Build Mister Blue the sunburned 2004 diesel 105

[John Young]

I'm looking back and realizing I have not updated this thread in a very long time!

A big part of the reason is that I've been using Mister Blue as my daily driver. And it has been a real pleasure. The 1HD-T has enough juice to make me reasonably happy and it is very efficient. I can get up to 1100-1200 km on a fill up of the main and sub tanks.

I've been using Mr Blue for everything including transporting engine blocks to the machinist. Finally late last year I decided I really wanted my daily to look a bit nicer and I took it into a good body and paint shop before heading back to the US for the holidays. The places I prefer to use take the paint down to the bare metal almost completely. Here is a little video from the early stage of the work:


This will stay my daily in Dubai until I leave for good in a couple of years.

 

[John Young]

It took about a month to get to the stage of initial paint.

One little detail that I carried over from a regular 100 project from a few years ago was to paint the little insert at the back of the rear quarterpanel black instead of body color. I think it adds a nice detail.

We had replaced the front and rear bumper during the initial mechanical work. I prefer the unpainted ABS look. It also takes scrapes a little better than a painted bumper. I asked them to just clean up the existing bumpers.

 

[John Young]

It was nice to see the progress from afar.

I asked them to paint the bump strips body color except for the center stripe.

This photo was taken in mid-FEB 2026. The truck had already been in body and paint for 2 months, which was fine.

 

[John Young]

But it is not easy doing this remotely and there were problems. For example, in Mister Blue's first life as a government truck some maintenance guy had welded bosses on the left rear door for the license plate. I assume because the original holes had gotten stripped. In the absence of explicit instructions the body and paint ship had just cleaned them up a bit but not corrected the situation. But once it was pointed out the guys did a great job of fixing it with a bit of repaint.

I got back to Dubai in late FEB. One thing I made sure to do was to ask them to put the left-over paint in a can for me.

it was a big thrill to see Mister Blue in person again after about 3 months!

And bring him home.

 

[John Young]

I then proceeded to use Mister Blue as per normal. A few issues showed up. And boy did the dust and dirt of Dubai quickly show the downside of a dark paint scheme.

The biggest teething problem was a little interference on the passenger side body trim.

 

[John Young]

I think the issue resulted from not having the passenger front door adjusted properly. We had replaced, BTW, several of the door hinges during this work.



Also in this time frame I had taken Mister Blue out to the desert for the first time in new paint, which was a great load of fun!

 

[John Young]

 

[John Young]

It gets really dark out there. There were some good drivers.



I had pushed Mister Blue a bit hard earlier in the evening and I was a bit worried about getting out. And as mentioned it gets really dark out there.

Here were all the trucks that came out for the Iftar:

 

[John Young]

A friend had taken this video from when I was driving out to the Iftar. As you can see, Mister Blue is straining a bit.



This would come back to haunt me later.

 

[gerardines]

Never been so identified with a build before !
Seen all the documenting the process was like reliving the same experience years ago ...
Also purchase a blue 105 from a government auction in 2015 and rebuild it completely from the ground up ... but it has a 1FZ-FE engine.

How I get it

How it sits now after all these years

Build for 4wheeling and camping trips for family in the dunes, desert and jungle roads here in Peru.

 

[John Young]

That is very cool! Looks like an identical spec except you have the advantage of starting with a H series transmission.

Was the government auction in South America?

I lead up to it but got behind on posting. I blew Mister Blue's transmission on the Iftar desert outing. Not catastrophically, but after the drive it kept popping out of 1st gear on any kind of acceleration. Turned out I destroyed the spacer washer next to 1st gear:

I knew that the R151 was a little delicate but I did not think I pushed the truck that hard...

So now we are attempting to put a 100 series H151 with taller 2nd and 5th into Mister Blue. We started with another salvage transmission:

The transmission is done but we have not yet tried to install it.

 

[gerardines]

That is very cool! Looks like an identical spec except you have the advantage of starting with a H series transmission.

Was the government auction in South America?

I lead up to it but got behind on posting. I blew Mister Blue's transmission on the Iftar desert outing. Not catastrophically, but after the drive it kept popping out of 1st gear on any kind of acceleration. Turned out I destroyed the spacer washer next to 1st gear:

View attachment 4170065

I knew that the R151 was a little delicate but I did not think I pushed the truck that hard...

So now we are attempting to put a 100 series H151 with taller 2nd and 5th into Mister Blue. We started with another salvage transmission:
View attachment 4170066
The transmission is done but we have not yet tried to install it.

Yes, the peruvian government bought over 300 fzj105 in the 2000 for many intitutions like police, highway patrols, mountain rescue and prosecutors all over the country.
All of this were the same spec, the most basic ones … barn doors, vinyl floor and seats, no subtank, no a/c, manual windows, not even 3rd brake lights or even window defrosters in the back

Without a doubt they were the best vehicles for this enviroment and poor maintenance.
Now a days almost all of them already went through auctions to became hardcore off roader in the dunes, andes and amazon roads were modern 4x4 don’t last.

Here most of the 100 series 1hdt are from japan use imports rhd (there was a time were all jdm imports were popular and cheap) but since then many have changed the auto transmission for the H151 from the 105 in auctions.

Mine has upgrades with many oem parts from another 105 that had more options, like a/c, subtank, rear spare tire carrier and lsd … so luckily now I got 2 fuel tanks and 2 spare tires for long trips.