I bought my second Land Cruiser, and this time I did it right: I got a 60 series. The last one I had was a 1991 FJ80, which was fun, but needed a lot more work than an FJ80 was worth in my book, especially when what I really wanted was a 60 any way, so I sold it, and waited for the right rig to appear. And appear it did, and for $1800 to boot. I've named it the Rolling Turd, but that's somewhat of a working name. If you guys have any good suggestions for it, I'm definitely open to them.
The immediate goal is to get it into daily drive-able condition. Surprisingly there were not many obstacles to that. The tires need replaced, as well as the suspension, and the carburetor needs a tune badly, as the engine runs like Scrooge McDuck; super rich. The carb tune and tires are happening this weekend, which will allow me to start driving it, if not super comfortably yet. Thankfully my commute is less than 15 minutes, so it's not super worrying for me. The suspension replacement will be arriving next week, so it should be completely ready to go in a few weeks.
A bit longer term goal for it is to build it up as a family expedition/overlanding rig. To that end, the suspension I got for it is an Old Man Emu lift kit. Because I had the money set aside to be able to buy the mod parts I wanted for it, it'll be getting pretty loaded down over the next few months, so I opted for the Heavy lift. To go with the lift, the tires it's getting are a set of 33x10.5r15 BFG KM3s. The BFGs are a little spendy, but I intend to wheel them often enough to warrant mud terrains, and they were the quickest option in my area. Seeing as how the 60 is sitting in my driveway with a flat tire at the moment, it seemed prudent to get this done ASAP. From there, I'm going to put an ARB style bumper on the front with a winch, which combination I'm not super set on at the moment. I definitely don't want to spend Warn money on the winch, though, so I've been leaning towards a Smittybilt for now, with the potential for upgrading later. A rear tire carrier bumper is also in the forecast, as well as a safari style roof rack.
Further out, I want to do ARB air lockers front and rear, but for the moment I don't do trails that are hard core enough to require them. I'm also considering putting fuel injection on it at some point, as I want the added reliability and efficiency that it brings. I've also considered doing a rear axle upgrade/swap to get a full floater, but that is a long ways off as any option for it is spendy and takes a lot of fabrication. Eventually I'd like to set it up to be able to run 35s, but I don't know when that will happen, if ever.
Once I've set it up as a good trail rig, at some unknown point I'd like to be able to do a complete restoration of it. The body has some decent rust holes, but thankfully the frame is solid, but I'd like to eventually fix all of those. It should be noted that I bought this rig as a project, but not one that I intend to flip/sell at all. As a sort of "labor of love", I'm not really concerned if I never get my money out of it. My investment is going to be in the memories my family and I make both fixing and using it. Also, the outline I've given is a fairly rough outline, and very subject to change. If anyone here has suggestions for things that I should do with/to it, let me know, and I'll update the thread as I make progress on it.
The immediate goal is to get it into daily drive-able condition. Surprisingly there were not many obstacles to that. The tires need replaced, as well as the suspension, and the carburetor needs a tune badly, as the engine runs like Scrooge McDuck; super rich. The carb tune and tires are happening this weekend, which will allow me to start driving it, if not super comfortably yet. Thankfully my commute is less than 15 minutes, so it's not super worrying for me. The suspension replacement will be arriving next week, so it should be completely ready to go in a few weeks.
A bit longer term goal for it is to build it up as a family expedition/overlanding rig. To that end, the suspension I got for it is an Old Man Emu lift kit. Because I had the money set aside to be able to buy the mod parts I wanted for it, it'll be getting pretty loaded down over the next few months, so I opted for the Heavy lift. To go with the lift, the tires it's getting are a set of 33x10.5r15 BFG KM3s. The BFGs are a little spendy, but I intend to wheel them often enough to warrant mud terrains, and they were the quickest option in my area. Seeing as how the 60 is sitting in my driveway with a flat tire at the moment, it seemed prudent to get this done ASAP. From there, I'm going to put an ARB style bumper on the front with a winch, which combination I'm not super set on at the moment. I definitely don't want to spend Warn money on the winch, though, so I've been leaning towards a Smittybilt for now, with the potential for upgrading later. A rear tire carrier bumper is also in the forecast, as well as a safari style roof rack.
Further out, I want to do ARB air lockers front and rear, but for the moment I don't do trails that are hard core enough to require them. I'm also considering putting fuel injection on it at some point, as I want the added reliability and efficiency that it brings. I've also considered doing a rear axle upgrade/swap to get a full floater, but that is a long ways off as any option for it is spendy and takes a lot of fabrication. Eventually I'd like to set it up to be able to run 35s, but I don't know when that will happen, if ever.
Once I've set it up as a good trail rig, at some unknown point I'd like to be able to do a complete restoration of it. The body has some decent rust holes, but thankfully the frame is solid, but I'd like to eventually fix all of those. It should be noted that I bought this rig as a project, but not one that I intend to flip/sell at all. As a sort of "labor of love", I'm not really concerned if I never get my money out of it. My investment is going to be in the memories my family and I make both fixing and using it. Also, the outline I've given is a fairly rough outline, and very subject to change. If anyone here has suggestions for things that I should do with/to it, let me know, and I'll update the thread as I make progress on it.