The Great Blue (or at least my blue) Cruiser Project

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Had some free time this weekend so I took advantage of it and headed to the garage. Changed the oil; I am now running Rotella T6 Full Synthetic 5W-40 after some fellow Mudder advice and getting sucked into bobistheoilguy.

Flushed the coolant and broke the radiator drain plug in the process (@#$!). While I waited for a $2.00 part that was preventing me from driving my Cruiser, I decided to tackle the torn carpet on the back of the bench seat. I had seen this done on a few other of the Cruisers here on Mud and bought the plastic a while ago. The end state is a cargo area that can stand up to more abuse and cleans easier complete with an adjustable cargo tracks and tie downs.

Still a work in progress but I'm happy with how the back seat looks. 0.093" ABS sheet for the back of the seat; cargo area will eventually be 1/8" ABS.

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I also spent an hour opening up the 1" hole in the new bumper's recovery points to about 1 1/8" with a Dremel so that it could fit a 3/4" D-Ring Shackle. Don't get me started on the fallacy that is shackle pin diameters. WTF?
 
Two days in a row old blue had me nervous. First was the battery suddenly dying. Borrowing some volts from an elderly lady I was able to drive the 15 miles home and rule out any possible chance that the alternator was bad. Pretty sure the volt meter was showing less than 3 volts on the battery when I got home.

The next day with the new battery installed and engine running, I soon saw a steady drip of coolant forming under the truck. The seam on the top of the radiator was toast so a new radiator was ordered. I went with a 4 core brass/copper rig: http://www.amazon.com/Spectra-Premium-CU12-Complete-Landcruiser/dp/B000C7QJYW/?tag=ihco-20 Amazon Prime had it on my doorstep two days later for free. Nice.

The instal went as well as to be expected with my wrenching skills (that is, I turned a two hour job into a 5 hour job including a trip to the store) but I hit a wall when I got to the difficult task of screwing back on the cap.

For some reason the CU-12 radiator I bought used the "mini" radiator cap size instead of the OEM 1.5" cap that 95% of radiators use. A few more days of waiting on the post office and I was able to restore the rig back to a road-worthy status with a new 32mm ID, 13 lbs mini radiator cap (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BW5O3W8?tag=ihco-20). The downside about mini caps appears to be that it is slightly more expensive to pack all that high speed technology into a cap that is about a 1/4" smaller in diameter than a regular cap. What a ripoff.
 
Ha. Failed to mention my annoyance with the fact that I could not easily slide out the fan shroud. Not really an issue any more as a slight modification was made to the shroud during the radiator swap...

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Slides in and out with ease.
 
Cruising Canuck said:
Any updates to the suspension?
Click to expand...

You bet. Bolted on to the dirt and rust is now a full OME/Dakar kit. I had a long work trip in Feb so I just left the rig at the garage and had them put in the whole thing. Shocks, leaf springs (Light/Med Front (CS003F) and Medium Rear (CS004R)), Nitro Sport Shocks, greasable shackles, new hardware, and the steering dampener.

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The ride is 1,000,000 times better. Couldn't be happier with the kit. Needless to say, I don't bottom out the rear anymore hitting a speed bump. The small lift the kit gives looks great. Stock tires still look fine but it'll look mean if I throw on 33s some day.
 
Well after a trip to Iron Pig Off Road for a little check-up by someone who actually knows what they are doing, I was told "dude, you need a knuckle job bad." I was tempted for more than a minute to just pay the man some American dollars and have him do it for me but then the voice in my head reminded me that I bought this truck to learn to wrench on things.

After beating up that search box in the upper right corner of the forum (Thanks Jim_Phillips) and watching a little YouTube the PB blaster, degreaser, and brake cleaner started to fly.

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Jesus man it was messy and after a day and change I'm half done. I'm not sure if a real mechanic would approve but the engine cleaner and screwdriver came out on more than one occasion just to dig off the 3/4" thick sludge covering up some of the bolts.

Oh yeah, and thanks Toyota for using the stupidest design ever to connect the brakes to the back of the dust shield. That rivet will make sure it never comes off... even if someone wanted to. Of course, that issue was somewhat small potatoes compared to the the hard brake line that cracked when I tried to unscrew it from the back of the caliper. Ooops.

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Finished up cleaning the driver side and half done with the passenger side. I'm waiting for the Marlin inner seals to build it back up.

I still know next to nothing about these trucks other than righty-tighty, lefty-loosey but know I know what a birfield looks like.
 
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I need to do this on both my 60 and my 40....not really looking forward to it (since i can see it taking me longer than you)....but I am for the same reasons above. Thanks for re-posting the video...i was going to be looking for that in the near future.
 
Boom. Finished.

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Snow-pocolypse slowed things down a bit as I was waiting for some Marlin Seals that I ordered kinda last minute. Guaranteed delivery on Friday didn't work out so well as the big man was busy delivering 20 inches of snow. After everything showed up on Monday, I put the axle back together without issue.

Instead of the odd (IMHO) hard -> soft -> hard -> caliper brake line setup, I went with a soft direct to the caliper from the axle after reading GLTHFJ60's recommendation. NAPA 38881 seemed to do the trick.

New calipers, new rotors, and new pads on both sides added a $100 to the cost of the job but I guess $200-250 for a knuckle job and complete new front brake setup was a steal of a deal compared to the $1000-1200 quoted for just the knuckle job at the garage.

Plus, now I know what a birfield looks like although after an axle / joint discussion with a far more mechanically inclined jeep friend of mine (I know, blasphemy ...but he's still smarter than me), I have the tiniest bit of Dana 44 U-joint envy. Clearly not worth it as it comes with a wimpy jeep but still...
 
While it's somewhat of a repost, I'm including it in this thread for the ease of my own record keeping.

Took an adventure around George Washington National Forest back in late Feb (highly recommended BTW). An inaugural ride post-knuckle job if you will.

This:
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Turned into this:
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...after the rig just quit on me driving down the road at 60 mph. Engine turned over, plenty of gas, but no spark. After a few weeks of failed troubleshooting documented in this thread, I threw in the towel and got it towed (again) down to Forge Specialties in Fredericksburg.

A big thanks to Vince and Nathan (@35inchoverdrive) for getting the old blue rust bucket back into the fight. The culprit ended up being a sheared gear on the dizzy.

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Out with the old, in with the new and I was back in business.
 
To help with get me out of the rut of failed repairs, I repainted the front grill. Chrome was in super bad shape and I decided to blacken things up a bit. I used Rust-Oleum Automotive Matte Black Custom Shop for the grill and headlight housings. I sprayed the TOYOTA badge white (actually Dupli-Color Wimbledon White which seemed to be the best match to the very slight off white of the stock badge), taped, and blacked out the background. All-in-all, I think it came out alright. If only painting the whole truck was that easy.

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Worth mentioning, in the process of pulling out the headlight assemblies, one of the plastic nuts used for headlight adjustment broke.

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It took more searching than I thought necessary to find out where to buy a replacement plastic nut. Right before I clicked "buy" for a 10 pack for $15 or so from one of the cruiser specialty places, I stumbled on a 50 pack for $9.99 on Amazon Prime! 50 Headlight & Grill Nuts Toyota 90189-05013 Mitsubishi if you're looking for the same stuff. I have about 48 extra now if anyone in the NOVA area or CLCC needs one...
 
Last update on old blue is the quest for new tires. So I've settled on going with either a LT285/17R16 General Grabber AT2 or Cooper Discovery A/T3. I went with the 16 vice 15 mostly because it seems you can get a better tire for the same price if you go up an inch. The Grabbers go from a P to an LT with about 50% greater load rating and a much stronger sidewall. Somewhat of an apples to oranges comparison as the widths I'm looking at are slightly different (33x12.5r15 vice 285/75r16) but whatever. I was pretty sold on the Grabber until I read the Overland Journal review of both. The Disco A/T3s have a higher load rating, stronger sidewall, and apparently crushed it on the test earning both the Editors' Choice and Best Value awards. The tires end up being about $5 cheaper per tire too.

Also, I needed to get new rims and it seems like there were enough 16x8 options listed over in Wheels that work, part numbers. Well... I continue to learn, I don't know WTF I'm doing all the time with this rig. I ordered Vision 84 D Windows (16x8 w/ 4.0 BS) and they most certainly DID NOT work. Now I'm stuck with some rims that might only work with a 1/4" spacer on the front. I was trying to avoid spacers because it's one additional thing (that I don't know about).

There seems to be a heated debate with well entrenched camps supporting and condemning them but I have never heard of anyone condemning using a wheel that fits without spacers. Ultimately, I'll probably try them and cross my fingers. What could possibly go wrong right?
 
Well, for good or for bad, I went the spacer route. 1/4" spacers for the front only and the wheels slid on without issue.

Time for the tires.

At the time of purchase, the Disco A/T3s were about $10 more per tire ($50 ain't much but it's still something right?) and the guy at the local tire store highly recommended the Generals over the Coopers. Maybe he was convincing, maybe it didn't take much to get me to buy the tire I had been looking at for the start. Whatever it was, five General Grabber AT2 LT285/75R16 would be mine by the end of the day.

In the middle of the job:
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After:
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I'm happy with the outcome. Looking forward to the next time my schedule finds me on the trails.
 
Yeah, too bad the PO's terrible, two-tone Bondo job holding together the rear quarter panel isn't as easy of a fix as the new set of tires...
 
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