Builds HJ61 Cruiser build

[TLC Norway]

If this writeup seems boring, let me know. or just dig in

Woke up and my lovely girl served me end my fellas eggs and bacon straight outta the tailgate. Best way to start the day!
SW got a bit late up, he was sleeping in the back of the 200, and called me up on the cell. "can you please come open the door for me?"
well, somehow the car couldn't be opened from the inside, behind the cargo barrier! Funny, and a bit scary
(some kind of messed up child-safety)

Spent some time putting in my t-stat, and the rear bolt of the housing just wouldn't tighten up. classic failure, just bad timing!
While i was digging around for a longer bolt to thread all the way through, Cas showed me a brand spanking new set of heli-coils.
Sweet, then i was able to use the oem bolt! I have to get a set like that!

We then could load our spare off the RTT and onto the trailer of Cas. And my spare Diff. and some other spares. And some spare beer.
The others eventually showed up, the blue LJ70, the CJ-lookalike and another hilux.
Off we went, and after a couple of hours SW decided he wanted to break in the diffs on the BJ70 with some easy flat hwy miles.
I drove the 200, my girl took over the 61, SW got his smile on in the BJ.
All went well, for many miles, we were joking and having fun on the CB.
Suddenly no cruisers were to be seen in my rear view mirror,
and Martin at the rear called out on the radio: SW out of the road, SW out of the road.
It sounded bad, and i had to drive a mile or so to find a place to turn around with the trailer.
Radio got silent. V8 unleashed its powers when i drove back to my friends, hoping no one got hurt.

The BJ was laying on the side in a deep ditch and was all banged up.
I got really worried when i saw the impact zone, it went down hard.
After a few frustrating seconds, SW showed up behind the car, and he was standing up.
We did the basic check on him, and other than beeing in shock, he seemed fine.
Torn up, of course, for wrecking the cruiser. We all had a moment of joy, for him beeing ok.

Medics, fire dept and police showed up within short time, in the middle of nowhere, and he was taken care of by the medics for a thorough check.

After some argument with the fire department, we got around to winch the cruiser out of the ditch, and we could easily see that everything was messed up.
Crooked frame, broken engine and tranny mount, front axle was displaced on the leaves, b pillar was pushing the seat into the center of the car, rear mounted batteries had come loose from their mounts, everything was pretty bad.
Amazing that he walked out of it, just bruised up. RF had hit the ditch first, flipping the car air borne, corkscrewed and landed on ds front corner and banged down on the drivers side, then slid back into the ditch while on the side.

 

[TLC Norway]

ok, now there will be a pause... "Security error occurred. Please refresh the page and try again."

i think the forum is giving me a break.
I'll need some sleep now, anyways. Ill post some more tomorrow!

 

[cruiserpilot]

Aw Geez, that's awful. I'm really glad your buddy was ok. Such bad. Damn...

 

[Pacer]

Damn! Ugly is right, glad everyone's okay.
We're you able to determine the cause?

 

[cruiser enthuiser]

If this writeup seems boring, let me know. or just dig in

Woke up and my lovely girl served me end my fellas eggs and bacon straight outta the tailgate. Best way to start the day!
SW got a bit late up, he was sleeping in the back of the 200, and called me up on the cell. "can you please come open the door for me?"
well, somehow the car couldn't be opened from the inside, behind the cargo barrier! Funny, and a bit scary
(some kind of messed up child-safety)

Spent some time putting in my t-stat, and the rear bolt of the housing just wouldn't tighten up. classic failure, just bad timing!
While i was digging around for a longer bolt to thread all the way through, Cas showed me a brand spanking new set of heli-coils.
Sweet, then i was able to use the oem bolt! I have to get a set like that!

We then could load our spare off the RTT and onto the trailer of Cas. And my spare Diff. and some other spares. And some spare beer.
The others eventually showed up, the blue LJ70, the CJ-lookalike and another hilux.
Off we went, and after a couple of hours SW decided he wanted to break in the diffs on the BJ70 with some easy flat hwy miles.
I drove the 200, my girl took over the 61, SW got his smile on in the BJ.
All went well, for many miles, we were joking and having fun on the CB.
Suddenly no cruisers were to be seen in my rear view mirror,
and Martin at the rear called out on the radio: SW out of the road, SW out of the road.
It sounded bad, and i had to drive a mile or so to find a place to turn around with the trailer.
Radio got silent. V8 unleashed its powers when i drove back to my friends, hoping no one got hurt.

View attachment 1122326

The BJ was laying on the side in a deep ditch and was all banged up.
I got really worried when i saw the impact zone, it went down hard.
After a few frustrating seconds, SW showed up behind the car, and he was standing up.
We did the basic check on him, and other than beeing in shock, he seemed fine.
Torn up, of course, for wrecking the cruiser. We all had a moment of joy, for him beeing ok.

Medics, fire dept and police showed up within short time, in the middle of nowhere, and he was taken care of by the medics for a thorough check.

View attachment 1122330

After some argument with the fire department, we got around to winch the cruiser out of the ditch, and we could easily see that everything was messed up.
Crooked frame, broken engine and tranny mount, front axle was displaced on the leaves, b pillar was pushing the seat into the center of the car, rear mounted batteries had come loose from their mounts, everything was pretty bad.
Amazing that he walked out of it, just bruised up. RF had hit the ditch first, flipping the car air borne, corkscrewed and landed on ds front corner and banged down on the drivers side, then slid back into the ditch while on the side.

Hate to see something like this. Hope your buddy is OK and the rig is not too jacked up.

-Ed

 

[TLC Norway]

We're so glad he could walk away from it, he was lucky. or should we say guarded by the cruiser.

Here im behind the wheel, and we're rigging to get it up to the trailer.

It was really slammed in there, and it was a special feeling rolling my friends truck out of the danger zone.
We were glad to hear from the medics, he was all right, just really banged up!
So out spirits got better, and the car was soon back on the trailer.
We regrouped, and drove two hours towards a pizza stop. still quite a few hours left til Rovaniemi and Misi, Mainari.
The event were closer than going home, so we tallked SW into going with us, he could at least co-drive.
Actually, he was determined to go buy a donor rig, right away... back in norway.

Everybody loves pizza. hilux is back there somewhere.

Later, an hour past midnigt, we arrived at camp/base for the upcoming week.
we were 8 hours later than expected. SW were beat up, so he went to bed with some painkillers to cope.

Arne and me gathered the awake members of the finnish 4x4club. After some beers and discussions, we dug in!
The car could not be completely restored right away, and since everything was shaped like a banana, we decided it would be driveable the next day.

After almost 30H straight, we fired it up again. SW was in awe.

We straightened the frame a bit, made custom engine mounts from a pile in a shop (i think theyre from a 4x) and drilled new holes for the engine mount to frame.
Put in a tranny mount from someones spares. Tranny had massaged the floor and exhaust up into the cab, so we got that back in order.
We took out the seat, and welded up the broken parts, back was broken clean off.
we used the PTO winch to pull out the b-pillar. Man, that's a tough pillar, it is reinforced like hell.
Body had to be massaged and door placement had to be reset. Firewall was cracked, and a-pillar from the roof down to the sill was warped, both sides.
Smittybuilt bumper sheared all bolts on the frame mounts, and went back into the body.
I think it actually did great, if he had hit that ditch without the bumper, engine would be in his lap.
front frame was bent into place to get the steeering box and front bumper aligned again.
pulled off the u-bolts from the u-bolt flip kit. They did awsome, u-bolts a bit bent, axle plates all good. SOLID kit, shoutout to Dave @lcwizard
Spring center pin was sheared, and we had to make another one for both sides, and get the spring packs back together.
After bending the u-bolts into a normal shape, not SS-Shape, axle was in.
Axle was pushed so far back that the driveshaft bottomed out against the transfer.
From what i could see, engine went forward, axle and driveshaft went back. fan was almost up against the rad.

Torn enginemount:

Jacking everything in place.

 

[TLC Norway]

i cancelled the first day of offroading, so we could button this rig up and get it running.
As we were drinking beer, wrenching and eating mosquitos, we could also admire all the good work SW put into this rig.

Thirty hours went by, and everything was working again! Except from the ds window, that was smashed.
We called all over the place to find one, but it was nowhere to be found, so we just massaged the door into functioning again.
here it is, a lot straigter than before. All doors working again. i think the only thing that still has its original shape, is the two rear doors.

(and yes, that is my toobag, had it since my first hilux when i was a kid)
You can see how far back the axle was pushed back, deforming the wheel well and firewall.

Fan shroud was also bent and deformed, we straightened it and fan will self-adjust the last bit. but radiator was all good. (again, thanks to a sturdy bumper)

 

[TLC Norway]

From what i could see, after straightening the steering rods, i think actually the ball in the panhard rod connecting to relay rod popped out.
That's the only thing that could explain the fact that he hit the ditch. His memories were vauge, but he seemed to remember the rig pulling to the right. TRE's were almost new.

The next day we could actually go wheel! next post will be videos, pictures and good times!

 

[Petoors]

I dig the Volvo C303 lurking in the background of a few of the photos.
Along with my FJ62, I also have a Pinzgauer 710K

 

[GLTHFJ60]

That's awful that the 70 flipped!! This should serve as a reminder, everyone needs to regularly check their steering joints!

 

[cruiserpilot]

Amazing story, not many groups are that tight and respectful in the face of adversity. Really glad your friend SW got
through it, and he built a good rig. Looking forward to more of the story. J

 

[TLC Norway]

Trail day one.
Woke early to hook up my winch power and a hardmounted toggle switch in the dash and in the grille. (above the turbo-tag)
Works perfectly! Took off the RTT since we were going trough some nasty stuff for a week.

Ended up in a group with Old Gold, small Cherryhoke, tricked out hilux and prepped up 120. Good setup, we made ways fast, and explored some logging trails to begin with. We were going into a are unknown to the organizers, so we had to get creative a few spots.
Two Norwegian, a Danish, a Swede and three finnish people guessing their way around the bush and rocks.
Solid rigs made way fast, except for the cherokee on 31s, he had issues every time it wasnt flat.

VIDEO!


Anette got to try out the 61 for the first time, and experience the snappy-throttle-syndrome!


(later that day i but on a return spring from the lower end of the brake shoes, makes for quite a heavy pedal, but easier to not let the weight of the foot unleash 250hp every bump)

 

[TLC Norway]

She drives better than some of my friends

i was planning to put this into a longer movie from the whole week, but i realized that would take me a week.

here's more, good terrain for her to learn about the cruiser, she just needs to hold on to the brake a bit more, down the drops. =)




Some tunes:

 

[TLC Norway]

Day one was easy, as you can see. Just a few spots that were steep, deep and for winching.
We drove from 9 in the morning to 6 in the evening, lunching in the bush, creating new bonds.

back to Basecamp Mainari, an old mining village from 50 years ago, now a trail and recreational center.

Day two, i hooked up with my norwegian crew again, and a few finnish guys. The rover ran 39's and portals.

Day two was getting a bit more interesting... Rocks, deep water, long stretches of mud/swamp.

Flexing over a ditch, not bad for ome heavy, still have the swaybar up front.


Sorry for my bad english, but i made this little video for a thread here on mud that i cant find again.
Thread was all about different mosqito solutions. And yes, this is by far the worst infected area i've been in!


adding some random driving here

 

[TLC Norway]

rover gets to unleash some power trough the portals and boggers:


Cas behind me, theres lots of bad rocks under the goo.


getting hung up on everything


after 7 hours of deep mud, people are a bit worn out, but the hilux and rover pulled us out of the worst.

 

[TLC Norway]

Hot comeup winch, but it just keeps pulling




60 finally pulling hilux.

 

[TLC Norway]

i gotta sort out the rest of pictures and videos from that day, there was some carnage to the others.

Later, thanks for watching!

 

[cruiserpilot]

I see a lot of siped tires. Mine are siped the day I buy them, its the most common question I get about my truck.
Is it easy to find a tire shop to do this modification there, or does one of you have the tool?

 

[TLC Norway]

I see a lot of siped tires. Mine are siped the day I buy them, its the most common question I get about my truck.
Is it easy to find a tire shop to do this modification there, or does one of you have the tool?

Yeah, most tires here get siped, I usually do the center, and keep the ability to stud them in the winter.
I had a tiregroover that went with the garage. Had a tip that made 3x sipes per draw.
On the stt's, I took out my stanley, just work it.

But most shops do it, as it is very common in trucking sizes also to siped up AS they wear, mostly for all-season or winter tires.

The boggers on the Rover above, was microsiped, you go two passed but half as deep. Awesome grip!

 

[cruiserpilot]

I think my guy does 3/16" cuts at 1/4" intervals for mine, but he has a tire rotating machine so its pretty quick and
has different heads for different depths and intervals. I'm going to have to go to Starbucks for decent internet to
watch all these videos. The hotel doesn't keep up. Sure enjoying them, J