Swiss Poverty Pack Barn Door HDJ80

[gilmorneau]

The front bumper was not as nice as it could have been when I bought the car, either. You can see in the photo that it was pushed in slightly at the center, which caused a raised area at the top. Not impossible to fix, of course, but it had also been rattle can painted black (which is not the correct color):

Lo and behold, new bumpers were still available when I looked, so I bought one. I got the ends too, but didn't take a photo.

 

[gilmorneau]

What else have I done recently? Let's see...I replaced one of the rear window wipers. The original was broken and had been repaired with baling wire as shown here:

Found a new one and bolted it on. Much better:

 

[gilmorneau]

And I added a "turbo" sticker to the passenger side rear quarter panel. Sometime before I bought the car, the right rear quarter panel had been repainted for some reason and they didn't replace the "turbo" decal.

When it was repainted, they put clear coat over the white, which will never match the original paint on the rest of the car. I had thought I'd have it redone properly to OEM spec, but I got over it and just put the decal on.

 

[gilmorneau]

And since my registration was due for renewal, I decided to get vanity plates! Never had 'em before, but what the heck, it was available:

 

[Will Van]

Great work!

Love the vanity plates.

 

[sunrk]

Great job!

 

[Tanner H]

Pretty random...but is this you/your truck in this clip? Guy is complaining about a pothole but I'm more interested in what passes by in the background.

 

[gilmorneau]

Wow, that guy's got a bone to pick with the City of Boulder.

Yup, that's me.

 

[gilmorneau]

Overdue for an update here. I've been enjoying this truck, driving it almost every day, and going on the occasional road trip or doing some camping when I can. Not sure I've done any "overlanding" though.

I just realized that yesterday was the 4 year anniversary of the day I bought this 'Cruiser in Switzerland. In honor of that milestone, here's a throwback photo. We met these ladies on our first test drive before purchase:

 

[gilmorneau]

On the more tech side of things, over the summer I was preparing to do an oil change

But when I climbed under the car, I saw this:

Now, there comes a time in every Landcruiser owner's life when he/she needs to tackle the front axle seals, and it seems that now was that time. So apart comes the whole kit and caboodle:

Parts were ordered:

And everything re-assembled:

I started out thinking I'd just replace the seals, clean, inspect, and re-pack the bearings and put it all together, but, of course, it never goes like that. When I got the wheel off, I immediately see that the disc is scored from a sticking caliper. Add new discs and calipers to the shopping list (too far gone to be machined). When I'm taking everything apart, I see that some bonehead had apparently used a steel chisel to undo the spindle nuts, putting big divots in them and making them and the thrust washer useless for re-use. Hint: just get the correct giant socket. Same guy had knocked the bearing races out (probably with the same big dumb chisel) and scored the hubs pretty badly. Axles were grooved pretty significantly where the seal rides. You get the idea. So I just got everything, all OEM Toyota, all brand new. Should be good for another 30 years now.

 

[gilmorneau]

What else...Oh, I replaced the useless cubby with the nearly-as-useless cup holder:

 

[gilmorneau]

After I finished the knuckle rebuild I noticed the brake booster was starting to leak slightly. Difficult to find a new one, but eventually I did. Had to replace the master cylinder at the same time to get it all to work. Thanks to @cruiseroutfit with assistance on that.

Out with the old:

In with the new:

 

[NorthWA]

Nice to see an update. If memory serves me right, you picked up a spare tire wheel from me when you first brought it across the border into WA. I could be mixed up though, but either way great to see.

 

[gilmorneau]

After all that work, nothing like a Saturday road trip to re-up the Landcruiser love. Since we had a free day and the leaves in the high country are starting to change, we did a little leaf peeping. Up and over 6 passes (Kenosha, Cottonwood, Kebler, McClure, Vail, and Loveland). Here's some photos of the Landcruiser in action and stuff we saw:

 

[gilmorneau]

And because it was sorta close to our route, we decided to visit the Crystal Mill, site of many Colorado post card photos. You've seen it. The access road is 4WD only, but not terrible.

Worse than that in places, better in others.

Near the end of the road is the Mill:

If you drive a few hundred yards further up the road, there are a few cabins and some old mining junk laying around.

If you drive much past that, you encounter this sign:

The road beyond this sign is more of a buggy playground, and not the place for unmodified vehicles, so we turned around there.

BTW, if you ever find yourself inclined to head to the Mill, note that it's a narrow, rough (in places), shelf road, and there are a lot of people on it who have slim to no knowledge of trail etiquette or even how to drive their 4WD vehicles. Case in point: We met a guy coming the other way in a first gen Tundra. OK, probably a capable enough vehicle for the terrain, right? He's immediately adjacent to a pull out area, but it's at the edge of a drop off and he's nervous about using it. OK, is what it is. My wife gets out to spot him and get him safely onto the pull out so I can get by. Done. I look in my rear view mirror and can see he's spinning a rear wheel trying to back off the pull out area. So I park and go back to help him. Due to the angle he's positioned, he's got one rear wheel that's mostly unloaded, and it's spinning against a rock. I'm thinking good use of a locker if the truck has one, so I ask him: "do you have a rear locker?". His response: "I don't know". Then he asks me: "Do you think I should be in four-wheel drive?" Ummm...yeah, that might help. Got him on his way pretty quickly after that.

 

[gilmorneau]

From there, we just powered back home over I-70.

Stopped at a rest area and noticed this:

Meaningless, of course, but interesting nonetheless.

 

[gilmorneau]

And for those keeping score at home, we averaged a little over 24mpg for the trip. I'll take that.

 

[gilmorneau]

If memory serves me right, you picked up a spare tire wheel from me when you first brought it across the border into WA

Yup, that was me. It's one of the wheels currently on the car. Good to hear from you!

 

[Bigtoepfer]

This was an awesome read and so jealous of the vehicle in such an awesome spec. Especially in LHD. The photos of the aspens make me miss living up in Colorado. We were actually contemplating coming up to Buena Vista for some camping in October like 5th-10th since I never could make it up there this summer. But I wonder if its worth the trouble because it would just take one snow to make any trail pretty much in that area unpassable, and there are many that I'd like to do while in the area for a week. Some of the food in Buena Vista is nice, but its not worth driving 15hrs for one way just for food.