Builds Middle East spec 1992 RJ77 -- 'Biscuit' (1 Viewer)

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Continuing with the rim/tire discussion...

Here are photos of the spare which seems to be original with the truck:
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GTSS was kind enough to point me to the toyota document in a post above, and here is confirmation that the truck came with 15" and not 16 inch rims. 15x7JJ rims to be specific. I'm now on the hunt for four additional matching rims, which I will have painted in the body color--time permitting before the truck goes to ship, now scheduled for the 24th.
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GTS recommended 235/85R16 -- 31.7" H x 9.3" W or 255/85R16 -- 33.1" H x 10" W. But what I ended up buying were Yokohama - Geolandar A/T S G012 31X/10.5 R15. I could not find anything narrower and as tall online here in Dubai. But on the other hand, I've always really liked the Yoko Geolanders. Tonight I go back up to Sharjah to get the rims. Most likely from an unexpectedly-named shop:
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Which happens to be where Biscuit is destined to go.
 
Continuing with the rim/tire discussion...

Here are photos of the spare which seems to be original with the truck:

GTSS was kind enough to point me to the toyota document in a post above, and here is confirmation that the truck came with 15" and not 16 inch rims. 15x7JJ rims to be specific. I'm now on the hunt for four additional matching rims, which I will have painted in the body color--time permitting before the truck goes to ship, now scheduled for the 24th.

GTS recommended 235/85R16 -- 31.7" H x 9.3" W or 255/85R16 -- 33.1" H x 10" W. But what I ended up buying were Yokohama - Geolandar A/T S G012 31X/10.5 R15. I could not find anything narrower and as tall online here in Dubai. But on the other hand, I've always really liked the Yoko Geolanders. Tonight I go back up to Sharjah to get the rims. Most likely from an unexpectedly-named shop:


Which happens to be where Biscuit is destined to go.

Right on! That is a fine tire size for the 15x7" rims. I see now the rim size depends on the specific grade RJ77. Lots of options.
 
Thank you GTS.

Well, to continue the story, Hamad Ali at Virgina Tyre (I still get a kick out of that) whatsapped me earlier today to tell me he had found two rims:
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Not too nice looking, but it really did not matter to me because I was going to scratch them up and paint them anyways. So I thanked him and said great--hoping he could find two more. And, by the end of the day he did. So I drove up to Sharjah at 5:30 on a Thursday night (weekends are Friday and Saturday here). Not a great drive... Virginia Tire is open till 10:30 so I decided to stop in at the LC scrap yard nearby and I scored a instrument cluster to replace the non-functional oil pressure gauge and a new rectangular dash pad. Paid my friend Jaweed 60 AED which is less than 20 USD--he's the same guy who came through on the winch.

On the way I stopped at another scrap yard where I saw:
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This is absolutely the nicest Model 100 bull bar I have ever seen. And it is OEM Toyota. My 1998 really could use a better bumper so I'm going to try to figure out if I can stuff this inside the RJ77 for the shipment over to the US. I did that the last time with a few spares including a spare drivers seat. This is beautifully made but I'd have to cut a hole in it for my winch. I got the information for who to contact and I will make a decision as soon as I take some measurements inside the RJ77. Anyways, back to the RJ77...

So I then made my way over to Virginia Tyre and looked the rims over--they were a little sad but the were the correct ones, stamped and so forth. I paid less than 200 USD for the four. I mentioned to Hamad Ali that I was planning to paint them and demurred saying they would clean up nice so I asked him where I could get some chrome polish. He said words to the effect of never mind that, we will clean them for you with battery acid!
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The guy in the blue shirt is Hamad Ali's employee. That's Hamad's dad in the back. Nice guys. I told them to go ahead--again I was planning to paint but I was curious as to how they would turn out. I will be darned if they didn't clean up very, very nicely:
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They are so nice that I now am not going to pain them--except for he spare, which will be painted body color. I'm also going to research whether i should have the chrome rims clearcoated. They are not perfect and they are going from a desert environment to a rather damp Virgnia. Any ideas/views on this will be gratefully received. The quality of these OEM rims is really apparent. They are pretty heavy, but boy do they look nice and they are very simple designs. I'm starting to really appreciate OEM Toyota. Oh... and last night I also bought an OEM Toyota Land Cruiser pickup gas can. Heavy fittings--really a nice item. I will be painting that to match the body.

I'm down to 9 days until the RJ77 has to go into a shipping container. Race against time at this point
 
It is Friday here in Dubai--the start of the weekend. I have to get the rims over to the paint shop tomorrow morning and I find that it is better if I do some prep myself. I'm going to paint only the spare tire body color. The four 'new' rims I'm going to leave chrome but I'm going to see if the paint shop can clearcoat them. I now regret letting the tire shop use acid to clean the chrome but what is done is done.

There is a quarter century of crud inside these rims, but I took them into my apartment bathroom to clean them as best as I can.
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I am most concerned about the seal at the edges and there is a small amount of corrosion, but I think it will be all right.
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One down. Four to go. I confirmed they are the correct 15X77JJ toyota rims.
 
I finished up the 5 rims at about 11 pm last night.
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They turned out very nice. The fifth rim for the spare turned out to be chrome under the black paint but it had been scuffed for painting. At least it confirms that the original wheels were these chrome ones.
 
I'm making progress with Biscuit. But the ship date is only 5 days away... Yesterday I picked up the rims, gas can and spare mount from the paint shop. The rims look pretty good:
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Then I dropped off the newly painted OEM Toyota jerry can and spare mount at the garage at DIP where work is preceding apace:
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Out Out Bad Bushings!!
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And then I dropped off the rims at the tire shop, also in Dubai Investment Park, close to closing at 8 pm. I asked the guys to take a little extra effort to be careful with the newly coated rims (BTW, the paint shop did not use a 2-part epoxy for the clearcoat which I am annoyed about). One of the guys waved me over as I was leaving and through some difficult communication asked if he and his buddies could have a ride. The three guys got into my LX470 and I drove them about a mile away to the labor dormitories where they lived. I drove up to the door and let them off after shaking hands and thanks and so forth. But when they opened the door there was the most delicious smell--the best smelling Indian food I've ever experienced. It had been a long day and it really triggered my appetite. So as I was driving through the labor camp area I looked for and found a likely-looking place and had a great dinner of fresh-off-the-grill roast chicken, here:
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When I got back to my truck, I found this on the window:
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Now, this is not uncommon. You often find 2 or 3 massage parlor cards stuck in your window after parking in any public space, regardless of the neighborhood. So I'm used to this. But 'African Stuff'? That's a new one on me. What could it be?
 
It is getting down to the wire. Biscuit gets put into a shipping container in two days. I'd really like to get the winch on. The stock bumper is really not suited to this so I drove up to Sharjah this morning and found this nice aluminum bull bar. Light enough to lift with one hand.
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It is in really good shape and will clean up nicely. I will paint it in the US, myself, I think. It's time for my sons and I to learn how to do automotive painting. Perhaps I will polish the lower part and paint only the upper. Lots of options, but I think it will look very nice.
 
Just an FYI,

LC Engineering has a ton of awesome parts for your engine. You can really do a lot to that 22R if you want.

Marlin Crawler would also be worth looking over their site. However I think the R151 in Cruisers is a little different than the mini truck R151.

Cheers
 
Just an FYI,

LC Engineering has a ton of awesome parts for your engine. You can really do a lot to that 22R if you want.

Marlin Crawler would also be worth looking over their site. However I think the R151 in Cruisers is a little different than the mini truck R151.

Cheers

Only the 2LTE/2LT-II (turbo motors) got the R151 in this generation. The RJ77 got a G52 I believe.
 
Depending on the market, LJ7x turbo cruisers got either the R151f or the R150f (taller 1st and 2nd), while the non turbo and RJ7x models got the G52. The main difference between the mini truck R transmission and the Prado one is the output shaft spline and transfer adapter.
 
Thank you all for the information. At the moment Biscuit is running well on the 22R but it does not like going over 90 km/h / 55 mph, which is a little limiting. Not sure revising the 22R would do much for that. I'm putting bigger tires on Biscuit so that should help a little. Opinions? Part of the charm of this old truck is that it is so unusual in the US but most of its parts are readily available.

And not to derail the conversation, but my younger boy is very interested in electric vehicles. I've been mulling over whether it would be practical to try an EV swap with this little truck. It has the advantage of a manual transmission and being a bit smaller and lighter than other Land Cruisers. I'm just playing with long-term ideas. Does anyone know the max torque that the G52 transmission can take? Some of these electric motors go up to 1000 pound feet.
 
Put a turbo on that 22R and that truck would move!! You'd need an R transmission for that though....

I like the electric motor idea. All depends on what you're going to use it for I guess. Electric would be great around the city and short highway. Not suitable for long haul trips/camping/expedition IMHO. A lot of power would be wasted just fighting wind resistance.

Really though, a mild tune up on the 22R and you'd probably find it easier to run it a bit faster on the highway. Intake/header/exhaust probably would help a lot.

My 2LTE makes about 130-140hp and I can run it up to 150km/h. Cruising around 130km/h is easy power-wise, but requires concentration due to the inaccurate steering and vulnerability to wind gusts etc.
 
Last minute issue. Even though the rims ARE the right OEM rims, somehow there is an interference issue on the control arms in the front. My mechanic says I need 1 inch spacers. Maybe 1.5 inch spacers. I've sent a PM to GTS who was helped me out with a lot of useful information, but does anyone else here have experience with this? I swear these are the correct rims for the truck--Toyota 15X7JJ. I just don't get how this is possible...

---update---

I whatsapped the guy who sold me the used rims had spacers at 10:15 pm last night and he had them. I drove up to Sharjah and bought them and dropped them off at my mechanic at the stroke of midnight in a sack:
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Paid a bit more than I wanted. But the guy stated open until 11 pm and he needs a profit too. Waiting for my mechanic to confirm problem has been overcome. Annoyingly the spacers have a different thread than stock. Really does not matter. Not a drama but not my preference to have two different kinds of lug nuts on the vehicle (one under the spacers and holding down the spare, the other on the rims).
 
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Biscuit goes in the container tomorrow. I drove over to see where we were. We are pretty close. Tach and oil pressure gauges still non-functional, but Biscuit runs and drives just fine. And the stock wheels look pretty darned nice. The bull bar is a little out of place but once painted I think will be fine. Here are a couple of photo
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s
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I think painting the bull bar body color will be an improvement, and I can attach some front-facing rubber pads at least to the lower part. Best of all, the OEM Toyota winch controls are easily accessible.
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I just need to cut the front of the bull bar and get a set of rollers.

With the 30mm spacers the tires are just proud of the body:
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Not ideal, but until I figure out why I had the problem with the stock rims and tire interference, I can live with it. I hope there is no Virginia state inspection issue with it..... I also forgot to tell the guys to mount them blackwall out, which I prefer. Oh well. Work in progress.
 
Today was the day Biscuit went into shipping. I left work early and drove over to Saeedi Pro tire in time to watch them do the alignment. The truck is much improved by going blackwall on the tires and removing the tint from the windows:
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While it was on the rack I took a couple of photos of the winch installation. It's not complete. More or less just bolted on for shipping.
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I will be taking it off again in Virginia to make some adjustments.

The truck itself is really very nice underneath:
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Not bad for a quarter-century old truck.
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I drove it from the tire shop to the shipping company and pulled the plates, then went to the Road Transit Authority to get the export documentation. In and out in 10 minutes. Now I just wait. The shipping company refused to make any predictions, but I expect it will be a couple of months before Biscuit arrives in Virginia.
 
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let us know how long it takes. nice 77.. shipped some LC's from Kuwait last year end of August. they arrived at my door first week of Dec. plan on having an RJ 77 back in US soon also. probably will not ship until end of October.
 
Hi DF,
'Biscuit' arrived in Virginia on, of all days, the 4th of July:
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Various loose bits were put inside
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And I've pretty much decided to put the original bumper back on. In retrospect the bull bar just looks out of place, even if I painted it I think.
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I have a trip to the US week after next and will have some time to see if I can do that.

To answer your question, I left the car with the shipper in Dubai on 22 April. And I recall that the last time I shipped it also took between 2 and 3 months to arrive. What seems to happen is that they sit in containers in intermediate ports. In the case of Biscuit the truck sat for almost a month in Italy. In the case of the prior shipment the trucks sat in Belgium for a month. So your experience seems pretty consistent. I paid about 14,000 AED for the shipping inclusive of trucking from NY/NJ to my door in Virginia. That's about 3800 USD. There were a few hundred USD in fees at the Road Transport Authority in addition to that, but the process is not too hard once you've been through it.
 
I don’t get it, nobody ever talks about diff gearing in the 70-section. I have mentioned it close to a half dozen times, maybe more in the 70-section in the last couple years and it always seems to get ignored.


So, if your truck tops out at 55mph, what diff gears does it have. If you don’t know post the vin plate, I will decode it and tell ya. Diff gearing plays a very important role in not only top end speed but also how much power the engine feels it has.

Toyota put some deep gears in the diffs on these trucks, particularly in the smaller or lighter duty with smaller engines. The reason for this is the trucks were used in places where top speed didn’t matter and terrain is rough and or mountainous. I recently imported a Prado with the 3L, a G52 and 4.88 factory diff gears. It came from a country where 100kph would be the most it would ever see, usually it is running around 35-85kph. Great power through all gears in the trans due to diff gearing but topped out at about 55-60mph. Believe it or not it pulled just as good as the 1PZ R151 4.56 diff gears in a SWB up the same steep grades.

Cheers
 
From what I’ve heard, most (if not all) Prados has 4.88 gears with the exception of the KZJ78, which had 4.3’s. I think you’re spot on with regards to how this affects the feel of the vehicle. My first Prado with a stock engine and auto transmission felt much quicker than the FJ62 I had previously, and my second one with an R150 felt quicker than a stock HDJ81 with auto. However, I didn’t feel very comfortable taking either LJ over about 110km/h due to the revs the engine had to put up with.
 

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