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As FJ60's ended in 1997, I will say it as least 31 years old.
As others said $500 is not nearly enough and if you seriously think that is all you want to spend then...sorry to say....get a new car with free oil changes. Even a 10 year old vehicle will cost more than $500 per year on average (it may be fine for a couple of years them bam you are hit with a 2 or 3K bill in one shot) You are looking at an old vehicle here, they break down and need to be repaired. Even if you think you can do it, forget it.
A radiator for these cost over $400 alone.
When you first get it plan to spend at least $1500-2K on overdue maintenance and other repairs if you do most of the work yourself.
Not being able to do any repairs yourself, that thing will nickle and dime you to death at the repair shop.
Download the manual for it form here For Sale - 40, 50, 60, and 80 series FSM for a hell of a price.
Get a cheap set of hand tools to get you started and go from there.
Really these are glorified tractors and while a little more refined than a FJ40, not by a hell of a lot and you really do not need much in the way of tools. Any specialty tools (i.e ball joint separators) you can rent.
Rebuilding your knuckles is a dirty and messy job, but completely do able in a driveway.
Smog will be your limiting factor, but there is a lot of information on these forums.
Sorry for being so blunt, but I feel that it is important for people to understand these will cost to keep maintained and must be maintained or you are looking at larger bills later. This goes for any vehicle really. As parts are getting harder to find, costs go up .
It is impressive when a vehicle from 1980's makes it over 300,000 miles without an engine rebuild (more common place in today's vehicles). But that does not account for, clutch, ball joints, knuckles, u-joints, cooling, AC, old electronics, brakes, fluids, etc, etc,etc.
This is super helpful. I am not super handy with cars but love learning . I'm looking into some garages I can rent or friends out of town I can go to in order to do some work myself. I'll have to do another post with updates on this .
For some reason all the complications have me more excited than before. Thanks guys !