Aussie '93 FZJ80 - Let the baselining begin

[mudgudgeon]

Tried to take a little video to show the slip in the old drive flange splines.

Rotating the jacked up wheel, the wear was obvious. The slop equated to 6 to 8 inches rotation at the tire tread.

Pretty ordinary video, but you can see the birf end doesn't move while the wheel rim is rotated back and forth

 

[MrMikeyG]

Nice work! Every example of Australia I see makes me what to get there even more, unfortunately with life right now, we couldn't manage more than a 8-day trip, and that doesn't work for much except deciding on one city and doing some ranging from there.
I sometimes forget that 15 minutes of reading on these forums might be a sample of months of work from the OP. Sitting at my computer wondering how you all get some much done so fast before thinking about the time interval between posts. not much progress on my rig, I will add an update today.
Cheers.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Ha, very true. Takes me a while to get stuff done.

You know, I see pics of your Pacific North West area and think the same. I had a few days in Seattle on a snowboarding trip before going to Utah, I'd love to come back and do some touring around the US. The mountains and forests you guys have are a huge contrast to the Aussie landscape

 

[mudgudgeon]

Time flies when you're having fun!

I've put 18k km on this thing since April and loving it.

Slowly taking care of bits and pieces.

Replaced the radiator and thermostat.
PHH has presented a slow leak, so I'll be looking at changing it and radiator and heater hoses. Not sure whether to tackle the hoses under the manifold too.
Guaranteed if I don't, one will leak after I've given it a belly full of fresh Toyota red.

I put a set of 305/70 R16 Nitto Terra Grappled tyres on it a few months ago. Really like these tyres. They are great on road, good in the wet. And have been good for the little off-road stuff I've done.
Quiet on road, and the look the part too.

I removed the steering damper a month ago. It's was done. It was causing a bit of a funky steering feel, and after pulling it off, it was obviously shot. So far haven't replaced it. The truck drives nice without it.

Replaced the starter motor yesterday with a new OEM. Not the cheapest option, but I'm sure I'll never touch it again.
The solenoid started playing up, not making solid contact on starting, or sticking on after starting.
Changing it out took 20 minutes tops.

Gave the paint a bit of a work over with a thorough clean, clay bar, and wax. Came up looking really good, but also let me see all the little blemishes.
Clear coat is starting to go in a couple of places, lots of stone chips, and some evidence of rust around the windscreen rubber


My son now has his learner driver license, so I've had some interesting white knuckle moments. No brown undies moments though, so all good
I taught him to drive a manual when was 10, and driven a lot of forestry roads and on farms. He also rides dirt bikes a fair bit, so he knows had to drive, but teaching him to put it all together on road in traffic is stressful!

I'll add a few pics later

 

[baldilocks]

Contact me if you ever do return to the west coast.

 

[mudgudgeon]

Contact me if you ever do return to the west coast.

Cheers mate.

I'd love to come to the US with my boy and buy a set up cruiser and spend a 3 or 4 months touring.
I reckon the ih8mud collective would make for some awesome vehicle brokers, travel advice and tour guides

 

[mudgudgeon]

Recently started experience a bit of occasional death wobbles in my relatively new to me '93.

It happened at random a handful of times, at various speeds over the past couple of weeks.

Hadn't had a chance to look at the usual suspects to diagnose it until this morning.

Was away on a weekend trip of touring, a lot of dirt roads and some mild wheeling with my young bloke at the wheel.

Had a bit of death wobble occur while I was driving on the highway, going downhill into a mid-speed switch back. It was a bit worse than it had been previously, so time to take a look under the truck.

Bushes are OK, showing signs of fatigue, but not bad.
Frame at steering box and panhard bracket is all good.

Passenger side knuckle stud nuts have a bit of fresh looking grease around them.
All looked ok, but one was finger tight.

I only had limited tools with me, but was able to tighten them with a ring spanner and torque them to a suitable BST standard.

All four on the passenger side were loose, driver side was good.

After re-tightening, steering was good on the homeward journey.

Will order up some front end bushes, a knuckle rebuild kit, and some fresh TREs to tighten up the front end some more.

Thinking I may add some 2° offset trunion bearings, set up to dial in a little more caster and a little more camber.

I think it would sharpen the steering a little running 305s on the highway.

 

[stinkyfj60]

Where the fxxx do these goView attachment 1675561

What is that thing?

 

[mudgudgeon]

What is that thing?

Those things provide a $20k reduction in purchase price vs the diesel variants!!

So, I guess you could say it's a 'ceramic topped price reducer'

 

[mudgudgeon]

I'd forgotten this thread. Didn't do a good job keeping up with it!
3.5 years on, still love my mostly stock 80.
Its taken me loads of places. Cost me loads of dollars, kept me in the garage for loads of hours, but I enjoy it all the same.