Righty moves to San Diego (3 Viewers)

[perrobravo]

Finally catching up on some minor fixes and maintenance stuff.

Replaced the soft brake lines which were cracking and nasty

Found a crack in the "hose" from the air filter to the intake and despite an attempt to fix with whatever tape I could find...

...decided instead to contact @beno and get one of these

Finished product:

 

[perrobravo]

Continuing to chip away at some basics...

With advice/help from @1978HJ45 and @elkaholic I found a spot to wedge in a small transmission oil cooler. Banged up a few of the fins and a few of my fingers trying to get the thing back there, and had to scrounge parts from a local transmission shop to avoid cutting the factory hose, but cooler transmission temperatures are in my future!

As posted here ( What did you do on your 70 series today? ), I replaced a cheap LED bar with a pair of Fyrlyt Nemesis 9000 lights. Taking night shots with my phone didn't do the lights justice, but I think the neighbors at the end of my street thought a police raid was imminent when I fired them up. Amazing light. And, IMHO these look a lot more at home on the front porch.

 

[Gun Runner 5]

With advice/help from @1978HJ45 and @elkaholic I found a spot to wedge in a small transmission oil cooler.
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Admitting that you took advice from me will no doubt destroy your reputation on 'MUD. I can almost hear the laughter in the background.

 

[perrobravo]

Despite the risk of further souring my reputation here, I again followed the advice of @1978HJ45 and spent some time with solvents, wire brushes, and my winch cable. The process was greasy and time consuming but the results are pretty good, IMHO.

 

[e9999]

Congrats!
So the RHD was never an issue with the DMV, sounds like. Great! How about with the insurance?

 

[OGBeno]

Despite the risk of further souring my reputation here, I again followed the advice of @1978HJ45

Well at least you can take cleaning tips from Charles.

 

[perrobravo]

Congrats!
So the RHD was never an issue with the DMV, sounds like. Great! How about with the insurance?

No problems with insurance here. At first I signed up with Geico. They apparently only offer liability coverage, so I dumped them for all my vehicles and went with American National. With them I purchased a "full coverage" classic car package with better (full) coverage and far lower rates (~$150 per year) for the BJ74. Must be garaged and can't exceed 10K miles per year. I completed the appraisal form which sets the value. Turns out the truck appraises quite high!

I didn't mention this particular driver to them though...for fear my rates may go up.

 

[e9999]

wow, that's really low. How can they even do that?

 

[ozcrusier]

Wow clean looking rig welcome aboard.

 

[perrobravo]

Took Righty out to the desert for a weekend playing in the sand and testing a few of the modifications out.

Before leaving, wired an outlet for the fridge from my 100 so I wouldn't have to suffer the shame of a cooler full of ice/water

Chased @sortmanfdxg and @bushdoctor around for a while

Climbed a giant sand pile

Quite a few flexing opportunities

Almost looks like high speed...

Glamour shot

A few observations:

1. The transmission cooler seems to have helped with engine temps in the mountains. Engine temps crept up a bit, but were well within reasonable...at least as measured by the OEM gauge. The readings on the speedometer in those same mountains were on the low end of reasonable at best!
2. The rear Lock-Rite lockers/limited slip moved to the front combination worked well. Plenty of opportunities in the sand to see the benefits of this setup and overall it I'm pretty happy with it. Selectable lockers might be even better, but the simplicity of this setup seems to work for me.
3. The Fyrlyt lights are insanely bright and highly useful. Didn't get a chance to switch them to flood pattern, but the spot beam is really impressive compared to other options I've tried.
4. Camping in my 100 with the rooftop tent, awning, iPhone chargers, air conditioning, solar panels etc. is a lot more comfy, but the simplicity and straight forward functionality of the BJ74 is lot of fun.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

 

[tmarx]

Very nice truck !

 

[NM Frontier]

I just recently took my 74 on it's first trip of any real distance, and I have to agree with you that having the comforts of the rtt and all the kit on, for me my 80, is nice but I really dig the simplicity of camping out of the 74.

What trans cooler did you go with? I had to mount mine up higher.

Funny how how all of our 74s on here are so similar.

 

[Gun Runner 5]

With all due respect to your current avatar, this is "avatar material".

 

[perrobravo]

After the trip to the desert I noticed a bit more shimmy to the engine at idle. Popped the hood and found the passenger side engine mount had clearly given up. The engine was sort of rocking back and forth on the drivers side mount. Not good. A quick email to @beno and new parts were on the way.

The goods, 日本から直接

May as well add new hardware

The easy side

The not so easy side

Not only did the new mounts fix the obvious problem, but overall the truck got a lot smoother than it has been since I've owned it. The PTO and shift levers don't rattle quite so much. The truck even seems to respond more quickly to accelerator input from idle. Nice!

 

[NM Frontier]

I need to do these on mine too, thanks for the reminder!

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I need to do these on mine too, thanks for the reminder!

OE and aftermarket in stock

 

[perrobravo]

A couple recent updates of note:

First, with all the folks here converting to 16" OEM steelies, I got a bad case of wheel envy and pulled the trigger on 5 Toyota 16x6 wheels, part number 42601-60262-03. I moved the original rims with the BFG MTs to my FJ60 and installed Cooper S/T Maxx in 255/85-16 (33") on the new steel wheels.

Off to the installer

Love these tires on my 100, so hopefully perform as well on a much lighter truck

Mounted up

Took the steepest power line trail I could find (unlocked) in the neighborhood and gave the tires an initial test. Pretty impressive how this thing wants to climb and takes steep rocky stuff with ease, even at street pressures!

Where's the spare, you ask? One of the rims could not be balanced...was WAY out of round. A replacement is on the way and should bolt right up to the inverted spare carrier.


Also did some exhaust work. While messing around with the tires/wheels, I discovered a sizable hole, just behind the flex pipe. It probably could have been patched. Instead, after reading a hundred turbo-related threads here, I went with 2.5" pipe from the turbo back. The truck feels a bit happier and thankfully it sounds about the same.

Can't see the flange in this pic, but the shop was able to bolt right to the original turbo down pipe

Stock routing and muffler placement

Just the tip

 

[bushdoctor]

Looks smoove...255/85 -- Nice profile height for the side-wall - Must have more clearance

 

[bushdoctor]

Looking forward to going on a ride.