Dutch LX450/landcruiser hybrid (1 Viewer)

[FZJFreddy]

As a long time lurker, I recently figured it is time to make a account and a build thread to document my 80 series journey and hopefully give some folks a bit of entertainment on the way.

Im a Kiwi (New Zealander) who emigrated to The Netherlands. To get a bit of New Zealand back here in Holland I decided it was time for a chunky 4x4. So my search began, ideally I wanted a HDJ80 but because the road tax is heavily based on the fuel type (diesel road tax is twice as expensive as petrol) and the fact that older diesel vehicles are not allowed in a lot of cities anymore in The Netherlands I settled on a petrol. Secondly there was the challenge of finding a good one, they where barely sold new here (the Lexus variants not at all) and due to all the salt spreading in winter all the ones which where sold here are mostly not in great shape.

Over the span of about three quarters of a year 3 petrol 80 series came for sale in Holland, I looked at all of them but they weren't great, also had a look at a few in the surrounding countries until I eventually stumbled upon this LX450:

It wasn't the ideal car, first of all it had a wrong badge, I won't lie I'm a bit of a toyota fan. Besides that it was an automatic, has way to much luxury items (eg. things which can break) does not have f/r diff locks, in need of quit a bit of maintenance, has the nasty roof rack and did I mention the wrong badge on it?

It was however a competely rust free car (imported from US since they where never sold new here) and rust free is by far the hardest thing to find here, so I became the proud new owner of this 80 series (with the wrong badge). Still quit the improvement over the daily driver it was replacing:

Unfortunately the lack of maintenance on this thing already caught up with me on the drive home from picking it up. CEL and multiple codes, so the maintenance began
- Most of the EGR system rebuild or replaced.
- Changed the exhaust since the cats where burned out (at the same time I went from the twin cat to a single sports cat).
- Put in a new steering box after trying to adjust the old one and realising it was unsalvagable.
- Changed the wiper motor since on the same drive home one of the magnets inside came lose and grenaded the thing on the inside
- Took the (in my opinion) horrible looking side steps off
- And finally changed the dried out old tyres for some new rubber, BF Goodrich KM3 in a more modest 33" instead of 35" with stock height

 

[FZJFreddy]

BTW Sorry for the lack of pictures, Im not great at making them but once I have caught up to where we are Ill try make some more picture with all future work

After that the CEL codes where solved and I drove it arround for a while untill the next bit of maintenance:
- All rubber bushes
- Completely rebuid both axles
- Rebuild/ replaced a lot of the brake components since it was pulling to one side when braking
- Replaced the altenator when it went out suddenly (amazingly this happened at home for once)
- Replace one of the famous shaky mirrors (didn't bother me but failed the inspection)
And even got a chance to fix up some small cosmetic items:
- The window trims
- front mudflaps to replace the side step caps

Then unfortunately at some point when minding my own business driving around the rear windscreen shattered, up until this day I have no clue what caused this but gladly I managed to find a second hand one:

In the next unfortunate event the car failed inspection on the headlights (apparently the reflectors inside where not good enough anymore and therefore the beam pattern was completly out of wack). So I did the only sensible thing, and changed the entire front to a NOS set of the down under style quad headlights
It was not supposed to be a high prio items but since the headlights had to be changed it made sense to do it now. And they dont fit with the lexus grill so I even had a good excuse to replace one of the "wrong" badges

 

[FZJFreddy]

Now I was getting quit keen to get the poor little thing sitting a bit higher. The old springs was sagging a bit and not very comfy on speedbumps. Of course, me wanting to do everything the right way once I decided to do the bumpers first so that the new springs have more or less the right weight sitting on them.

I started with the rear bumper mainly because the spare wheel didnt fit underneath the rear if the tow hitch was installed so I was getting quit sick of lugging the spare wheel around in the boot taking up space
Unfortunately due to the lack of these kind of cars in Holland the aftermarket support is not great, and a lot of US companies just won't ship their products to europe. Unfortunately this is also the case with SLee, as I would have loved a slee rear bumper. The best option I eventually found was gobi-x, a south african brand. The bumper design is pretty decent and its quit a bit lighter and cheaper than the ARB bumper but I still regret this decision, The departure angle isn't that great and the powder coating quality is pretty average, already showing rust spots a year after installing without any serious offroading).
So maybe I'll find something different in the future or custom make one.

Next up was the front bumper, and eventhough there is only a few option availabe in europe I didn't mind this time, because I love the oldschool look of the square ARB bumper, eventhough it is probably not the lightest/best.
So off went the old and on came the new one:

The theory proved slightly different than expected. It drove like a pig with the already saggy suspension when all the added bumper weight was also added
So shortly after I figured it was time for the lift kit, I was planning to go with a 3" lift but settled with 2" lift over stock height to save myself the hassle of changing panhard mounts, swaybar and bumpstop extenders etc.
Maybe I will still go that route in te future but for now I am quit happy with the 2" lift. Due to the saggy suspension and added weight of the bumpers the 2" kit actually resulted in between 3 and 4" of lift over how it was sitting before I guess it was due time:

The observant might see that I also couldn't resist putting a cheeky snorkel on around the same time and found some one piece third row windows which don't make constant howling noises on the highway and are actually water tight . Looks a lot better already in my opinion!

 

[FZJFreddy]

The list of what "needs" to be done to it keeps growing like with all projects so Ill try to post every time I change something. But to give you a sneak peak into my plans for the coming time:

- Manual conversion: I am planning to swap out the auto for a H152 manual but am still waiting on some of the harder to find things like the pedal boxes before getting started and ordering the new gearbox/all other new parts from toyota.

- Diff locks, after the manual conversion it will be time for the diff locks (probably aftermarket E-lockers on OEM switch) and ring and pinions to fine tune the ratio's after the manual conversion.

- The interior is in quit good nick to be fair but it does have the famous cracked dash and the door panels are not perfect anymore. Since I am not a fan of all the luxury stuff (eg breakable stuff) I plan to simplify it dramatically.
I have managed to order a new dashboard today (12 weeks wait from japan though ) and have also collected about 1.5 extra brown interiors over the past few years. With all those parts and some reupholstering I hope to be able to make one good interior with some aftermarket manually adjusted front seats and a cloth rear bench seat. simplified door cards

After this I am not sure yet, maybe some cosmetic items like getting rid of the OEM roofrack and side plastics or working on the overlanding side of things but who knows, the list and priorities keep growing

 

[CalnSam]

It wasn't the ideal car, first of all it had a wrong badge, I won't lie I'm a bit of a toyota fan. Besides that it was an automatic, has way to much luxury items (eg. things which can break) does not have f/r diff locks, in need of quit a bit of maintenance, has the nasty roof rack and did I mention the wrong badge on it?

what luxury items are you referring to? i have had 3 lx450s and 2 land cruisers and they have all been equipped the same

 

[FZJFreddy]

Most NZ models I was familiar with didn't come with electric seats, had manual heating control, definitly no cd changer/subwoofer. electric antenna, cruise control, automatic climate control. etc
I personally like cars as simple as possible, because in my experience that makes them as bulletproff as possible, so no sunroof, no A/C, Diesel. manual gearbox, windows, seats, mirrors, antenna, etc.
And if something goes wrong, it makes diagnosing the issue in the middle of nowhere significantly easier as wel

 

[FZJFreddy]

Just a little up date, the new to me clutch and brake pedal assemblies arrived today.

Bit rusty, but hey beggers cant be choosers nowadays. Started stripping them down and cleaning them up straight away, the brake pedal is in nice condition, and I can reuse my current brake pedal mount from the auto brake so I dont have to use that rusty bracket.

Clutch pedal disassembly and cleanup

Unfortunately the CLutch pedal is more worn, the bracket is cracked in a few places and the clutch pedal itself shows pretty heavy wear too

I should have another set on the way from france, I had a feeling this could happen so I'm hoping that the clutch assembly of that one is in better shape.
I'll still weld up the crack and the hole to redrill and restore this pedal, and for the manual conversion use the best set and the sell on the second for someone else to enjoy.

 

[FZJFreddy]

Time for a little update, I have been adding some little bits here and there.
Starting with some maintenance, all of a sudden I had three leaks, coolant, oil and brake fluid. The oil leak was easily fixed, only a new rocker cover gasket needed. The coolant was collecting on top of the thermostat housing, so like many before the o-rings in the bypass tube had gone bad.
The brake was the easiest, it was the rear brake load sensing valve which started dripping, nothing to significant but it was changed anyway for peace of mind.

Then the new seat belts arrived which I had ordered a while ago. The original ones didn't retract properly anymore and the buckle of the passenger side was broken (the plactic has become to brittle. So I didn't bother trying to rewind the spring a bit more and just got two new ones, unfortunately they where only availble in grey and from a HZJ80 on the passenger side, so they look slightly different:

Eventhough the look is a tiny bit off, they feel amazingly smooth compared to the old ones and its refreshing not having to check if they are not between the door and the doorjam constantly.
When installing them I noticed that the bottom of the pillar has foam inside, do all of these have this, it doesn't look like the most professional job so I was wondering if it has just been done by the PO.

It was nice to see that not much of my car has been messed with before, there are multiple panels which still have pieces of the original cellophane underneath:

Overal I was quit happy with the end result:

 

[FZJFreddy]

Next up was a very anoying sound, for documentation sake in case it helps someone else in the future it happened mostly around 1350 RPM, but also at a few other RPMs. The sound was a scratching sound like there was a stone jammed between the brake disc and the disc shield. It only happend during acceleration and not while coasting/deceleration.

So the search began, first I took the heat shields of the exhaust manifold (mostly because the local LC specialist said it could be a heat shield) but with no result. I have ordered some new ones though because while taking them off I had a good look at them and they are munted. Cracks throughout, some of the mounting holes are bigger than the pillar they bolt to etc. So they should come in a month orso.

Next I changed the A/C idler pulley, it didn't solve the noise I was looking for but it was due time too, the bearing was comepletely shot and it idles significantly more silent now.

Then I discovered some play in one of the front driveshaft u-joint so I wanted to go for a drive without it to see if this causes the anoying sound. This seemed like the perfect excuse to install a CLD switch since i've had it on the to do list but never made time for it. Gladly they had it in stock so I stuck it in and did the 7pin mod at the same time. I didn't make much pictures because it is wel documented already.

Unfortunately this didn't resovle the annoying sound so I just stuck the driveshaft back in and will get the u-joint changed during the next inspection.
After frustratingly banging everything below the car with a rubber hammer to try find the noise eventually I figured out it was the cat shield. So I did a very professional wiring job until I can borrow a welder for a minute somewhere to tack the bugger back to the cat. I am a bit disappointed with the quality here though because the cat is about two years old. So maybe I just got unlucky but I was expecting more from OEM parts. In case you are wondering why the cat looks like this, I changed the exhaust system 2 years ago and simultaneously went to a single cat which is actually tucked in far enough not to drag over rocks.