Builds My first FJ60 (1 Viewer)

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I’ve seen this info about headlight upgrades pop up a few times in various other threads. I stopped by the local dealership and ordered the halogen semi-sealed beam headlight kit. Because of the way it’s listed in the Toyota system, it took a little convincing to get the parts guy to believe “it will be ok. If it’s not really an entire kit, that’s on me”. My current headlights were a mismatched pair of two different brands and not very bright. I wanted to keep a stock look and avoid modern LED ($$$) kits. Looks good, has everything you need, and only cost about $50. If you haven’t seen this yet, I recommend checking it out.

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I’ve seen this info about headlight upgrades pop up a few times in various other threads. I stopped by the local dealership and ordered the halogen semi-sealed beam headlight kit. Because of the way it’s listed in the Toyota system, it took a little convincing to get the parts guy to believe “it will be ok. If it’s not really an entire kit, that’s on me”. My current headlights were a mismatched pair of two different brands and not very bright. I wanted to keep a stock look and avoid modern LED ($$$) kits. Looks good, has everything you need, and only cost about $50. If you haven’t seen this yet, I recommend checking it out.

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Thanks for posting this. Bookmarked should I need this setup for mine.
 
@GLTHFJ60 already done. I got impatient yesterday and went ahead and installed it. Took about 40 minutes maybe. I’m not crazy about where the relays ended up, but I can live with it. I’ll get some pics tomorrow. I helped that buddy with the Dana 44 rebuild today. Only a couple stumbles, but it was a long hot day.
 
Much better light that before?

I'm considering upgrading my headlight harness in this round of changes. That kit is cheaper than the connectors and relays themselves would cost.
 
yeah, i'm just skeptical with chemical connections. old skool i guess, mechanical or physical i.e. nuts n bolts or weld

It's been about 6 weeks since I installed the underhood lights. It has been hot and humid and I've been driving a lot, to include a few multi-hour trips. I checked last night and the 3M adhesive is holding as tight as the first day. I did a thorough clean and degrease before I attached them though.
 
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It's been about 6 weeks since I installed the underwood lights. It has been hot and humid and I've been driving a lot, to include a few multi-hour trips. I checked last night and the 3M adhesive is holding as tight as the first day. I did a thorough clean and degrease before I attached them though.
thanks for the update @FJ Noob
 
@GLTHFJ60 Yes...better light than the regular sealed beam lights off the auto store shelf, but I was not amazed when I first installed, HOWEVER I was next to my buddy's Jeep and he had just installed a set of LEDs that I'm pretty sure can't be street legal! I drove around the neighborhood by myself and besides needing some adjustment, it was noticeably better.

The assembly comes with both light housings w/bulbs, wiring harness, zip ties, a small tube of electrical grease, and instructions. The only thing I had to supply was two sheetmetal screws to mount the relays. It took me about 30-40 minutes for the install, but I wasn't in a hurry and I was also talking to my wife.

The housings feel nice and hefty. The glass feels like it's pretty thick and it has less curvature than the normal sealed beams. The wiring harness to 100% plug and play. The instructions were super simple to understand.

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I ran the wiring for the DS light down and through the front part of the frame, then back up to the light bezel. There is plenty of harness to make the run. I ended up making a loop and zip tying the extra over by the headlight washer bottle.

The harness has a decent rubber sleeve over the wire bundle, but I put the light to light run into some 3/8th inch plastic split loom where it went through the frame. You can stuff it in the 3/8 inch, but 3/4 would be better. I did the loom the day after the initial install. I cut these zip ties and reattached after adding the loom.
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After that, it's just attaching one wire lead to the + and one to the - on the battery and mounting the relays. The instructions say the preferred mounting location is inside the cab, but there is not enough wire to make it inside the cab. They can only reach to about where the hood lift assist spring goes when you close the hood. I already had a switch there, so mine are up near the battery. All the extra wire is bundled and zip tied inside the panel. The blue caps are covering the in-line fuses that are on the harness.
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Looks pretty good. (that's not me leaking...that's from my buddy's jeep with a busted axle seal. spent all day fixing that)
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After doing the headlights the other day, I decided to address the back end today. This was a 10 minute and $20 mod/upgrade, nothing super fancy but it works.

I was out and grabbed a pair of replacement LED bulbs for my reverse lights. With the regular factory bulbs, I can't see anything at night when backing up since I had the windows tinted. The pair cost about $20 at the O'Reillys down the street.
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Simple light bulb replacement, but when I was done I was less than thrilled with the result. They were brighter, but not what I expected. I pulled the lenses off again and added a piece of aluminum tape, like used to seal up a/c duct work, to the inside of the reverse light housing to make it more reflective. Trimmed around the bulb socket with a razor blade to make sure the tape wasn't touching any metal.
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It's hard to get a good picture off a camera phone in low light conditions, but this gives an idea. Adding the tape made a significant difference.
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TIP: adding the tape to the inside of your dome lights makes them brighter too.
 
I finally got tired enough looking at the open rocker trim holes that I decided to do something about it.

After sanding down to bare metal, I welded up the holes. Not that bad except for the 2 rectangular ones that are in the fender panel. Not sure if that metal is a little thinner than the rocker panels, but both sides gave me problems blowing out holes. I chased holes so much on one side that I finally cut my losses and cut out the whole section and fit in a new piece of metal. Being a somewhat compound curve, it took a little bit of time and shaping, but I got it done. After that, the whole area got a couple coats of Rust Bullet and then a little body filler to smooth out some of the unevenness from grinding.
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Another coat of Rust Bullet over that and then sprayed down with Raptor Liner. I used the aerosol spray can. 1 can is JUST enough to do this job if you spray efficiently.
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After 24 hours, U-pol says you can paint over the liner. A can of Duplicolor factory matched paint sprayed on easily. I’m going to blend it a little better (I worked it too much and got too close to my masking and got a line; sanded it out later) on the fender portion and end up clear-coating the whole panel, but as is, it’s not really noticeable.
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For the inside of the rocker panels, I used a spray wand and first gave a good coat of rust converter. After that was dry, followed it with some primer, and finally some cavity wax. Hopefully this will keep any rust at bay for a long time.
 
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@FJ Noob , thanks for that write up on the head light kit. now to see if toyota canada can supply me with the same set. i'm pretty sure i'm gonna get raped for a lot more than 50 or so bones that you kicked out
 
@kirvesmies A little update on the headlight upgrade. I did my first real night driving since the install a little bit ago. Yes...definitely worth it. Out on the darker stretches of highway I felt like I had plenty of light. I live in town now and with all the light pollution it was hard to tell before how much better they were than the previous lights. I did notice though that when I turned my brights on that the indicator light on the dash did not come on. I remember reading a thread where somebody mentioned that and how to correct it, but I haven't gone back and found it.
 
@kirvesmies A little update on the headlight upgrade. I did my first real night driving since the install a little bit ago. Yes...definitely worth it. Out on the darker stretches of highway I felt like I had plenty of light. I live in town now and with all the light pollution it was hard to tell before how much better they were than the previous lights. I did notice though that when I turned my brights on that the indicator light on the dash did not come on. I remember reading a thread where somebody mentioned that and how to correct it, but I haven't gone back and found it.

Slap an LED in, resolves the issue. I checked voltage across the circuit board and 12v exists but stock incandescent would barely illuminate which is why it wouldn't light the housing up enough. LED fitted and bam, it worked. Not truly sure why but it fixed and I haven't looked back.
 
@kirvesmies A little update on the headlight upgrade. I did my first real night driving since the install a little bit ago. Yes...definitely worth it. Out on the darker stretches of highway I felt like I had plenty of light. I live in town now and with all the light pollution it was hard to tell before how much better they were than the previous lights. I did notice though that when I turned my brights on that the indicator light on the dash did not come on. I remember reading a thread where somebody mentioned that and how to correct it, but I haven't gone back and found it.
that's cool. thanks for the update n heads up 👍
 
Slap an LED in, resolves the issue. I checked voltage across the circuit board and 12v exists but stock incandescent would barely illuminate which is why it wouldn't light the housing up enough. LED fitted and bam, it worked. Not truly sure why but it fixed and I haven't looked back.
well that certainly sounds like a 1/2 a banana cure for that issue. thanks man
 
Like most things I do, a "simple" project got much bigger because of the good old "while I'm in there".

It all started with a broken stud at the exhaust manifold downpipe flange. It ended up being a complete manifold gasket replacement because I could tell the engine wasn't running 100% like it wasn't sealed up and had either vacuum and/or exhaust leaks. All in all not a terrible job, just time consuming. Having never done something like this before, I took my time figuring out the disassembly and trying not to break anything. Even though the edges of the gasket I could see were pretty rusty and beginning to crumble, under the manifolds wasn't that bad. Regardless, I had it all apart and took the time to clean it up and install a new Reflex gasket. Turns out I hadn't broken an exhaust stud, but the threads in the nut were stripped.

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Besides the gasket, I went ahead and installed new studs on the exhaust downpipe and new manifold studs in the cylinder head. About 6 months ago I installed a new gasket in the exhaust flange after I realized it was not tightened down and was missing the gasket. I just used one of the ones the big box auto stores carry as a listed replacement. Don't ever go this route! Here is the gasket...totally burned up and useless. The replacement I used was an OE all metal one.

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During disassembly I found that I was missing a couple bolts in some keys areas...like at flanges where EGR parts attach. I made a trip to the store and got replacements for the 2 or 3 bolts I was missing and new flanged nuts for the carb studs.

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A whole bunch of cleaning, some hi-temp paint, plenty of copper anti-seize, verification of the vacuum tube routing, and a few hours later she was back together with everything sealed up tight.

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She fired up right away on the first try. It was a long and dirty job, but I'm glad I jumped in and did it. The engine is a bit quieter and seems happier at idle. I also got rid of a stumble I was getting when I gave it gas in 1st gear as well as now I get a better response and pedal feel at all speeds. I also noticed I gained about 5mph at 2500rpm. The only casualty during the project was the molded crossover line for the PCV valve. The end was pretty brittle and snapped off. It was too baked hard to just cut straight and re-attach, so I just plugged in a length of flexible PCV valve hose and zip tied it up away from the air rail.
 
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Confirmed the recommendation made earlier by @mattressking about fixing the high beam indicator after the headlight upgrade. Switched out the dash bulb with an LED and it suddenly works again.
 
Too much rain here lately to do a ton of work on the LC, but between showers I’ve been able to do a little.

I ended up buying another ‘85 FJ60 that was someone else’s project. My upholstery and cushions were good, but the ‘85s were better. I decided to clean everything, re-color the carpet sections and reinstall into Chloe. The pattern isn’t correct for ‘87, but I prefer it over the lighter pattern.

Since I have a FJ62 rear seat back with headrests, I did have to disassemble it and swap the cover. “While I was in there” I decided to clean up the frame and add some foam to the cushion


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Nice clean frame
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New layer of foam glued on
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New cover on
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All back together
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