I recently became the proud owner of an '84 FJ60. I picked it up about 3 weeks ago from my father-in-law. He bought it about 3 years ago in Vegas after my mother-in-law rolled their FZJ80 in a snow storm. I told him if he ever wanted to sell it to give me a call first and a few weeks ago I got the call. It was hard for him to let go, but now I'm the 4th and plan to be the final owner.
It's a pretty straight truck with only a few rust spots on it. It's completely stock, but still runs alright with about 140k miles on it. In about 10 months I'll have it paid off and then can start saving a couple hundred bucks a month for upgrades.
I'm pretty excited to start on it. I've seen a few nice 60s around here. The other day I saw a big blue one from Alaska that was quite the beast. I used to see it around all the time but hadn't seen it for a year or so until the other day. I think I know who he is on the forum here. I think it had a 383 in it from the sounds of it and it had an SOA with 35s I think. Also a friend from college just picked up a blue '85 FJ60 too. We used to talk about them all the time while we were trying to do our engineering homework about 5 years or so ago. Now the dream has begun.
I'm not sure where I should begin now though. I had been working on an '89 Burban before this that seemed much more straight forward to build. I already had the 350TBI SM465 and then I put the corporate 14 bolt 1 ton FF with 4.10s (should've have done 4.56) on the rear and was about to pick up a Dana60 with 4.10s on the front, then get a lift kit, lockers, and slap some 38s on it. Pretty straight forward, so with the Cruiser I'm a bit lost as to what order I should do things in. I'm thinking since the suspension is in rough shape I might want to start there. Should I get an OME lift before I do a SOA if I want to run 35s? I think I want to do a Vortec eventually when the 2F gives up the ghost, but maybe I should get a 383? Should I run an H55? Can I run an H55 with a Vortec? Do some people run SM465s in Cruisers? (Whatever I end up doing it has to be a manual tranny as I don't drive anything that's not.) I'd like to get a better top speed than 62 MPH, but don't want to sacrifice crawl ratio. I also want to do things in an order that keeps it functional in between upgrades. I'll need to do things slowly over time as I get money saved up.
What do you guys think?
here's a pic of how it currently stands:
It's a pretty straight truck with only a few rust spots on it. It's completely stock, but still runs alright with about 140k miles on it. In about 10 months I'll have it paid off and then can start saving a couple hundred bucks a month for upgrades.
I'm pretty excited to start on it. I've seen a few nice 60s around here. The other day I saw a big blue one from Alaska that was quite the beast. I used to see it around all the time but hadn't seen it for a year or so until the other day. I think I know who he is on the forum here. I think it had a 383 in it from the sounds of it and it had an SOA with 35s I think. Also a friend from college just picked up a blue '85 FJ60 too. We used to talk about them all the time while we were trying to do our engineering homework about 5 years or so ago. Now the dream has begun.
I'm not sure where I should begin now though. I had been working on an '89 Burban before this that seemed much more straight forward to build. I already had the 350TBI SM465 and then I put the corporate 14 bolt 1 ton FF with 4.10s (should've have done 4.56) on the rear and was about to pick up a Dana60 with 4.10s on the front, then get a lift kit, lockers, and slap some 38s on it. Pretty straight forward, so with the Cruiser I'm a bit lost as to what order I should do things in. I'm thinking since the suspension is in rough shape I might want to start there. Should I get an OME lift before I do a SOA if I want to run 35s? I think I want to do a Vortec eventually when the 2F gives up the ghost, but maybe I should get a 383? Should I run an H55? Can I run an H55 with a Vortec? Do some people run SM465s in Cruisers? (Whatever I end up doing it has to be a manual tranny as I don't drive anything that's not.) I'd like to get a better top speed than 62 MPH, but don't want to sacrifice crawl ratio. I also want to do things in an order that keeps it functional in between upgrades. I'll need to do things slowly over time as I get money saved up.
What do you guys think?
here's a pic of how it currently stands:
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