Builds Fujiwara's 3 linked super daily (2 Viewers)

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It's probably time to start a thread. Hi, my names CJ and I like land cruisers. Here’s how I made this thing

My first "wheeler" was a 1999 Jeep TJ and it was kinda awesome and kinda terrible. It worked well enough for wheeling here in Montana but it was very light duty. It was hard to camp out of, had teeny tiny parts in it, and I really wanted to be able to keep up with my friends discover 2. I knew I wanted 33s maybe 35s (I thought they were giant), enough room to take anything I wanted camping, something quiet (compared to the jeep), and something I didnt have to immediately axle swap (dana 35s are for losers). So I started looking around on forums because toyotas were supposed to be good, I was checkin out tacomaworld, 120 series forums, t4r.org and then I stumbled on mud. I think I cruised through every beginner 80s thread I could read, kinda gathered what I needed, and then started cruising craigslist (who uses that anymore?).

My first 80 was a night shadow pearl obdII 95 land cruiser with 305k on the clock... pretty sweet. It was unlocked, had some armor, was mostly sunfaded into a weird purple, but it totally fit the budget. I was in love

 

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After a year of wheeling around montana a friend sent me a supercharged 96 with all of the fixins. It had arbs, rcvs in the front, 4.88s, 3.1:1 in the tcase, and a blower. It was an older build, had 2x6s as the sliders, and the most dry rotted toyos I've ever seen but it had good bones. I was somehow a good price so we drove an hour or two to pick it up.

The first thing was 315/75/16 general grabbers, I ran these for a couple years and I was really happy with them. They're by no means an aggressive tire but I never had a flat and these tires..... they went through it.

I bought the 80 with J springs and it was somewhere between 4-5" of lift. I think it came with slee plates too, I don't really remember. It was tall and drove super bad, like choppy, super over sprung, not enough caster kinda bad. It didn't flex well so I got a set of first gen dobinsons 2" tapered coils. Dahlia approved.

At some point in time I moved the expedition rack ( theres a picture of it somewhere), arb bumper, lights, and the drawer system from the last 80 into the white one. I also moved the electric seats over too but I never found the harness for the passenger seat in the white one, does anybody know whats up with that?

Anyway, the dobinsons springs were kinda stupid, they gave me like 4" of lift, were still over sprung, and sagged a ton, dobinsons warrantied one side but not the other. Whatever, they flexed as much as the 4' shocks would let it.

Oh I also cut the rear side wing things off of the body and made the bumper live ontop of the frame. I really dont like the look/ fuctionality of normal recovery points soooo I sandwitched the frame with 1/4" plate and put a 3" piece of DOM through the whole thing. Kinda cool and I think it looks nice and clean with a little frame chop.

 

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I also welded 3/16" 2x2 angle iron to the lower control arms. I really like this little trick, its been a couple years and I still haven't bent these.

 

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UUUUUUUhhh hhh sand hollow. super good, super creepy. If you're not careful you can find your self looking at a buggy line on a moderate level trail. It cool that you can kinda go wherever you want though but I have no idea where we went still 10/10 recommend.


The build as it sits

• arb non winch bumper with a smittybuilt 9.5k put in it
• 315/75/16 general grabber atx ( I likes these alot for a mostly street driven 80 they did okish on the big stuff) on stock wheels
• 2.5" dobinsons gen 1 tapered springs -- these gave me 4" of lift, sagged alot, and were very over sprung
• dobinsons 4" twin tube shocks--- these had 3" of down travel with a 4" lift.. they rode pretty bad and I blew one out in 40K miles.. maybe thats normal?
• 2x6x 3/16" rectangular tube sliders made by the previous owner
• my funny rear bumper
• the angle iron lower control arms
• Eimkieth radius arm drop brackets (big fan)
• powerstop z36 pads (these are terrible and I'll never buy them again)
• marlin crawler hd steering ( theres no flats machined into the tie rod or drag link so you have to grab them with a pipe wrench to tighten the jam nut (dumb)
• nitro 4.88s - these are good with 35s
• someones 3.1:1 low range gears - these should go on every 80... change my mind
• f/r arb lockers ( still haven't had any real issues with these other than the front taking a while to unlock because i have a bunch of moly grease washed together with my gear oil)

With what I know now..... I rate this at a 4/10. I liked the old school look but the suspension didnt work very well.

 

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I didnt change the 80 for a while so insert camping wheeling trip pics.

I was over the weird nagging stuff on the 80. It was to tall, to over sprung, not flexy enough. I measured it out and with a 4' lift and 4' dobinsons shocks I had like 3" of down travel. So dumb...

So I hunted down a set of trail tailor super long boy springs. If i'm remembering right I think the set I have wasn't even a production set..... kinda cool. I think I paired these front springs with a set of OME 861s with a 1" spring spacer. The front and rear had a perfect 2"s of lift and I had a friend weld on a set of Eimkieth Rams. This combo went very very hard.

Having a set of tall springs with a light rate with oem enough radius arm geometry made this thing drive suuuuper well. People don't appreciate how nice of a product Eimkieth makes. I never thought I was going to move on from this set up.

oh, I also threw in a set of timbrens from a 3rd gen 4runner. This kinda worked, the springs rubbed on them alot and timbrens squish alot alot. I stamped the 10.9 rating of the bolts that held them into the strike pad on the axle... oops

 

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More info on the springs, they were 25" tall and I noticed that the front flexed easier due to the lighter spring rate. Theyre for sale, someone buy them, DM me.

 

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I think by this time I started prepping for moab. it was my first trip and I wanted to fix the last stuff that I didnt like. I liked having a low ride height, flexy 80.... but I kinda clanged and banged on everything. The arb is beautiful, I mean its the perfect looking bumper, but its not exactly heavy duty. I chopped the wings up for more clearance and boxed them in but it didnt have any recovery points and was pretty low slung still so it had to go.

I replaced it with a bumper that a friend designed. I'll leave that for later though

 

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So the bumper got welded up before moab. It was my second big welding project and I was really proud of how it turned out. My welds definitely improved from the rear bumper. Even without the wings put on, it looks amazing. @1jzhilux has very good taste. I noticed a huge improvement from the arb which used to hang up pretty hard when I nosed the car into anything. I also got a set of light forces because weird old stuff is cool. Even if they're not that useful

Next big project was the sliders. I shopped around for DIY options and I didn't love how any of them looked so I called up another friend and he bent up a set of sliders for me. I wanted something tucked closed to the body, and well ..... wide. Which I definitely got. I liked the idea of kickouts but none of the available options seemed to kick out enough to really push the body away from the obstacle.

We flexed the cars out and then headed out to moab. The sliders definitely looked a little funny with the stock wheels and 35s

 

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Moab was a really big eye opener. My friends had been going for the last couple of years, knew how to wheel well, and I was not going to be the one to opt out of anything so I had to learn fast.

After spending the first day or two in the orielys parking lot, Steel bender was first because it was close to the airbnb. Three friends brought fresh builds that were completely untested so it was a bit of a miss. The sway bar mount broke on the sas'd 4runner so it was a little funky on off camber stuff. And another friend had to clearance for his 37" treps with a shovel. We turned around pretty quickly but overall it was a fund day.

While the fresh builds got worked on more, some us broke off and did fins because that's just what you do. The car felt super stable and seemed to flex well. I think put new bushings in before we er stuleft for moab and I blew the bushings out pretty quickly, It seemed to flex better as the day went on.


The next day we went back and did steel bender. It felt like a super long trail, with lots and lots of bumpy bits. But it turned out to be one of my favorites, theres lots of optional obstacles of varying difficulty so it was a nice next step for me. I had to psych myself up for the fall. Theres a steep ravine on the passenger side, you'd really have to mess up to go down it, but it makes the obstacle really scary.

shout out to yeti

 

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The next day was pritchet canyon I think? The idea was to do the hardest trail in the middle of the week so those who didn't trailer down had a couple days to fix stuff. This was a big jump from steel bender.... like a really big jump. The trail starts off with a handful of steep declines that you can't hit straight on. You end up having to dip one tire off of a shelf and pivot until you're squared up to the rest of the obstacle... creepy.

The first real big obstacle was chewey hill. It's a bunch of smooth ledges with a big hole on the far passenger side. The sas'd 1st gen 4runner and the sas'd 3rd 4runner both creeped up this in double low. How they got tractions still confuses me. Both of the 80s in the group struggled on this obstacle, the wheelbase seems to plant all 4 tires on leges so we winched it. After watching a ton of videos it seems like the line is at and angle and you have to just smash the ledge. I'm still too scared to do it.

This set the tone for the day. I winched alot!!! Next was rocker knocker? winched it. Broken step was next, I took the easy line . Then it was axle hill, I didn't even get a picture. Its a stupid obstacle and I don't understand how people just seem to walk up it. I guess stickies help but its ridiculous.

Next was son of rock pile, I took the easy line . And last was yellow hill. By now it was dark and I was super over the day so I bumped the hell out of the steep section at the beginning and flew up it way to fast. I hit a big hole near the top and 3 wheeled the 80. Thats the lasts obstacle on pritchett, but the trail back to the main road is really really long. Its full of random steep ledges after long sections of sandy dirt road. It was a nightmare

It was a super long day, we started at 12 (way to late) and got back to the airbnb at like 10:30 or 11 (way to late).

 

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My favorite trail of the week was definitely cliff hanger, if you're in moab I absolutely recommend this trail. The trail is fairly short and has just one obstacle after the other. We always go in march so the weather can be questionable. By the time we hit the last obstacle it started to rain/ snow on us. The extra width of the siders was definitely appreciated on some obstacles. I will say, it is small for this trail, pritchett was giant with lots of committing obstacles but cliff hanger is super pokey rocky. Two lockers, a 2" lift, and 35" all terrains will get you really far but I hit everything, like alot. I dented the both sliders and bent passenger slider bumping up the last obstacle. Despite this, I was having a ton of fun and started to feel pretty comfortable wheeling this thing.

 

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We wrapped up the week with Kane Creek. Despite having lots of sxs traffic it was a nice way to end the trip. There's lots of water crossing, some fun obstacles, and a really fun "choose your own" adventure section at the end with some big ledges. I bypassed hamburger hill but who cares. I made it through my first moab trip. The long drive home to Montana was only interrupted by my almost pooping my pants outside of salt lake.

 

[jpoole]

The long drive home to Montana was only interrupted by my almost pooping my pants outside of salt lake

Ha

Your writing and photos are really entertaining and, at least for a non-wheeler like myself, provide some interesting insights into the experiences had. Thanks for sharing.

 

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Ha

Your writing and photos are really entertaining and, at least for a non-wheeler like myself, provide some interesting insights into the experiences had. Thanks for sharing.

I appreciate that! That’s for reading

 

[family80]

Very cool good trip write up and photos

 

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Very cool good trip write up and photos

Thank you!

 

[GeoEng]

Awesome bumpers front and rear. Did you do any cad drawings by chance?

 

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Awesome bumpers front and rear. Did you do any cad drawings by chance?

I don’t, the rear was all hand cut and I don’t think my friend has any plans of offering anything for the front bumper

 

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After moab the 80 just kinda did the normal montana winter duty, spring duty, and then the summer camping season came. Lots of snow, a bit of wheelin, and a bit of campin.

At some point in time I got a set of xl80s and sold the light forces to a friend. The lightforces were cool but they beam patter was very very narrow (duh, theyre HID spots, I know). I snagged a set of xl80s for $500 off of market place and I really dont have any complaints.... other than the amber lense. Apparently it cuts the lumens by like 15%.

The build as it sits:

• my funny rear bumper (still not finished)
• @1jzhilux front bumper (just lovely)
• @arcworxs sliders that he bent up for me ( I welded them and then bent them on the moab trip.. i'm a hack)
• @trailtailor preproduction 2" front springs
• dobinsons 4" twin tube shocks
• timbren bump stops in the springs
• baja design xl80 (see opinion above)
• the angle iron lower control arms
• Eimkieth radius arm drop brackets (big fan)
• powerstop z36 pads (these are terrible and I'll never buy them again)
• marlin crawler hd steering ( theres no flats machined into the tie rod or drag link so you have to grab them with a pipe wrench to tighten the jam nut (dumb)
• nitro 4.88s - these are good with 35s
• someones 3.1:1 low range gears - these should go on every 80... change my mind
• f/r arb lockers ( still haven't had any real issues with these other than the front taking a while to unlock because i have a bunch of moly grease washed together with my gear oil)
• amazon snorkel
• marks4wd part time kit... i forgot to put that in the last "the build as it sits"
• Asisin hubs - I added these after the housing of he AVM hubs cracked when I torqued down one of the bolts (total trash)

With what I know now:

If you're trying to do moderate trails and daily this set up.... I give it a 8/10. It was excellent. It had good on road dynamics, flexed enough for moderate trails, and 35s are plenty big. Having a nicer monotube shock to smooth out the ride would be the only thing that I would really add.

If you're trying to hit hard trails I give it a 4/10. A 2" lift is too low and I had to bump big obstacles extremely hard. I bent the sliders, crushed the lower control arm brackets, and my exhaust was beat. My friends with taller rigs crawled up everything I struggled on. 35s are absolutely useless when you're stuck in a hole dug by a 40. The lack of clearance at the axle also caused the radius arms got stuck on almost everything. The oem fit dobinsons 11" front shocks and the 10" have a very short extended length compared to universal shocks and I really noticed the lack of legs under the 80 on large obstacles.

 

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Summer started rollin on and my friend got a set of 4x4 labs wings to finish his bumper. I liked the look alot so I followed suite. A beautiful bumper just made better, insert chefs kiss. I still haven't capped off the frame or cut off the little saggy wing things from the body but we're going to ignore that. I also didnt take any pictures of the car when it was on 35s will the bumper done so heres a picture from the future.