BEAST BUILD INTRO
First up: Yeah, everybody calls their truck "Beast." But I didn't know that at the time. It's my Beast, and I'm sticking to it. Moving on... 1995 Toyota Land Cruiser FZJ80 with 237,000 original miles. Second engine comes from a 1996 Lexus LX450, pulled for a diesel swap at 170,000 miles.
--Intended Usage.
When looking at other people's builds, it's helpful to know what their goals are, and whether they align with your own and you should maybe consider doing what they're doing for the same reasons. Or whether you think they're boring or bat**** crazy (pick one) and nothing they do is likely to be of help to you. Do you wanna climb thousand-foot sand dunes in the Middle East, crawl rocks on the Rubicon--or daily drive, overland and camp? Those are three wildly different builds. Put me down for #3.
Intended vehicle usage is 80% or more daily driver, 20% or less serious overland. Nothing crazy. If I see a line likely to damage the vehicle or its occupants, I'm gonna take the long way around. I'm not doing all this work just to bash the thing up. Or shorten engine life, or time between rebuilds. Accordingly, no stroker, no forged pistons, wild cams, odd valvetrains etc. I don't particularly care about top-end power, so turbo is unlikely. Supercharger, on the other hand, is a possibility, assuming I can find one, in good shape, and afford it, and then afford the overhaul. I may not care about speed in the quarter-mile, but I do want to be able to haul ass from low RPMs if some idiot veers my way at a stoplight. (Plan B is the bull bar.) And these rigs could (within reason) use a little more get-up-and-go anyway.
No monster tires, no monster lift, both of which bring a whole host of related issues with them. 33s to 35s, not too fat; maybe 2 inches of lift. Outside of desert and deep snow, you'll almost never see a serious overlanding vehicle running big lifts or big fat tires, and there's a reason for that.
I want reliability, capability, and durability. Mechanically, this thing is a tank, and I'm not looking to change that. Engine and vehicle, once rebuilt, should last another 25 years and 250,000 miles with decent maintenance--at which point all of this can be done again, by me or someone else. Though parts may be a wee bit harder to come by.
--Work.
Everything I can afford to do, starting with a 1FZ rebuild, tranny rebuild and engine bay refresh/upgrade. Ideally the vehicle winds up better than new. Aside from that, building in everything needed (okay, everything needed and some things not so much needed as wanted) for serious overland use in North America.
Since I only have the one vehicle, the plan is to remove the 237k original engine, and swap in a recently-purchased 170k engine to run the truck while the 'old' engine is rebuilt--then swap them again. Both engines to be evaluated (as best I can) before commencing. How and when the tranny rebuild happens is still up in the air.
--Thanks.
I've been hanging here, sponging up information, doing piecemeal repairs, annoying trolls and offering what help I can based on my own meager experience with one Cruiser. Hopefully this thread will prove useful to others down the line. Right now I'd like to thank all of those who've shown patience and offered helpful advice so far (and hopefully going forward!), both on and off Mud. And of course @woody, without whom none of us would be here at all. It's hard to imagine even attempting this without a community like this to help, just because they want to. That said, this still looks like a thousand-banana job to me...
--Budget & Timeline.
Budget? What budget? Landed a gig that will pay the bills for a while, or build an engine or (Door #3) a bit of both. So here we go. I'm not one of those guys who can hire consultants to tell me what I need, buy everything up front, pay a crew to do the work, and shoot a cool time-lapse video that makes it look like the whole thing happened in five minutes. This whole thing is gonna take a while. Years maybe. Then again, Joe Rogan waited two years for his, right?
So, welcome to my slow-motion build...
Appropriately, the first thing to show up at my door (after the engine) was this. I got sick of trying to find things in the e-version, and got a deal from a friend. Apparently, this is the 'official' publisher of this and literally thousands of other FSMs, going back to Model Ts...
www.summitracing.com
First up: Yeah, everybody calls their truck "Beast." But I didn't know that at the time. It's my Beast, and I'm sticking to it. Moving on... 1995 Toyota Land Cruiser FZJ80 with 237,000 original miles. Second engine comes from a 1996 Lexus LX450, pulled for a diesel swap at 170,000 miles.
--Intended Usage.
When looking at other people's builds, it's helpful to know what their goals are, and whether they align with your own and you should maybe consider doing what they're doing for the same reasons. Or whether you think they're boring or bat**** crazy (pick one) and nothing they do is likely to be of help to you. Do you wanna climb thousand-foot sand dunes in the Middle East, crawl rocks on the Rubicon--or daily drive, overland and camp? Those are three wildly different builds. Put me down for #3.
Intended vehicle usage is 80% or more daily driver, 20% or less serious overland. Nothing crazy. If I see a line likely to damage the vehicle or its occupants, I'm gonna take the long way around. I'm not doing all this work just to bash the thing up. Or shorten engine life, or time between rebuilds. Accordingly, no stroker, no forged pistons, wild cams, odd valvetrains etc. I don't particularly care about top-end power, so turbo is unlikely. Supercharger, on the other hand, is a possibility, assuming I can find one, in good shape, and afford it, and then afford the overhaul. I may not care about speed in the quarter-mile, but I do want to be able to haul ass from low RPMs if some idiot veers my way at a stoplight. (Plan B is the bull bar.) And these rigs could (within reason) use a little more get-up-and-go anyway.
No monster tires, no monster lift, both of which bring a whole host of related issues with them. 33s to 35s, not too fat; maybe 2 inches of lift. Outside of desert and deep snow, you'll almost never see a serious overlanding vehicle running big lifts or big fat tires, and there's a reason for that.
I want reliability, capability, and durability. Mechanically, this thing is a tank, and I'm not looking to change that. Engine and vehicle, once rebuilt, should last another 25 years and 250,000 miles with decent maintenance--at which point all of this can be done again, by me or someone else. Though parts may be a wee bit harder to come by.
--Work.
Everything I can afford to do, starting with a 1FZ rebuild, tranny rebuild and engine bay refresh/upgrade. Ideally the vehicle winds up better than new. Aside from that, building in everything needed (okay, everything needed and some things not so much needed as wanted) for serious overland use in North America.
Since I only have the one vehicle, the plan is to remove the 237k original engine, and swap in a recently-purchased 170k engine to run the truck while the 'old' engine is rebuilt--then swap them again. Both engines to be evaluated (as best I can) before commencing. How and when the tranny rebuild happens is still up in the air.
--Thanks.
I've been hanging here, sponging up information, doing piecemeal repairs, annoying trolls and offering what help I can based on my own meager experience with one Cruiser. Hopefully this thread will prove useful to others down the line. Right now I'd like to thank all of those who've shown patience and offered helpful advice so far (and hopefully going forward!), both on and off Mud. And of course @woody, without whom none of us would be here at all. It's hard to imagine even attempting this without a community like this to help, just because they want to. That said, this still looks like a thousand-banana job to me...
--Budget & Timeline.
Budget? What budget? Landed a gig that will pay the bills for a while, or build an engine or (Door #3) a bit of both. So here we go. I'm not one of those guys who can hire consultants to tell me what I need, buy everything up front, pay a crew to do the work, and shoot a cool time-lapse video that makes it look like the whole thing happened in five minutes. This whole thing is gonna take a while. Years maybe. Then again, Joe Rogan waited two years for his, right?
So, welcome to my slow-motion build...
Appropriately, the first thing to show up at my door (after the engine) was this. I got sick of trying to find things in the e-version, and got a deal from a friend. Apparently, this is the 'official' publisher of this and literally thousands of other FSMs, going back to Model Ts...
1995 TOYOTA LAND CRUISER Bishko Automotive Literature 10360 Bishko Factory OEM Service Manuals | Summit Racing
Free Shipping - Bishko Factory OEM Service Manuals with qualifying orders of $109. Shop Reference Books at Summit Racing.
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It’s a good looking rig. Looking forward to this “budget“ rebuild. Let’s see how far to the extremes you can take it.
