I wondered the same thing. Posted about it here with the part numbers I used to fix it What have you done to your Land Cruiser this week? - https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/what-have-you-done-to-your-land-cruiser-this-week.255593/page-1679#post-14919905
How high can you drive an FJ40 in water without a snorkel?
- Thread starter Wadesters
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Like Mark said. depends on the year and how you've prepped the truck beyond stock.
This is my 78. The 2Fs generally have waterproofed ignition with the vent piped into the air cleaner. If you ran breathers on the axles, and T-case
high, you could wade as deep as the air cleaner intake
76 and 78 FJ40
Occasionally, when you get deep enough and the water is moving, you'll float downstream a little, so aim a little upstream of where you want to end up
Heres a place you can try it out. It’s less than a mile from my house. Before picture and pictures taken this morning.
It sucks when the neighbors forget to turn their sprinklers off
POPO AGIE
SILVER Star
I have had water up to my front fenders and my turn signals looked like periscopes. When I saw that the guys in the old Bronco would not follow I turned around and went back.
Mark W
Yep, I really don't really care that much I guess.
Looking at the old hard copy pics above brings back memories of our various adventures now filed away in shoeboxes
If ya take a good look at my avatar here... this picture is an OLD one. From right around 2000 IIRC. Pic was snapped on the Knik River during (obviously) a recovery run.
This is an example of how deep you can NOT go with a SOA '40 on 35s and a 350TBI. In moderate current too. Fortunately the rig wound up facing into the flow and in gear, and since the current was not fast, it stayed there until we made it back to the location a full 2 days later for the recovery. he got lucky. The Ford F250 that went in with him floated, drifted, rolled, tumbled and did not have a single body panel that was not crunched by the time it came to a stop a bit further downstream.
We did wind up rolling the '40 on it's side during the extraction. With the positioning, the direction we had to pull and the current, we expected that. After we re-rigged and completed the recovery, there was no damage from laying it on it's side. when all was said and done the ECU was replaced and so was the battery. No other damage or injury except to Jack's pride.
We have had a few other guys earn "Honorary Submarine Commander status" since then. Including myself. But he was the first to go that big. He entered the river on the far side BTW. Almost made it... or so he thought. At that location, he never had a chance of crossing all the way. He still had a lot to learn back then. Hell, we all did. Still do I am sure.
This next pic is a "very much not a big mistake" crossing. I forget whose rig this is. One of our visitors from the Alaska Cruiser Trek 2016. Crossing a tiny stream from one of the side lobes of the Chistochina Glacier, about 100 trail miles in. This was a *little* trickier than it seems in the pic. Narrow, but deeper than it looked as you started in. (The telephoto makes it look even narrower.) The water was washing over his hood until the front tires hit the submerged boulder. he was the last one through, so it had been figured out by then. A couple of the guys wound up dancing back and forth in the hole before they got up and one of them wound up deflecting the METAL blade of his Chevy clutch fan into the radiator. One of more than a couple field repairs on that outing.
Another oldie but goodie... 2011 the Alaska Cruiser "Notatrek" (no lower 48ers that year). Gokona River, about 1/2 mile downstream from the Gakona Glacier. While Steve was not actually broaching from the depths like a submarine blowing it's tanks, he was coming out of a hole that had the water completely over his hood. Kinda caught him by surprise since he was the first of the shorter rigs to cross and he did not take the height difference into account (he was on "4 inch lift" and 35s)
What the heck... since I am just cluttering the thread with old pics from the archives that don't really have any relevance... Here is one more.
This is definitely a "don't get complacent with water crossings" pic.
2003, on the lowest edges of the Chistochina Glacier. All the rock you can see here is actually on top of the ice. Acres and acres of it. piled over 100 feet high in places... and only a few inches in others. I was bringing up the tail end as we started to climb up the actual bare ice of the glacier when I found the hidden crevasse that was supplying ther water for the inches deep surface pond we were crossing. It was narrow... 3-4 feet at that spot. I actually bounced the driver side tire through it before the passenger side slipped in and... well, you can see the result. It was also deep. I have no idea how deep. Probably not more than a few dozen feet. Maybe a lot less. But after I slipped my drysuit on and grabbed the front bumper and pushed myself down beneath the surface just to see... my feet still didn't touch bottom. about 30 feet behind me, it widened out to about 6 feet wide... enough to have been a pretty awful spot to stumble into.
We rigged three winches to make sure I did not slip in worse and to get a slow controlled extraction. In the end, pretty routine and easy. But it made for a pretty cool pic.
In case you are wondering how we missed the crevasse... the glacial runoff water is grey. Like cement. You can not see through/into it at all. We know this and take it into account. But this wide flat rocky spot fooled us and no one expected there to be a crevasse lurking beneath. Ya live and ya learn. Assuming ya live.
Mark...
If ya take a good look at my avatar here... this picture is an OLD one. From right around 2000 IIRC. Pic was snapped on the Knik River during (obviously) a recovery run.
This is an example of how deep you can NOT go with a SOA '40 on 35s and a 350TBI. In moderate current too. Fortunately the rig wound up facing into the flow and in gear, and since the current was not fast, it stayed there until we made it back to the location a full 2 days later for the recovery. he got lucky. The Ford F250 that went in with him floated, drifted, rolled, tumbled and did not have a single body panel that was not crunched by the time it came to a stop a bit further downstream.
We did wind up rolling the '40 on it's side during the extraction. With the positioning, the direction we had to pull and the current, we expected that. After we re-rigged and completed the recovery, there was no damage from laying it on it's side. when all was said and done the ECU was replaced and so was the battery. No other damage or injury except to Jack's pride.
We have had a few other guys earn "Honorary Submarine Commander status" since then. Including myself. But he was the first to go that big. He entered the river on the far side BTW. Almost made it... or so he thought. At that location, he never had a chance of crossing all the way. He still had a lot to learn back then. Hell, we all did. Still do I am sure.
This next pic is a "very much not a big mistake" crossing. I forget whose rig this is. One of our visitors from the Alaska Cruiser Trek 2016. Crossing a tiny stream from one of the side lobes of the Chistochina Glacier, about 100 trail miles in. This was a *little* trickier than it seems in the pic. Narrow, but deeper than it looked as you started in. (The telephoto makes it look even narrower.) The water was washing over his hood until the front tires hit the submerged boulder. he was the last one through, so it had been figured out by then. A couple of the guys wound up dancing back and forth in the hole before they got up and one of them wound up deflecting the METAL blade of his Chevy clutch fan into the radiator. One of more than a couple field repairs on that outing.
Another oldie but goodie... 2011 the Alaska Cruiser "Notatrek" (no lower 48ers that year). Gokona River, about 1/2 mile downstream from the Gakona Glacier. While Steve was not actually broaching from the depths like a submarine blowing it's tanks, he was coming out of a hole that had the water completely over his hood. Kinda caught him by surprise since he was the first of the shorter rigs to cross and he did not take the height difference into account (he was on "4 inch lift" and 35s)
What the heck... since I am just cluttering the thread with old pics from the archives that don't really have any relevance... Here is one more.
This is definitely a "don't get complacent with water crossings" pic.
2003, on the lowest edges of the Chistochina Glacier. All the rock you can see here is actually on top of the ice. Acres and acres of it. piled over 100 feet high in places... and only a few inches in others. I was bringing up the tail end as we started to climb up the actual bare ice of the glacier when I found the hidden crevasse that was supplying ther water for the inches deep surface pond we were crossing. It was narrow... 3-4 feet at that spot. I actually bounced the driver side tire through it before the passenger side slipped in and... well, you can see the result. It was also deep. I have no idea how deep. Probably not more than a few dozen feet. Maybe a lot less. But after I slipped my drysuit on and grabbed the front bumper and pushed myself down beneath the surface just to see... my feet still didn't touch bottom. about 30 feet behind me, it widened out to about 6 feet wide... enough to have been a pretty awful spot to stumble into.
We rigged three winches to make sure I did not slip in worse and to get a slow controlled extraction. In the end, pretty routine and easy. But it made for a pretty cool pic.
In case you are wondering how we missed the crevasse... the glacial runoff water is grey. Like cement. You can not see through/into it at all. We know this and take it into account. But this wide flat rocky spot fooled us and no one expected there to be a crevasse lurking beneath. Ya live and ya learn. Assuming ya live.
Mark...
Last edited:
jim land
SILVER Star
jim land
SILVER Star
Looking at the old hard copy pics above brings back memories of our various adventures now filed away in shoeboxes
If ya take a good look at my avatar here... this picture is an OLD one. From right around 2000 IIRC. Pic was snapped on the Knik River during (obviously) a recovery run.
This is an example of how deep you can NOT go with a SOA '40 on 35s and a 350TBI. In moderate current too. Fortunately the rig wound up facing into the flow and in gear, and since the current was not fast, it stayed there until we made it back to the location a full 2 days later for the recovery. he got lucky. The Ford F250 that went in with him floated, drifted, rolled, tumbled and did not have a single body panel that was not crunched by the time it came to a stop a bit further downstream.
We did wind up rolling the '40 on it's side during the extraction. With the positioning, the direction we had to pull and the current, we expected that. After we re-rigged and completed the recovery, there was no damage from laying it on it's side. when all was said and done the ECU was replaced and so was the battery. No other damage or injury except to Jack's pride.
We have had a few other guys earn "Honorary Submarine Commander status" since then. Including myself. But he was the first to go that big. He entered the river on the far side BTW. Almost made it... or so he thought. At that location, he never had a chance of crossing all the way. He still had a lot to learn back then. Hell, we all did. Still do I am sure.
This next pic is a "very much not a big mistake" crossing. I forget whose rig this is. One of our visitors from the Alaska Cruiser Trek 2016. Crossing a tiny stream from one of the side lobes of the Chistochina Glacier, about 100 trail miles in. This was a *little* trickier than it seems in the pic. Narrow, but deeper than it looked as you started in. (The telephoto makes it look even narrower.) The water was washing over his hood until the front tires hit the submerged boulder. he was the last one through, so it had been figured out by then. A couple of the guys wound up dancing back and forth in the hole before they got up and one of them wound up deflecting the METAL blade of his Chevy clutch fan into the radiator. One of more than a couple field repairs on that outing.
View attachment 3736612
Another oldie but goodie... 2011 the Alaska Cruiser "Notatrek" (no lower 48ers that year). Gokona River, about 1/2 mile downstream from the Gakona Glacier. While Steve was not actually broaching from the depths like a submarine blowing it's tanks, he was coming out of a hole that had the water completely over his hood. Kinda caught him by surprise since he was the first of the shorter rigs to cross and he did not take the height difference into account (he was on "4 inch lift" and 35s)
Google Photos - https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipN1qWiFvwlVFqh9H_zKJNNMG76RVzSTEZV_0yAs
View attachment 3736630
What the heck... since I am just cluttering the thread with old pics from the archives that don't really have any relevance... Here is one more.
This is definitely a "don't get complacent with water crossings" pic.
2003, on the lowest edges of the Chistochina Glacier. All the rock you can see here is actually on top of the ice. Acres and acres of it. piled over 100 feet high in places... and only a few inches in others. I was bringing up the tail end as we started to climb up the actual bare ice of the glacier when I found the hidden crevasse that was supplying ther water for the inches deep surface pond we were crossing. It was narrow... 3-4 feet at that spot. I actually bounced the driver side tire through it before the passenger side slipped in and... well, you can see the result. It was also deep. I have no idea how deep. Probably not more than a few dozen feet. Maybe a lot less. But after I slipped my drysuit on and grabbed the front bumper and pushed myself down beneath the surface just to see... my feet still didn't touch bottom. about 30 feet behind me, it widened out to about 6 feet wide... enough to have been a pretty awful spot to stumble into.
We rigged three winches to make sure I did not slip in worse and to get a slow controlled extraction. In the end, pretty routine and easy. But it made for a pretty cool pic.
View attachment 3736634
In case you are wondering how we missed the crevasse... the glacial runoff water is grey. Like cement. You can not see through/into it at all. We know this and take it into account. But this wide flat rocky spot fooled us and no one expected there to be a crevasse lurking beneath. Ya live and ya learn. Assuming ya live.
Mark...
I remember those pics , some of the best years of the toyota trail magazine , tlca #4098
I agree! @Mark W when I first started getting Toyota trails I received the 2nd part of preparing your rig for water crossings. I hunted down the first part quickly for my collection. I haven’t done too many crossings and my first one I didn’t make it across! After reading the article I went about following the advice for my ‘77 and hunted down a ‘78 more waterproof distributor. Mark’s writings were the best in trails!
Mark W
Yep, I really don't really care that much I guess.
If I could go back and revisit some of those first articles that I wrote pre-Toyota Trails, which were later used there too, I would. I actually asked Woody years ago to pull one or two of them down after he wound up owning the outlet they were hosted on. He convinced me that less than perfect advice was better than no advice. Not sure I still agree. Some was and is still what I consider right. other stuff, not so much. Like I mentioned already, ya live and ya learn... if ya live. So far, despite a couple of particularly... less than ideal...choices along the way, I am still here learning. But I do not do, or recommend everything now like I might have 20+ years ago.
Mark...
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I remember well the article about the river recovery. It might have been the best tale in the early TTs.Looking at the old hard copy pics above brings back memories of our various adventures now filed away in shoeboxes
If ya take a good look at my avatar here... this picture is an OLD one. From right around 2000 IIRC. Pic was snapped on the Knik River during (obviously) a recovery run.
This is an example of how deep you can NOT go with a SOA '40 on 35s and a 350TBI. In moderate current too. Fortunately the rig wound up facing into the flow and in gear, and since the current was not fast, it stayed there until we made it back to the location a full 2 days later for the recovery. he got lucky. The Ford F250 that went in with him floated, drifted, rolled, tumbled and did not have a single body panel that was not crunched by the time it came to a stop a bit further downstream.
We did wind up rolling the '40 on it's side during the extraction. With the positioning, the direction we had to pull and the current, we expected that. After we re-rigged and completed the recovery, there was no damage from laying it on it's side. when all was said and done the ECU was replaced and so was the battery. No other damage or injury except to Jack's pride.
We have had a few other guys earn "Honorary Submarine Commander status" since then. Including myself. But he was the first to go that big. He entered the river on the far side BTW. Almost made it... or so he thought. At that location, he never had a chance of crossing all the way. He still had a lot to learn back then. Hell, we all did. Still do I am sure.
This next pic is a "very much not a big mistake" crossing. I forget whose rig this is. One of our visitors from the Alaska Cruiser Trek 2016. Crossing a tiny stream from one of the side lobes of the Chistochina Glacier, about 100 trail miles in. This was a *little* trickier than it seems in the pic. Narrow, but deeper than it looked as you started in. (The telephoto makes it look even narrower.) The water was washing over his hood until the front tires hit the submerged boulder. he was the last one through, so it had been figured out by then. A couple of the guys wound up dancing back and forth in the hole before they got up and one of them wound up deflecting the METAL blade of his Chevy clutch fan into the radiator. One of more than a couple field repairs on that outing.
View attachment 3736612
Another oldie but goodie... 2011 the Alaska Cruiser "Notatrek" (no lower 48ers that year). Gokona River, about 1/2 mile downstream from the Gakona Glacier. While Steve was not actually broaching from the depths like a submarine blowing it's tanks, he was coming out of a hole that had the water completely over his hood. Kinda caught him by surprise since he was the first of the shorter rigs to cross and he did not take the height difference into account (he was on "4 inch lift" and 35s)
View attachment 3736630
What the heck... since I am just cluttering the thread with old pics from the archives that don't really have any relevance... Here is one more.
This is definitely a "don't get complacent with water crossings" pic.
2003, on the lowest edges of the Chistochina Glacier. All the rock you can see here is actually on top of the ice. Acres and acres of it. piled over 100 feet high in places... and only a few inches in others. I was bringing up the tail end as we started to climb up the actual bare ice of the glacier when I found the hidden crevasse that was supplying ther water for the inches deep surface pond we were crossing. It was narrow... 3-4 feet at that spot. I actually bounced the driver side tire through it before the passenger side slipped in and... well, you can see the result. It was also deep. I have no idea how deep. Probably not more than a few dozen feet. Maybe a lot less. But after I slipped my drysuit on and grabbed the front bumper and pushed myself down beneath the surface just to see... my feet still didn't touch bottom. about 30 feet behind me, it widened out to about 6 feet wide... enough to have been a pretty awful spot to stumble into.
We rigged three winches to make sure I did not slip in worse and to get a slow controlled extraction. In the end, pretty routine and easy. But it made for a pretty cool pic.
View attachment 3736634
In case you are wondering how we missed the crevasse... the glacial runoff water is grey. Like cement. You can not see through/into it at all. We know this and take it into account. But this wide flat rocky spot fooled us and no one expected there to be a crevasse lurking beneath. Ya live and ya learn. Assuming ya live.
Mark...
That pic reminds me of Big Creek in the the Frank Church. Steep crossing in and out, then followed by a steep downhill - 4 wheel wet drums have like zero braking power for a ways. A little pressure on the brake pedal helps. Oh and no shifting while in the creek if you can help it.
Most logical answer I’ve ever heardIt is like this for backing your fishing boat in the water
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