More the merrier

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Hello to all fellow cruiserholics! Thought I could share my journey on this slippery slope (some call it owning a car) with you. Lots of pics to come.

THE RED ONE, PT1
It all started with this couple of years back:

Stock -83 HJ60, 2h+h55f. Solid truck with couple of simple issues: parking brake, rear springs, broken seatbealt. Oh, and some rust!

Pic of the state rear springs were in:

Solved this problem by purchasing used OME kit. 400 euros of rusty metal and I begun to understand the name of the game...

Couple of pics of rust and fixes, I'm not too proud of my repairs but this was ment to be daily driver after all.

Bought 15x8 wheels and fairly used 33x12,5 BFG ATs. In with the old:

And out with the new:

OME installed:

Passed mot in spring 2018. Drove 50km on 33s and the car was HORRID! I just had to change back stock tires for this point thought car looked silly on 205r16.

I drove couple thousand kms and found some minor issues: front axle leaking, one brakeline split, transfer case leaking (will get back to this) etc. Then one day I heard a knock from the rear of the truck when driving over bumps. Crawled under the truck to see what's wrong. Knock knock, who's there?

 

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THE RED ONE, PT2
At this point I left the truck waiting on repair for couple of months. Decided to tackle front axle issues as well as the shock mount bar. Sourced hj61 front axle with cable locker and bearing damage, rebuild it (which went well ) and swapped the whole axle under the car. During these days I also understood that my transmission and rear diff was in need of some more thorough mainentenance.

Shock mount bar I welded from straight pipe, not ideal but not too bad (shocks are on little bit steeper angle). Bit the bulled and bought 33x12,5 Kumho mt51's, and was relieved when they had much better road manners than the old bfg's. Drove over the winter with only standard mainentenance.

Oh and I almost forgot, installed the pto winch which came with the truck! Havent really used it, but it looks kinda cool.

Winter fun!

Summer 2019 decided to take the car up north once more. I know the trucks history pretty well and late 80's and early 90's it was used to pull a caravan up to Lapland (some 1000 km's from here) 2-3 times a year. So that's where we'd be heading. Did some standard mainentenance (oils, filters and stuff) and replaced the leaking seals on transfer case and rear diff just to keep the oil in them little better. Beginning of august we did a 6 day & 3500 km roadtrip. Couple transfer fluid toppings, slight alternator issues 800km's from home and immence amount of diesel was all it took. Great trip, wish we had had more time to spend!

Messy!

No real problem with reindeers, they somehow seem to respect the 60...

The goal achieved, arctic circle!

Junk on the road to Raate (inside joke for all finns out there ). This is a good place to stop or even turn around. That's what the Soviet army did.

Since the car worked well we pushed up to Utsjoki and even did a short trip on norwegian side of border. River Teno, the border between Finland and Norway is on this river.

 

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THE BLACK ONE

After understanding that my beloved cruiser needed some quite extensive repairs to live on I decided to get me another just for parts. I searched semi-passively through internet for a suitable one and found this also -83 hj60 nearby me. For 800 euros I thought it was a bargain, running and driving truck which seemed quite solid.

Apart from this part, of course.

What's better than a Land Cruiser? Well, obviously two Land Cruiser!

After closer inspection the car seemed to be too good for parting out, and I decided to repair it. Some metal, new front shock from the red ones old suspension and basic tlc was all it needed!

On duty, transporting tree plants!

Did run in this nice hj61 from agricultural research center.

Wanted to try different type of wheels so ordered 235/85r16 at's for this one for summer 2019. These were on the red one during the Lapland trip.

Both Cruisers served as dailys during summer 2019 since ms's Volvo was serviced.

The black one has served me as daily from last summer now. Pic from the winter with 33s.

Then we get to a third chapter of this story. End of january, during working day some stole the black cruiser. Police found the truck next evening stranded on ditch.

Some real offroading experts at work, hubs unlocked and trans on 2h. Could have driven the truck out there. The truck looked quite miserable.

 

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ANOTHER RED ONE

So I needed lights, steering column, body parts and what not. Red cruiser still needed transmission, alternator and fuel tank which had started leaking. What to do? Well, buy another one!

This time I played safe and bought one that I would dare to part out. Been standing over 10 years, rusty as hell and has a boat on the roof.

So after a month or so I got the black cruiser on the road again!

Group pic

So current situation is that the red one needs mot and fuel tank, alternator, rear diff and transmission (or rebuild) from the other red one. I've also bought a CT26 that I tought would suit this truck well? Black one is on the road, needs to be mot'd in couple of months but nothing major to repair (some frame welding and brake work I think), it's a bit lazy starter so valve clearance and timing checks propably would be good idea. The parts car I aim to get running and driving so I can test drive the parts. Needs some wiring, cleaning and edic work.

Haven't really got any work done this year, didn't have motivation and the car theft took the last of it. Now motivation starts to increase, but this whole covid stuff is disturbing work. Don't have garage on my use and the place I've done pretty much all the work is shared and we have agreed to minimate the use of it.

I'd really love to get the red one on roadtrip also this summer, but we'll see!