Just before Christmas a friend had a kid, and had to sell his BJ73 for a more family-friendly wagon. My old Surf had been giving me problems and I've always wanted a 70 series after driving them a lot for work in Australia, so I bought it and then promptly drove it most of the length of New Zealand over the next week.
It's a 1985 5-speed model with just under 280,000km on the clock (although presumably it's been wound back). It originally had the big chrome shelf bumper, with PTO winch, kumho 31" muddies on steel wheels. Mostly stock and with a pretty tidy interior. It's going to be my daily driver and a hunting truck, mostly for driving up big braided riverbeds for access to mountain areas.
There was a little chassis rust I wanted to clean up before it became a problem (I live on the very wet West Coast) so I hit it with a wire brush, rust converter and then some black zinc rattle can
The exhaust was rusted out and blew through in the middle of my Christmas road trip, just under the drivers door on the welds for the brackets, so I made some temporary repairs, but I'll have to get a whole new exhaust before it'll pass a WOF inspection - it's not due one until June so I'm in no rush - is it worth getting a larger dia performance exhaust for a 3B? Will there be an appreciable performance or economy gain?
I didn't like the big chrome shelf bumper so I removed it and hit the winch housing with the angle grinder to clean it up a bit. Have some new parts being fabbed to reduce the profile of it a bit, and a new nylon rope and Hawse fairlead, hope to get that all fitted in the next week or 2.
The rear diff was seeping oil from the pinion seal, so I changed that, but the seep seems to have continued, possibly due to a worn pinion flange?
The inside of the rear wheel arches was bare of any coating, so I thoroughly cleaned, degreased, rust-converted them and then painted with rattlecan underbody liner. Also hit the entire chassis with fish oil at the same time.
Also got a Hi Lift Jack mount for the spare wheel carrier
There are a variety of small patches of paint & panel damage, minor bits of panel rust etc that I am hoping to address in the future - perhaps a complete respray of the body.
I have a Safari snorkel sitting in the corner ready to install, but the holes in the template don't seem to quite match up with the holes in the actual snorkel - is this normal? It seems concerning.
There's also a distinct back-to-front angle to the truck which I'd like to fix - would prefer it to ride flat. Any suggestions? I'm unsure if it's been lifted at any point.
The gearbox, PTO box or t/fer case has a pretty serious oil seep that I need to track down and sort out
Future plans include new speakers, BFG ATs, new rims or strip and repaint the existing, badly rattle-canned rims, and drive the heck out of it.
It's a 1985 5-speed model with just under 280,000km on the clock (although presumably it's been wound back). It originally had the big chrome shelf bumper, with PTO winch, kumho 31" muddies on steel wheels. Mostly stock and with a pretty tidy interior. It's going to be my daily driver and a hunting truck, mostly for driving up big braided riverbeds for access to mountain areas.
There was a little chassis rust I wanted to clean up before it became a problem (I live on the very wet West Coast) so I hit it with a wire brush, rust converter and then some black zinc rattle can
The exhaust was rusted out and blew through in the middle of my Christmas road trip, just under the drivers door on the welds for the brackets, so I made some temporary repairs, but I'll have to get a whole new exhaust before it'll pass a WOF inspection - it's not due one until June so I'm in no rush - is it worth getting a larger dia performance exhaust for a 3B? Will there be an appreciable performance or economy gain?
I didn't like the big chrome shelf bumper so I removed it and hit the winch housing with the angle grinder to clean it up a bit. Have some new parts being fabbed to reduce the profile of it a bit, and a new nylon rope and Hawse fairlead, hope to get that all fitted in the next week or 2.
The rear diff was seeping oil from the pinion seal, so I changed that, but the seep seems to have continued, possibly due to a worn pinion flange?
The inside of the rear wheel arches was bare of any coating, so I thoroughly cleaned, degreased, rust-converted them and then painted with rattlecan underbody liner. Also hit the entire chassis with fish oil at the same time.
Also got a Hi Lift Jack mount for the spare wheel carrier
There are a variety of small patches of paint & panel damage, minor bits of panel rust etc that I am hoping to address in the future - perhaps a complete respray of the body.
I have a Safari snorkel sitting in the corner ready to install, but the holes in the template don't seem to quite match up with the holes in the actual snorkel - is this normal? It seems concerning.
There's also a distinct back-to-front angle to the truck which I'd like to fix - would prefer it to ride flat. Any suggestions? I'm unsure if it's been lifted at any point.
The gearbox, PTO box or t/fer case has a pretty serious oil seep that I need to track down and sort out
Future plans include new speakers, BFG ATs, new rims or strip and repaint the existing, badly rattle-canned rims, and drive the heck out of it.
