Builds BJ70-MR Conversion to a PZJ70-MRS (1 Viewer)

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OGBeno

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Hello all: friendly, 70 series mod fwker here doing a build.

my love of the 70 series only seems to grow mainly because it’s the only LC that I still learn things about with every iteration I engage.

A bit about me for the new folks:

I’ve been in the LC world now for about 20 years. I worked for Toyota proper for about 6 years in the US market mainly in the spare parts and technical world. I’ve been on the professional side of the Toyota LC world basically since 2007.

I’ve been to Japan and was lucky enough to be a guest of Toyota Auto Body and experienced the manufacture of Toyota Land Cruisers at the historic home Yoshiwara Plant (formerly Arakawa Auto Body/ARACO— wholly owned by Toyota in 2004). It was truly a revelatory trip that solidified my devotion to the Land Cruiser writ large and to the 70 series more specifically.

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I made my bones on a 1997 FZJ80 that I properly destroyed before it was cool to do so, restored a 1987 FJ60 that moved on to @bottombracket for a engine conversion that will probably never happen ( :flipoff2: ), and my current BJ70-MR JDM iteration

That said, since I blew up my 3B two years ago, figured it would be fun to do a build thread again just for schitts and giggles and fwkall.

You can reference the years of work I did on my old 3B and at the same time my BJ70-MR here if you want the bull**** backstory:


As such: this thread will discuss a quick and dirty BJ70-MR conversion to a PZJ70-MRS

Both are factory vehicles:

BJ70-MR was a JDM iteration available from 10/1984-12/1989 and the PZJ70-MRS was a JDM iteration from 01/1990-12/1993.

Both were JDM iterations only (in this designation) factory soft top, short wheel base, standard/base model Toyota Land Cruiser. Both were 24v electrical. Both were your classic LC setups from this time period.

I will be breaking no new ground here; I will be doing nothing interesting or revelatory here; I will be doing nothing worthy of anything beyond this quick thread to document my work mainly for myself because I’m getting old and my memory is fading and it’s nice to have some documentation of stuff just in case I kick the bucket and @cruiserdan gets to inherit my truck and will know what the fwk I did. 😂😂

As such, let’s begin with my truck:


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1PZ ENGINE
The 1PZ was an engine manufactured by Toyota within the LASRE line of engines Toyota developed in the 1980’s/1990’s. LASRE stood for: Lightweight Alloy Super Responsive Engine series developed in the mid-late 1980’s and fine tuned in the early to mid 1990’s.

The 1PZ was developed as a replacement for the 13B-T.

It is the only 5 cylinder engine Toyota has ever developed— gasser or diesel.

It is basically a 1HZ with 1 cylinder lopped off of it.

It is not an interesting engine; it has nothing going for it in terms of sexy to warrant anything beyond a mild mention in the annals of Toyota engines; it was only available for four year from 1990-1994.

That said, it is a part of the engine development program that Toyota instituted in the mid-1980’s in anticipation of of the massive power train changes that occurred in the Land Cruiser line-up starting in January 1990: That year really is the beginning of the “golden era” of Land Cruisers and Toyota engines in general.

Most of your classic Land Cruiser engines were developed during this time period (corresponding with the Japanese bubble economy that allowed Toyota to become and solidify itself as a global powerhouse, as well as spending gobs of money in various engine development programs).

The LASRE engine series was discontinued in 1995 (10 year development timeframe). This was also the time where Toyota developed the internal matrix product and control system: the “Center System”. The Toyota Land Cruiser was housed in Development Center 2.

Engines developed and implemented during this time period (LC-specific):

1FZ-F (70/80 series; carbureted)
1FZ-FE (70/80/100/105 series; EFI)
1HZ (70/80/105 series)
1HD-T (80/100 series)
1HD-FT (80 series)
1HD-FTE (70/100 series)
1PZ (70 series)
5VZ-FE (70 series)
1KZ-T (70 series)
1KZ-TE (70 series)
2UZ-FE (100 series)
15B-T (MegaCruiser)
15B-FTE (MegaCruiser)
2L-T (70 series)
2L-TE (70 series)
3L (70/90 series)
5L (90 series)
5L-E (90 series)

Quite a robust time period for Toyota engine development. All of the above engines (except for the VZ series) were developed in conjunction with the mother Toyota company, Toyoda Industries Corporation which at that time housed most of the commercial vehicle development. Toyota passed off most development and manufacture of these engines to Toyoda mainly because it was cheaper for them to do so, and because Toyoda Industries had the foundries for large displacement engine manufacture.

To this day, Toyota Industries manufactures all diesel engines placed into Toyota Land Cruisers.

I chose the 1PZ mainly because it was available to me for a cheap price when I blew my 3B 2 years ago.

Here are some technical specifications of the 1PZ/1HZ/1HD-T family of engines:

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I really liked the 1PZ engine when I owned the PZJ70. It is a shame that Toyota did not produce the engine for a longer period of time. I also remember the puzzled look on people's face when I said the cruiser has a 5 cylinder diesel engine because that is just not common across any platform really.

Anyways, looking forward to seeing how this build comes out!
 
1PZ Tear Down
Knowing me, I wasn’t just about to throw an engine I didn’t know anything about (in terms of its history) into my truck. Also, it has no power steering provision on the oil pump housing. As such, purchased a new OEM housing to install so I could then have power steering.

Picked this up about 2 years ago. Been sitting since.

Yesterday I tore it down and to my surprise it looks as if I scored a brand new engine. Or at least very close to a brand new engine.

You can see it’s basically never been run (or if it has it was run for a few minutes and then never run again).

I wonder if this was some type of a training engine for disassembly/assembly? Or a test engine of some sort? I really don’t know. The little I do know about this engine was that it came from mine company surplus.

My heart jumped a bit as I continued tearing it down only to see brand new interals:


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1PZ Tear Down
Some more internal pictures.

Injectors look like they’ve barely had any fuel through them:

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Glow plugs: basically zero soot.

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Water pump basically brand new:

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There is a bit of corrosion in the water jackets. Those will get flushed out once I open up the oil cooling jacket area.

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1PZ Tear Down
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Like no oil has even gone through the strainer.

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Looking under the piston skirts:

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At this point, I’m in a position to remove the bearing cap assembly and make sure everything measures out correctly.

If this was some sort of training engine for technicians, I do want to make sure it was done correctly before installing it into my rig. 👊👊

More as I continue.
 
Wow, that is an amazing engine, what a score! Looking forward to following along on this build. Any plans for forced induction, or leave well enough alone?
 
Excited for the 70 to roam again! What a gem of an engine. It was meant to be. :cool:
 
If it's anything like a 1HZ (it certainly has the architecture), if left in stock form and treated with somewhat reasonable care, it will outlast you. :)
 
Agreed Dan. It should last a very long time with basic maintenance.

It is a 12v engine so the glow plugs, alternator and starter will be swapped out to 24v iterations.

New PS pump, water pump, timing belt and ancillary parts, and basically away we go.

It will be mated to a new 33030-60850 H55F transmission and a new mechanical transfer case 36110-6E181.

Since I am going from a 4 cylinder to a 5 cylinder, engine placement will be critical to maintain shift lever relationships.

Otherwise, there might need to be some driveshaft modifications for the rear shaft.

New engine mounts and transmission mount will also be installed.

New heater valve and OEM 16400-17080 brass radiator will also be used. Luckily all of these parts are all readily available (and already acquired). Been collecting parts for 2 years now to do this conversion. The time is now.

My Prius is getting really boring to drive. 😂😂
 
guess i didnt realize you'd been without your 70 for 2 yrs,, that gotta be rough even though you've been busy and through move ect...

nice score, looks like you'll be terrorizing southern AZ soon enough.
 
The 1PZ was an engine manufactured by Toyota within the LASRE line of engines Toyota developed in the 1980’s/1990’s. LASRE stood for: Lightweight Alloy Super Responsive Engine series developed in the mid-late 1980’s and fine tuned in the early to mid 1990’s.

The 1PZ was developed as a replacement for the 13B-T.

It is the only 5 cylinder engine Toyota has ever developed— gasser or diesel.

It is basically a 1HZ with 1 cylinder lopped off of it.

It is not an interesting engine; it has nothing going for it in terms of sexy to warrant anything beyond a mild mention in the annals of Toyota engines; it was only available for four year from 1990-1994.

That said, it is a part of the engine development program that Toyota instituted in the mid-1980’s in anticipation of of the massive power train changes that occurred in the Land Cruiser line-up starting in January 1990: That year really is the beginning of the “golden era” of Land Cruisers and Toyota engines in general.

Most of your classic Land Cruiser engines were developed during this time period (corresponding with the Japanese bubble economy that allowed Toyota to become and solidify itself as a global powerhouse, as well as spending gobs of money in various engine development programs).

The LASRE engine series was discontinued in 1995 (10 year development timeframe). This was also the time where Toyota developed the internal matrix product and control system: the “Center System”. The Toyota Land Cruiser was housed in Development Center 2.

Engines developed and implemented during this time period (LC-specific):

1FZ-F (70/80 series; carbureted)
1FZ-FE (70/80/100/105 series; EFI)
1HZ (70/80/105 series)
1HD-T (80/100 series)
1HD-FT (80 series)
1HD-FTE (70/100 series)
1PZ (70 series)
5VZ-FE (70 series)
1KZ-T (70 series)
1KZ-TE (70 series)
2UZ-FE (100 series)
15B-T (MegaCruiser)
15B-FTE (MegaCruiser)
2L-T (70 series)
2L-TE (70 series)
3L (70/90 series)
5L (90 series)
5L-E (90 series)

Quite a robust time period for Toyota engine development. All of the above engines (except for the VZ series) were developed in conjunction with the mother Toyota company, Toyoda Industries Corporation which at that time housed most of the commercial vehicle development. Toyota passed off most development and manufacture of these engines to Toyoda mainly because it was cheaper for them to do so, and because Toyoda Industries had the foundries for large displacement engine manufacture.

To this day, Toyota Industries manufactures all diesel engines placed into Toyota Land Cruisers.

I chose the 1PZ mainly because it was available to me for a cheap price when I blew my 3B 2 years ago.

Wow! that's awesome info! I'm glad we can still get original parts for most of these LASRE engines.

I really liked the 1PZ engine when I owned the PZJ70. It is a shame that Toyota did not produce the engine for a longer period of time. I also remember the puzzled look on people's face when I said the cruiser has a 5 cylinder diesel engine because that is just not common across any platform really.

Anyways, looking forward to seeing how this build comes out!

I have one in a military troopy. It has 3,000kms on it. The engine probably has close to 5,000 hours as they leave them running for ops.

It's a euro spec 1PZ. I'm 99% sure it interchange parts with the 1HZ. So your belts, water pump and probably engine internals are the same as 1HZ that's still in production today. In other words, if you bought your 1990 PZJ71 and need parts in Kenya. You can walk to the dealer and they will have it on the shelf. Really impressive.

I think the head on those are also good for 3 resurface jobs? You can overhaul it 3 times?
 
Onur, since you originally had an h55, can't you leave that end of the drivetrain alone and just install the frame side engine brackets where they fall?

Most likely. But I’m not assuming anything. I want to measure everything correctly and make sure there is room for the fan shroud and fan/fan clutch assembly. Want them all optimized in terms of placement.
 
@OGBeno - I am pretty new to MUD, have a (new to me) HZJ73, and am trying to learn as much as I can about 70s and 1HZs. I went through your 3B build thread; it was super informative. I hope you have much better luck with this 1PZ than you did with that (PoS) 3B. It looks like you are off to a great start judging by those pictures.

I'm glad you started this thead up and am looking forward to learning more, from one of the best (even if it's just for schitts, giggles and fwkall :) ).
 

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