting for them to arrive at the tyre shop.

Also purchased and fitted a pair of Hella HD headlight inserts to replace the originals and a pair of Rallye 4000s. They're the mutts nuts I must say. So much better!

Took the cruiser across to the west coast of NZ (3 hours drive) with my JetSki and had a blast on the lake there, truck and ski were both faultless!

First on the lake at 0800 Saturday morning!

Beaut day on the way home!

Phew! That's a lot of words! If you've made it this far, thank you and well done!

Josh

 

[alberta mac]

Nice truck and some nice hang gliding hills there !!!

 

[BUSH WACKER]

Beauty truck mate. Have you still got it? and how is it going? is it the 3B engine? where did you find the KZJ centre console/drink holder?

 

[Josh NZ]

@BUSH WACKER

Hey mate, cheers for the kind words!
I still have the truck, and it's going just fine.

It's a BJ71 so has the 13B-T direct injection turbo motor from factory. Makes the truck quite nippy as far as they go!

The centre console I bought at a pretty extortionate price ($120) from a local wrecker because he knew I wanted it. I just sprayed it the factory dark brown to match the rest of the interior plastic. I can put you onto him via Facebook if you like, he's got a few trucks kicking round on his property

 

[BUSH WACKER]

@BUSH WACKER

Hey mate, cheers for the kind words!
I still have the truck, and it's going just fine.

It's a BJ71 so has the 13B-T direct injection turbo motor from factory. Makes the truck quite nippy as far as they go!

The centre console I bought at a pretty extortionate price ($120) from a local wrecker because he knew I wanted it. I just sprayed it the factory dark brown to match the rest of the interior plastic. I can put you onto him via Facebook if you like, he's got a few trucks kicking round on his property

That would be great man look me up under Jem Fenwick or 0278250194 if u wana txt. Thanks