Don't Lose Hope !!!! (2 Viewers)

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Joined
Jul 31, 2005
Threads
12
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Location
North Texas
Don't Lose Hope !!!! cruisers are great!!

(caution long post)
Hi everyone! I am pretty new to the cruiser seen. And have seen a few posts the last couple weeks and some of you are loosing heart and thinking of selling there cruisers, so this is my story DON'T LOSE HOPE THEY ARE AWESOME. I have wanted one for 23 yrs and finally got the oportunity to purchase one last spring a 1985 fj60, Ahhhhh!! finally. My wife has lovingly nicknamed it "CHARLIE" . Not long after I brought it home it developed a real loud knock under load, with 187,000 miles I was a little concerned about what I would find. And it seamed like it started leaking from every seal and gasket on the truck. My driveway had a steady fresh coat of various lubes. It ended up needing a re-build, I lucked into a later model 2F out of a rollover that had around 90,000 miles on it, and the price was super, compression was great in all cylinders. So I opted for it instead of a re-build, and saved a ton. Se here is what I have done to my criuser in the last 7-months of ownership. I did all the work myself with the help of friends and family, and some of the great vendors on this forum.

replaced motor. Yanked it tore through it and the trans & t-case in 48hrs(with help of father-in-law, and a buddy trey) started sunday 7am drove it monday night 11pm.
all new seals and gaskets in motor and trans.
water pump
oil pump
powersteering pump

had to completely go through the madusa of a vaccume system and fix all leaks and replace all hoses and correct all errors from po

new bds lift w/ anti inversion shackles
bds shocks
ome steering stabilizer
nology hot wires
denso resistorless plugs
all new tie rod ends and steering links
wheels and tires
royal purple trans & diff fluid.
mobil one engine oil
man-a-fre ceramic headers

sound proof entire interrior,doors,rear bay all panels. (elemental designs) eDead V.1 similar to dynamat works awesome it made a amazing difference in interrior noise.

new door speakers
added rear speakers
I have a jacobs system I have not installed yet
k&n filter
all new hoses everywhere.

I just took my first road trip this weekend, It was awesome it drives like a dream. I cruised at about 65-70 (stock gears) so I was indicating about 12% less that actual speed had a pace car in front of me letting me know my speed. It rode great had o.k. power, for the flatter roads in east texas anyway. I had CHARLIE loaded down with mountain bikes and camping gear, and averaged 16.4mpg on regular unleaded. I am absolutely pleased with the outcome of the project so far, like all great projects they never realy end they just become a pet or another member of the family, and we are glad we brought CHARLIE in to the family. So don't lose hope they do take work, and some patience but this forum s great, and almost any answer you need can be found here.

I would like to thank you all for this forum it is great.
thanx to my father in law Pappy for the help
my wife who rocks! She likes CHARLIE
seery's garage in alvarado tx. awesome people!! thanx Ken
steve at man-a-fre
liquid off-road
protrux

pics.
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here are the pics of stereo speakers, and massive nology wires. The front rockford seperates really sound good, anything is an improvement over the stock ones though. The rear are infinity.
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Awesome work bro... tell me more about the sound proofing stuff....pwweeasss
 
The eDead sound dampening stuff works just like dynamat it is cheaper though, they manufacturer sells it on ebay his user name is (edesignaudio) it was very reasonable I used about 160sq feat to do the whole interrior all 4 doors, removed back panels and did fender wells and entire floor board up to windows and firewall. I cleaned the whole thing with acetone(use some rubber gloves, in a well ventilated area) it does a great job. I also used a heat gun and dynamat roller I borrowed from a friend it pretty much took a whole sunday to do, my wife helped, so it went fairly quick.
 
how much was the edead for the 160 sq feet?
 
Best color for a 60, and pretty darn rare, nice lookin ride!
 
Hey I started charlie when it was pretty cool out camping last weekend, it was the first real cool morning high 30's, that I started it. ran pretty rich until warm even with choke off. Is that common?
It went away and cleaned up once to normal operating temp.
 
yetiman said:
Hey I started charlie when it was pretty cool out camping last weekend, it was the first real cool morning high 30's, that I started it. ran pretty rich until warm even with choke off. Is that common?
It went away and cleaned up once to normal operating temp.

Did you check out the BVSV valves? There are pink and purple valves that mount on the right of the water pump up front that open and close depending on the temperature. One of them helps advance the timing when the cruiser is warming up.

Thanks for the writeup and pictures. I always enjoy reading about what people did to their cruisers.
 
When the engine is cold. <84 F

Put a vacuum guage on the line going to the main (inner) diaphram of the distributor.Start the cruiser and there should be no vacuum on the distributor there even when you rev it up. Just open the throttle valve on the carb and watch the vacuum guage.

Basically when it is cold it should not be changing the timing so if you have a timing light instead of a vacuum guage you check it that way too. Pull the vacuum lines going to the distributor..start the cruiser while it cold... read the timing...put back on the vacuum lines... see if it moves your timing.

Goodluck


Might be normal to run a little rich at first while it is warming up but this is easy to check.
 
did you put the sound stuff under the carpet? or replace the carpet? on the firewall is it in the engine compartment or the interior?
 
great post - but i'm can't see the pics? send em on over if you don't mind. i'd like to follow suit on the sound proofing stuff.

congrats on the improvements!
 
I pulled up the carpet and pad. we had to use the acetone to remove the glue on the floor. I just went as far up the firewall as I could inside the car, I would think you could use it under the heed also. In the rear bay we had already removed the carpet and made a rubber replacement for it so we just removed it and put the eDead under it. We put the carpet back down on top of the eDead in the front, you cannot tell it was ever removed, it was in real good shape though so the po might have replaced it at sometime.
loeky- I will get you some shots as soon as I can, I will try to flip up the mat in back and snap some shots of that also. I am going to add some more beneath the front seats I will shoot some shots of that also. I am going to put more over the tranny hump that should really quiet things down even more.

yetiman
 

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