Welp, my friend has been dying to get a diesel cruiser for a while so I went up with him to check this out and see what was wrong with it.
It was dead, both batteries dead, so had to jump start it with my troopy. 24v - 24v. Obviously, it hasn't been run in a while or test-driven or anything like that since the batteries were dead.
Started up well, shifts well (3rd is kinda hard to get into), I got up to 45mph and had to brake due to traffic stopped ahead. ALWAYS check the brakes before leaving the parking lot because my foot just went to the floor. Brakes are a very faint suggestion in this cruiser. Brake booster and master cylinder both looked pretty much new so maybe just air in the lines?? Anyways I managed to not rear-end someone and go on with the test drive for another half a mile. I was giving it all it had from a stop just to see, 1st went well, 2nd was fine, put it into 3rd, and then this horrible, I mean horrendous noise started. I thought I had just blown the tranny. Pulled over to the side of the road and gave it a quick rev and the horrible noise increased more, so I knew something in the engine was wrong. Turned the car off, popped the hood, and it looked totally fine. Then after a bit of searching, I find that the entire engine had shifted over and the fan was smacking against the fan shroud (as seen below)
Well, good at least I hadn't caused any major catastrophic damage. My buddy called the dealership to ask what they wanted us to do with it (ended up saying just drive it back) so I took this time to look underneath the car. It's been totally under sprayed but even with that I couldn't see where much rust could be hiding underneath the under spray and the inside of the frame felt pretty clean, not bumpy or flakey or anything. Then I see some weird oily thing between the oil pan and transmission, I touch it and it's SOAKED in oil. So then I go to pull it out and it was just a big piece of foam to absorb a massive oil leak (rear main seal I'm assuming)
So uhhhhhh yea. Maybe the auction house did it, or the dealership, I'll get to that later. The oil pressure was in fact low, and stayed low, we checked the oil and it was only up to 1/4 on the dipstick (probably all leaked out into the foam) Anyways we drive it back which felt so so so wrong to do. One of the worst-sounding 3 minutes of my life, eventually the fan disintegrated enough and the noise stopped, then I did another hard pull just to see what would happen and it came back, sounding worse than the first time. Also, the front knuckles need a rebuild, and rear axle too as well, both covered in layers of oil and grease. I get in there and explain everything to the man in charge (the stereotypical kinda sleazy used car dealership guy) and explain everything I found and what's wrong etc etc. Freind offers him 10k for it and the guy says he's only gonna take $500 off of it. Also, the first thing I had said was that the rear axle needed a rebuild and they said they had rebuilt it, and so I asked why was it covered in years of grease and dirt to which they couldn't answer. Don't want to make up accusations or anything but the whole place just gave the vibe of that they would be the ones to put some foam to cover up the major oil leak, also if they were doing bearings and seals in the rear axle, how did they not see the massive oily foam piece when I saw it within 1 minute of looking under the car? Just very sketchy overall. I'm gonna call back in a week pretending to be a different person and ask about any oil leaks it has and see if they are in fact hiding it or if I actually had just brought it to their attention.
Other stuff: Windows go up and down sometimes, some only work when u do it from the individual window control, and others only work when you do them from the main driver window control. Electronic locks sometimes lock and unlock and sometimes don't, whenever they didn't you just heard a clicking. Driver window was very loose and flopping around within the door, A/C worked surprisingly great (don't know if it's been converted from R12 to R134a yet). Sunroof worked well, and then at the very end started clicking and wasn't happy. Steering had quite a bit of play, but it's a 30 y/o Land Cruiser, they told me to keep it running after I pulled up to the dealership and when we walked out it was still running (had been idling for like 15 minutes at that point) and the temp gauge was quite hot, I've never seen any cruiser gauge go above half unless it had something wrong with it and it was about 7/8's of the way up the gauge. The A/C was off by the way.
Pros: Engine sounded fine, ran perfectly, and was peppy. Transmission was great (other than 3rd gear sometimes), A/C worked great, it didn't seem to have much rust at all, and it's pretty cheap for a diesel cruiser over here (for many reasons though). I really can't think of much else.
Cons: Front knuckle rebuild needed, rear axle needs oil seals and bearings replaced (unless they actually did it), The engines fan hits the radiators fan shroud and sounds horrible (maybe bad motor mount), Big rear main seal leak (that was been hidden from the buyer), Low oil pressure (maybe from the low oil level). Heated up A LOT when idling, which was never a problem for my 62 or my troopy now. Windows and electronic locks were funky, to say the least. Oh yea and the passenger seat is just a racing seat, I've seen some funky stuff in Japanese imports but that may take the cake.
So to wrap this all up, it's pretty sketchy just all around. Sorry I didn't take more pictures or videos a lot was happening all at once and I didn't find this thread or knew it existed until after I went to check it out. Definitely know what you are getting into if you do go look at this. Made for a VERY interesting test drive at the least.
), but I hope there might be folks on this forum who are interested in a vehicle like this and 
