Builds THE LESS MAD - MAD MAX BUILD

[LINUS]

That Build Pro is about all I see.

Aside from my envy, nice start on a 80, nice to see a guy saving one on a budget rather than all the strange prices we've seen lately for the 80's.

I bet you have more in that table than the 80 (yes, those tables are on the short list of things I want).

 

[Rainen]

I like battery hooks. I will copy your style. When I bought mine it did not have them. Thanks.

Glad to hear I could help.

mad fab skills!

Thanks for all the kind words.

subbed - fun write up and nice work with the kydex - makes great sheaths for knives but I never thought about faces for switches.

I know a lot of guys build holsters for with, really cool material, lots of colors, thicknesses and non conductive which is nice.

 

[Rainen]

That Build Pro is about all I see.

Aside from my envy, nice start on a 80, nice to see a guy saving one on a budget rather than all the strange prices we've seen lately for the 80's.

I bet you have more in that table than the 80 (yes, those tables are on the short list of things I want).

The table is unbelievable. I thought it would be useful when I bought it, but it changes a lot about how and what you can build.

OK, that brake is pretty cool. Watch the end where you use round stock to hold it.

They came out with it a few years ago, and I have my eye on it ever since. This year around SEMA it went on sale, which it never does, so I bought one. Its a lot of fun. Can't wait to see what kinda drawer systems I can make with it

 

[Proven]

I wish we were neighbors. lol.

 

[Rainen]

ALL HAIL TOYOTA!!


Just a quick note that I thought I would throw in here. A friend of mine owns a Nissan Frontier. He is the original owner, has 140K miles and the clutch went out on it. So I helped (mainly loaned shop space and tools) him get it swapped. In his web research he found that most people are getting 120K out of a clutch prior to failure. All of this seems insane to me as it’s a $2400 repair if you don’t do the work yourself. I have another friend that owns a jeep liberty, he is the original owners as well. It has 240,000 miles on it. He mentioned this to a Jeep salesman (he was purchasing another car). The salesman had to ask him to repeat the statement as the Liberties NEVER lasted that long. So here I am with 275,000 $1500 Toyota land cruiser. My largest complaint is that the driver door weather seal is falling off…. End of soap box rant.

 

[Rainen]

JUST YOUR STANDARD 275,000 MILE SERVICE

So I have managed to put a few miles on the LC. It’s at the point where I need to change the oil in the diffs as part of the break in process. I also found that off road, under flex, the fan started to dig into the radiator. The truck was wreck by the PO, and the driver side front corner has been pushed back a little. I am also suspect of the motor mounts, just based on the age/mileage, and once again that its been wrecked.

So this rocketed me into the, “while you’re in there” list. So far this is what I have on my punch list,

Driver side door weather strip!! – Yeah that’s a real thing

Radiator

AC condenser

Water Pump

Fan

New gaskets for AC lines

Front crankshaft oil seal

Oil pump gaskets/screws

Thermostat and gasket

Distributer O ring

3 radiator hoses

PHH Kit

steering pump and line seals

drive belts

dome lights swap to LEDs (PFran kit)

heater control panel LEDs

shifter indicator LED

front brake pads

rear disk and pads

Aux Fuse panel

Battery mount

Move/remount AC Dryer

Trim font inner fenders/core support (rubbing on tires at full lock)

Diff Oil

Change Oil and Filter

TCase Oil Change

Fix T-Case shift lights (Intermittent)

Lift gate gas Struts

Mount USB power outlet

Motor Mounts


Well that starts to sound like a real project when you write it all down

Pile of parts starting to show up

Engine getting torn down and cleaned

 

[Rainen]

PLUGGING THE LEAKS


Speaking with a friend of mine that’s been through a few Land Cruisers, he mentioned that typically the oil leaks are coming from the front crank seal and the oil pump gasket. Digging in little further it sounds like the distributor O-ring is also a likely culprit.


I didn’t do a lot of research on pulling the crank pulley prior to tearing into the engine it was only after I had pulled the battery and the radiator that I found the usual course of action is a breaker bar wedged against the frame and bumping the starter. So I figured I would give the old impact wrench a try. I got lucky, and about 10 minutes I was able to break it loose using the impact. Pulling the seal was pretty straight forward, using a seal puller. To drive the new one in I found a 2” PVC pipe pack is the same OD as the seal. A few taps of with a mallet was all it took.

Next up was the oil pump seal. There is a lot of good info here on replacing the oil pump seal. He suggests replacing all the screws on the oil pump cover. In order to get the old screws out, I used and impact screw driver. I actually got this one from my grandfather, put the do still sell them at NAPA. I found it a supper useful tool when removing screws.

In the video I linked below he is using a cordless small impact with standard #3 Philips tips. He ends up breaking the Philips tip off inside one of the screws, which cost him a lot of time. I would say if you are using this method I would either A. only use the bit one once then swap it out for a new one after each use. Or B. invest in impact rated Philips bits so you don’t run into the same issue. Any how I had a lot more room, having removed everything of the front of the engine. So it went fairly smoothly. The oil pump seal is just a large O-ring, so it’s a little difficult to keep in place as bolt the cover back on. I used a little axle grease to hold it place so it wouldn’t slide out of the groove. I will have to wait till the truck is up and running again to see if it leaks, here’s hoping.


The distributer is pretty easy to pull. I marked the location/rotation and pulled it out. I inspected the condition of the O-ring to see what kinda shape it was in. I found my answer

Well its safe to say that replacing these 3 seals will likely go a long way towards keeping the oil on the inside of the engine.

 

[Rainen]

FU-MF-PHH


So the PHH. Just when I thought Mr Toyota and I were friends I go to replace this thing. I bought the PHH kit and went to do some reading prior to digging into it.

If you haven’t noticed yet I usually have more time to read about working on my truck than I do to actually have time to work on the truck.

As luck would have it I had found a flex-head 1/4” ratchet on ebay. Turns out this was the tool (or part of the tool) needed to make this happen. The PO had done some work on the PHH. There were hardward-store-special hose clamps on there, which are easier to get off than the stock Toyota clamps. Now that I got the stock PHH off. I unhooked the other hose from them top of the hard pipe. Then I went about unbolting the hard pipe from the engine. There are two 12MM bolts holding this in place. The first at the top of the intake is pretty easy to get. The second is on the back side of the engine which is pretty difficult to get to. I came up with this approach

With my custom handle extension on the ratchet I was able to get to the second bolt.

From there I pulled the hard pipe out above the starter, installed the new hose (spray silicone makes this go real smoothly), and slid the whole thing back in. I reinstalled the top bolt on the hard pipe and threw the other bolt in spares pile. I can’t imagine having to do this on the trail . I think the quick route would be to bypass the hard pipe for a field repair. Preventative maintenance for the win. The PHH brings the suck

 

[toadshade]

There is a lot of good info here

Excellent info on the Youtube link. I am going to tackle the oil pump seal some time soon, but now I am just going to reseal the whole front of the engine at the same time. Just some advice on those PHH hose clamps. I used the same fitting when I did mine. Those beefy massive clamps look a lot stronger than they are. They do not seem to hold any more pressure than a regular clamp. They can strip pretty easily. Not something you want to do twice.

 

[Rainen]

Excellent info on the Youtube link. I am going to tackle the oil pump seal some time soon, but now I am just going to reseal the whole front of the engine at the same time. Just some advice on those PHH hose clamps. I used the same fitting when I did mine. Those beefy massive clamps look a lot stronger than they are. They do not seem to hold any more pressure than a regular clamp. They can strip pretty easily. Not something you want to do twice.

Thanks for the heads up, although I think after you rid the truck of the second bolt holding the hard pipe on, that if you had to do it agin it would go pretty smoothly.

 

[pengfinn]

ALL HAIL TOYOTA!!
the Liberties NEVER lasted that long.

My friend's daughter's Liberty just dropped a valve and had a few other outstanding issues with oil leaks. I believe it was just over 200k.

 

[rc51kid]

My friend's daughter's Liberty just dropped a valve and had a few other outstanding issues with oil leaks. I believe it was just over 200k.

I dont want to jinx us, buy my wifes crv is 9,000 miles shy of 400,000. Never had the motor or trany opened any more than valve adjustments and timmimg belts. It is amazing how long a well designed motor can last with nothing but oil changes.

 

[Rainen]

I dont want to jinx us, buy my wifes crv is 9,000 miles shy of 400,000. Never had the motor or trany opened any more than valve adjustments and timmimg belts. It is amazing how long a well designed motor can last with nothing but oil changes.

What year is the CRV? I just traded my wife's CRV for a Sienna. The CRV was an amazing car, but too many kids and too much stuff.

 

[rc51kid]

I think it is the 1st year, 1998.

 

[bryson]

I think it is the 1st year, 1998.

Do you mean CRV as in Honda, or CRD as in the diesel Jeep Liberty?

 

[Rainen]

Need to update this thread, but one question while I am thinking about it. I build a front bumper for this beast. As part of that, and the fact that the front was wrecked, I moved the AC dryer. I need new AC lines build in order to make this work. I am located in the mountains of Colorado (western slope) and cant seem to find any shops to build custom lines. Anyone have suggestions? Flexible line would be preferred. Anyone dealt with shops that will do this? Doesn't have to be local, I can send them the existing line so fittings can we reused. Thanks for the suggestions
Thanks

 

[YMT]

Need to update this thread, but one question while I am thinking about it. I build a front bumper for this beast. As part of that, and the fact that the front was wrecked, I moved the AC dryer. I need new AC lines build in order to make this work. I am located in the mountains of Colorado (western slope) and cant seem to find any shops to build custom lines. Anyone have suggestions? Flexible line would be preferred. Anyone dealt with shops that will do this? Doesn't have to be local, I can send them the existing line so fittings can we reused. Thanks for the suggestions
Thanks

I had Moab 4x4 Outpost do some fittings work on my old Jeep Grand Cherokee crawler several years ago when I lived there. Little higher price but quality work.

 

[Rainen]

BATTERY TRAY MADNESS (AGAIN)


So I figured in the middle of all the PM/make the damn engine leak less. I figured this was as good a time as any to address the battery situation. I pulled the stock battery tray so I could route new coolant hoses etc. I also cut part of the inner fender out of the way.

This area of the inner fender was pretty mangled, and I knew that when I got around to building a bumper it wouldn’t hang as low and the sheet metal does here. So away it goes!!! Little by little I will cleanse myself from the curse of sheet metal,


Started in on building a new battery tray as the stock one was pretty trashed. I have this mental condition where I can’t just leave something as a flat piece of metal. No when working on my own junk I have turn everything into SOMETHING. So the support for the tray was drilled and dimpled with 4 weldnuts TIGed to the underside.

By the way I am not the only one afflicted by the just can’t let it be syndrome. BTF also cuts random ellipses in the bottom of their Optima Battery trays. So, when the two powers combine you get the eye of Sauron, or some s***

But after all the wasted effort on something that no one will know is there, I think it looks pretty good.

And yes, I did clean up the wiring after this was taken, at least a little bit

 

[Rainen]

HOW LOW CAN YOU GO


So I will fast forward through all the putting the engine back together again stuff. You can read all about that ins FSM if you’re interested. The next thing I wanted to throw together was a roof rack. Now if you’re a sucker like me, you probably own a garage with a 7’6” high opening on it. This meant that I wanted to continue to work on the truck in the garage, the roof rack had to be low. So of course this means for me, that something off the shelf wasn’t going to cut it, so into more fab work we go Yippie!!!


This turned out to be a pretty fun project. The mounting hardware was pretty fun to design and build.



These became the gutter clamps

Doing a little test fit, you can see how tight I was able to keep it to the roof, which means I can still open the garage door and drive the truck out! I mean who decides a 7’6” opening is all you need??

One of the first things I knew I was going add to the rack was a 270 degree awning that I bought off another use here on Mud. So I added two mounting points to the driver side of the rack

And of course my affliction was back, I couldn’t just leave the front gutter mounts alone. So we added a little character to it. I mean if your strapping a tent to roof, why not represent??

And the end result with a splash of paint on it. Eventually all this will be powder coated. Because no project is ever, actually done. Just done enough for right now

 

[Rainen]

THE AWNING ABORTION


Now this is in no way a bash on the build quality of the awning. Everything can always be built better, especially the things that I build. So, like I said previously I purchased a 270 degree awning from a member here on Mud. We talked before I bought it, and I knew exactly what I was getting. In all fairness, I actually bought 2 of these at the same time, my buddy is running his without any modifications, and he likes it just fine. Understood?

So when I unzipped the awning, my thought was “We can turn this into a project in the name of improvement now can’t we?” So I did.

This is how the hinge assemble looked when I received it.

I dug a little further and it looks like electrical conduit was used as a spacers.

So after some digging on McMaster, this is where I landed. The main hinge bolt was extended so it could go through all 3 fins on the aluminum extrusion. Real spacers were added (1/4” wall) to help take some flex out of the assembly. The red washers were added so everything could line up and be tightened down. Theses washer actually have ball bearings in them. The end result??? I feel better. Which makes we want to believe in functions better. But who really knows?