In january of 2018 I purchased our 1992 FJ80 (my first) Land Cruiser. My wife was pregnant with unexpected twins. We already had 3 kids. I needed a vehicle which would reliably serve utility purposes for our farm while carrying our family of 7. I was dead-set on a solid front axle vehicle and had heard nothing but praise to the Land Cruiser’s capacity to meet our demands. I found the 80 on craigslist, it had 140,000mi on the odometer (which did not work). I met the seller, paid the guy $3800 and drove it home. After beginning the tune-ups (i would have done with any PO purchase) i drained the oil and found it to be VERY thick, but had already bought the factory-recommended weight for the 3FE. Upon startup after the oil change, a rod knock was revealed. Fast forward a month and i was faced with either a rebuild or a swap. I did research both on mud and youtube. Swap shopping was in order. I was torn between a V8 and 4BT. I decided against diesel because my wife would most likely be putting more miles on this vehicle than i. I wanted torque and power increase. After shopping around locally i found a complete 5.3/4L60E LM7 Swap out of a 2001 gmc sierra (sorry purists). The swap had everything from the clutch fan to the catalytic converters. It also included the harnesses and pcm. The seller warrantied it for 90 days and it had 80kmi on the clock. After this purchase I bought the marks adapter kit from advanced adapters and some conversion mounts and oil pan parts and set out on the adventure of removing the 3FE. Fast forward to November of 2019 and i have a V8 FJ80. It is not 100% road worthy as the gauges do not work properly. I believe the broken odo was likely from a PO mileage rollback attempt which caused a total speedometer, then cable failure not long after the swap was complete. Now it needs a new cluster.
As far as future build plans (other than the obvious cluster swap); I recently purchased an FZJ80 FF/disc complete rear axle setup to swap under her. I have dual battery boxes under the hood but only one battery right now. I am looking at purchasing/installing a compressor and ARB air lockers this winter. There has been a lot of spare time spent on this and i have taken tons of pictures along the way. I am sure another V8 80 is not news at this point so I will spare you any further unrequested details, and thank you for reading my intro thread!
As far as future build plans (other than the obvious cluster swap); I recently purchased an FZJ80 FF/disc complete rear axle setup to swap under her. I have dual battery boxes under the hood but only one battery right now. I am looking at purchasing/installing a compressor and ARB air lockers this winter. There has been a lot of spare time spent on this and i have taken tons of pictures along the way. I am sure another V8 80 is not news at this point so I will spare you any further unrequested details, and thank you for reading my intro thread!
