Look what wandered back into my life... (1 Viewer)

[AKcruiserfreak]

I just picked up my old 1993 FZJ80 for my daughter. It’s been 7 years and 70,000 miles since I sold it.... Life has not been kind to the old 80. Now a reconstructed title, and several dents, dings, and weird noises to show for it. I originally purchased this thing from @smittycrusher in, I think 2006 with like 103k miles and bone stock. Now it’s at just shy of 200k miles. Still runs great, but boy does it need some love. I’ll document as much as I can here.
Here’s the before pics...

 

[greentruck]

Good thing you can just pop the Landcruiser in the freezer to preserve it in Alaska.

 

[AKcruiserfreak]

...and the aftermath of no love, hauling hay, and being a teenage boy play toy. Man I’ve got some work ahead of me...

 

[AKcruiserfreak]

I've busy on the ol 80 for the last few weeks. Did all the basic maintenance stuff like oil change, air filter, checked the diffs and transfercase, tranny, antifreeze (which was a gallon low).
I noticed a low speed rumble that sounded suspicious, so a put it up on jack stands and sure enough the front wheels had a 1/4" of play. After puling the hubs off I found the small bearings were shot. A call to Marlin for a full set of Koyo bearings and several hours of cleaning later I don't have a rumble.
I found a set of Cooper 315/ 75R16 tires to replace the worn out and cracked 265 Bridgestones that were on it.
Painted the mismatched flares and found a front passenger flare that's in better shape than the one on it, so I'll be painting and installing that later this Winter.
Also found a front valence that's not crinkled up, so I'll paint and install that once I get the ARB straightened back out.
Installed an older Kenwood double din unit to replace the crap, no-name, non-working single din unit that was in the rig.
Found a pretty major parasitic drain on the dome fuse circut that I need to figure out. As a work around to get the radio working, I ran separate constant and switched 12v to the head unit.
Also buffed out the exterior and cleaned up the interior as well as possible.

Anyways, I'm getting it alined Friday and probably will begin the hunt for seats, a decent winch, and lights next. Stay tuned! lol

TK

 

[AKcruiserfreak]

Almost forgot a pic of the very depreciated wheel bearing. Both small bearings looked like this...

 

[AKcruiserfreak]

Installed the $60 eBay snorkel(with shipping). Besides ignoring the supplied template due to well-documented wrong hole placements, the install went smooth! For the money, this can’t be beat. I’ve used Safari snorkels on a few rigs in the past and honestly the quality is on par with Safari. Anyways, this 80 is slowly coming back together.

 

[smittycrusher]

If you love something let it go...

It came back to you! Clearly it likes you better than me . That was my very first Cruiser and one I will always remember. My first child was conceived in the back of that rig . I kid, I kid. I really did love that one. I loved it so much that I did this to my black LX450 trying to get that look back: Black LX450 converted to White LC

That white 80 look has always been a favorite of mine. Once you add all the black armor, wheels, snorkel, etc., it just looks so good.

I hope it keeps treating you well!

Smitty

 

[AKcruiserfreak]

If you love something let it go...

It came back to you! Clearly it likes you better than me . That was my very first Cruiser and one I will always remember. My first child was conceived in the back of that rig . I kid, I kid. I really did love that one. I loved it so much that I did this to my black LX450 trying to get that look back: Black LX450 converted to White LC

That white 80 look has always been a favorite of mine. Once you add all the black armor, wheels, snorkel, etc., it just looks so good.

I hope it keeps treating you well!

Smitty

Haha, I’ll let my daughter know that the back of her Cruiser may need to be steam cleaned! She’s been driving it for about a year and hadn’t had much for issues until yesterday when the oil pump seal let go. I did it once before....10 years ago. Probably time for a new one. Lol
Your LX looks sharp! I’m amazed how many of us either still have, or found our way back to an 80. Lots of familiar names and faces on the forum.