Builds Evolution of a Land Cruiser: My 80's build thread (3 Viewers)

[jcardona1]

Time for some updates! A few weeks after my last post, the front swaybar was installed. Used the 36" universal Anti Rock with 18" arms. We were a bit hesitant it would be able to clear steering links and pitman arm but so far during testing everything cleared just fine. However during my first offroad test I did manage to tweak the arms and bend the axle tabs. Too much flex! So the truck is back at the shop to get this addressed. Arms will be reinforced along the spine to resist bending and we'll most likely double-shear the mounting points.

But first impressions on the road were great. This really was the missing link after all the suspension work I've done. Truck handles the twisty roads very well now. The truck always drove well, but it struggled in twisty country roads that have elevation and camber changes. That tended to send the truck in a constant state back n forth body sway. Now the truck is fun to drive.

I thought they'd go under the frame for ease of mounting but ended up going through the frame, underneath where the fan shroud is.

While I had the truck back home for a few days, I did get a chance to mount the new wheels and tires. Old setup went to a new home. 38x13.50/17 Nitto Trail Grapplers and Method 106 beadlocks, 17x9 -44mm/3.5" BS. These weighed in at 132.4lbs vs my 37" Mud Grapplers at 145lbs, savings of 13lbs per corner! From the small bit of driving I did, these handle really nice on the pavement. Smooth and quiet with 2 golf balls per tire.

Just BARELY made it out of the garage on the new 38s. Anything bigger and I'd need a rear suck-down winch.

I like it.

With the front swaybar the rear suspension is finally forced to put in some work.

Nice view of the new steering & panhard angles

 

[97CruiserJoe]

I love how you have not stop improving your ride. Great job.

 

[jcardona1]

I love how you have not stop improving your ride. Great job.

There's always something on my to-do list!

 

[jcardona1]

Latest project is SEATS! A few years ago I installed WRX seats and have been generally happy with them. They're very comfortable, but I find them a bit awkward since they sit higher off the ground compared to OEM seats. This doesn't work well for my short legs and I've always been fond of the OEM look with brand new leather. Had to the chance to pick up a set in pretty good condition from a buddy.

These were perfectly fine to run as-is but I wanted to do a full restore on them. They came with LSeat covers which were still in okay shape, but I'm not a fan of LSeat quality so I stripped them down!

Foam has definitely seen better days. While still largely intact, there were several tears and did have a few repairs at one point. I ordered new OEM foam upper and lower for both front seats...not cheap!

Driver's side incline/recline would not work so a new OEM switch was installed. Grey because Oak is NLA from what I could tell. But the switch can be easily swapped over.

Before I stripped the seats down I noticed the driver's side bolster was very loose. Figured the welds had cracked. This whole piece was dangling. Found the factory welds very inadequate so I went through and added additional welds to the entire cage support. Built up the driver's side bolster with new metal and welded it back. Not my prettiest welds but welding thin-gauge metal is not my strong suit. Should hold well now.

Passenger side seat gears were shot so I replaced both seats with new gears from Gamiviti and added SolveFunction retaining bracket to keep the caps from backing out.

Lastly, I'll be going with Roadwire leather for front & rear seats (this is where Mosley leather came from). $1699 installed for front & rear is an easy decision. You can buy the kit online and they'll send it to a local dealer/installer in their network for installation. Or you can order it directly from a local dealer. They have a huge network throughout the country.

For those that don't know Roadwire has been around for decades and works with dealerships and OEMs on leather upgrades. Their quality is fantastic and the prices are very reasonable. Ordered the leather swatches and have been struggling to find a color, there's so many! Single tone? Two-tone? Keep it OEM looking? Go wild? What color stitching? Do I add piping? Ton of options.

For those curious, here's the Roadwire leather we had installed by the dealer on our 5th gen 4Runner several years ago. Paid $1500 at the time.

Hopefully next time I post I'll have the seats all done

 

[GOTLOCKED96]

Nice job, I did the Mosely front kit. Hard to match since mine had been dyed my the 1st owner.
Almond was the best match, super happy with the kit.

 

[jcardona1]

Leather has finally arrived. It's so beautiful! Had to wait a few weeks for the brown color as it was out of stock. After much back n forth, I decided to keep it simple with single-tone and a simple contrast stitch in orange to match my truck's accents. Really happy with the color choice. Pleasantly surprised to see it includes armrests, center console, AND door panels. Was not expecting that. Can't wait to get it installed

 

[jcardona1]

SEATS ARE DONE!

Dropped off the seats and parts and had them back in about 2 days. Local installer was Bullet Audio Sunroofs & Leather in the Sacramento area. Roadwire sent us the incorrect pattern for the armrests hence why those are missing in the pics. Should have them back in a few days. First impressions, the quality of the leather is fantastic and all pieces are very accurate. Looks as OEM as possible for being aftermarket. I do have 2 minor complaints with the kit:

- The carpet portion that goes under the 2nd row seats looks & feels a bit cheap. But since you'll only see this when the seats are folded up, I can live with that.

- Their kit does NOT include the lower flap portion on the front seats. This is a problem for me because if you completely change the color of the interior, you're stuck with that piece in OEM color which can be unsightly. I've emailed Roadwire letting them know I'm not too happy about this and they agreed to make these pieces for me. They sent me a shipping label to mail in these flaps so they can create the pattern in dark brown leather. Hopefully they include this in their kit going forward, but just be warned it may not be included.

New OEM foam for the front seats

I had just applied leather conditioner which is why they look so greasy/shiny

This is the lower flap I was referring to. New seatback pockets made by PlaidWagon: Plaidwagon - https://www.plaidwagon.co/

 

[Feldrian]

SEATS ARE DONE!

Dropped off the seats and parts and had them back in about 2 days. Local installer was Bullet Audio Sunroofs & Leather in the Sacramento area. Roadwire sent us the incorrect pattern for the armrests hence why those are missing in the pics. Should have them back in a few days. First impressions, the quality of the leather is fantastic and all pieces are very accurate. Looks as OEM as possible for being aftermarket. I do have 2 minor complaints with the kit:

- The carpet portion that goes under the 2nd row seats looks & feels a bit cheap. But since you'll only see this when the seats are folded up, I can live with that.

- Their kit does NOT include the lower flap portion on the front seats. This is a problem for me because if you completely change the color of the interior, you're stuck with that piece in OEM color which can be unsightly. I've emailed Roadwire letting them know I'm not too happy about this and they agreed to make these pieces for me. They sent me a shipping label to mail in these flaps so they can create the pattern in dark brown leather. Hopefully they include this in their kit going forward, but just be warned it may not be included.

New OEM foam for the front seats

I had just applied leather conditioner which is why they look so greasy/shiny

This is the lower flap I was referring to. New seatback pockets made by PlaidWagon: Plaidwagon - https://www.plaidwagon.co/

Wow, those look great!

 

[jcardona1]

Small update - received the lower flaps back from Roadwire and they look great! Nice to see they added the orange stitching as well

And as I mentioned a few posts up, the swaybar arm was reinforced to resist bending. Since I also bent the axle brackets, they double sheared those as well.

Up top I added the RockJock double shear bracket. Was thinking of building this myself since this little bracket is $160, but found a new one on eBay for less than half price.

And these two just because

 

[FMC80]

That leather looks incredible. Orange stitching is on point too. Well executed as always!

 

[jcardona1]

REMOVABLE SWINGOUT

Now that I have the seats reupholstered, I plan to leave the rear seats in at all times. Before I would just toss them in a corner and let them collect dust and get beat up. Baby #2 is also on the way which means if I'm ever gonna take the family out in the 80, I need more cargo space and a roof rack is out of the question. With the big 12v fridge, I only have a tiny bit of usable space.

I set out to build a removable swingout that would allow me to use a hitch cargo carrier. If I'm bringing the family, we most likely won't be doing any crazy wheeling, at least not until kids are older. This would be mostly for camping, day trips to the lake to carry larger items that won't fit in the truck.

So, here's the contraption I put together. A few hours and a few hundred bucks later, I have a solid swingout I can easily install and remove in a few minutes. This may even be good enough to hold a spare tire or extra fuel, but that's a future project.

Made out of 2x3 square tubing

The swingout attaches to the recovery points on my existing bumper using two beefy 7/8" bolts. As an added measure, it also ties into the existing hitch.

The spindle is a top-mount double shear design made by Taboo Customs. It's okay, still has quite a bit of deflection. Was hoping it'd be a bit stronger but it works for now.

The latch is from 4xInnovations which is pretty damn stout. I may add a vertical Destaco latch just to add an additional safety measure.

Rather than run a cheap flimsy Amazon/Horror Fright hitch basket, I splurged on a quality piece that should last forever. Pakmule makes hands-down the best hitch baskets in the game. They are not cheap but boy are they nice and extremely well built. They also have a unique threaded pin design that tightens inside the hitch receiver. This thing is SOLID with no shakes or rattles whatsoever.

I'm thinking of adding some small trailer brake lights to the basket because it's sits up so tall.

Sits over 40" off the ground. Even though I don't plan on going rock crawling with this on, I can still tackle moderate trails without losing clearance.

Swung out

And put it to the test this weekend. Worked great and is super sturdy. Although I do need to cover this stuff with a tarp because all the dust ends up back there.

This is what it's all about

 

[jcardona1]

CATASTROPHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been pretty lucky that I've never had major breakage while wheeling. Well that all changed this weekend. Went with several other 80s for a mellow trail run on Sourgrass which is a very easy trail. While putting along on flat dirt, I had a loud pop followed by horrible grinding. Immediately stopped the truck, looked underneath and instantly knew I was F'd. The threaded double adjuster on my wishbone snapped, which then broke the tube on the other side. When the whole wishbone let go, pinion rotated up violently and bent both of my coilovers. It almost broke the driveshaft too.

What then followed was several hours of great teamwork and camaraderie in brutal heat to get this POS back together. Luckily @Outsane had a Bun Trail Welder otherwise I would have been royally screwed. The truck was completely immobile. Huge thanks to Lee among everyone else for helping with all the trail repairs. We were able to get the wishbone back together with a few pieces of scrap metal. But that was only half the battle.

Getting the thing back in was an absolute nightmare. Because it's a triangulated setup, I'm not running a panhard so the whole body was leaning hard to one side. It took 2 trucks, winching from the front and side, bottle jacks, and Hi-Lifts to get the pinion rotated down and at the correct angle to get the wishbone uniball back in. Towards the end we got desperate and had the entire group pushing the truck from the back to get the bolt dropped in. The biggest sigh of relief when we had all put back together.

The repairs held, was able to get it off the trail and even drove it home for 2+hrs although the coilovers are not happy with the bent shafts. Now the fun begins of trying to get this fixed. Hopefully the coilovers can be repaired! I don't have everybody's MUD handle but big thanks to the crew, couldn't have done it without each and every one of you!

Here is the exact moment all hell broke loose (volume up)



I'm crying on the inside

Coilovers are a little bendy

Can you say high pinion????

The culprit. Using these adjusters was a bad idea even though they were 7/8" bolts. Jam nuts were on tight too with red loctite.

Clean break

PAIN

Certified master trail welder Lee!!!

Trying to get the damn thing back in

Trail ingenuity

Repair collar for the other side

At least it looked nice before the trail

 

[jcardona1]

WHEELING - RUBICON

After they got it fixed, it failed again within a few hundred feet right behind our camp. This time the damage was really bad. When the upper link truss failed it rotated the axle backwards, snapping the driveshaft and both coilovers. It was BAD. They had an extra coilover luckily and managed to 'build' another one using an old shock with springs over it. Several hours later and lots of ingenuity, these guys were finally back on the trail. Saw them on Sunday loading the thing on a trailer which meant the fixes held up. If this happened to me I'd probably set the rig on fire right there and find a new hobby.

The irony of this comment 6yrs later

 

[Broski]

Glad you got it back together and home safe.

 

[Honger]

Looking forward to your fix...

Also, praise the Lord it didn't happen on the highway at speed.

 

[2KCruiser]

Looking forward to your fix...

Also, praise the Lord it didn't happen on the highway at speed.

I know you thought about this for sure Jose on the drive back. What's the plan, rework the whole rear, or ???

 

[Outsane]

Easy day!

Definitely made the day interesting

 

[jcardona1]

Glad you got it back together and home safe.

It was a great feeling pulling into the garage!

Looking forward to your fix...

Also, praise the Lord it didn't happen on the highway at speed.

I know you thought about this for sure Jose on the drive back. What's the plan, rework the whole rear, or ???

Yeah scary thought for sure. I'm glad I also wasn't out by myself when it happened, or even worse had the wife and kid with me. Everything could have gone so much worse. As far as the suspension goes, just wanna rebuild the wishbone without adjusters. It's a solid design and @nukegoat has been beating on his for years. I just introduced a failure point that wasn't needed with those adjusters. I'm pretty sure I remember Nuke telling me not to use those at some point too.

Easy day!

Definitely made the day interesting

The GOAT!

 

[nukegoat]

Maybe time for a less weird looking wishbone. Glad youre ok dude

 

[cruisermatt]

Well this definitely puts leaf springs in a better light