1997 LX450 Rose Build (1 Viewer)

[Tinkertoy]

Hello and welcome. If you have come this far...well you haven't come far at all. Keep reading. This thread will be dedicated to our 80 "Rose". I know what you are thinking. Rose? What kind of name is that? Well, in my house I have had a slight affection for naming our wheelers after Betty White and or her characters.

My previous rig was a Jeep and we named her Betty White. (Who doesn't like BMW colors on a Jeep?)

Naturally when we picked up our 80, the name Rose just came to us. So here she is...right after we got her. Note the cardboard under the front end...Rose was a bit of a slobbery mess when we got her.

Here are her stats when we got her:
97' Triple locked
273K Miles
Climate Control system that is going through Menopause. (Hot or cold comes out, but who knows why.)
D light burned out
Check Engine light on
Stock Head Unit.
Random Uhaul trailer set up with Brake controller.

When I bought her, my plan was to build an overlander that we could take the kids and the dog and see the PNW and maybe one day head to Moab. However...who knew that all of that would happen so much sooner than I thought?

My goal for this thread is to share our stories and our build as I have lot of plans. Stay tuned as I will share some of our initial changes and adventures in the next post.

 

[Tinkertoy]

Been a while since I posted on this thread. Things are going to start heating up so let me catch you up. I am not particularly great with tools. So i figured...lets start easy.

Despite @Feldrian telling me to go 37's. The wife said 35's. So...I did 35's.

 

[Tinkertoy]

I know what you are thinking...Dude those 35's are tucked up in there. Well...I placed an order with @Delta VS a little while back. I should have a lift and a few other goodies come soon. But...why stop there? I mean. I did say I am not great with tools right?

Intro the 6.0 and the 6l90 Transmission from a 2010 2500 Express van.

As if this wasn't enough. I had this brilliant idea to cam the engine too.

So far the LS seems to appear nice from the machine shop. Essentially i had it cleaned up, polished the crank new pistons and rods and bearings.

 

[Tinkertoy]

Since it took a while for the machine shop...I figured I would do a few tasks to get ready for the swap. Since I live in the Seattle area...I needed to get the roof top tent off of the rig. Enter the Roof hoist. I decided the hoist needed some additional support so I put some chains mounted to additional studs in the attic. Boom. 150lb RTT and the Prinso rack and the awning all go up 13' to the ceiling.

Not going to lie. I was scared of this contraption at first so it literally hung at this level for a week before I put it all the way up. (Not pictured are the additional safety chains.)

 

[Tinkertoy]

This started as a simple knuckle rebuild then it was like. I have come this far...why not pull the axle? Why not pull the 3rd member? Why not sand this whole thing down and make it look new again? Despite the sludge here...I was only missing 4 cone washers and only the diver side was blown.