PMcB's hundie and diy thread... (1 Viewer)

[pmcbrier]

I've had a few 80 series, and one hundie Lexus before, and we just found ourselves with another hundy. A 99 with 215k, that spent most of it's life as a mall crawler in California as evidenced by the ht tires, wedding ring damage on the steering wheel, and the cleanest undercarriage I have ever seen on a car. Immaculate. It also has had a lot of preventative maintenance performed on it including 2 timing belts, the last one including the water pump and other goodies, heater Ts, fuel pump, etc...
These rigs really are a great size, perfect for long hauls with the family and all the gear.
This thread will serve as a photo dump and diy blog as I get around to doing stuff on it.
This link will take you to the full album with all 99 cruiser related photos and videos.
99 Cruiser - https://photos.app.goo.gl/MmmWP5PUXg5G1nCV6

First up, delivered...

Had to replace the tired shocks. I don't know what was on there, they had a yellow shrader valve on them. Replaced with some lower mileage used Bilstein HD I got from a fellow mud member, thanks Mark! Installation was a piece of cake. Yeah the pass side rear top not was a little tedious, but really pretty easy. Great improvement in the ride.

Had to go for a quick test drive of course right around the corner from home...

 

[pmcbrier]

Next up, the steering was still pretty sloppy, so I ordered up some super pro steering rack bushings. Their site made it pretty easy to make sure I got the old style ones for my early truck. The installation was pretty smooth, toughest part was getting to the back nut on the d bushing bracket. I used a 3/8 ratchet and a 21mm box wrench as a breaker bar to get it started. All other bolts came off pretty easily. To get the bushings out on the driver's side, I put one bolt and nut back in, pivoted the rack slightly, jammed a screwdriver up against the bushing sleeve, and lifted with a jack. Pressed bushing right out. Remove bolt, lube and press in new bushing, and repeat for other bushing. Easy peasy. Reinstall everything. I also replaced the sway bar bushings new rubber items.
Couple YouTube videos show the before and after situation.

I have some more rubber bits coming to finish up the sway bar end links, and install rear sway bar bushings and and endlinks as well.
The truck really is handling much better, confidence inspiring on the freeway, and nice and tight on forest service roads.

 

[pmcbrier]

Yesterday was a cloudy overcast day in the salt lake valley, so of course we piled into the new to us rig and headed for some fall color.
Saw some big Horn sheep, (horns weren't too big though)

We headed up American form canyon and up past tibble fork reservoir, and over to Midway, with a small excursion towards mineral basin.

 

[pmcbrier]

Didn't take long to get tired of the muddled and generally crappy sounding stereo in the cruiser. But I am a cheapskate, so watching the local classifieds finally paid off, and for $90, I ended up with a Sony double din bluetooth head unit with 6 pre outs, and a 4 channel kicker amp. Finally got around to installing it last night. The wiring diagram made the hookups down under the seat a cinch, as does this page...

Great LINK!!!!
Stereo Wiring: Land Cruiser / LX 470 (1998-02)

Little bit of time and care routing the main power cable in the engine bay made for a pretty clean install. I used close to all 17' of power cable, and routing it through the fire wall where the main engine harness goes through. I had to remove the glove box and drop the ecu to fish the wire end and pull it all the way through. Pretty easy stuff if a bit tedious.

I installed a Sony bluetooth wx 920bt, a couple years old, I figure, but it looks nice, fills the space, and has all the necessary out puts. I also put in a kicker 250.4 amp in. Not hugely powerful. I did not change out any of the speakers, that will be next, however, the difference is night and day! It sounds SOOOO MUCH BETTER! Eventually I will throw another amp in the back, probably where the stock sub and box sit, and add in a 10 inch sub with box to fill out the system.

 

[pmcbrier]

Been a while since updating. But, have been busy and made some updates to the truck.
Got some eBay Chinese belt trim for the windows. The original pieces were cracking and starting to look like crap. I tend to avoid Chinese crap, but couldn't stomach the $50 a pop x4 for OEM, so grabbed the chinesium for $50 for all four shipped. Showed up two days later, easy install. Pleased with this cheapo addition.

 

[pmcbrier]

Right after returning from a road trip to the desert, the engine began making a funny noise. I was annoyed, as I thought it was the fan clutch. It was the fan bracket. That is 3/4 of a timing belt job, and I was gonna need one of those in 7k mi, so figured I'd just bust it all out. So I did. water pump, timing belt, tensioner, pulleys, fan bracket, drive belt and tensioner, db pulley, coolant flush and refill with red Toyota, oil change. Rock auto has good deals on quality aisin timing belt kits and drive belt kits, even the fan pulley bracket.

The noise came from a failed bearing on the fan pulley.

 

[pmcbrier]

Was getting an occasional clunk when truck would change directions, so looked at my bushings, and front sway bar bushings were shot. Replaced and clunk went away. Handling tightened right up.
Back in March, we tanked the oldish bilsteins, felt like a rear had gone soft on us. Replaced with the OEM tokico, put new sway bar end links, (should have done the bar bushings then too but hey...)
Also swapped in new front rotors and wheel bearings.

 

[pmcbrier]

Steering wheel leather was failing. So replaced with a wheel from cruiserparts.net. It took a long time to show up, but communication was decent and I am VERY pleased with the results. Wheel looks amazing! Great color matching for the oak interior.
Passenger side seat bottom was cracking so had that recovered locally, as well as the center console cover. It's actually starting to look like a nice car inside again after 275k+ miles.

 

[Trapper50cal]

Been a while since updating. But, have been busy and made some updates to the truck.
Got some eBay Chinese belt trim for the windows. The original pieces were cracking and starting to look like crap. I tend to avoid Chinese crap, but couldn't stomach the $50 a pop x4 for OEM, so grabbed the chinesium for $50 for all four shipped. Showed up two days later, easy install. Pleased with this cheapo addition.
View attachment 3492683

Got a link on those Window belt trims?

 

[pmcbrier]

Got a link on those Window belt trims?

Here you go.

4Pcs for Land Cruiser Lexus LX470 Outside Window Weatherstrip Seal Belt Moulding | eBay

4x Window Weatherstrip Seal Belt Moulding. 1998-2007 Lexus LX470 4.7L V8. 1998-2007 Toyota Land Cruiser 4.7L V8. Perfect match for the original car. Made of high quality material, durable and practical to use.

www.ebay.com

 

[Trapper50cal]

Here you go.

4Pcs for Land Cruiser Lexus LX470 Outside Window Weatherstrip Seal Belt Moulding | eBay

4x Window Weatherstrip Seal Belt Moulding. 1998-2007 Lexus LX470 4.7L V8. 1998-2007 Toyota Land Cruiser 4.7L V8. Perfect match for the original car. Made of high quality material, durable and practical to use.

www.ebay.com

Thanks!

 

[saucebox]

I've had a few 80 series, and one hundie Lexus before, and we just found ourselves with another hundy. A 99 with 215k, that spent most of it's life as a mall crawler in California as evidenced by the ht tires, wedding ring damage on the steering wheel, and the cleanest undercarriage I have ever seen on a car. Immaculate. It also has had a lot of preventative maintenance performed on it including 2 timing belts, the last one including the water pump and other goodies, heater Ts, fuel pump, etc...
These rigs really are a great size, perfect for long hauls with the family and all the gear.
This thread will serve as a photo dump and diy blog as I get around to doing stuff on it.
This link will take you to the full album with all 99 cruiser related photos and videos.
99 Cruiser - https://photos.app.goo.gl/MmmWP5PUXg5G1nCV6

First up, delivered...
View attachment 1806039

Had to replace the tired shocks. I don't know what was on there, they had a yellow shrader valve on them. Replaced with some lower mileage used Bilstein HD I got from a fellow mud member, thanks Mark! Installation was a piece of cake. Yeah the pass side rear top not was a little tedious, but really pretty easy. Great improvement in the ride.
View attachment 1806040

View attachment 1806041

Had to go for a quick test drive of course right around the corner from home...
View attachment 1806042

Hey, I can see my house from there. Welcome (back?) man, nice score.

Edit: lol, that was 5 years ago.