wildsmith
SILVER Star
When I bought our first 80 series 7 years ago I was just after something big, heavy and with a decent size diesel engine to pull our large caravan which in the UK pretty much narrowed it down to a Landcruiser. At the time my daily drive was a supercharged Jaguar XJR and that was the kind of car I'd always had so an 80 series Landcruiser was a bit of a new experience. For a while I thought trying to get more than 50mph out of it must be killing the engine because of how much throttle it took to make the thing move that fast
It wasn't long before I was using the 80 instead of the XJR which sat in the garage for 6 months un-used before reluctantly being sold because it was high maintenance even sat doing nothing!
It also wasn't long before a co-worker talked me into going to an off road site and I got hooked. Along came a 2" lift and 285x75x16 BFG AT's (still had to pull the big caravan and be a family DD).
This is at about 5 months into ownership with 2" lift and BFG AT's:
The tyres were soon upgraded to some Simex 35x10.5x16 Extreme Trekker tyres and a Safari snorkel went on because it was doing some deep water wading:
About 6 years ago we got a 93 80 series for my wife to take over family DD duties and caravan towing so my 94 only needed to keep me happy and from that point onwards it just got bits cut off or fitted without always thinking it through as well.
Front bumper - TJM T15 steel winch bumper with TJM steel winch mount kit. I wanted to be sure the winch was well mounted so even though the steel T15 bumper doesn't need it, I reinforced with a winch mount kit intended for the alloy T15. The recovery hoops you can see are bolted through both the bumper and the winch mounting kit helping tie everything into a solid package as well as providing strong recovery points. I've had a few bumps, some of them quite significant and although the bumper is bent in places now it seems very strong.
Winch - TJM OX 10500lb two speed with a hydraulic motor. Plumbed in series with the steering box this runs off the standard power steering pump and goes extremely slowly but has never failed to have enough pull. It has 100ft of Ruftraks Plasma12 rope on the drum and I carry another 100ft in the boot in two pieces as extensions. The alloy fairlead was also from Ruftraks.
The suspension lift is a mix of weld on spacers and +2" springs. At the moment I have OME 863 springs and ProComp ES9000 +4" shock absorbers on the rear with ProComp +2" springs and OME +4" shock absorbers on the front. There's an OME stearing damper and both anti-roll bars have been removed. Slee Offroad castor correction plates have been fitted and the panhard rods have Slee Offroad adjuster inserts fitted.
Home made heavy duty sliders / side steps, Safari snorkel with home made intake grill, 3rd row windows replaced with aluminium chequer plate, Slee Offroad transfer box skid plate, Safety Devices internal roll cage, wheel flares removed, home made rear recovery points / bumper corners. Tree slider tubes welded to roof gutter rail. Tyres are Simex ETII's 36x12.5x16 on Toyota 16x8 steel wheels.
The 2nd & 3rd row seats have been removed for better load lugging. The way the back is boarded out does have a split that allows removing half the boarding and refitting the 2nd row seats but that hasn't happened for a long time. There's a heavy duty load barrier clamped to the roll cage behind the front seats.
There's a pull out/down shelf for most of my cooking / drink making gear for those all important tea / bacon sandwich breaks and with the lower tailgate down it makes a good kitchen. There's also a Viair compressor, 2KW 240v invertor, a big subwoofer, extra lighting, 110ah aux battery, 20Ltr water tank and all sorts of recovery gear stashed.
I've cut out a chunk of dashboard where the radio, ash tray etc normally goes to make way for a 15" LCD touch screen monitor. That's connected to a mini ITX based PC on a shelf in the back and runs navigation / media playing software. Sound output from the PC is through a pair of amps that drive uprated speakers and a subwoofer. GPS is an old fasioned Garmin II+. CB is a Cobra 75 ltd st.
The heater pipework has been converted to bypass the rear passenger heater for reliability. I've removed the engine driven mechanical fan and replaced it with a pair of Kenlowe heavy duty 13" fans wired for off, auto (thermostatic control) or on. There's also a Kenlowe bonnet scoop / heavy duty 10" fan wired for off, auto (sync'd with main fans) or on.
Sticking with the Kenlowe theme there are a pair of Kenlowe oil coolers helping to keep the automatic transmission cool. The transmission has Wholesale Automatic Transmissions Extreme valve body, torque converter, lock up kit (lock TC in any gear) and temperature gauge kit.
That's about it for now. I have 4.88 ring and pinions on the bench that I need to get round to fitting, a www.4x4winches.com Type-R winch and pump also waiting to fit and I'd really like to find time to build a water cooled intercooler one of these years.
Jon.
It wasn't long before I was using the 80 instead of the XJR which sat in the garage for 6 months un-used before reluctantly being sold because it was high maintenance even sat doing nothing!
It also wasn't long before a co-worker talked me into going to an off road site and I got hooked. Along came a 2" lift and 285x75x16 BFG AT's (still had to pull the big caravan and be a family DD).
This is at about 5 months into ownership with 2" lift and BFG AT's:
The tyres were soon upgraded to some Simex 35x10.5x16 Extreme Trekker tyres and a Safari snorkel went on because it was doing some deep water wading:
About 6 years ago we got a 93 80 series for my wife to take over family DD duties and caravan towing so my 94 only needed to keep me happy and from that point onwards it just got bits cut off or fitted without always thinking it through as well.
Front bumper - TJM T15 steel winch bumper with TJM steel winch mount kit. I wanted to be sure the winch was well mounted so even though the steel T15 bumper doesn't need it, I reinforced with a winch mount kit intended for the alloy T15. The recovery hoops you can see are bolted through both the bumper and the winch mounting kit helping tie everything into a solid package as well as providing strong recovery points. I've had a few bumps, some of them quite significant and although the bumper is bent in places now it seems very strong.
Winch - TJM OX 10500lb two speed with a hydraulic motor. Plumbed in series with the steering box this runs off the standard power steering pump and goes extremely slowly but has never failed to have enough pull. It has 100ft of Ruftraks Plasma12 rope on the drum and I carry another 100ft in the boot in two pieces as extensions. The alloy fairlead was also from Ruftraks.
The suspension lift is a mix of weld on spacers and +2" springs. At the moment I have OME 863 springs and ProComp ES9000 +4" shock absorbers on the rear with ProComp +2" springs and OME +4" shock absorbers on the front. There's an OME stearing damper and both anti-roll bars have been removed. Slee Offroad castor correction plates have been fitted and the panhard rods have Slee Offroad adjuster inserts fitted.
Home made heavy duty sliders / side steps, Safari snorkel with home made intake grill, 3rd row windows replaced with aluminium chequer plate, Slee Offroad transfer box skid plate, Safety Devices internal roll cage, wheel flares removed, home made rear recovery points / bumper corners. Tree slider tubes welded to roof gutter rail. Tyres are Simex ETII's 36x12.5x16 on Toyota 16x8 steel wheels.
The 2nd & 3rd row seats have been removed for better load lugging. The way the back is boarded out does have a split that allows removing half the boarding and refitting the 2nd row seats but that hasn't happened for a long time. There's a heavy duty load barrier clamped to the roll cage behind the front seats.
There's a pull out/down shelf for most of my cooking / drink making gear for those all important tea / bacon sandwich breaks and with the lower tailgate down it makes a good kitchen. There's also a Viair compressor, 2KW 240v invertor, a big subwoofer, extra lighting, 110ah aux battery, 20Ltr water tank and all sorts of recovery gear stashed.
I've cut out a chunk of dashboard where the radio, ash tray etc normally goes to make way for a 15" LCD touch screen monitor. That's connected to a mini ITX based PC on a shelf in the back and runs navigation / media playing software. Sound output from the PC is through a pair of amps that drive uprated speakers and a subwoofer. GPS is an old fasioned Garmin II+. CB is a Cobra 75 ltd st.
The heater pipework has been converted to bypass the rear passenger heater for reliability. I've removed the engine driven mechanical fan and replaced it with a pair of Kenlowe heavy duty 13" fans wired for off, auto (thermostatic control) or on. There's also a Kenlowe bonnet scoop / heavy duty 10" fan wired for off, auto (sync'd with main fans) or on.
Sticking with the Kenlowe theme there are a pair of Kenlowe oil coolers helping to keep the automatic transmission cool. The transmission has Wholesale Automatic Transmissions Extreme valve body, torque converter, lock up kit (lock TC in any gear) and temperature gauge kit.
That's about it for now. I have 4.88 ring and pinions on the bench that I need to get round to fitting, a www.4x4winches.com Type-R winch and pump also waiting to fit and I'd really like to find time to build a water cooled intercooler one of these years.
Jon.