Just wanted to introduce myself. I recently bought a 1993 Land Cruiser with about 97,000 miles. I'm a former jeep owner, but have now seen the light. Does anybody know of a good Land Cruiser mechanic located in the state of Hawaii? Honolulu to be exact.
Aloha,
Kawika
Wassup Kawika, how's da islands these days? Welcome to the board. You don't know anybody who owns a garage in Honolulu? Almost all the work I ever had done back there was done by a friend at another friend's garage, mo cheap li'dat. But I'd get an FSM just to be sure.
I actually just bought a FSM through the Toyota dealership. Not cheap. I'm going to try and do as much of the work as I can by myself, but it's always nice to have someone who can bail me out if I get in over my head.
Things in the islands are good. There are a couple of guys who are getting into the rock crawling scene. The trails are few and the DLNR is giving criminal tresspassing tickets. At least $100 if you get caught.
How do I get in touch with Dan to order parts?
Thanks
No visible rust, but it has been re-painted. I bought it from the original owner, he told me that the original dark emrald pearl paint went bad, and he found out later that it was a defect covered under the warranty. It has a pretty cheap silver paint job. In a couple years (depending on the gas prices) I'll have it repainted. Mechanically it's in good shape. It had a oil leak that was fixed by tightening the valve cover bolts. The ones in the rear were less than hand tight. I'm having a couple issues with high speed braking. I feel a slight pulse in the pedal and the steering wheel shimmy's back and forth for a distance of about 1 cm. I've done a number of searches and had a mechanic check the rotors. He said they're fine. I have one other intermitant problem. About 50% of the time when I come to a complete stop I here a clunk. When I let my foot off the brake and start to accelerate I hear the same noise. A brake problem? Bad bushings in the control arms?
Ozcal here's some useless trivia. Kawika is the Hawaiian translation of David.
Re: the clunk - when I checked out my LX 450 I was coached by a mechanic to apply gas while braking, let go of the brake all of a sudden and listen for the engine moving on its mounts, then do the same in reverse. Said the clunk would be bad bushings.
This is a normal clunk both on stopping and starting. It's the drive shafts telescoping a bit as the suspension compresses for the stop, then compresses the other direction when you take off. The splined sections need to slide when the suspension movement shortens or lengthens them. Fresh grease will help if you pull the shafts apart and hand grease them, but do a search here on pumping too much grease into the splined drive shaft grease fittings (mucho expensive damage can result). A few squirts and then let the grease work through over a week of driving is second best to pulling them off. My 97 does this (never had shafts off) my 93 does not (pulled and manually greased them).
Bienvenidos! What happens when you wheel over that one big hill in Hawaii? You get to the other side of the island!
Alright, that was lame!
Welcome aboard, glad you have seen the light!
I'm having a couple issues with high speed braking. I feel a slight pulse in the pedal and the steering wheel shimmy's back and forth for a distance of about 1 cm. I've done a number of searches and had a mechanic check the rotors. He said they're fine.
Your rotors are warped and the only real way to get rid of the shimmy is to replace the rotors. Turning the rotors will get rid of the shimmy for a while but it will come back after a couple months.
Aloha 
Welcome welcome 
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