semlin
curmudgeon
Well let’s see. After so many impressive 80s on ROTW over the years this one will seem anticlimactic.
It’s a locked 1993 with 155,000 miles. I am the second owner if you don’t count the fact the doctor who owned it first gave it to his snowboarding son who managed to save me a few surprises when I flew out and picked it up in SLC in 2002. But in spite of that it made it home to Vancouver in December on bald tires without any problems and has never failed me but once since, and that time was my fault…
I actually bought the truck because my 2 kids in their carseats couldn’t fit with a friend in he back of our forester and I didn’t want a minivan and really hated depreciation on new cars
I wanted something reliable with lots of seats that could tow my boat and that I could keep forever. I got more than I bargained for! I decided I wanted Japanese, eliminated the 4runner as too small and then a little web surfing got me to the old SOR forum and a truck I’d never heard of: the 80 series landcruiser (not sold in Canada except as the lx450 for one year and very rare here in 2002 although not anymore). A little reading on SOR and a test drive of one I found locally for sale for $30,000 
and I was reading up on how to buy in the states and import… I figured it would be a great truck for a little bit of off the beaten track camping like we did in our old westy but it wasn’t until I went out with a local 4 wheel drive club (so I could “learn how to drive” I told the wife ) and the first obstacle was a 7 foot high berm made out of boulders blocking the trail entrance that I realized I had a pretty cool vehicle on my hands. After watching some other vehciles including a hummer using a fair bit of strapping, backing up and skinny pedal to get over, I locked up and followed the spotter’s line and crawled right over the top of something I had thought was basically a wall that would end everybody’s day right there when we pulled up to it.
My truck came stock other than an ARB front bumper and PIAA combo drivelight/fogs and I was slow to build it up. Kept it on a stock lift and 265 BFG AT ties for a couple of years and used it mainly for camping. it wasn’t until I went out with Riley on his medium lift/305 MT/Rs that I could see the point of a lift and tires and the point for me was mainly that Riley seemed to be able to navigate all those deactivated culverts ditches we get on BC logging roads without burying the nose and scraping the behind.
So I juiced it up to an OME medium lift for about a year and went to 285 Ats and that was perfectly good except then I wanted armour and didn’t want to sacrifice my lift so I went to J’s all around which more than compensated for a winch, sliders and rear bumper as it turned out . last summer I bought an older warn m10000 winch used on a municipal truck and installed it this spring. I got to do this after my wife got on my case about not wanting to get stuck when we went camping solo in the bushes (happy to oblige there honey ). Added Hanna sliders and a 4x4 labs rear bumper this spring at Cruise Moab (and in the process got Luke a few orders I think since he kinfly installed it in the campsite). Yanked the rust trap stock roofrack and added a couple of sets of Yakima crossbars which work like a darn.
Looking at it right now I have realized that although the original tires and lift were bought new, the replacements were used and so was just about every other addition. the only extra items I have on it that I bought new are the rear bumper and sliders
The repair list on this truck is probably worse than most. I got it at 122k and I’ve had to do a fair bit to it. The list reflects some lessons learned if you look.
-power antenna 85 4runner kit
-power antenna 80s camry kit
-gates belts
-oem belts
-new egr valve, vsv, vacuum lines, catyltic converters (rebuilt oem)
-tie rod ends
-brake pads rotors and calipers
-birfields 2.5 times (first time I paid a guy, second time I did it myself to fix what I paid the guy to do, third time I had to replace the rebuilt birf on one side that clicked so bad it made my teeth grind)
-head gasket, all hoses, valve grind, injectors and rail cleaned, alternator brushes etc…
-raventai temp gauge mod beta version
-fan clutch (work in progress)
the head gasket was my fault. Didn’t catch a pinhole rad leak and then when it gave me fair warning I trusted the overflow tank level instead of pulling the rad cap. I blew the head gasket less than a mile later and that’s the only time the truck has failed to go for me. One nice aftermath of a fun head gasket rebuild is that it uses no oil since the h/g whereas formerly it was losing maybe a litre every 1500 miles. Apparently that was all blow by although I never noticed it.
Anyway, there’s the scoop. Here are a few photos. first the evolution of the truck from stock 265s to mediums with 285s to Js.
It’s a locked 1993 with 155,000 miles. I am the second owner if you don’t count the fact the doctor who owned it first gave it to his snowboarding son who managed to save me a few surprises when I flew out and picked it up in SLC in 2002. But in spite of that it made it home to Vancouver in December on bald tires without any problems and has never failed me but once since, and that time was my fault…
I actually bought the truck because my 2 kids in their carseats couldn’t fit with a friend in he back of our forester and I didn’t want a minivan and really hated depreciation on new cars
I wanted something reliable with lots of seats that could tow my boat and that I could keep forever. I got more than I bargained for! I decided I wanted Japanese, eliminated the 4runner as too small and then a little web surfing got me to the old SOR forum and a truck I’d never heard of: the 80 series landcruiser (not sold in Canada except as the lx450 for one year and very rare here in 2002 although not anymore). A little reading on SOR and a test drive of one I found locally for sale for $30,000 and I was reading up on how to buy in the states and import… I figured it would be a great truck for a little bit of off the beaten track camping like we did in our old westy but it wasn’t until I went out with a local 4 wheel drive club (so I could “learn how to drive” I told the wife ) and the first obstacle was a 7 foot high berm made out of boulders blocking the trail entrance that I realized I had a pretty cool vehicle on my hands. After watching some other vehciles including a hummer using a fair bit of strapping, backing up and skinny pedal to get over, I locked up and followed the spotter’s line and crawled right over the top of something I had thought was basically a wall that would end everybody’s day right there when we pulled up to it.My truck came stock other than an ARB front bumper and PIAA combo drivelight/fogs and I was slow to build it up. Kept it on a stock lift and 265 BFG AT ties for a couple of years and used it mainly for camping. it wasn’t until I went out with Riley on his medium lift/305 MT/Rs that I could see the point of a lift and tires and the point for me was mainly that Riley seemed to be able to navigate all those deactivated culverts ditches we get on BC logging roads without burying the nose and scraping the behind.
So I juiced it up to an OME medium lift for about a year and went to 285 Ats and that was perfectly good except then I wanted armour and didn’t want to sacrifice my lift so I went to J’s all around which more than compensated for a winch, sliders and rear bumper as it turned out
. last summer I bought an older warn m10000 winch used on a municipal truck and installed it this spring. I got to do this after my wife got on my case about not wanting to get stuck when we went camping solo in the bushes (happy to oblige there honey ). Added Hanna sliders and a 4x4 labs rear bumper this spring at Cruise Moab (and in the process got Luke a few orders I think since he kinfly installed it in the campsite). Yanked the rust trap stock roofrack and added a couple of sets of Yakima crossbars which work like a darn. Looking at it right now I have realized that although the original tires and lift were bought new, the replacements were used and so was just about every other addition. the only extra items I have on it that I bought new are the rear bumper and sliders
The repair list on this truck is probably worse than most. I got it at 122k and I’ve had to do a fair bit to it. The list reflects some lessons learned if you look.
-power antenna 85 4runner kit
-power antenna 80s camry kit
-gates belts
-oem belts
-new egr valve, vsv, vacuum lines, catyltic converters (rebuilt oem)
-tie rod ends
-brake pads rotors and calipers
-birfields 2.5 times (first time I paid a guy, second time I did it myself to fix what I paid the guy to do, third time I had to replace the rebuilt birf on one side that clicked so bad it made my teeth grind)
-head gasket, all hoses, valve grind, injectors and rail cleaned, alternator brushes etc…
-raventai temp gauge mod beta version
-fan clutch (work in progress)
the head gasket was my fault. Didn’t catch a pinhole rad leak and then when it gave me fair warning I trusted the overflow tank level instead of pulling the rad cap. I blew the head gasket less than a mile later and that’s the only time the truck has failed to go for me. One nice aftermath of a fun head gasket rebuild is that it uses no oil since the h/g whereas formerly it was losing maybe a litre every 1500 miles. Apparently that was all blow by although I never noticed it.
Anyway, there’s the scoop. Here are a few photos. first the evolution of the truck from stock 265s to mediums with 285s to Js.
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