New to Land Cruisers. FJ62 build

[beetleteeth]

Hello,

New here to ih8mud and new to Land Cruisers.
After years of envying every fj60/62 I saw I finally picked one up of my own.
Last week I got this deal of a Pretty clean 89.
picked it up for $1000.
Runs and drives good, everything works, interior is clean, little to no rust.
It's high mileage (272k) the brakes need some attention and the suspension is pretty clapped out but well worth the $1000.




I have no crazy plans for the mean time as I am on a pretty low budget ( going through school and working on buying some property to build a house soon). Just working on getting it cleaned up. Ordered everything to go through the whole brake system. So hopefully on my next days off I can get that sorted out along with doing the oil galley plug remedy. After that my next plans are to go through the suspension replace the shocks and bushings and maybe do a mild lift with some extended shackles. Also hope to step up to some 31's around the same time i go though the suspension.

Need to find some clean straight bumpers and a clean tailgate/hatch. looks to have been backed into something.



Don't plan on doing any crazy wheeling or anything. just wanted something a little more capable than my old volvo. I do a lot of forest road driving for hiking/capmping/backpacking and come across washed out roads and a lowered volvo doesn't fair to well.

heres my volvo if anyone is interested in seeing it.







Super excited to finally get into a land cruiser and I am excited to learn a new vehicle platform and enjoy my 62 for years to come.

 

[alaska120]

Volvo...tough little b@/%ards. Can't kill them. That will make a nice pair. Both worthy vehicles!

 

[SteveH]

Nice '62 - a lot of truck for the money! Now, take a hair dryer and remove that nasty lower door trim, one piece of which had the courtesy to fall off already.

 

[beetleteeth]

Nice '62 - a lot of truck for the money! Now, take a hair dryer and remove that nasty lower door trim, one piece of which had the courtesy to fall off already.

Yup doing that today after work along with removing the old faded tint off the last 3 windows.

Volvo...tough little b@/%ards. Can't kill them. That will make a nice pair. Both worthy vehicles!

Yup I love these old volvos. My last one before i sold it had close to 400k miles on it running 15 lbs of boost on the original motor. Some guy bought it and drove it from seattle to california and still daily drives it down there. I figure both these vehicles will last me a good chunk of my lifetime.

 

[red66toy]

Welcome! Good to see another Seattle 60/62 owner on here! Looks like a great rig and a great deal. I too am collecting all the parts to redo the brakes. The hills here definitely make them a priority quick

 

[landcruiserjunky]

Welcome!

 

[beetleteeth]

Welcome! Good to see another Seattle 60/62 owner on here! Looks like a great rig and a great deal. I too am collecting all the parts to redo the brakes. The hills here definitely make them a priority quick

Yeah it was a tough transition going from my volvo with 4 wheel disc brakes that'll throw you through the windshield to driving the cruise then back to driving my volvo. I won't be i. Seattle much longer though. Moving back home to the peninsula after the summer

 

[beetleteeth]

Got the galley plug fix done today. Along with an oil change and coolant flush. Went a little over kill on the galley plug fix. I put one short set screw in with locktite red. Then squeezed in some black rtv and put another short set screw on top of it. It was nice to get that out of the way from the start. Plug was definitely weeping a bit.




Hopefully by the end of the day I will have all the crappy faded tint off. I have 3 windows left.

 

[red66toy]

You work fast! Great work! I still need to do that fix.

 

[beetleteeth]

You work fast! Great work! I still need to do that fix.

Yeah had a couple people tell me horror stories so figured i'd get it out of the way quick.

 

[Kleatus]

Hello,

New here to ih8mud and new to Land Cruisers.

heres my volvo if anyone is interested in seeing it.



Super excited to finally get into a land cruiser and I am excited to learn a new vehicle platform and enjoy my 62 for years to come.

Welcome! Looks like someone's been hanging around Leavenworth!

Nice looking low mile rig ya picked up there!

 

[beetleteeth]

Got all the crappy faded trim off. Made it look a lot better. Should be pulling off the door trim if i make the time for it today.

Found out it doesn't like sitting in traffic on an 80 degree day. It got pretty hot a couple times. Speedo cable also broke yesterday do hopefully sourcing a new one soon.

 

[rrv333]

When it got hot, if the fuel gauge spiked as well then it's going to be a common ground that both gauges share. Use the search feature to learn more about that common issue with 62's.

 

[beetleteeth]

Well i found some rust. It was hiding under the moulding. Guess I will be doing a bit of body work soon.

 

[hj 60]

Nice score, the rust might turn into a bigger thing, have you looked at the chassis?
It is one spot were they don't rust and the molding is the source: no scratches but a rust hole

Here is a link to the maintenance manual, very informative to get it to specs but no word about worn out errors like the oil galley plug.

1986 Maintenance 26 pag.pdf

The overheating might be a problem that is #1 because if the head-gasket goes while in a traffic jam it was avoidable.
Many possibilities, I have read stories of people replacing everything ans still overheating, the spiking needle is the most desirable error to have but just scared the $$$ out of me when it happened 54 km after buying my diesel hj60

I don't know what budget you want to spend, start with a lot of wd40 a week before really helps, some special tools for the brake job is the open #10 wrench and for the front axle 54mm wrench, torque wrench, c-clip removal plier, big brass drift with heavy hammer and new seals and maybe spare cones and nuts.
Mostly the rear has more rust and I had to replace some dangerous cracked, rusted hard brake line and later one front short rubber hose.

I have done a lot of work divided in weekends so very high up time but so many hours spend on cleaning up the tools (outside in rain)
and especially a lot of double work (bleeding the brakes a million times): if you do the front best is to go overwhelming: new brake disks, new caliper seals, new beake hoses, new steering joins 5x, maybe new birfs, seals and bearings. That is a month of work if you clean, inspect and paint all parts a year

I just love the 1000 dollar trucks so I had to start with the mud welcome