Custom HZJ79 from parts, built in the US! (6 Viewers)

[yooper]

Okayyyy.

So now everyone knows that Proffit's will be closing.

There were a LOT of small things that they did with my truck that really bothered me. And one really big thing.

I've described some of the stuff I wasn't happy with already in this thread.

I will describe some more of them now, on a random schedule. Not sure what my purpose is, maybe just to get it off my chest. I did not get satisfactory answers or treatment from the shop for most of them until after beno took over as general manager of Proffitt's and paid me back for a lot of the parts that I had to buy to fix things that were done wrong or that failed. I am not a confrontational person and I really really hate being the guy that calls a business and complains over and over until someone gives me something to shut me up. I did let them know about most of the problems, to give them an opportunity to do the right thing; for the most part they just said they were sorry or at best sold me replacement parts at cost. Eventually I stopped telling them about anything, scraped the Proffitt's Cruisers decal off the tailgate, and took ownership of all the problems myself. Some time after this beno took over and called me and he did the right thing and righted some of the wrongs, especially the big one that I'll talk about shortly.

I am not going to discuss individual people other than those few that I would like to praise. I am not going to discuss the management of the shop other than the timing of changes that happened; The Larry Miller Group invested in Proffitt's during the middle of my build, so I have experience of both the old shop and the new, as well as with beno.

So here we go.

 

[yooper]

So first a little thing that caused big problems.

The day the truck arrived the batteries were dead. It took me about an hour to jump it and get it started so I could drive it home. I noticed for a few days that the brake lights would stay on sometimes after I shut it down. I also noticed when I first opened the hood that the battery terminals had gouges in them, so the truck had been jumped before.

It turns out that they forgot to install a brake pedal return spring. The batteries were dead because the brakes, and therefore the brake lights, were on all the time.

Three days later (about the time I figured out the spring was missing) I noticed smoke coming from the driver side wheel well when I got home. The knuckle was puking grease and the brake caliper was covered with it.







I'm pretty sure what happened was the entire hub and knuckle got overheated from the brakes dragging. When I opened it all up to install the manual hubs the grease in there was badly discolored. There was a tiny bit of grease in the differential oil too, so the overheating also pushed grease past the inner axle oil seal as well as where it was coming out through the spindle.

The shop did send me a brake pedal return spring to install.

 

[yooper]

Next small thing: the trailer wiring. I had them install a 7 pin RV connector as I have two trailers that use this setup.

When I hooked up my trailer (factory wired trailer, I pull it regularly with my 100 and my wife's Sequoia, zero electrical problems ever in the past) and turned on the tail lights to check function, the license plate light wire on the truck melted, the converter box started smoking, and then the tail light fuse blew just as I reached the back of the truck to see the smoke and melting. I opened the connector and 4 of the 7 wires were in the wrong places. Also at the input side of the converter box the ground and tail light wires were switched. I got lucky and the converter box and brake controller appear to have not suffered damage. I spent three hours of my weekend rewiring the connector.

Proffitt's did send me a new license plate light to replace the one that melted.

 

[yooper]

Very minor: The left and right channels of the stereo were hooked up backwards. I fixed that.

Very minor: They didn't install the iPod interface I bought for the stereo. It was in the glove box. I fixed that.

Slightly less minor: I bought a set of four matched speakers. They installed the tweeters in the overhead console but installed a random brand of inferior speaker behind the seats. I have no idea why. When I asked about it they found my speakers on the shelf in the shop and sent them to me and I installed them myself and gave the others to a friend for his FJ40.

Slightly less minor: the stereo was wired to the ignition circuit instead of the ACC circuit, so I had to run the engine to listen to music. I fixed that.

Slightly less minor: the CB is wired to the ignition circuit but the the 2M radio which is installed right next to the CB is wired to 12V always hot. I'll rewire the CB sometime so I don't have to turn the truck on to talk on it...

 

[yooper]

There is a work light in the bed, mounted to the soft top rack. My idea. It's a Hella 50W work lamp.

They powered this 50W light without a relay, putting the entire current through a dash switch, by tapping into the power wire of my brake controller with a scotch connector, the kind that pierces the insulation, and that wire in turn went straight to the battery with no fuse.

I discovered this because the light stopped working after about two weeks and I traced the wires to find the problem.

 

[yooper]

There were a lot of custom brackets made for this build. Battery trays, the fuel cell straps, winch cable tie downs, lots of stuff.

EVERY SINGLE CUSTOM BRACKET became badly rusted within three months.

Whoever made them painted them with one thin coat of black spray paint. No primer. Pretty sure they were rusty at the time of painting actually.

 

[yooper]

There are a dozen other little things like the above. I'll stop with those now. The reader might figure them out later when I ask about how to fix stuff.

 

[Gun Runner 5]

There are a dozen other little things like the above. I'll stop with those now. The reader might figure them out later when I ask about how to fix stuff.

Reads like a Stephen King novel.......... "Christine"
I think I'll go out to the garage and kiss my ole HJ75.
I hope it all works out in the end.

 

[yooper]

So now the one really big thing.

As discussed earlier in the thread, about three weeks after I took delivery of the truck I noticed that it would smoke on startup for a minute or two. It always required glow plug action to start but otherwise started easily and seemed to run smoothly, although I never got great fuel efficiency.

I drove the truck for almost a year, doing some investigations here and there to try and figure it out, but other than a minute or two of embarrassing smoke I didn't have any real problems.

Many discussions with the shop. They had no real ideas other than replacing the glow plugs. They did send me a set of new glow plugs to try; no change when I installed them.

I finally took the truck to Roam Automotive, about an hour east of here.

A compression test showed that four cylinders could achieve 400-450psi and two were 300-350psi. 1HZ spec is 550 psi.

They opened the engine and found that it was a beat to s*** time bomb.

The head gasket was leaking in several places.

The cylinders were badly scored and beat up on the bottom:

The rod bearings had normal wear for an engine with a s*** ton of hours on it:

The camshaft was ruined:

cam bearing:

They also discovered that the exhaust manifold was cracked, which I didn't know about:

 

[yooper]

So it appears that Proffitt's pulled a '99 engine from a mine truck with unknown maintenance history, sandblasted it, painted it, bolted it into my truck, and installed a turbo kit.

I knew I was getting a used engine. I didn't know that they weren't even going to inspect it.

It just happens that about this same time beno called me on the phone and told me that he had been hired as general manager of Proffitt's.

Proffitt's, THANKS TO BENO, is paying for a complete rebuild of my engine with new Toyota parts. We were able to just barely get the cylinders honed within specs for the largest Toyota pistons.

The rebuild has been kind of slow to progress but I should have the truck back in a few weeks.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Holy crow man. I thought I ran into some problems with my build, but at least I did the work myself and didn't pay someone thousands of dollars to do it right, damn. For as long as I can remember, Proffitt's was the pinnacle of Land Cruiser builders. You have since corrected that mindset.

Hopefully you get your truck back and it's in tip top shape!

 

[ForealBoreal]

Yeah hopefully they don't cut corners after the s*** they initially pulled.

I am guessing they are shutting down because of s*** like this?

 

[yooper]

My truck isn't at Proffitt's, it's at ROAM. Proffitt's is just paying for it. I'll get it back soon and the work will be done right.

 

[ForealBoreal]

I hope so for your sake

 

[Jacket]

Wow. Certainly far from plug n play. Not much to say except I'm glad Beno is trying to right some of this.

 

[Gun Runner 5]

Onur (Beno) is a major asset to that group and hopefully he will stay in a position to assist Cruiser addicts.

 

[jonharis]

Proffitt's, THANKS TO BENO, is paying for a complete rebuild of my engine with new Toyota parts. We were able to just barely get the cylinders honed within specs for the largest Toyota pistons.

That's really good news. Beno

 

[robustbambi]

a couple months ago we were deciding on whether we were going to have Proffitts build a 79 for my parents. I'm kind of glad we decided against it after seeing that you spent so much money only to have these sorts of problems afterwards.
Beautiful truck though for sure and I'm really glad Onur got things straightened out for you

 

[Cmoney]

Proffitt

I thought it was just me! BTW, Does anyone have a good number to call Onur direct?

 

[yooper]

I thought it was just me! BTW, Does anyone have a good number to call Onur direct?

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