Full Circle. Back to a 62. (1 Viewer)

[BadReligion]

My first Land Cruiser was a grey 1990 FJ62 about 15 years ago. I was in college at the time and due to gas, maintenance, lack of a garage, and lots of rust (I didn't know any better and bought an east coast vehicle) I only had it for a year before selling. However, it got me hooked on cruisers and several years later as income improved, I bought an 80, followed by a 100, then a 200, then a 40, and finally I found a locally listed grey 1990 FJ62. It was overall in good shape, except it was just involved in an accident that took out the PS fender and headlight, roughed up the door, and dented the rocker. It is rust free, with the exception of some surface rust around the rear wiper arm. Interior was not in bad shape, with typical driver seat wear and a cracked dash. Paint is oxidized from sitting outside. I took it home for $4k so the price was right too. Driving it home brought back lots of memories. For some reason, it almost smelled the same as my previous 62 and the noise and vibration from the 3FE also seemed fresh in my mind.

With 5 cruisers, the next question was....what do I do with it? My 80 is pretty well built and mostly reserved as a trail truck, so why not have 2 trail trucks? My wife and kids really like the 62 and I can picture us taking it on Rubithon as a family, or on a slow trek out to eastern NV or even Cruise Moab. After a bit of thinking, I came up with a plan:

New PS fender, wheel well liner, headlight assembly and pull the rocker dent. Maybe fix the PS front door.

-Refresh the interior with new seat covers, dash, carpet, modern head unit and speakers, etc while retaining the factory look.

-Catch up on all neglected maintenance for the 3FE, but keep it. Rebuild the T-case and do a reduced low range gear.

-FZJ 80 axles with Trail Tailor's coil conversion kit. Then Harrop E lockers and 5.29s and either 35's or possibly 37's for tires.

-DIY repaint in same color.

-Sliders, bumpers, winch, etc to make it trail worthy


Here are some pics.

 

[BadReligion]

I have had it for about 2 weeks but have already ordered or received;

-new carpet kit
-new OEM dash (can't believe they are still available)
-new seat foam bottoms from SOR (don't get me started on the shipping charges)
-OEM muffler, oil pan seal
-various bits and pieces from City Racer, including some much needed OEM style hose clamps
-5 yards of reproduction fabric from SMS, along with 3 yards of reproduction vinyl

A lot if it showed up on the same day and of course my wife was the first to open the front door. Lets just say it cost me an expensive purse.

 

[BadReligion]

I also was able to locally source a PS FJ60 wheel well liner and fender. It looks like some slight modification will be needed, but nothing too bad. I am going to try a PDR kit to pull the rocker dent. If that doesn't work, I will weld on a few tabs and use a come-along to pull. Still need to source a headlight assembly and bezel/trim piece. Luckily the radiator support was not harmed.

The alignment was also off a bit and driving on the freeway was beyond 40 series sketchy. I suspected something was possibly bent from the accident when I took it in today for an alignment but could not visually see anything. Sure enough, the sector shaft was cracked with two spiraling horizontal fractures and twisted splines. Luckily it did not fail on the freeway, AND I had a spare 80 steering box so easy fix there.

Next order of business is the interior. I am going to pull the seats and door cards and send them to the upholstery shop. Fabric is about a month out so I may have to wait a bit. With the interior gutted, that will be the perfect time for sound deadening and new carpet install, along with dash, head unit, and speakers.

I'll have to source a wrecked or blown head gasket 80 so I can grab the axles, panhards, radius arms (spare steering box now too) and a few other bits for the coil conversion. The oil pan seal needs to be addressed ASAP before my wife banishes it from the driveway due to a pretty bad oil leak. There is evidence of a past coolant leak with non factory hoses and cheap hose clamps so those will be addressed too.

Right now my garage space is maxed out but we are building a workshop in the fall so some of the more serious body work and coil conversion will not happen until then....which is fine because there is plenty to do in the meantime.

This is going to be fun!

 

[BadReligion]

Here is a close up of the sector shaft. Splines are a bit twisted too. Will definitely put a 105 series sector shaft in the 80 box that is currently in the 62 before running 35s or 37s.

 

[OG SUV]

Keep posting your progress. Fj62 looks solid.

 

[BadReligion]

Keep posting your progress. Fj62 looks solid.

Thanks. It has good bones so its a solid starting point for a build. 3FE has 225kmi on it so plenty to go. I'll definitely update this thread as work progresses.

 

[cruisermatt]

If you're going on the rubicon I would hold off on any body or paint work. I'd throw a ram-assist on it too, unless you're going to put a saginaw pump on it the 3FE pump is going to need all the help it can get. Not only that but ram assist takes the stress off the box and that prevents you from needing anything special there, regular 60 or 80 box would be fine.

 

[BadReligion]

If you're going on the rubicon I would hold off on any body or paint work. I'd throw a ram-assist on it too, unless you're going to put a saginaw pump on it the 3FE pump is going to need all the help it can get. Not only that but ram assist takes the stress off the box and that prevents you from needing anything special there, regular 60 or 80 box would be fine.

Yes, I definitely don't want to put too much work and effort into a flawless exterior if it is going to be a trail truck, but I don't mind spending time on a DIY repaint. More often than not I can run the Rubicon "clean" in my 80, with the only body damage being the same spot....PS rear quarter, and always when going down Big Sluice for some reason. I'm hoping because the 60 series body is a bit smaller, even 1" will make all the difference between scraped metal and a near miss. Now Dusy Ershim on the other hand is a different story. That is a 100% guarantee of body damage and I will probably just continue to run it with my 80...which is well "clearanced" now for certain spots.

After the cracked sector shaft in the 60 box, it now has a stock 80 box. I have thought about ram assist before on my 80. If I go with 35"s, I think I will leave the 80 box alone, but if I decide on 37"s, I will definitely run a 105 series sector shaft and at least have the box tapped for hydro assist. Some good things to consider as it sounds like the 3FE power steering pump may not be as robust as the one on a 1FZ....which does struggle a bit with 37"s.

 

[cruisermatt]

I would actually disagree with that and in my opinion the Saginaw-inspired 3FE pump is likely a superior pump. But you can also just put a Saginaw on your 3FE pretty easily and have a really good pump. you’ll want hydro assist either way.

 

[BadReligion]

I would actually disagree with that and in my opinion the Saginaw-inspired 3FE pump is likely a superior pump. But you can also just put a Saginaw on your 3FE pretty easily and have a really good pump. you’ll want hydro assist either way.

I'll admit I do not know much about the 3FE. I assumed that most everything on the 1FZ was at least marginally better than similar components on the 3FE, but it sounds like that may not be the case with the steering pump.

I agree that hydro assist will take care of any shortcomings at either the pump or gear box. With a 105 series sector shaft going for $700+, it would cost quite a bit less to go with the assist and as you mentioned, keep the 80 box stock because at that point a lot of stress would be taken off the box. My only concern with the assist would be "touchy" steering on the highway. I've heard a few people complain about that...but like anything, if set up properly, I'm sure it wouldn't be too noticeable. Couldn't be any worse than the vibrations and wobble caused by beadlocked 37" bias ply tires balanced with beads.

 

[cruisermatt]

1.5” ram should be fine. I’m about to put one on mine.

 

[BadReligion]

1.5” ram should be fine. I’m about to put one on mine.

If you don't mind, take a few pics of your set up when you get to it.

 

[cruisermatt]

If you don't mind, take a few pics of your set up when you get to it.

Yeah I will, but my setup will not Ben a good one for you to copy since it’s completely unique to my truck. If you’re doing the 80 front end stuff then it should be just like putting it on a 80

 

[BadReligion]

Finished a few small projects over the last 2-3 weeks. First and foremost was getting rid of the massive oil leak from the oil pan. I was somewhat prepared for a messy job but it was worse than expected. Even with adequate wrenching spec PPE and a thorough hot pressure wash of the undercarriage, I still had to rinse gobs of oil caked dirt out of my mouth and eyes on more than one occasion, always fun. The bottle jack on the frame trick helped loosen up the pan, but it still took a few good whacks with a 2x4 and mini sledge to knock it loose. I now know why some people simply replace the pan, you can beat it off and not worry about warping it, plus it saves lots of time on clean up of the petrified cork gasket material.

I followed @Onur 's method for using FIPG on the oil pan to hold the gasket in place, then used a floor jack to position it before torqueing it down. Started up the 62 and no leaks! I checked all the fasteners one more time with the torque wrench once everything was warm. I am now allowed to park in the driveway. I think there may be a small transmission pan gasket leak too but that will be easy in comparison.

With the main oil leak taken care of, I needed to figure out why I had neither heat nor cold air. The AC was an easy fix after hooking up a manifold gauge and seeing very low pressure on both the high and low sides. System was already converted to R134a so 1.5 cans of R134a later I now have ice cold AC. I'll keep an eye on pressures and if they slowly drop this summer, there is probably a leak in the TXV at the evaporator or possibly a connection at the condenser.

I was surprised that I had no heat until draining the coolant, which looked like something oozing out of Chernobyl. After a good flush, I had finger burning heat again! However, it looked like every single hard coolant pipe was bent at the connection to the coolant hoses so I had to order up replacements for all hard and soft lines, and a radiator as the lower outlet was more of an oval than a circle and leaking. This will be a project for another weekend. I'm also going to delete the rear heat because it is more or less pointless and one more potential failure point for the system.

Next on the list was to replace the rotted out muffler. It was pretty bad once removed. I'm guessing the PO did lots of short trips around town so the exhaust system never had a chance to fully burn off any condensation. For all of the holes, a mostly unmufflered 3FE actually isn't too loud. It was marginally more quiet with the new muffler. At least it should be able to pass smog now.

Last was the rear bumper. Even though this is going to be a wheeler and I'll eventually build one out, it just didn't look right without a rear bumper and they are still available from Toyota so why not.

Almost forgot the best $4 I spent on parts, the retaining clip for the hood prop.

I also picked up a donor 80 for parts for the coil conversion. I still need a FF rear but it should have everything else and I have a promising lead on an insurance totaled factory locked FZJ 80. Plan would be to trade the e-locked axles for some non locked ones since I want to do Harrops.

You know you have a problem when you have to pick up another shipping container for overflow parts storage. I was able to source a FJ60 front fender and wheel liner, along with a 62 headlight assembly and rocker patch panel to take care of the PS front end damage. The cooling system refresh, along with a valve adjustment, gasket, and inspection cover gasket are next on the list but I hope to get to the body work later this summer.

 

[OGBeno]

Damn dude! Your addiction has gotten even more serious!

 

[RenB]

I always felt my parts hoarding was over the top but you got some serious stock ! Nothing wrong with some rainy day parts though one day they'll be hard to come by

 

[BadReligion]

Damn dude! Your addiction has gotten even more serious!

Ha! Well lets just say I have a few bad influences. The 70 series section is not helping either!

Are you going to make it to this year's Rubithon?

 

[OGBeno]

Ha! Well lets just say I have a few bad influences. The 70 series section is not helping either!

Are you going to make it to this year's Rubithon?

Yup.

Bringing the family, Kristian?

 

[BadReligion]

Yup.

Bringing the family, Kristian?

Awesome. Looking forward to catching up. Maybe not this year with the family. I think they could do it but a 2 and 4 yo would be a lot of work. Next year may be different.

 

[OGBeno]

Awesome dude. See you at the end of June.