Project: Domino Effect ('94) (7 Viewers)

[Bigtoepfer]

I guess it's finally time to get a build thread going since I just hit two years with the 80. I've been thinking for a long time what I would call this thread.

Two years ago I picked up an 80 that needed more work than I realized. On the way home it drove well enough and didn't over heat, but it did push coolant into the overflow. Turns out it had a blown head gasket, even though the PO said they had changed the head gasket. Either they didn't or they did a bad job of it. But it has glitter in the radiator from stop leak, which I didn't catch. I did catch oil leaks, and leaky birfs. But I was tired of looking for the perfect 80, and worked myself into a corner.

I wanted to manual swap it, but spent my manual swap money on Part Time swap, 10% Underdrive regear, and all of the motor work that was unexpected.


Two years ~14,000 miles later, I've been wheeling three times, camping about twice that many and driven across a couple different states. This fall, if my son will survive a 20+ hr road trip we are going to Moab. So I've been doing more to be sure we are ready for the trip.

The day I got it.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Got all the initial work done at a shop near Austin. Turned out it also had broken timing guides, which is what made the top end slightly noisy. I'm typically a while you are in there kind of guy, so what I could afford we went ahead and took care of.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Powder coated intake manifold and valve cover. I had also bought new birfs, but these didn't click, and I was going part time, so just ran these and still have spares. New AISIN hubs.

Had a small leak from the front pinion, but since its not used except when offroad or snowing, I've never seen it leak since purchase.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

After getting it home I drove it for a bit, had some issues with a lean CEL and occarionally a rough idle when stopped at a red light.
But instead of fixing things mechanically I had already ordered some things to make it look better, and I had a broken door handle, so I decided to start small.
Chrome door handle installs to the front doors. And new belt molding along the windows. Also deleted ABS and LSPV. Also from the previous post, if it wasn't clear, PAIRS and EGR were deleted.

The cowl was a bit crunchy, and the vehicle didn't have a spec of rust on it anywhere, so I wanted to check the cowl to be sure.
MAN parking under trees for any amount of time is bad, but how long was this one under a tree? No rust under it though, just dust.

Also the horns only worked intermittently, so I swapped those out.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Next I pulled the terrible chinese double din out, and replaced it with an Alpine I've had since like 2018, it was in my old '92 SA and 3RZ swapped pickup. So it was like a small piece of home to put in the land cruiser to make it a little more nostalgic feeling, if the swooping dash wasn't enough.

The center vents were really floppy, so while I had everything out I replaced those as well. Ideally one day I'll rebuild or replace the AC controls so that I can actually see the lights.
Installed a set of White Knuckle sliders with no angle to help my wife and kid be able to get in an 80 with a 3" flexi lift. Although I'm pretty sure its closer to 4+

Also pulled the rear heater out, right as winter was coming. HEH. It was already deleted and bypassed anyway. I wanted to make room for my ham radio.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Installed the HAM radio under the passenger seat, but would later end up moving it. It was a good spot for it at the time though. This is the third vehicle that the Kenwood has made it into.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Started working on painting a tiny LandCruiser for my son. The resemblance is uncanny.

Before driving it back home initially I had bought a VAF off of amazon to see if it fixed some of my issues. At the time it didn't And I was still have a bunch of the same issues. So before winter really got here, I pulled apart the old VAF and cleaned it, and also installed new O2 BOSCH sensors. One of those two things fixed my CEL.

Then all of the sudden we got snow in Louisiana, I needed something from work, and I was the only idiot to drive in. I know this isn't SNOW SNOW compared to the rest of the country, but if Texas or Louisiana get snow like this, all hell breaks loose. This was Jan 2024, for a time reference.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Trying to get my parking brake to work better I pulled the rear drums off to find one of them cracked. After swapping these and the pads, I will at this point have swapped most components of the brake system except, master cylinder, booster, hard lines, and brake calipers. All soft lines, pads, and rear drums. I didn't end up changing the shoes. I'll probably do that at some point in the future. But for now on an incline if I pull the ebrake I don't roll backwards.

No leaks from the rear wheel bearings/seals though so I was happy about that. I did have a leak in the rear, turned out I had a blown shock that was making the passenger side of the axle look wet.

I already had the eimkeith PCK on, took the time in the spring to do the RAM. Getting ready for Toyota Jamboree. Talk about a game changer in driving characteristics. If you were on the fence, it's worth it.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

So I still wasn't super pleased with the brake performance, I got new pads for the front, based on recommendations in various places. Powerstop Extreme Truck and Tow for the 80 series. I was having a lot of brake dust on my wheels, so this did improve that. But no appreciable braking improvement, even after aggressive bedding in.

But there was one thing that made a night and day difference with the braking. It also fixed the occasional bad idle when stopped at a red light. The vacuum hose from the intake manifold to the booster. If yours is old, questionable or cracked, change it. After installing it the 80 instantly idled better, went to go do the same brake bedding in routine, and I could even smell the brakes this time. It was a whole different beast.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Occasionally I boot up the 3d Printer and make a few things. I fixed my bad latch in the center console, and also drew up some rear door speaker spacers.
Didn't get good photos of those though.

My son is loving the 80 RC, and even drove it around Jambo for our firstofficial camping trip in the 80. We then went up to arkansas a couple of months later.

I picked up a tube bumper from BIO. I'm pretty sure it was one of Mikes last ones before he shut it down, good to see its back up and running though. At this point this was our furthest one way trip in the 80 away from home. 4.5 hours, and managed 14mpg. The roads in Arkansas are mostly 60mph though.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

While at Jambo in 2024 I stopped at the SkyJacker booth and signed up for the shock giveaway they were doing. Well I ended up winning. According to the guy I got my shocks from at their office I might be the only person running the M95s on the 80. Not gonna look a gifthorse in the mouth though, because I had a blown shock, and was due for replacements. I gave them the measurements and style of shocks from the long travel nitros that I had from Dobinsons, and we got almost exactly the same measurements in monotube skyjacker shocks. I'm pretty sure the vehicle is also sitting slightly taller now. Which is doing the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve. It's barely fitting in the garage as is.

Also picked up a new intake tube. And something I'd been wanting for awhile now. A "4WD" badge. Because that's cooler than AWD. But it also just means I have to get out when its snowing or muddy and lock the hubs.

Accelerator cable is looking worse and worse, and so is a small leak from the valve cover. So I replaced the accelerator cable. Added valve cover to the to do list.

At some point before this I was tired of power steering fluid on the floor of the garage, so I replaced the PS reservoir, and the hoses that connect to it. Hoped that would be the end of that, but sadly there is still a tiny drip occasionally from the pump. I haven't gotten brave enough in the last two years to take it off and take it apart.

Around this time I also resealed the windshield. I got a bad leak from it during Jambo, and also pulled the hood insulation and reglued the skeleton of the hood to the shell. No more floppy hood on the interstate.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

At that same Jambo, I had volunteered a lot so I got some extra raffle tickets, usually my wife doesn't let me buy many. I also managed to buy $100 worth. I don't ever win in these things, so the fact that she let me buy extra was surprising.

Well I won an ARB Twin from Duggy's Garage. Huge shout out to them for that.

So I picked up an underseat mount, because I wasn't a fan of the idea of putting it under the hood. I don't have air lockers so it wasn't going to be running all that often. This was also a good excuse to pick up a victory molle panel for the rear quarter window to put my air hose and first aide kit, etc, etc, on. We starting to look more official.

 

[Fj80oregon]

Nice! Looks like someone stole your EGR valve.

 

[Fj80oregon]

If you need some valve cover plastics I have a few laying around.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

Bought some really nice SAE foglights from SuperBrightLEDs, I've been buying lights from them for years for the interior, but I knew they made exterior lights. I didn't really feel the need to splurge on BajaDesigns again on this build. If you are sleeping of SBL you really shouldn't be. For driving fogs these are amazing. The cutoff is razor sharp.

Also a lean in the suspension had been bothering me. So I pulled and swapped the rear coils from side to side.

Also drove up (in October 2024 at this point) To north west Arkansas for camping. On the way home my booster failed. So it was the culprit the whole time likely for what was causing my idle issues at redlights. Well if you have a booster on the way out and put a brand new vacuum hose on it, it will expedite the exit of the diaphragm it seems. SO that was a bitch to replace. I tried to do it without loosening the engine mounts, I got the old booster out, but I bought a City Racer Booster. And there was just no way to get it back in without unbolting one side of the engine and jacking it up a bit.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

If you need some valve cover plastics I have a few laying around.

I have both of mine actually. I almost put them back in after recently changing the valve cover gasket, but I am missing the bolts, or I have miss placed them.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

So finally decided to do some more real maintenance. My bad idle at readlights was now fixed, but like the domino bit I first talked about this brought on something new. Now when I would crank the 80, it would rev up to almost 2k and hang or go down to 1800 and then SLOWLY work it way down. Didn't matter the outside temp.

So I pulled the throttle body and cleaned the IACV and the passage for it really well. I assumed it probably got gunked up in the last 10k miles since the partial rebuild with it was running pretty badly. Now that everything is sorted hopefully it won't happen again. The throttle plate was mostly clean.

If I was pulling the throttle body it was the perfect time to finally change the leaky valve cover gasket. The top end looks nice inside for almost 250k miles. At least in my opinion. Of course we did mostly have it apart 10k miles ago.

Pulled apart the center console again. The light in the shifter had died and it had been bothering me. And I ordered a shift lockout button. Nice billet aluminum piece.

Also finally getting rid of the OEM SR5 4runner wheels and NEOMAX MTs.
Picked up a set of wheels from a fellow Toyota Jamboree attendee. Not sure if he is on here or not. But he has a pretty nice 4Runner. They ended up sitting about 10mm further out than I wanted them too, but for the price for five wheels it was hard to pass up.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

At this point I spent some time cleaning up the rock rash on the wheels, ordered tires, and painted the wheels. I had 35x12.5r17s on OEM 17"
I wanted to ideally go tall and skinny, but slightly shorter. I opted for 275/85/17 which is in theory 34x10.5r17. Well you will see from the pictures, that you can't always just believe tire sizes. I already knew that my 35s were actually 34.6". which isn't exactly uncommon.

And on a previous crawler I had Patagonia MT 01 and liked them. This time I picked up a set of Patagonia XT that I'd been wanting for a couple of years now.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

So according to FedEx these were 34" exactly by 9" exactly. So the treadblock measured 9" wide. And they measured 34" tall. So why were they so much taller than my other tires? I wanted to get shorter, but here I am taller, and now I mean I fit in the garage by a hair. When I put them on in the garage I almost didn't make it out.

And I almost feel like the suspension got taller after putting the wheels and tires on too. Which sounds crazy. Now I'm considering going down to like 1.5" lift or something similar. Ideally I'd like to fit in the garage, WITH a rack and awning. I'm a fan of Sherpa racks.

At this point I've installed new window runs, and channels in all the windows. I've also greased the regulators with SYL-GLYDE. It has improved window performance but it's not like night and day. It may or may not have improved sound inside, but with the new AT or "XT" tires it was so silent on the high way that I heard a new noise I never heard before, a howl in the rear end. LOVELY.

Also the spare now fits in the factory spot. So my wife doesn't think we need a swingout anymore.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

This catches us up to about this spring. Went to Toyota Jamboree again. I had rushed to get the wheels painted and mounted before Jambo.
Of course I got one of the wheels scarred up on an obstacle. But Im not one to protect wheel lips/faces when wheeling. I had kind of forgotten I was on new wheels. The tires did really well at Barnwell.

This year I went without my wife an son. So that means dropping $100 on the raffle was easy. But I also spent more time volunteering. So got some more tickets for that.
The last item of the raffle night was a Warn winch.....and I won. HUGE shout out to 4LoFab for the hookup. It was a bitch it get installed but I'm glad to have it. Hopefully I won't need it this fall, but better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. One of the hardest things I think I've ever done was getting that rope into that drum. Never had a warn before so that system was new to me. Remote mounting the control box was a pain, but the end result is clean.