New to the FJ60 world, come share my pain

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Yeah I learned my lesson. 99 all the way. I am scheduled to arrive in Stockton at 2:30 and as soon as Georg calls me back we can work out pick up times. Hopefully I can be on the road by about 4 or so.

So look for me!! :P
 
yup, it's time for the 60 to hit the road tomorrow. it won't be perfect but it should definetly be a lot more reliable and make it home in one piece.
it's still going to need some tinkering but it actually runs and drives well.

got the ebrake fixed today along with the hood release, replaced the front suspension bushings along with the sway-bar bushings, scored a hood, fender, valance and core support for it,...........
tomorrow i'll finish the bushings on the rear and a new air cleaner. then i will give it a final once-over before handing it over to joey.

besides that, i've had to replace the ps pump, ps box and high pressure line, smog pump, alternator, ac pump, evaporator, dryer, lines, belts, engine mount, acc brackets, .........

anyways, it's good to go now and should provide reliable transportation for quite a while. :beer:
 
Hey Georg do you have any pictures of the new routing of the accessories vs. the old routing? I ask because when we were looking at it I noticed it has the same accessory layout as mine and I thought that was normal, but is sounds like the accessories were mounted incorrectly.

Dylan
 
well, at first glance the accs on the passenger side looked to be incorrect but all the parts looked oem so that threw me off.
after a little research i figured out that the truck did not have AC from the factory but did have a dealer installed AC retrofit conversion. parts are a lot harder to come by so i went with all the oem 60 series accs.
that included having to replace:
ac pump
ac mounting bracket/passenger side engine mounting bracket
lower rad hoses and metal tube
alternator
alternator mounting bracket
belt tensioner brackets crank pulley/marmonic balancer
all the other AC components
and a few other odds and ends


forgot to mention earlier that we also had to put brakes on the rig. i'll post pics later.......
 
well, joey and his son made it to stockton this afternoon. my helper picked them up at the train station and brought them back to the shop. after going over a few things we decided to replace the front and rear seats with some freebies that i had in a parts donor rig. they were definetly in better shape and it's a long ride home........same color to boot!
after about an hour or so chatting, wrenching and checking things out joey hit the road. i called him a few minutes ago and they're about half way home. except for the carb not being in perfect shape, everything is going well. i did send another rebuildable carb core with joey which he'll get rebuilt and then installed.

i'll keep my fingers crossed for you bud; although, it's a cruiser so you're good to go! :beer:

thanks again for bringing your cruiser to my shop. also, thanks for the referrals guys, i do appreciate it! :cheers:
 
Georg, you are awesome man!!!!

I was listening for random noises and it seemed to all come from ALL the spare stuff you hooked me up with!!!

The road feel is awesome. No shaking, no rolling, no rocking. Really smooth. I was pretty surprised. I made mental notes of all the things that I need to give attention to. Carb DEFINITELY needs to be redone. I already contacted Jim C. and I will be sending the core to him.

The center console needs to be thrown out and I need to find some good aftermarket replacement. I realized I had bought visors through a fellow mudder but Georg threw them in for free.

There is a lot of heat that transmits through the trans tunnel. My right foot felt like it was cooking. So I will be removing the carpet and getting some decent thermal padding in there to take care of road noise and heat transferring.

Not having a radio for a 7 hour drive home SUCKS A$$!!!! I really hate you Zack! I hope you are reading this. :mad: :bang:

Keeping the cruiser at 2800RPMs is going to take a LOT of discipline. I could hear a whine everytime I crept into 3000RPMs.

Not having cupholders ALSO sucks a$$.

I noticed that I will definitely need a ladder to get into that rack. I let my kid jump into at the gas station but then the only way to get down was for him to use the rear wiper....Umm nooo. So onto the hood he went.

Going up the grapevine grade was no problem at all, 50 the whole way up.

I got 260 miles before I decided to get gas. Probably could have gone to 300 if I had a 5gal gas can waiting to go.

Second and third gear starting getting a weird whining towards the end of the trip. :( This worries me.
 
glad to hear you made it home ok. i knew you would.


yeah, the transmission did have a whine in 1st thru 3rd as discussed. i think it's one of the countershaft bearings. it was noticeable but not bad when i drove it. if the vehicle was driveable when it came to me i would have been able to hear that and probably would have replaced it at that time.

either way, i have a good used transmissin and t-case combo at the shop that'll bolt right in. that would most-likely be the cheapest option to take care of the problem. the other option would be to have the transmission rebuilt but you'd have to have the t-case resealed or rebuilt at the same time which makes for a much heftier price-tag.

since you've already had to do so much work to the truck i'd say drive it for a while and see how it does. if the transmission noise gets worse, then you'd better do something about it before you have a catastrophic failure. if it satys the same, then just keep paying attention to it and figure out what you want to do with the rig. i know you were thinking about doing a conversion to a gm V8. depending on what transmission you want to run in conjunction with it should help you determine what you want/need to do about the existing trans.

thanks again!:)

georg @ valley hybrids
 
ps: the parts donor departed this earth yesterday, along with a bunch of other scrap. amazing how much money you get for scrap these days, almost makes it worth the trip to the recyclers'.
IM000443.webp
 
yup. :frown:

most of it had at least one bent leg from a forklift running into it, then there were two different widths and the racks i have in the shop use different cross bars. so i got tired of it laying around.........oh well, can't win em all.
 
Holy mother of Dog!

Just read this entire post!

'bout a year ago, a buddy and I bombed up North to somewhere 8 hrs from here to buy an FJ62 that was supposedly manna to cruiserheads.

Got there at 3pm on a Sat. Guy is gone. Waited with his drunk wife until 5pm. Truck shows up with a CEL and that just-gunked at the car wash smell and a fried alternator -- and much less truck quality than advertised.

Ended up bailing and turned around and went home driving 18 hrs in one day!

I feel your pain, man...


*******

Joey, if you need a 4spd tranny to rebuild to replace yours (was running when removed, for H55 upgrade, mileage is 213K) I've got one that's a freebie to you (I'm in Encino) -- Just come get it.

PM me if you want it.

S.
 
Spike Strip said:
Holy mother of Dog!

Just read this entire post!

'bout a year ago, a buddy and I bombed up North to somewhere 8 hrs from here to buy an FJ62 that was supposedly manna to cruiserheads.

Got there at 3pm on a Sat. Guy is gone. Waited with his drunk wife until 5pm. Truck shows up with a CEL and that just-gunked at the car wash smell and a fried alternator -- and much less truck quality than advertised.

Ended up bailing and turned around and went home driving 18 hrs in one day!

I feel your pain, man...

S.
Click to expand...

Been there too, drove to Arkansas to buy a truck I found on Pirate got there and it was rough and I wasnt so sure it would have made the drip home. Turned around and headed back home. Ate some great BBQ in Memphis and rested in a rest area in TN somewhere for maye 2 or 3 hrs. I ended up driving 20 hrs in 24!

Things always apear better in pictures than they really are.
 
Spike Strip said:
Joey, if you need a 4spd tranny to rebuild to replace yours (was running when removed, for H55 upgrade, mileage is 213K) I've got one that's a freebie to you (I'm in Encino) -- Just come get it.

PM me if you want it.

S.
Click to expand...

Thanks SPIKE!!

I actually have a bearing in my trans now that only makes noise in 1st thru 3rd. In 4th gear its totally quite. In fact in 4th on the street the truck is pretty quiet.

I am planning on eventually doing the H55 route myself. So I will be looking for that sometime soon. But I TOTALLY appreciate the offer. That is way cool!
 
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