Just got back from my first long road trip in the GX, annual Spring sporting clays lessons with my coach in North Chicago. Of all places, but he is one of the best in the Country and worth the drive to me. The GX is a game changer for long trips and looking forward to traveling more this summer and this fall exploring into the Sunset Country of Canada.
Before I left installed the Beatsonic Shiftpower not so much as a throttle response controller but for the anti theft throttle lockout. The peace of mind was well worth it for urban settings and sitting in hotel parking lots. With farm equipment on the roads now as they start work in the fields passing them with short open windows is nice, but was already impressed with factory response coming from a 2nd gen Taco that like a 4R can hardly get out their own way, just saying.
I really like Tinkerer's Adventure videos and watched it on my phone in the hotel room when you posted it. And just watched it on the computer this morning where I can actually watch it correctly. It is well worth the time thanks for posting it.
Put a smile on my face when the Lexus Chief Engineer Koji Tsukasaki said the Land Cruiser 300 is designed as a luxury vehicle and the GX is designed as a true off road vehicle. Some on here would have a coronary if they heard that LOL.
Many moons ago got tired of the bronze valve guides wearing out on the 2F straight 6 in my FJ55 so I used one of the first Man-A-Fre conversion kits to replace the 2F with a Chevy 350. Besides it was as good of an excuse as any to stuff a V8 in there. Started with an acid dipped bare block and built it up for low end torque. This is back when everyone else was installing wild eccentric cams for high end and I built for low end. When looking for a block my main concern was finding a 4 bolt main instead of a 2 bolt and I finally found one across the Sound over in Seattle. 2 bolt vs. 4 bolt main mean something different than a 6 bolt vs. ladder main today. But it all boils down to engineering strength in the support design of the bearings.
I missed the whole 6 bolt thing that came later and now the ladder main which is a huge change. Not sure if it is good or not, it may explain some things. As Tinker says maybe....
Favorite part of the video
V8 badge was in the mailbox when I got home. The Land Cruiser badge was delayed by USPS and should be here Monday. Trying to keep the GX "clean" but both are going on next week after watching that video