LJ 78 Overheating
Hi, Guys,
thanks for the warm welcome,I bought the LC in March 2004 off a friend,I was moving from London to a very rural part of Portugal and wanted a vehicle that would be a workhorse and take the strain off my small VW Golf.
I loaded the LC with as much as I could get on her and drove it from northern Spain over the mountains to mid Portugal, no overheating and no problems,then I bought a box trailer and went back to UK to get my furniture, loaded the furniture and at 2am on the way to the ferry at Plymouth it blew the head gasket, ( I thought) anyway into a local garage and £1.500 later after having the head skimmed etc I set off for the ferry, it was still getting very hot but it made the boat.
In Spain it blew the head again!, plus I was told the problem was the thermo fan wasn't working, as it flew around the Spanish mechanic stuck his hand into the blades!, they just stopped!.
Another few thousand £;s and off we went again, made the Portuguese border and , it blew again!, this time I used my assistance Insurance and had it taken to my local garage in Portugal.
This garage is in the middle of nowhere, but was long ago a Toyota dealer, the old man who owns it still makes parts,the average age of a truck around here is about 20yrs.
The old man told me about the problems with 2Lte heads along with why it happens and how to fix it, of course I wanted to check for myself, as luck would have it ,I run a research company down here, I put three of my young researchers the task of finding quantfiable reasons why and what the "cure" might be.
They spent a week researching web sites, owners clubs and Toyota data from around the world, yes,the original Toyota heads were faulty, bad castings,it affected the LJ78,Surf, Hi-Ace and some other varients.
In Australia, the major circumstances of overheating was using 4L in sandy conditions, in other places it was towing even very light trailers, using the LJ where long steep hills were present would cause the problem.
The results of the research was that it is usually a combination of faulty radiator/thermo fan but we found that since the A/T cooler is in the bottom of the radiator and the radiator is not big enough to cope anyway, ( in hot conditions) where the A/T box is worked hard it actually contributes to the overheating problem.
As we know spares for this model can be hard to find and expensive, a new head in UK was £500, ( pattern part) a new radiator was about £300, etc,etc.
I found a new head at just £300, my garage then built me a custom radiator (£200) which has exactly a third more water capacity, they took an oil cooler off and old Mercedes and mounted it just in front of the radiator,this is now the A/T cooler, with all the work it cost just a total of £ £900.
The above included all the bottom end work,( bearins etc) and a lot of other new stuff, I found some very good sources of LJ 78 parts,new and used in the UK, it is also worth finding old Toyota dealers with old parts,many are interchangeable with the LJ78.
I had wanted to use a 3L head but was told not to do this, but I have learned that recon heads are a problem in most cases, buy new it saves a lot of grief and cost in the long run.
My old LC now pulls anything, never ever gets hot no matter what I do and is very good on fuel, also found that a larger bore exhaust makes a big difference, as I am not a technical person this is a laymans guide but if anyone wants more specific detail and names of parts suppliers ,please contact me via e-mail.
Regards,
Chris.
