Meet Betty White

[ARJMN]

The impetus to get the garage cleared out was the arrival of two key additions that will add lasting value. The first was Mr. Cool 18k Mini Split. I have talked myself in and out of one of these for 5 years, and my only regret now is that I did not do it as soon as I learned of them. It is a game changer! Seriously. I loose my sanity in the summer heat here in Southern AZ. Winter is heaven here, but summer is the other thing. The install was pretty easy, but I still learned a few lessons. Once it was up and running on Turbo Mode, it pulled the garage from the 90s down to the mid 70s in about 2 hours. It flat cranks the cold air out. The other addition was my 73" Icon tool cabinet with stainless steel top. I was super patient and waited for the right HF coupon to come around and when it did, I got 20% off the box, and then another 10% off the whole order by taking out a HF credit card. Smoking deal in my book, but it took three months to arrive. Apparently those things a big sellers and HF stays deep on orders. Its a great piece of kit for the price. Not quite a Snap-On level of finish, but it is 25% the cost. I can safely say that I have plenty of tool storage now. The mini split also happens to be directly above the work surface, so it blows ice cold air right on you.

This thing is shockingly heavy and it damn near drug me down the driveway until I steered it into the rocks in my yard.

I poured a concrete pad for mine, but my advice on this side of the install is to use the wall mounted L Brackets they sell. Its is easy and cleaner in the long run.

Wall bracket and line set hole drilled.

I call this a mental health expense because I have my happy place back in summer.

 

[ARJMN]

Last bit of progress to share today is the install of a set of the new Rosen 80 Series Visors. My buddy ordered these and had them shipped to me for install. I have the 40 Series Visors in my LX, but they are not a good fit for the 80. I will be ordering a set of these for both my own 80s. Rosen makes great stuff, and if your visors are already flopping around, give these a try.

 

[ARJMN]

Need some brake system parts if anyone can help me. See my ISO thread here:

Thread 'Anyone parting an 80? Need some brake line bits.'

Aug 23, 2025

I am in search of the stock 80 Series brake line fittings to do an ABS delete. The ones that were on my current project were lost along the way, and I much prefer to use the stock bits over finding an aftermarket solution. I can come pull the bits I need and give you fair money for them.

See this thread for reference of what I need:

• ARJMN
• Replies: 9
• Forum: AZ- Copper State Cruisers

 

[ARJMN]

Back at it once again. I had an awesome four day weekend here with Labor Day 2025. Hard to believe it is Monday night and I have to go back to work tomorrow. That aside, I WAS able to get everything done this weekend that I had planned for. That includes ample time for daily naps and restful breaks. Since the previous post was related to brake work, lets loop back to that and talk rear calipers.

I have put off rehabbing these because they can most accurately be described as "grodie" and I simply didn't want to deal with them. Well, low and behold, when I finally did I found that at some point in time someone forgot something quite vital in a braking system...the brake pad. As soon as I saw this one, I knew it was a no-go.

After I got the other side apart and found milky water laden maple syrup in there, I pretty much knew I would be ordering replacement calipers.

After cleaning out the goo, the inner surfaces were all flashed over with rust. We know this rig had seen a good bit of water, which we suspect is why the motor was blown.

 

[ARJMN]

If you follow any of my builds, you know I am no stranger to Harbor Freight. There has long been a stigma surrounding Harbor Freight tools and for a long time it was well deserved. I always used them for the single use or modified for a specific use type tools, but I have been pretty happy with many of the HF bits in my collection. I have to say that this 20 Ton press has been a fantastic value. Don't get me wrong, it is a sloppy SOB, but for less than $200, you can't touch them. The original manual jack finally laid down on me. It has been leaky since day one, and I have noticed it getting weaker the more extended the jack was. After it would no longer serve its primary function, I made a run and picked up an new air over oil 20 ton jack. I actually paid more for the pneumatic jack than I did for the press. Gotta laugh at that. Well worth the money in the long run. It makes bushing work so much easier and faster.

@GeoRoss, this is the 3rd rig I have used your dies on, we gotta do yours sometime!

First order of business on the tackling the rear suspension was the track bar. After pulling it and swapping in new bushings, a Delta Panhard Bracket went in.

 

[yotadude520]

If you follow any of my builds, you know I am no stranger to Harbor Freight. There has long been a stigma surrounding Harbor Freight tools and for a long time it was well deserved. I always used them for the single use or modified for a specific use type tools, but I have been pretty happy with many of the HF bits in my collection. I have to say that this 20 Ton press has been a fantastic value. Don't get me wrong, it is a sloppy SOB, but for less than $200, you can't touch them. The original manual jack finally laid down on me. It has been leaky since day one, and I have noticed it getting weaker the more extended the jack was. After it would no longer serve its primary function, I made a run and picked up an new air over oil 20 ton jack. I actually paid more for the pneumatic jack than I did for the press. Gotta laugh at that. Well worth the money in the long run. It makes bushing work so much easier and faster.

View attachment 3983074

@GeoRoss, this is the 3rd rig I have used your dies on, we gotta do yours sometime!

View attachment 3983075

First order of business on the tackling the rear suspension was the track bar. After pulling it and swapping in new bushings, a Delta Panhard Bracket went in.

View attachment 3983095

View attachment 3983096

Those HF presses are worth their weight in gold - made rebuilding my TC a breeze.

 

[GeoRoss]

If you follow any of my builds, you know I am no stranger to Harbor Freight. There has long been a stigma surrounding Harbor Freight tools and for a long time it was well deserved. I always used them for the single use or modified for a specific use type tools, but I have been pretty happy with many of the HF bits in my collection. I have to say that this 20 Ton press has been a fantastic value. Don't get me wrong, it is a sloppy SOB, but for less than $200, you can't touch them. The original manual jack finally laid down on me. It has been leaky since day one, and I have noticed it getting weaker the more extended the jack was. After it would no longer serve its primary function, I made a run and picked up an new air over oil 20 ton jack. I actually paid more for the pneumatic jack than I did for the press. Gotta laugh at that. Well worth the money in the long run. It makes bushing work so much easier and faster.

View attachment 3983074

@GeoRoss, this is the 3rd rig I have used your dies on, we gotta do yours sometime!

View attachment 3983075

First order of business on the tackling the rear suspension was the track bar. After pulling it and swapping in new bushings, a Delta Panhard Bracket went in.

View attachment 3983095

View attachment 3983096

I am a bit slow.

 

[ARJMN]

What do you do when you are holed up in a hotel room each night in the Rockies? I guess I will update the thread...

I have been on a roll the last few weeks making use of the much cooler garage temps, and the benefit is that I have much to share. I'll start with a pic I snapped on the way home from the mine today. Can anyone name the mine?

 

[ARJMN]

Circling back to the rear bumper, I eventually got 3-4 good coats of satin black on it depending on area. Before I could install the completed bumper, I had to prep the frame by removing the rear crossmember. This was done on my own rig by Brandon of Avid Off-road, but this one was mine to do.

Like most things 80 Series, the rear crossmember is stout and put up a decent fight during removal. I first tried to cut directly through the frame rails but I simply could not get the access I needed, so it had to come out in several pieces.

If I were to have my way, I would cut the rear cross member with a handheld band saw when the body is off the chassis. That would be the cleanest cut and the least clean up.

All the same, the plasma cutter got the job done in quick order.

 

[ARJMN]

After some time with a flap disk and heavy coat of self etching primer, it was ready for black top coat to seal it from the elements.

 

[ARJMN]

I was quite happy to see this hanging on the rear end rather than sitting on some saw horses in my back yard. The fit was excellent and all clearance checks passed with flying colors.

Still a few too many parts waiting.

Lastly, do you get the joke here? I laughed pretty good at this one.

 

[ARJMN]

I previously made mention of replacing all the bushings on the chassis, and it was time to put a bow on that effort. I went into detail in one of my other build threads, so I wont go into it here. Instead I'll just drop a few pics of the second set of Slee adjustable upper links.

 

[ARJMN]

The links, cut, reamed, drilled, test fitted, and ready to weld.

 

[ARJMN]

While I don't claim to be a great welder, and am a good welder in that I marry two pieces of metal without concern that they will ever divorce. The tight radius of these welds proved to be trickier than I would have liked.

 

[ARJMN]

While I had the welder out, I go these small blocks added to the motor mounts. I learned this lesson the hard way on my LX when I realized I could not torque the motor mounts by myself. The issue is that being a loose bolt and nut, You need a tool on each. The other issue is that I need 8 foot long arms to reach both sides. The solution was to make the bolt captive, so I could torque the nuts from below all by my lonesome.

 

[ARJMN]

More to come...

 

[GeoEng]

What do you do when you are holed up in a hotel room each night in the Rockies? I guess I will update the thread...

I have been on a roll the last few weeks making use of the much cooler garage temps, and the benefit is that I have much to share. I'll start with a pic I snapped on the way home from the mine today. Can anyone name the mine?

View attachment 3993613

Cripple Creek

 

[ARJMN]

Cripple Creek

Chicken Dinner. How did you know?

 

[ARJMN]

Putting a bow on the rear axle, the replacement calipers arrived and were installed along with the stainless steel brake lines. Pardon the low light conditions, iPhones cameras can do only so much. I almost always prefer to go the OEM route when at all possible, but these calipers are an exception. Toyota calipers were going to be about 7 times more cost than these units from Rock Auto, and in my experience they work just as well. No OEMs actually make their own calipers, they are sourced from a Tier 2 supplier, so when you really compare there is not much difference between them. Sometimes, you can see casting details that are different, but this is one of the few spots I will save money in order to buy OEM elsewhere.

SS line at that caliper

And again from the axle to chassis

 

[ARJMN]

The next item tackled is one I have a bit to say about. 80 Series are know for two mirror issues, Shaky and Floppy conditions. The Shaky condition comes from the plastic tabs on the mirror actuator housing failing and breaking off. This literally makes the mirror shake and vibrate going down the road. Floppy mirrors are the result of the spring and detent system on the folding feature of the mirror failing. This is almost always due to the c-clip on top of the spring pulling through the grove in the aluminum casting. When this happens, the mirror flops back against the door as you go down the road. It doesn't contact the door, but it does lay back. I have seen the use of folded paper to wedge in the gap to hold the mirror out, but it is just a band aid fix. Wits End came to market with their floppy mirror fix some time back, and Delta Vehicle Systems is now carrying the torch on those. They require you to drill a hole on either side of the mirror spring post, compress the whole assembly, and thread the locking screws into the holes. While I have done this on two other rigs as a fix, and had great luck with it, I have always been slightly nervous of the cast aluminum yielding and further failing. The floppy fix requires you to compress the spring 3-4mm more than it was in the original design, so the added force developed stick in my head as a risk.

This is what it looks like in original condition. The c-clip slides into groves cast into the post and lives just fine in many cases.

This is what happens when the assembly fails. The cast material can eventually yield and the c-clip is pushed up, peeling the material away from the clip groove. When it pushes both sides of the post upward, a floppy mirror follows.

You can just see the white paint flaking off as the passenger side post is beginning to fail, but is still plenty secure for now. I will address this one in time if needed.