Hi all, about a month ago (crap, almost two now) someone dropped a card on my 62 at the June Charlotte Cars and Coffee. As we were leaving I drove by a few cruiser folk that I suspect were the card droppers. My 62 is a dark blue (but the PO painted over the red stock, bastard, and did a s***ty job) fairly stock '88 with California plates. Obviously its been deemed ol' red.
I bought a rack for it from someone in SC since I've been here but otherwise haven't done much since moving in March. Hopefully there will be a nice kayak strapped to the rack soon. Its hard to believe but I had more garage space in CA than we do here, so work has been slow since moving. Mods I've done since buying 2 years ago have been mostly of the reliability type.
Started off with a new radiator, water pump and belts as the first major service. After that I discovered that the transfer case was nearly dry, so I did a complete rebuild of that (pita without a nice press btw). After a tranny overheat scare just into Yosemite I added a tranny cooler. Somewhere in there I added some 31" BFGs. Finally I attempted to fix the leaky everything with a new oil pan, trans and pinion gaskets. Something still leaks a little, but the oil patch on the street has been greatly reduced. The last mod was one of necessity as the shipping company didn't fold in the mirrors on the trip to NC and shattered the passenger mirror.
Did you know you can get a dealer to tell you that a new FJ62 mirror is >$500? s***ty thing is that you can't actually buy one though (or just the glass). So I got a set of black plastic mirrors as a replacement and spent the remainder of the claim on the previously mentioned roof rack.
Attached is the most recent pic, from New Years Eve after some drunk guy side-swpied me while parked on the street. I came home from vacation to find a pile of glass near the rear quarter. Luckily it was their headlight and I just had a few small scrapes. Lost the drivers side mud flap in that incident as well but wasn't a huge deal as it never had a passenger version
Up to this point it's mostly been a CA truck, so very little rust except for a small bit on the b pillar and windshield frame. Next mod is to bring back the a stock-ish suspension height. It's pretty flat and bottoms out harshly now, but I'm not looking forward to the cost of replacement. Someday it will return to the the stock red color as well.
Well thanks for reading about ol' red. I've been lurking for a while now sora hoping I would pop up on the the "You've been Spotted" thread, but figured it was time to introduce myself. Im mostly spotted in and around Huntersville.
Cheers (with some OMB Southside Wheat)
- Ethan
PS #JB17 for any F1 fans
I bought a rack for it from someone in SC since I've been here but otherwise haven't done much since moving in March. Hopefully there will be a nice kayak strapped to the rack soon. Its hard to believe but I had more garage space in CA than we do here, so work has been slow since moving. Mods I've done since buying 2 years ago have been mostly of the reliability type.
Started off with a new radiator, water pump and belts as the first major service. After that I discovered that the transfer case was nearly dry, so I did a complete rebuild of that (pita without a nice press btw). After a tranny overheat scare just into Yosemite I added a tranny cooler. Somewhere in there I added some 31" BFGs. Finally I attempted to fix the leaky everything with a new oil pan, trans and pinion gaskets. Something still leaks a little, but the oil patch on the street has been greatly reduced. The last mod was one of necessity as the shipping company didn't fold in the mirrors on the trip to NC and shattered the passenger mirror.
Did you know you can get a dealer to tell you that a new FJ62 mirror is >$500? s***ty thing is that you can't actually buy one though (or just the glass). So I got a set of black plastic mirrors as a replacement and spent the remainder of the claim on the previously mentioned roof rack.
Attached is the most recent pic, from New Years Eve after some drunk guy side-swpied me while parked on the street. I came home from vacation to find a pile of glass near the rear quarter. Luckily it was their headlight and I just had a few small scrapes. Lost the drivers side mud flap in that incident as well but wasn't a huge deal as it never had a passenger version
Up to this point it's mostly been a CA truck, so very little rust except for a small bit on the b pillar and windshield frame. Next mod is to bring back the a stock-ish suspension height. It's pretty flat and bottoms out harshly now, but I'm not looking forward to the cost of replacement. Someday it will return to the the stock red color as well.
Well thanks for reading about ol' red. I've been lurking for a while now sora hoping I would pop up on the the "You've been Spotted" thread, but figured it was time to introduce myself. Im mostly spotted in and around Huntersville.
Cheers (with some OMB Southside Wheat)
- Ethan
PS #JB17 for any F1 fans
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