Builds Imperial Land Cruiser II Build Thread (1 Viewer)

[car-car]

Next up, freeing up useable space in the cargo area. Since I'm on 35's, the spare won't fit underneath. So, the only other place I have for it is in the cargo area, along with the Hi-Lift, all tied down. Not ideal. Makes it a challenge to load camping gear, or anything else for that matter.

So, somehow the Kaymar tire carrier survived the wreckage, so I pulled that and went to installing it onto my current rig. The thing is a beast, no wonder it survived.

So much nicer having the tire mounted on the back carrier, plus, I like the look of the tire on the bumper much better. Kind of reminds me of my FJ40.

 

[car-car]

When I was planning out our fateful Expo trip earlier this summer, storage and cargo organization was a concern. We had a lot of gear, and staying organized and having access to things without unpacking the entire cargo was a big goal. I have always been impressed with the drawer systems some guys build. I didn't have the budget or the skills to get a nice drawer system made, so I ghetto-fabbed my own using plywood, some 2x6's, brackets and rattle-canned it (using textured spray to get grip for gear being stacked on top), and used under-the-bed storage bins with rollers as my drawers. Again, it wasn't going to win any awards, but it worked great. I also notched the bottom towards the back (that butted up against the second row seats), so that I could store the Hi-Lift in a place it wouldn't fly around (little did I know I would extreme test that engineering). I made it to where the Hi-Lift would be accessable by lifting up the second row rather than unloading the entire cargo area in the situation it was needed.

Long story short.....my drawer housings survived (a little beat up, but still fine), so I moved those over. I still need to get some more plastic under-the-bed bins (one disintigrated in the wreck and the wife commandeered the other and its back under our bed), and I would like to secure them to the cargo area hooks.

 

[car-car]

Updated photo of what the rig looks like right now.

More updates to come.....

 

[julstirn]

I gotta finish painting my wheels, looks good!

 

[Lukie]

Updated photo of what the rig looks like right now.

More updates to come.....

Your 80 looks exactly like what I want to build. Beautiful! Now all I need is to find one.

 

[Trapper50cal]

Looks great! I'm partial to white 80's
http://img837.imageshack.us/i/cimg1365.jpg/

 

[car-car]

Thanks guys. I'll get more pics up later. I swapped in the new wood trim kit from the wrecked rig. Made a big difference, in my opinion. Also, blacked out the grill and headlight/side marker trim, which I'm happy with how it looks now.

More to come.....

 

[NKP Garage]

Looking great so far. Time to change your avatar pic

 

[Box Rocket]

note to self.......don't buy treadright tires.

Sorry you lost the truck in the accident. glad you all made it through safely! and nice work with the new truck, keep it up!

 

[94SRUNNER]

The build is coming along very well. I like that Kaymar spare mount!

 

[car-car]

Thanks guys. Next up, more on the interior. The PO of the wrecked '97 had just put in a new wood trim kit that I actually liked. It's a lighter color than factory, and was still in really good shape, and I liked it better than just the standard interior with no trim, which in my opinion, looked dated. So, I swapped that in, and I liked the results.

Before...

 

[car-car]

...and, after.

 

[car-car]

In efforts to stay with the whole black and white Imperial Land Cruiser theme, next on the agenda was to black out the "chrome" trim around the headlights and turn signals, as well as the grill. Pulled everything and rattle-canned it with Rustoleum Universal Satin Black. For the Toyota emblem, I shot that with Rustoleum Textured Black (same stuff i used on the homemade cargo drawers), just to give it the slightest subtle variation from the rest of the grill. I like how it turned out.

P.S. - I'll move the wiring for the lighting to be tucked better once I get a Slee light harness.

 

[car-car]

After a busy stretch at work the last couple weeks, got back to it yesterday.

The rig came with a Warn M12000, which is a beast of a winch. More than what I need for my style of wheeling. Long term plans with this rig is to make it another Expo rig, so I want to lighten up the front end a bit, at least until I put in a dual battery setup. The wrecked rig had a new Superwinch 9.5 with a new syn line, so looking at specs for both setups, I could save approximately 50 lbs. by swapping in the Superwinch. The Warn is out, now it's time to put in the Superwinch and get it hooked up.

I also picked up a Scangauge II, so I'm trying to figure out where to best mount it. I'm leaning towards finding a way to mount it up over the rear view mirror. That seems like the cleanest installs I have seen.

 

[car-car]

Got the Superwinch mounted and wired in this evening.

 

[94SRUNNER]

Shaping up nicely! What type of paint did you use on the grill?

 

[car-car]

Shaping up nicely! What type of paint did you use on the grill?

Thanks! I used Rustoleum Universal Satin Black, same as what I used on the wheels.

 

[car-car]

So I haven't updated in a while, but I figured I probably should.

I ended up mounting the Scangauge by the clock. Its easy to read/glance at, doesn't block any indicator lights on the instrument cluster, and is accessable at arms length. Plus, it covers up a rough spot on the dash where the PO had superglued a GPS mount and I hadn't had any luck removing the residue. I still need to move back the ODBII connector so I can fit the fuse cover back on.

 

[car-car]

I also switched over the LED tail lights and reverse lights that were already in the wrecked rig.

When I was switching them over, I was curious if there was a difference between the light emitted from each, so I switched over one side and then had a look for myself. I didn't notice much of a difference between the regular tail lights and the LED ones; but with the reverse lights, it was night and day (okay, that was unintended). The LED reverse lights are so much brighter than the regular reverse lights.

Unfortunately, I do not know the manufacturer on the LED lights (I didn't see any markings), and I don't know where the PO got them from.

 

[car-car]

Next up were the sliders. My current rig came with Hanna's which are great, and the cat protection is really well done on those. But, the wife and kids (six and two) had a hard time getting in and out with the Hanna's, and I had Slee Step sliders on the one we wrecked and made getting in and out a lot easier for them. Plus, I don't do a lot of hardcore wheeling with it, so I figured the Slee Step sliders would be sufficient. So, I took off the Hanna's and cleaned up the Slee's (which still had all of the Moab mud on them from our fateful trip) and put those on. I removed all the torn up grip tape and replaced with new 3M Safety Walk grip tape.

(Hanna sliders were already sold locally to another Mud member)