I did it again. So sue me.
Like most Cruiser-heads I browse the classifieds pretty often searching for that little old lady who drove her unmolested FJ45 Land Cruiser back and forth from her house to the grocery store. Every now and again, I bite. I call on something I see, usually I am too late to scoop up a deal, but I have gotten lucky a few times. I hope this is one of those time, but time will tell.
Backstory: We are a Cruiser family. I DD a FJ40 for 16 years before jumping into a 100 series. I have both of those rigs still and almost 800,000 miles between the 2 of them. All Toyota. My wife drives a Sequoia and it is nice but we are hoping to upgrade to a 200 someday once the prices come down a bit more. My oldest son is 14 and we have been looking for a Father/Son project to fix up as he comes into driving age... which is 14.5 years old here in Montana. He says he wants a mid 90's mini-truck with a flatbed, you can't blame him right? Anyhow, this 60 popped up and caught our attention so we jumped. Hopefully, it works out... again, time will tell.
Saw a classified ad that read. "1985 FJ60 with 139K original miles. All original, doesn't run." Pics looked good, owner was a super cool cruiser head about 2 hours from our house. We reserved a U-Haul, hitched up the Sequoia and made our way to see the Cruiser the next morning. We looked it over. It had minimal but usual rust, interior was in excellent shape for the year, and the engine looked complete and tuned over easy enough. We bought it and used a come-a-long and tossed it up on the trailer.
The story goes like this... "gal drove it for years, then it stopped working. Her kids pestered her to buy something more modern and she reluctantly did, leaving the Cruiser in a state of disrepair. The next owner bought it since it was clean and unmolested, he trailered it home 6-7 years ago and moth-balled it under a tarp. He said he didn't do anything and had other projects that took priority. When he realized it had been taking up precious space in the shop driveway for longer than he liked to admit he decided to let it go. When I asked him what could be wrong he really started chuckling say he had NEVER even poked around and tried to get it running. Cool. When I asked if it could just be out of gas he made a face like... oh dang, maybe it is that simple.
So here we are, could be a blown motor, could be out of gas... can I have the latter please Lord? - Amen.
Needless to say my 14 year old is stoked. We will hopefully get this engine running, knock out the minimal rust issues, tune it up, repaint it in the garage, add a small lift and tire and drive it through his high school years, then give it to his younger siblings. Heavy, slow, all steel, manual, no computer... I'll take it for a kid car.
This is our second 60. Our first one was cool here its own "build" thread. 100 Guy Builds a 60 it was super fun, V8 overdrive, lifted, pretty fun car to drive.
Here we go:
Like most Cruiser-heads I browse the classifieds pretty often searching for that little old lady who drove her unmolested FJ45 Land Cruiser back and forth from her house to the grocery store. Every now and again, I bite. I call on something I see, usually I am too late to scoop up a deal, but I have gotten lucky a few times. I hope this is one of those time, but time will tell.
Backstory: We are a Cruiser family. I DD a FJ40 for 16 years before jumping into a 100 series. I have both of those rigs still and almost 800,000 miles between the 2 of them. All Toyota. My wife drives a Sequoia and it is nice but we are hoping to upgrade to a 200 someday once the prices come down a bit more. My oldest son is 14 and we have been looking for a Father/Son project to fix up as he comes into driving age... which is 14.5 years old here in Montana. He says he wants a mid 90's mini-truck with a flatbed, you can't blame him right? Anyhow, this 60 popped up and caught our attention so we jumped. Hopefully, it works out... again, time will tell.
Saw a classified ad that read. "1985 FJ60 with 139K original miles. All original, doesn't run." Pics looked good, owner was a super cool cruiser head about 2 hours from our house. We reserved a U-Haul, hitched up the Sequoia and made our way to see the Cruiser the next morning. We looked it over. It had minimal but usual rust, interior was in excellent shape for the year, and the engine looked complete and tuned over easy enough. We bought it and used a come-a-long and tossed it up on the trailer.
The story goes like this... "gal drove it for years, then it stopped working. Her kids pestered her to buy something more modern and she reluctantly did, leaving the Cruiser in a state of disrepair. The next owner bought it since it was clean and unmolested, he trailered it home 6-7 years ago and moth-balled it under a tarp. He said he didn't do anything and had other projects that took priority. When he realized it had been taking up precious space in the shop driveway for longer than he liked to admit he decided to let it go. When I asked him what could be wrong he really started chuckling say he had NEVER even poked around and tried to get it running. Cool. When I asked if it could just be out of gas he made a face like... oh dang, maybe it is that simple.
So here we are, could be a blown motor, could be out of gas... can I have the latter please Lord? - Amen.
Needless to say my 14 year old is stoked. We will hopefully get this engine running, knock out the minimal rust issues, tune it up, repaint it in the garage, add a small lift and tire and drive it through his high school years, then give it to his younger siblings. Heavy, slow, all steel, manual, no computer... I'll take it for a kid car.
This is our second 60. Our first one was cool here its own "build" thread. 100 Guy Builds a 60 it was super fun, V8 overdrive, lifted, pretty fun car to drive.
Here we go:
