Aussie '93 FZJ80 - Let the baselining begin

[mudgudgeon]

Just rejoined the ranks of 80 series owners.
Brought home a mostly original '93 FZJ80 with 208k km on the clock (129k miles) this arvo.
It's mostly tidy, but is showing its age, and needs some luvvin.

I'm a long time diesel guy, and this is the first petrol cruiser I've owned.
Last petrol engine vehicle I did any real tinkering with was a mid 70s GM v8.

I'm the 5th owner, the PO has had it garaged for the last 10years at a holiday house, and used it to launch a small boat locally.

It's riding on original suspension, original steel wheels, still has the OEM side steps, flares and mudflaps.

Underneath is very tidy, no knocks and scrapes, looks like it's never been off-road, but the rear diff and frame is showing some signs of being in salt water from launching a boat.
Engine bay is clean and tidy. There's a bit of an oil leak at the rear of the engine. I'm thinking either rear main seal, or sump.

I'm going to try to keep this updated as I work through overdue PM, baselining, and trouble shooting.
I'll try and keep a record of what I do in terms of parts used, cost, and my prioritization of PM. Some of this will be going over old ground, some stuff in relation to the FZ-FE will be new to me.

I'll add some pics to this as I go

 

[mudgudgeon]

This Cruiser will be my daily driver once a little base-lining has been done. I'll be keeping this thing basically stock, with possibly a few mods to improve it's offroad ability, and things like rear shelf to make it easy to throw some gear in the back, and head away for a weekend.

Plans are to give it some TLC, catch up on PM and baseline it so its reliable as a daily driver, or to jump in it and do some long distance touring. (I'll be putting a couple of 1000km on it in the next week camping with my teenage son.)

My boy loves camping, hiking, freediving, snowboarding, anything outdoors basically. I haven't had a 4wd for the past 18 months (my HZJ105 is a slow moving project that will be off the road for a while yet) and I want to be able to get out into National Parks, forests etc and off the beaten track a little more while my boy is still happy to spend time with Dad.

pics to come

 

[mudgudgeon]

Nearly there

 

[mudgudgeon]

No, we're not there yet

 

[mudgudgeon]

Where the fxxx do these go

 

[Lumpskie]

It will be fun to see your impressions of the gas vs diesel.

 

[mudgudgeon]

It will be fun to see your impressions of the gas vs diesel.

So far so good, its a heck of a lot quieter than my diesels.
I'll have more of a feel for the difference after next week. I'm heading off on a camping trip with quite a few highway miles, and some forestry roads, maybe some very mild wheeling.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Found the service docket from the last recorded service when it was about 4 years old.

The 10litres of oil I bought during the week sure cost more than $42!

 

[mudgudgeon]

Time for a pic.

Parked outside my dream home

Camped in a sub-alpine eucalyptus forest, and covered in dew

 

[mudgudgeon]

Just back from a few days away. 1350km (840miles) in 5days.

Average fuel use was 16.2litres/100km, or 14.5mpg. This was mostly highway miles. Some mountainous areas, but mostly rolling hills. I was expecting worse, so fairly happy with this. My diesel cruiser would have done around 14l/100km, so a bit of a penalty.

 

[ALX4X4]

But you got there so much quicker with a petty and the buy in price was sooooooo much cheaper - what's 2.2 litres/100, say 3 bucks per hundred kays, $30 per 1000, $300 per 10,000klms you'd need to do 250,000 klms just to break even over the cost saving of buying a diesel. Not many peope keep an already 25 year old car until its 50 years old anyway whci is probaly the timeframe you'd take to break even on fuel cost alone. Relax, fill up and enjoy !

 

[ALX4X4]

But you got there so much quicker with a petty and the buy in price was sooooooo much cheaper - what's 2.2 litres/100, say 3 bucks per hundred kays, $30 per 1000, $300 per 10,000klms you'd need to do 250,000 klms just to break even over the cost saving of buying a diesel. Not many peope keep an already 25 year old car until its 50 years old anyway whci is probaly the timeframe you'd take to break even on fuel cost alone. Relax, fill up and enjoy !

 

[mudgudgeon]

My boys still crashed out early AM.

hiked up to a volcanic rock formation

Had lunch perched in a gap in the rock formation above. Approx 100m vertical drop off the back face, 2ft from my lad, and 6m drop to the right.

 

[mudgudgeon]

But you got there so much quicker with a petty and the buy in price was sooooooo much cheaper - what's 2.2 litres/100, say 3 bucks per hundred kays, $30 per 1000, $300 per 10,000klms you'd need to do 250,000 klms just to break even over the cost saving of buying a diesel. Not many peope keep an already 25 year old car until its 50 years old anyway whci is probaly the timeframe you'd take to break even on fuel cost alone. Relax, fill up and enjoy !

Yep, agreed 100%. I prefer the diesel, and will drive the wheels of my HZJ105 when is back on the road (it will leave the FZJ80 in its dust), but it doesn't make economic sense.
This one I'll pass on to my boy when he finishes school.

 

[ALX4X4]

Hahhaha. Nice pics btw. I suspect my 80 will get passed down too in time I'm tending more towards time in the FJ73 old skool preference.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Been driving this thing daily for the last couple of weeks, and enjoying every minute of it.

First gotcha appeared yesterday. Radiator top tank is split. Time for a new radiator.

 

[mudgudgeon]

It will be fun to see your impressions of the gas vs diesel.

So, I've been driving this thing daily for a few weeks, and I've been really enjoying it.
I've started doing some PM, base lining and tweaking.

I hopped in my HZJ105 long term project on the weekend.
First difference that really struck me was being reminded of the low end torque of the diesel in comparison to the gasser.

Feel silly saying this, but with the gas cruiser, it's taken a couple of weeks to get used to working the clutch taking off from a standing start. I've stalled it more times than I care to admit coz it needs more throttle input than I'm used to, and the clutch pedal feel is a bit odd, needs a bit of work.

The diesel, I could step off the clutch in 2nd gear, no throttle and it would leap forward ready to climb a brick wall. On road, you'd really have to try hard to stall it. It's a driver's car to drive. Raw, noisy, fun, and a bit of finesse required to drive it smoothly.

The gas engine is a load quieter, much more forgiving in traffic, has more manners than the diesel. It's happy to rev out more, feels a bit quicker to get moving, but it will be interesting to do a comparison with the turbo diesel.
At some point, I'll use a smart phone Ap to do a real 0-100kph comparison.
Definitely uses quite a bit more fuel than the diesel.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Picked up some shiny hunks of metal this arvo

Late model longer birfs, matching drive flanges, and fresh wheel bearings.

This rig had quite a bit of driveline backlash, and clicking birfs when I bought it, so birfs and drive flanges were high on the PM list.

Terrain Tamer birfs and Fuji Joint drive flanges, both Japanese made, good quality, and pretty well priced.

I would like to do a full knuckle rebuild while I'm in there, but I'm going to resist that itch for now.
Knuckle seals are still good, and steering is firm so knuckles can wait. I'll check my nuts while I'm down there though

My lad is keen to help, so should be a fun job the weekend.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Finally got around to changing clicking birfs, and flogged out drive flanges with some help from my lad.

Some crappy work by the PO to deal with!

Hub nuts have previously been butchered with a chisel, locking tab had not been bent in or out. Hub nuts were able to be undone with the 54mm hub nut socket with barely any torque.

Birfs had almost no grease in them, and next to none packed in the knuckle

This is how we found them.

The diff oil was thick like grease, it took ages to drain out!

 

[mudgudgeon]

Packed new birfs with lithium base moly grease, packed the knuckle with grease too.

Packed a bit more grease in after the birf was back in.

I used a zip tie around the cclip on the end of the axle to compress the clip to help get it into the birf.
I slipped the axle into the birf up to the zip tie, then stand the whole thing up on end, lift it up, then slam it down on a block of wood to seat the axle in the birf, then clip the zip tie off.
Makes it easy to get the axle seated in the birf.

Filed the chisel burrs of the hub nuts and gave them a bit of a sand to dress a few burrs off the face of the nuts.
Replaced the wheel bearings and inner axle seals.
Torqued the inner hub nut to 30lb, rotated the hub a few times, gave the hub a few hits with a dead blow hammer, retorqued the nut to 30, got maybe another 1/8 turn when I retrorqued.