From Japan to my garage: RHD UZJ100 LC- my first post and first Cruiser

[frawstme]

@frawstme, I share your frustration with the non-telescoping column. I didn't even know that was a thing until we got this one, and then I assumed maybe it was a pre-'03 thing, but apparently not. I'm tall, but not crazy tall, so it doesn't bother me all that much.

Other PO mod I remembered today was pretty bad LED headlights--fortunately no wire butchery, and I was able to remove them and put some nice bright halogen bulbs in so I could stop blinding traffic.

One other thing I love--the passenger side mirror dip when in reverse (only works when right or left on the mirror adjuster is selected--having the selector in the middle cancels this out).

And one other thing I hate--the hilariously pointless interior backup beeper. I suspect those are required by law in Japan, and originated when most transmissions were manual and it was a little tricky to know if one was in first or reverse, but now they're a little ridiculous. I have looked up how to delete the beep but just haven't gotten around to it. Like about 4000 other things. . .

The seller removed the LED lights for me but didn't remove all the wiring, I took care of that a few weeks ago. Must be pretty common in japan.

I'll have to check out the reverse mirror thing, I actually didn't know about that lol

I think you can pull a fuse for the backup chime? Not sure which though. The easiest is to unplug and remove the black rectangular box that is to the upper left of your left foot when you're sitting in the drivers seat. It's kind of tucked behind some wires that are all disconnected (meant for power steering column i think).

In other news I got my wolfbox installed yesterday, then my windshield button fell off. So now I'm letting it cure for longer this time and hoping it sticks. The issue i'm currently having is that the ODBII on these cars provides continuous power and the mirror doesn't know to go into park mode, so it just stays on 24/7. Think im gonna have to get a fuse kit or something

 

[mdcoa]

The seller removed the LED lights for me but didn't remove all the wiring, I took care of that a few weeks ago. Must be pretty common in japan.

I'll have to check out the reverse mirror thing, I actually didn't know about that lol

I think you can pull a fuse for the backup chime? Not sure which though. The easiest is to unplug and remove the black rectangular box that is to the upper left of your left foot when you're sitting in the drivers seat. It's kind of tucked behind some wires that are all disconnected (meant for power steering column i think).

In other news I got my wolfbox installed yesterday, then my windshield button fell off. So now I'm letting it cure for longer this time and hoping it sticks. The issue i'm currently having is that the ODBII on these cars provides continuous power and the mirror doesn't know to go into park mode, so it just stays on 24/7. Think im gonna have to get a fuse kit or something

So the wolfbox plugs into the OBDii port? JDM cars didn’t go OBDii until crazy late—2006, maybe? So our 100s are OBD I, but they have a connection that is basically an OBD II port but it’s only for Techstream, Toyota’s diagnostic software. So that might be why you’re getting strange results.

Re the backup beeper I believe it’s a tiny speaker that’s part of the main instrument panel circuit board, so I just need to find 20 min to pull that and de-solder the speaker….not sure when that’ll happen.

 

[frawstme]

So the wolfbox plugs into the OBDii port? JDM cars didn’t go OBDii until crazy late—2006, maybe? So our 100s are OBD I, but they have a connection that is basically an OBD II port but it’s only for Techstream, Toyota’s diagnostic software. So that might be why you’re getting strange results.

Re the backup beeper I believe it’s a tiny speaker that’s part of the main instrument panel circuit board, so I just need to find 20 min to pull that and de-solder the speaker….not sure when that’ll happen.

That's odd, it really is the same connector that OBDII ports use. The pins that wolfbox use on their ODBII plug are 16 and 4 which are 12v and ground on ODBII and that's what they are on this connector as well, so even if it's not ODBII that isn't actually an issue. I did more digging and it's because these cars don't drop voltage when they cut off like most other cars do, so the camera doesn't know to go into parking mode. I will have to get the fusebox adaptor

Well, when my new wolfbox comes in I will have to. Mine stopped working last night and there's nothing I've been able to do to get it working even when plugged into a wall outlet

 

[mdcoa]

Yeah, we have emissions here, so I had to explain to the garage that this is OBD I, and I had already talked to the state about it….and after the inspection they asked “why the heck is there an OBD II port on there? That doesn’t work for OBD II?”

 

[frawstme]

eyooooo my tc kit finally shipped, im gonna have both the headers here and these parts by next week. I wonder which to do first

 

[frawstme]

It's been a while since I've updated this thread, I've been working on my headers and transfer case regear.

Thread 'LC100 headers install and tcase regear'

May 24, 2026

Both the parts for my transfer case and headers are arriving this week, which is kind of unexpected since the gearset was on backorder. Initially I was going to do both of these jobs seperately as I am not a super experienced mechanic and they both feel like large jobs to me. I'll be the first to admit that I wildly overthink things, but is my logic right in thinking that this will be easier to do both at the same time?

I went with Rhino exhaust headers and cats

Click here to skip 80 posts straight to write up for Rhino exhaust long tube headers install
For the...

• frawstme
• 100 series headers lc100 regear transfer case
• Replies: 91
• Forum: 100-Series Cruisers

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I'm almost there..

Going to finish up getting it all together today hopefully

Got my dobinsons rear springs in

I was kind of expecting it but because I removed the 50mm spacers the rear now sits about an inch and a half lower. Haven't had the chance to drive it yet to see how it does

I also had to replace my heater tees during this process, flush my coolant, and drain and fill my trans. It's been out of commission for a bit more than 2 weeks at this point

 

[frawstme]

didn't finish today

Got driveshafts installed and my springs reseated. Then cycled my coolant and got all air bubbles out, added 6 quarts of ATF.

The cats don't line up with my catback nor can they be forced to

the tcase is behaving oddly, CDL will not engage. The teeth in the motor must be off by a small amount, I will have to disassemble.

As I said, I put 6 quarts of ATF into my transmission, drove around the town to warm it up. No vibrations from the drivetrain, no odd studdering or bad behavior from tcase. Couldn't tell about noise because my exhaust is absolutely screaming right now. It was shifting badly, though.

Checked fluid with car running when I got back, it wasn't even high enough to reach the dipstick. Put two more quarts in and it was just enough to touch the bottom of the dipstick. I don't have any more ATF unfortunately, gonna have to buy probably 4 more quarts for a total of 12.

I tested low gear after adding my last two quarts, im unsure of what to think. It was crawling fine, but shifting HARD. Can't tell if that's a trans thing from low fluid or tcase issue.

I'm gonna bring the exhaust to a muffler shop once I get my ATF sorted, tired of dealing with this job lol

 

[frawstme]

you can't tell in the pic, but that cat tube is so out of line that it's pressed against the tcase.

I opened a ticket with rhino and they say that it's because my RH motor mount is dead and that's causing the offset. The factory cats were sitting correctly before installing the headers, though. Is it possible that lifting the passenger side compressed the RH side motor mount so much that it's now failed?

 

[frawstme]

I'm getting paranoid about my transmission. Drain and fill was supposed to be 6 quarts but I've poured 9 in so far and the dipstick is still two inches below the cold mark. There's ATF fluid on the edges of the dip stick a bit further up but to me that looks like where the oil stick is dragging on the side, there's not a real line of ATF on the dipstick

This is while the car is running of course.

 

[frawstme]

No real updates, just been working things out with my trans and transfer case.

I found the issue with where i was losing trans fluid, it was circulating into my transfer case. took it apart and fixed it.

I've done two drain and fills and the fluid in my transfer case still has some pink in it, it must not circulate as well as I thought.

I got a muffler shop to take care of my cats not aligning correctly and its been great so far.

Did my pcv valve, although it turns out I didn't need to. The entire job took less than five minutes though, was extremely easy and the parts were cheap from amayama

I'm still trying to resolve the squeek that's been driving my crazy the last four months in the rear of my car. Wasted my time replacing all those bushings because I found out that the issue is the parking brake assembly

It's not in bad shape and doesn't seem to need to be replaced. However I partially disassembled it and cleaned it up then sprayed it down with WD-40. That didn't at all fix the noise

am I missing something here? It only happens over bumps, and when I pull the cable I can replicate the noise easily. It's not a noise coming from inside the drum but from the exterior here that's pictured. It SEEMS like it's coming from the springs themselves but I'm not 100% sure

I've eliminated the outer attachment that the line connects to with the shim, it's either the springs or the bellcrank but even after lubricating both of them it still makes that annoying noise

 

[frawstme]

New video · Sunday, Jun 28 🎬

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it's not the springs and I was wrong, it's something inside the rotor area. Annoying, I just did rear rotors a month ago