Build "Red Lobster" Build

[pandathrust]

Hey peeps, I'm new to the forum but my older brother, Patrick (Robustbambi), isn't and infected me with the cruiser sickness. Anyway, I got this 80 back in December from an AWESOME mud member in South Carolina named JP (ClemsonCruiser) and thought it was about time that I start a build/picture thread for it.

Classified pictures that made me fall in love hahaha:

Its a factory 3x locked, 1997 non-collectors edition with 218,XXX miles that came with a 4" OME lift, ARB front bumper, iron pig offroad rear, trail gear sliders, 315 BFG ATs, flat rack, and best of all, heated seats

We haven't done much to it since then because were always working on my brother's FJ62 (https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/my-first-toyota.581380/). But I have wired in the CB to be ready for GSMTR, deflared, removed the roof rack (until i have time to clean it up a bit), and slapped on some 315 Goodyear MTRs.

Distant future plans include: Longs, Bumper swing outs, iron pig skid plate, Slee 4" kit and 37s (trying to stay as low as possible), 9.5" front diff swap (because it looks like a fun project), Marlin Crawler "crawler gears", and anything else that we can come up with.

But don't worry, this thing will be wheeled all throughout this build

As she sits today…

 

[UnderDawg]

Awesome man, great find. Looking forward to watching your build. I just bought a 97' 3x locked all stock with 190 on the clock. I'm super stoked about building it. I got a built Disco 2 that I'm selling so I can buy parts for the yota. Subbed

 

[robustbambi]

about time you started this..

 

[half k cruiser]

That was the best color they ever put on the land cruiser.

 

[Taco crawler]

Fyi longs from trail gear will not be ready until "6-12" months redesign it Hopefully it will just as strong. But I doubt it I would go with nitro for ur birfs. Or rcd I heard they used to make them for bobby My .02

 

[robustbambi]

RCV makes axles for a lot of companies. Don't know why longfields would be any weaker now that they're being paid for by trail gear.


...via IH8MUD app

 

[jfz80]

Welcome. That's a sweet truck and a smoking deal you got. Was confused looking at the GSMTR pics thinking that had to be JP's old rig. Had a buddy dragging his feet that missed on that one. Lookin forward to the continuing build.

 

[pandathrust]

Awesome man, great find. Looking forward to watching your build. I just bought a 97' 3x locked all stock with 190 on the clock. I'm super stoked about building it. I got a built Disco 2 that I'm selling so I can buy parts for the yota. Subbed

Building up a truck from scratch is great because you add what you want, but it starts getting expensive quick. I'm looking forward to what I can get done on my truck this summer when we are not working on my brother's SOA.

That was the best color they ever put on the land cruiser.

I agree I love the color. The first time I saw the red on an fzj80 I hated it, but it instantly grew on me when I saw the pictures in the classifieds. It is my favorite color that Toyota put on a 80.

Welcome. That's a sweet truck and a smoking deal you got. Was confused looking at the GSMTR pics thinking that had to be JP's old rig. Had a buddy dragging his feet that missed on that one. Lookin forward to the continuing build.

Hahaha I sent my brother out there pretty much as soon as I saw the classifieds. When he came home, we knew it was the one. Once we got it back to Atlanta, we took it to ACC to have it looked over. Michael told us that "JP doesn't have s***ty trucks" which confirmed that this truck was going to be great to us. I've got some more Windrock pics as well, I've just been putting off posting up about GSMTR because I have so many haha, but that will be coming sometime today.

 

[jeffro109]

Can you post a pic of the side at the rear to see how the IPOR looks without flares at the wheelwell? I'm flareless and considering the IPOR rear bumper as well.

Thanks!

 

[pandathrust]

We showed up to GSMTR this year a little late (Friday morning), but were lucky enough to run trail 22 EXACTLY when every other 80 in the world decided to run it. So it was a great time to see all the different directions I could go in with this build.



Toyota Diesel goodness...







Awesome pop up camper..



Theres some youtube videos floating around of this guy going up 22... It was so much better in person!







My brother drove most of GSMTR (including 22) since he paid the registration and wasn't able to bring his truck and I was feeling generous. So most of the photos here are ones I took. Im also learning to become a better spotter first so that I will be able to see good lines when I do begin to wheel the truck on a little more challenging terrain than I'm used to.
So this was one of Patrick's first trails with a vehicle that was locked front and rear... Those things can make anyone look like a pro haha. He made it up with a lot less drama than the green beater 80, but was great to see what a mildly built 80 can do with such ease.








Kissy face for all the ladies out there.


"Patrick Walking"... and also a shot of the trucks that made it up 22 ahead of me.


Another shot of the trucks in our group as we took lunch.
Usually, we dislike big convos of people out on the trail, but this time was cool. Being able to talk to everyone about their LCs was a really cool little experience.



After finishing 22, a lot of us either split off from the big group or took a break to spend time at camp. Our friend, Asher (King Kong), my brother, and I went out and found Matthew (Jynx) and Sam Stewart and found some puddles and the wind turbines I heard Patrick talk about last year... they're really big...




another poser shot...

 

[pandathrust]

Day 2

Saturday we didn't really have a plan. We knew we wanted to run few trails we finished last year but we also just wanted to explore the Northeastern portion of the park. So a small group of us (King Kong, Griffin, and mhslacrosse22) got together
and did our best to get lost.

Trail 16
It has some nice ledges. Probably could've made it up this first one, but the spotter said my brother was hitting one of the control arms, I think he could have made it up, but better safe then sorry.





Pictures of 16 by Will (mhslacrosse22)


Randoms of 16..





Charles (Griffin) heading up the last main ledge in his super nice 100.





Patrick's turn








Easy as pie.


Will pics..



The next trail we got pictures on was 33... That was one of the best places we had found that day. A good mixture of scenic views and steep rocky hills to keep Patrick happy.



Sam Stewart doing a little spotting

 

[pandathrust]

The last full trail we ran was 60. Our favorite of the day. Very steep declines and rocky ledges. My brother REALLY wanted to run it in reverse, but we just didn't have time.

"A" for Aidan!!!




I can't quite capture just how steep it was... but very steep.







Will's pictures





Patrick had been talking all day about a trail 15 and how cool it was... It was one of the more difficult trails at Windrock. Even truggies had been having trouble with it that day, we didn't belong there lol. But he gave it a shot anyway!





He made it pretty far. Farther than others thought he would haha. The only reason I made him stop was because when he bumped it to try and make it up that ledge right next to that passenger side tree, the roof got within inches of of it.. Trucks too new for body damage LOL!

Will's pics.





Anyway, I had a really good time at my first GSMTR and can't wait to go back next year!

 

[fjcalifornia]

well you just made a good case for "how does an 80 look without fenders on 315s"!

 

[robustbambi]

Here's Sam's video of the 80 on 22

 

[musthave]

Thanks for sharing, great truck, awesome pics!

 

[pandathrust]

update time...
a few days ago i started welding the holes left after deflaring the 80. I should be done with that tomorrow, so i will post pictures of that job then. Today, after the expo ride the GA Cruisers put on, my bother dropped me back off to the home depot so i could pick up the 80 which I left there so I could just ride copilot with him. I tried to turn the key and nothing happened. This occurred a couple months ago and ACC figured out that the EFI fuse had blown, so I had an idea of what the problem was. I changed the fuse, and it ran for maybe 30 seconds and cut back off. I'm glad I carry around so many 15 amp fuses because I must have blown like 4 when I finally decided to check mud. It looked like a bunch of people had problems with the O2 sensors when their EFI fuse blew, so I decided to check out underneath.

the harness leading to the O2 sensors had been hitting the front driveshaft and just melted away and left a bare wire that was shorting out on the driveshaft. it was a good thing we were at home depot because we just needed butt splices to fix it.

after I butt spliced it I heated up the heat shrink and electrical taped it back up and zip tied it to the frame to get it out of the way of the driveshaft.

Im glad we figured out the problem because I was about 60 miles from ACC had to head back to school. the good thing is my check engine light, which always stayed on, went off after this repair.

 

[pandathrust]

A good bit has happened in the past couple weeks... Went to Windrock with a couple buddies and wheeled for a day on some nice trails. Didnt get too many pictures though, because i was the camera man for that day.





I kept up with my brother, @robustbambi's, fj62, the whole day. His truck is almost the same as my locked 80 now except that his has 37's. With a swapped 80 rear full float and front and rear cable converted 80 series elockers, i think he is trying his best to change his 62 into an 80 without actually buying one.



It was a good full day of wheeling and chilling with some old and new friends.



On the way back home, my truck started to make a constant clicking sound that would stop after I got up to about 35 mph. It sounded a whole lot like an aussie locker when going around turns. At first I thought that it was something in the front axle because it was in dire need of rebuild and I had put it off for a few weeks too long. After stripping the whole knuckle down, I found that my upper trunion bearing was a bent and had to be replaced.



The next morning, me and my brother went to ACC and picked up all new trunions and later that night got to rebuilding. But after I finished and took a test drive the clicking was still there. After I gave up and thought that I screwed up my transmission or transfer case, I got it towed to ACC.



After a few days there, Brian figured out that my double cardan front driveshaft's u-joints were toast. After concluding that a double cardan was not needed for the lift that my 80 has, I bought a standard driveshaft with new u-joints and got to putting it on.



Sure enough, that solved everything and the 80 is happy again.



Old double cardan DS



New, happy driveshaft with no vibration

After talking with Brian about the benefits, i think i am going to part-time somewhere down the road. I snagged some Aisin hubs from my brother and got to rebuilding those today. It wasn't very hard but it was a lot of cleaning, greasing, and waiting for paint to dry.





I'm still not 100% done yet, one of the hubs is for a mini truck and the other is for a 62 so i am going to find a new Land cruiser gold dial to replace it with. Also, Home Depot was out of M6-1.0 16mm bolts so i had to reuse the old ones which like to break inside the hub housing. I'll be replacing those soon too.

Here are some pictures of the fender flare holes that i welded up and primered. Still have a few holes left on both rear doors that need to be welded up. I keep putting Monstaliner on the back burner, but i need to get on that.





I'm also gonna order a 4x4 labs rear bumper next weekend and hopefully will be done welding that in the next few weeks. Ive decided to do a single swing out with a centered tire carrier kind of like my brothers since that looks fantastic and i think it would look great on the back of an 80 as well.



But there is some good stuff to look forward to in the next coming weeks...

 

[pandathrust]

Got a couple boxes from Luke at 4x4Labs today. looking forward to getting this bumper welded up in the next couple days. Don't know how much i'll get done tomorrow because i gotta study for an exam on friday, but i'll see if i can get it done over the weekend.

 

[fjfodee]

Nice! I just finished the 4x4 Labs kit...good stuff.

Curious as to what bumper you were running before and why you changed. Maybe I missed that somewhere?

 

[pandathrust]

Nice! I just finished the 4x4 Labs kit...good stuff.

Curious as to what bumper you were running before and why you changed. Maybe I missed that somewhere?

I had an Iron Pig rear before. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's one of the only 80 series bumpers that is made fully out of 1/4". It has taken a beating on rocks and doesn't show it at all. I really like the design of the labs bumper and the increased departure angle really was the deciding factor. I figured I was either gonna modify the IPOR to get a better departure angle, or I was gonna buy the 4x4labs.