Take Two: "Hank the Tank" my second hundy... (1 Viewer)

[bcarbs]

Hey MUD, figured it's about time I posted an intro, so here goes! It all started back in 2019 when the wife and I rented an overland rig for a week out in Rocky Mountain National Park. I had no idea that the missing link to getting her into camping was sleeping on top of a truck. ("the bears can't get us up here!" hah...). Welp ,whatever she wants to think After that trip the seed was planted and I knew one day I wanted to build out a rig back home in the north east.

Originally we considered building out my wife's JK but I wanted something that was going to last and be reliable. I've always had good luck with japanese cars so why not a truck. Fast forward to 2021 when I and everyone else wanted to buy a Land Cruiser. I eventually found a 2005 LX 470 with 102k on market place and I thought I was going to keep it forever.

I immediately did the timing belt and started baselining some fluids. Unfortunately I quickly learned that mileage is not the only indicator of wear and tear in the north east and there was a lot hiding underneath that "fancy" professional undercoating the previous owner had applied... Long story short I learned a bunch of valuable lessons with that first rig and got to do a dry run of my first build. After 3+ great years and a few too many thousands invested it was time to part ways and start with a better a base... here are a few shots just before I sold it.

 

[bcarbs]

After a few weeks of furiously scouring the interwebs in all of our rust-free regions I finally landed on "Hank" (The next generation of the first rig "Frank the Tank") I snagged him from a cruiser head down in Greenville, SC this past December. Flew down and drove right back up to NY the next day. Here's a photo the day I got him. Not a lick of rust and 208K miles young. Very excited to snag a vvti as well as Hank is a 2006. It wasn't perfect - certainly had a small list of "issues" but I enjoy wrenching on these things. Trading some miles for a rust free rig was worth every penny.

 

[bcarbs]

So far on Hank I've...

Got the whole under carriage fluid filmed ASAP

Replaced the gas cap and silenced an EVAP code for now (I think one of the lines in the engine bay by the fuse box has a small crack too).

Bought a missing apron piece in the driver footwell (gotta keep that road salt outta there!)

Replaced the fogs with some amazon knock offs (they're fine for now and at least one of em isn't a fish bowl anymore).

Put on a set of BFG KO2's 285/60/R-18 wrapped around a set of 200 series heritage wheels I snagged from a fellow mudder on my way back from South Carolina on the maiden voyage.

Learned the hard way about center bore and 100 series front hub assemblies and then subsequently installed some spidertrax 1.25" spacers from Slee so I could mount the heritage wheels

Replaced the front door tweeters and 6.5" woofers as well as the sub. (someone had installed a bunch of 4ohm speakers everywhere and the ML amp kept cutting out) Relieved now that most of the speaker impedances are correct I can go well above a 7 on the volume scale. Still need to figure out some 4" replacements for the rear doors and maybe something for the front mids.

Installed a Teyes CC3 2K head unit and routed a new 1080p back up camera. Unit has been working out great.

Replaced the o2 sensor on the passenger side to silence a P0430 (so far so good).

Currently in the process of installing an ARB compressor for some onboard air. Snagged a Torfab bracket for the area near the AHC resevoir and am working on routing a valve through the old radio antenna hole in the fender for easy access.

I've got some heater T's on deck as well as some window trim pieces on their way from Amayama at some point. Also waiting for a Prinsu roof rack I ordered last week while they were running a sale. Here's a photo of Hank as he sits now...

This forum has been so helpful along the way - wealth of knowledge in here making it possible for me to do so much of this work myself.

 

[Trapper50cal]

It's pretty easy to get the bug with the comfort and V8 of the 100/470

Those wheels look great on there!

208K is a great mileage for these now, low...but not suspiciously low, and not questionable-everything-rubber low.

 

[bcarbs]

It's pretty easy to get the bug with the comfort and V8 of the 100/470

Those wheels look great on there!

208K is a great mileage for these now, low...but not suspiciously low, and not questionable-everything-rubber low.

Thanks @Trapper50cal ! Couldn't agree more on the mileage - car had some great recent service history and a stack of old records. New front diff, axles, alternator, recent timing belt, etc, I knew I had to jump on it. Definitely wasn't getting driven all too much past couple years - there was an issue at first that prev owner disclosed with the fuel tank levels not always updating or incorrectly showing low. Sure enough after driving the rig more frequently that cleared right up and seems to be working consistently again . Planning to drive this thing ~10k yr so should get plenty of cycles now

 

[excessive]

those TRD wheels look amazing! It's tough learning a lesson on buying a rusty rig. I learned this hard lesson many years ago, my very first 80 series i bought was a rust bucket. Kept it for only a year and finally gave up on trying to work on it because of the rust. Never again! only buying lifelong southern vehicles for the rest of my days.

 

[bcarbs]

those TRD wheels look amazing! It's tough learning a lesson on buying a rusty rig. I learned this hard lesson many years ago, my very first 80 series i bought was a rust bucket. Kept it for only a year and finally gave up on trying to work on it because of the rust. Never again! only buying lifelong southern vehicles for the rest of my days.

Thanks @excessive! Ain't that the truth - I was ready to keep dumping money and hours into it but eventually had to make the financially responsible choice. Thanks to the low miles I was able to pull out at nearly what I paid and only threw a few more $k down to grab Hank.

There was a rig for sale in Austin that I missed out on that had the heritage BBS forged wheels. First time I had seen them on a 100 series. As soon as I saw the setup I knew I had to try and replicate on the next one.

 

[baltistyle]

Thanks @excessive! Ain't that the truth - I was ready to keep dumping money and hours into it but eventually had to make the financially responsible choice. Thanks to the low miles I was able to pull out at nearly what I paid and only threw a few more $k down to grab Hank.

There was a rig for sale in Austin that I missed out on that had the heritage BBS forged wheels. First time I had seen them on a 100 series. As soon as I saw the setup I knew I had to try and replicate on the next one.

Enjoy the wheels and the truck. I have been running them for about four years now and they have been great. No issues with the spacers or lugs.

 

[Tentsontop]

Nice. Both of my wives have been big RTT lovers for the same reason as your wife had.

 

[cruisersandlxs]

Fantastic looking rig, sir! And those wheels, wow!