Wanted to also say a parting farewell to my 99' LC - which was a great short-lived vehicle. We took it to Zion, Bryce Canyon and Moab. We went on Fins N Things as our only real "offroad" in Moab. It was awesome and performed great.
I sold the 99 as part of the deal with my wife to restore the FJ62.
Bonus consolation prize for the loss of the 1999 - We bought a 2018 LC and it was ready when we got back from Moab.
During the restoration process, I accidentally broke one of the OEM chrome mirrors. The plastic interior mount for the mirror snapped, so I got thinking about replacing with more Chrome mirrors or doing something else. I settled on 70-series mirrors and bought them off of Megazip.net. They shipped quickly and were cheaper than buying the chrome ones.
Following the mirror installation, I decided to lay down MORE sound deadener. Previously around Thanksgiving/Christmas last year I added Lizardskin Sound and Thermal insulation to the interior. But I had not done the doors, quarter panels or the tailgate.
I started with 80mil Butyl - from NOICO and then added 150 mil closed cell foam. I then decided, why stop at 150, so I bumped it up to the 315mil Noico Red. I also bought a 4' x 10' roll of MLV to lay down around the cab on top of the LizardSkin.
One note on the installation - After you lay down the 80mil butyl its suggested that you "tape" the seams. I did buy some of the tape from NOICO, but I figured out that its the same tape that I bought for my radiator shroud two years ago. This is a tape that is used by HVAC professionals. Its called Nashua Tape at Home Depot.
In yet another bout of "while you're in there" and "before you put the headliner back in" - I finally got around to replacing the ancient tubing for the rear washer fluid.
It was pretty easy to fish the line through after taping the new tubing to the old and pulling it through the chassis and roof.
Over the last two years I've spent a fair amount of timing scouring eBay, Craigslist and ih8mud and Facebook Marketplace TLC forums trying to find blue/grey parts for my swap.
Although I did a great job finding parts (I mean I bought stuff from ALL over the world for this build) , I could still not find some parts very easily OR I was quoted stupid prices.
The next best thing was to throw some SEM Graphite 15303 on my old brown plastic parts.
The parts I couldn't easily replace were the door knobs, the headrest holders (for the bench), the bench metal trim, and the automatic transmission shifter cover.
For the shifter cover, my original shifter had a hole in it, so I used some JB Weld Plastic Epoxy to plug the hole before sanding with 320 grit, cleaning with denatured alcohol and then priming. The results so far look awesome for all the work I've done. Granted I don't yet know how well these different pieces will hold up over time and heavy use.
Small update on a recent project. I decided to add some rivnuts to the back of the rear bench, so that I could attach D-Rings for the kids car seats LATCH system.
Car seats are still primarily attached via seatbelts, but this helps with any swaying on turns.
I had the CruiserCrap center console installed, after getting the heater/ cooler rocker switches installed for the seats. I like how the leather accents the seats.
Decided to go with Safety Restore for all of my seatbelts. Sent them my old set and got them back about a week later with all new webbing, also had them redo the locking mechanisms.
They even sewed in the old Toyota tags which I thought was a little comical and cool at the same time.
