A 1990 HZJ80 mini-refurb from Saudi Arabia

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really nice pics and posts......mabrooook (congrats for our non Arabic speaking folks)..... love how u restored the interior....and u have PLENTY of parts there for those models....especially in Jeddah....

would love to visit the areas of tabuk and wadi aldawasir....

great post...please keep the pics coming
 
Thank you for the kind word fellas…

Some latest news: I've changed the colour to white (045 1/2 gloss). The 80 was attracting way too much attention, people were constantly wanting to pull me over to ask questions, offering to buy it, asking if it had a V8 turbo, or cast the evil eye on it. And then there's the police. In the beginning I welcomed it, a chance to chat and meet, but it eventually became a major nuisance. Imagine driving at night and some dude behind you is flashing his high beams trying to get you to pull over, and your family is with you. Enough.

So went with white to blend in, and even threw on the red stripe stickers on the side for added effect.

Pics coming up soon.
 
boozewz, your build is awesome. For some reason, this is the first time I've visited this thread. I wanted to tell you how cool it is when I get to see people in other countries and cultures, then realize that people are the same all over the world. Your camping pics could have easily been me and my friends somewhere in West Texas looking out over the sunset.

Turns out that the Land Cruiser is a cultural bridge, bringing us all together.....Group Hug!!

All jokes aside, the restoration of that rig has been awesome and you should be proud to drive that girl for a long time!
 
i love this thread too.....mainly for two reasons....number 1...a mudder thats close by (just the red sea between us...nothing for a cruiser :D ).....and number 2....so i can tell the parts dealers here that there ARE parts in Saudi Arabia.....take my mobile and say..look...HE DID it....why cant you guys buy them....

would love to get my hands on a snorkel....non here....used or new
 
btw...i have relatives in Jeddah and Tabuk traveling between here and there regularly....if u need anything from the stuff i took out of my build...free of charge...just ask, and i will try to get them there as soon as anyone is traveling, especially that the holiday season is close.
 
Finally managed to get some pics together to post up an update. As I mentioned before, went with a colour change as we were getting too much unwanted attention. So settled on a 1/2 gloss/matte white finish (colour code 045).

Here is the prep.









In the booth





Painted up















In order to blend in further, we scored some retro 1990 80 series GCC spec stripes. The dealer could not source them, so we got some reproduction ones from the local market. I very much like the clean look of the 80 without stickers, but decided to run the stripes for now, and perhaps remove them at a later stage.





We just sent her in for 10,000km service. Below is a summary sheet of the mileage we're getting over the first few thousand KM after the rebuild. I would say 80% of the driving is city driving, and majority is in somewhat heavy traffic. The 7% correction came about when I ran GPS and found that actual mileage covered was more than the odo was showing.

These are real figures, and not rounded up estimations!



And last but not least for now, I noticed this crack/weld on the manifold as I was taking an oil sample before taking her in for the 10,000km. I am baffled that I missed this earlier.

Should we be worried?

 
Okay, I'm generally a big fan of a clean paint job as well. And in fact, I hate spec striping on my 80-series. However, the ones you've put on yours are pitch perfect! Those look fantastic!

Let me know when you want to sell and send it to me over here. ;-)
 
boozewz said:
As I mentioned before, went with a colour change as we were getting too much unwanted attention.


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Curious what you mean by unwanted attention w/ the previous paint color?

Really like how clean and tastefully modded this one turned out - job well done!

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Wow what an awesome build. I lived in Dubai for 2 years and I had such a hard time finding anywhere to work on my own car. I sure miss dune bashing though, loads of fun.

Are you a KSA National or an expat? I've had some offers to go work there but never been able to bring myself to do it.
 
77CJ5 said:
Got that, still curious what he meant by unwanted attention?
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Read Post 81... unwanted attention is likely just what he said there. KSA is probably a lot like the UAE in that plain-vanilla white 80-series cruisers are everywhere. But the color he had it painted before would have attracted a lot of interest. And the color is very close to the color the GCC countries paint some of the police and military vehicles, so that may have been a factor.

I've got a gold 80-series and it's still VERY clean. I get unwanted attention as well. People pull up to us in traffic and honk at us... roll windows down and they ask how much to buy it. I've pulled countless notes off my windshield with a number to call if interested in selling. Well-kept older Land Cruisers and Nissan Patrols attract a lot of attention in the region.
 
Honger said:
Read Post 81... unwanted attention is likely just what he said there. KSA is probably a lot like the UAE in that plain-vanilla white 80-series cruisers are everywhere. But the color he had it painted before would have attracted a lot of interest. And the color is very close to the color the GCC countries paint some of the police and military vehicles, so that may have been a factor.

I've got a gold 80-series and it's still VERY clean. I get unwanted attention as well. People pull up to us in traffic and honk at us... roll windows down and they ask how much to buy it. I've pulled countless notes off my windshield with a number to call if interested in selling. Well-kept older Land Cruisers and Nissan Patrols attract a lot of attention in the region.
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Thanks for the info, but you're still speculating. I wanted to hear what the OP actually meant by it. Was thinking the previous color may have resulted in fielding a lot of convo's, questions, etc.

There is certainly no shortage of nice cars in Saudi!

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Honger said:
Read Post 81... unwanted attention is likely just what he said there. KSA is probably a lot like the UAE in that plain-vanilla white 80-series cruisers are everywhere. But the color he had it painted before would have attracted a lot of interest. And the color is very close to the color the GCC countries paint some of the police and military vehicles, so that may have been a factor.
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Spot on.

The attention in the begining is fun and interesting. Get to meet all kinds of interesting characters. But after a while it gets old, and then irritating, considering the truck is a keeper and selling it is not something I'm entertaining at the moment. And at checkpoints I'd be getting extra scrutiny from the police and border guards.

Now I just need to decide whether to keep the side stripes or remove them. I'm still 50/50 on whether I like them or not.
 
Vehicle color is not just an issue is Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries. I know there used to be restrictions on vehicle color in various Central American locales -- may still be. The main issue seems to be vehicle colors that are too close to those used by the police or army. Considering the reputations of some of those folks, you don't want to be confused with them. Then there's the old "pretend you're the local police" checkpoint -- great for shakedowns, kidnapping, etc. So there is some basis for this, it's just something we generally don't encounter in the US, at least as specifically associated with vehicle color. You can certainly get yourself in some degree of trouble by displaying a flashing red light, for instance, in the US.
 
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