Wannabe Rock Crawler/Camping Rig Build (2 Viewers)

[ajordan1975]

I like those wheels.

 

[1jzhilux]

I removed the boat anchor that hung me up endlessly.

I tore the whole interior out to do some sound deadening and found some rust spots and repaired them.

The previous owner had a shop reroute the exhaust above the frame rail. They did a terrible job in numerous ways. Here's how the floor looked under the rear heater.

Here is a shot of the interior fully sound deadened

 

[1jzhilux]

Then it was time to have some fun with @Squeegee

Then this happened. Same thing happened with my last 80. Wrapped it with some duct tape while I waited for the new one to come in.

 

[1jzhilux]

Snow fell and proceeded to have some fun trying to get stuck.

 

[1jzhilux]

Broke through the crust and had to winch out

 

[1jzhilux]

Next, I installed the rope protector that I got when I also bought the flatlink. I definitely should have just installed it at the very beginning...

 

[1jzhilux]

I always felt that the engine wasn't that strong, it just didn't feel healthy. I figured that I could find another 1FZ to replace this one and set it aside to be fully built for a turbo later on. I found a 1FZ out of a 94 with lowish miles and snagged it. I knew there were differences between the 93/94 engines and the 95-97 engines, so I also picked up an engine out of a 97 with rod knock so that I could swap the appropriate parts over to the good engine. Long story short, I didn't want to deal with that, so I bought ANOTHER engine out of a 97 with 190k miles on it and I was ready for the swap.

 

[1jzhilux]

I was finally able to mount my switch pros panel. Here you can also see a better view of how I mounted my HAM.

 

[1jzhilux]

Then it sat in the garage for a while.

I pulled the axles apart to regear the diffs to 5.29s.

While it was sitting in there, I made mounts to attach my light bar to the tent.

 

[Bhblaine]

Sweet build and nice progress so far! I am a bit behind you but similar direction

 

[1jzhilux]

Sweet build and nice progress so far! I am a bit behind you but similar direction

Thanks! It's been a fun process so far.

 

[1jzhilux]

Got the new gears in as well as new corner lights. Huge difference with the gears!

 

[1jzhilux]

I found a JDM roof console gauge thing locally and have still not put it in.

 

[1jzhilux]

Some of this is a bit out of order, but I also made rear light brackets at some point.

 

[1jzhilux]

One of the engines I got came with a t case, so I took that apart and installed 10% underdrive gears and 3.whatever:1 low range gears. Then I just needed to swap t cases. badabing badaboom.

 

[1jzhilux]

OH! While I had the t case apart, I welded up the viscous coupler to create a spool because these arrived.

Now it became a real Land Cruiser

 

[1jzhilux]

By this point, the engine was springing new leaks left and right. There was a constant drip of coolant from the back of the block. It was time to yank it out, so into the garage it went.

 

[1jzhilux]

I started the removing things

And out it came

 

[Squeegee]

Hi

 

[1jzhilux]

Once the engine was out, I could see where the coolant was leaking from. It was coming from the head gasket behind cylinder 6. Better to leak out than in I guess.