From Poverty Packin to Betty White: 1992 HZJ80 (1 Viewer)

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davegonz

Keeping it Weird
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Location
Austin, TX
It's been a couple of months now since I purchased Galen's @bottombracket 1992 HZJ80 from him. I have done some minor upgrades and plan on some big ones, so it was time to start my own build thread.

Here's Galen's original build thread that talks about how she came to the US: Builds - Poverty packin’: 1992 HZJ80 in Texas

"This ticked some serious boxes. Factory left-hand drive. 1HZ with 211,000 km. Air-conditioning. Part-time t case. E-lockers with full float rear axle, just added by Joe. Manual windows. No flares. Barn doors. No rust...and also not fancy. "


First things first. Betty White is her name and she's a cool old gal!



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What do you plan to use your truck for? Mission?
 
Nothing hardcore. Keep it simple and clean with a little turbo kick. Mostly daily driver and weekend camping/mountain bike hauler.
 
It’s about time you got your chapter of the story started, Dave!

As always, I look forward to see where you’re going next.

Turbo time...soon.
 
Cool Dave, she’s definitely a cool old lady. Let me know if you need a hand along the way.
 
One of the first things that I did was to swap out all of the brown/tan interior bits to the grey/blue. Luckily, Galen had collected almost all of the plastic components. I also ripped out the old brown vinyl flooring and lined the interior with Mat 66 that I got from Amazon. I then installed the new black vynil flooring that Galen had sourced from Australia. Man, that was a pain in the ass to install.

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The only remaining brown part is the dash. I ended up painting it grey with the SEM plastic paint that everyone uses. It came out really nice. I just need to find some time to install it now.

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Because of the funky 60/40 bench seat up front, there is no center console for storage. I needed something bad and couldn't find anything out there. So, I looked online on Thingiverse and found a BRZ cupholder. I printed it on my Ender 3 and it came out nice.


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Cim @Mr Cimarron came by one day at work to drop off some u-joints and I took a pic of his massive 6BT powered truck next to Betty. :)

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Since this will be a weekend camping/biking rig, I decided I needed some cargo management in the back and also wanted to install my ARB fridge slide. So, I built a cargo deck that will allow me to still be able to haul stuff (by removing the fridge). Just trying to keep it simple and flexible.

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Since the fridge needed power, I need to install a second battery and wire up some outlets in the back. Galen was making a big Partsouq order and was happy to throw in my battery tray and hold-downs. It is really cheap on Partsouq.

Poor man's dual battery setup. Not Overland Certified.

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Battery tray.

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For the battery isolator, I ordered a cheap one off of Amazon. It got good reviews and even came with cable for about $100. I wired it up and installed a 6 slot fuse block in the rear quarter panel for the USB and 12V outlets.

Amazon product ASIN B00WTAFR5W
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The rear ambulance doors kick ass, but you loose the tailgate functionality. So, I decided to build a simple fold down table on the larger one. It's still a work in progress and will get painted grey.

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This isn't my first 1HZ powered Land Cruiser. My first was Crusty. Crusty was a 1987 FJ60 that I did a 1HZ swap on.


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Betty White came stock with a normally aspirated 1HZ. Driving a 1HZ is like driving a 2F. She won't win any races, but can cruiser 70-75 with ease. So, like I did with Crusty, I'm going to turbo her. Initially, I was going to rebuild a CT26 from a 1HD-FTE that I got from Galen, but it turns out that it is in really bad shape. Cracked housing and some internal damage.

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If you have looked at the cost of turbos for the 1HZ/1HDT's, you'll see that they are freaking insanely expensive. I started looking for an alternative and heard good things about 1HZ's/HDT's running Holset HX30W's. I ran one in my old 4BT powered 80 and loved it, so I have some experience with it just not on a Toyota diesel.

@The Phoenician turned me onto a local guy that brings these in and his prices were really good. I think I paid $650 or so for a builders kit which came with the flanges, v-bands, gaskets, and oil inlet fittings.

Rodney McCabe at Benzforce will hook you up: HX30 Builder's Kit

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