Yeti's Adventure - 80 series build

[aperturebrand]

After having our first kid, the 70 series landcruiser ute that my wife and I had built to tour Australia in was rendered quite useless, so we set about looking for a replacement for it.
I didn't want to sell the ute as I was quite attached to it, so it limited the budget a little bit, but due to the 70 only having two seats, we really needed to find a wagon.
Our initial plan was to find a HZJ80 or HZJ105, but due to the covid restrictions of the past few years, used four wheel drive prices were quite high, and we weren't prepared to spend $25k (AUD) on a well used second hand vehicle, so we had to wait it out a little. Until an ad for a very sad Japanese import HDJ81 showed up on Facebook marketplace. The ad had been up for about 5 minutes before I'd seen it and speaking to the seller over the phone, there had been interest from multiple people. My wife had the day off and offered to drive the 1.5 hour trip to go see it. When she got there, there was already another person looking at it, but she managed to look it over, and got a deposit in first.
The previous owner was convinced the motor needed a rebuild, and the gearbox was no good. I thought for the price we got it for compared to how much good factory turbo 80's sell for in Australia, it was worth a punt, especially as there was no rust and it was a VX Limited. A week later, I took the day off work and went to pick it up.

The old girl looked to have had a very hard life. It looked like there was flood damage in the cab, the paint was pretty rough, the service history was questionable, but we made a bit of a game plan to resurrect it and give it a new lease on life.
A quick inspection of the car when we got it home revealed it had a half decent front mount intercooler fitted, the interior was in ok condition (apart from the carpet), and it started and ran first crack. At this point we realised that perhaps the fuel pump and injectors had been modified. More on this later.
I think I'll tell the rest of this story in installments as I go, but for now enjoy some more photos of how it was when I picked it up.

 

[OffRoadScott]

Love the 70, wish we could get them here in the States.

Please share more about the new to you 80.

 

[aperturebrand]

Love the 70, wish we could get them here in the States.

Please share more about the new to you 80.

The 70 is a great truck. It's taken my wife and I up and down the east coast of Australia and not once has given us any trouble.
I will be posting more on the 80 on Sunday when I get back from a camping trip.

 

[aperturebrand]

The first thing we did was to make a list of what needed to be done to get the old girl on the road. The main thing on that list was to find out what the previous owner was on about with the engine and gearbox troubles. A bit of research and some trouble shooting on the colour of the smoke coming out of the exhaust pointed me towards the turbocharger being the culprit. So I pulled the intake piping out and sure enough, there was a lot of play in the turbine shaft. Judging by the amount of black smoke, I'd say the fuel pump had been turned up and the poor old original turbo just wasn't up to the task and let go.
I also did a compression test and got decent results.

So I set about removing the old turbo and exhaust manifold to get a better look, but not before ordering a brand new turbo to go back in there.
Once the turbo and manifold were removed it was evident that the oil seal had let go and caused an oil explosion.

A close mate of mine offered to refinish the exhaust manifold, so it was sent off to him to be sand blasted, re-painted and all the mating surfaces flattened.
At this stage, the new turbo showed up. I had a bit of a think about it and realised that it would be a waste of time to put a cheap second hand replacement in it, plus it was a good chance to upgrade it. A bit of research and I settled with the Kinugawa TD05H-18G-7cm. I went with the smaller turbine for faster spool, and a bigger billet compressor for a bit of fun. This was actually the second turbo I ordered as the Australian distributor for these took my money and didn't send the turbo, so I ended up ordering direct from the manufacturer.

See below for it all installed and ready to make some noise. I ended up getting brand new manifold studs and nuts as some of the original ones had snapped off, but came out fairly easily.

While I was waiting for parts, I managed to pull the headlights off to repair them. They were full of mud and faded. I heated the outsides with a heat gun to remove the old seam sealant and split them. After a good clean and polish, I rebuilt them with fresh sealant. See the before and after photo:

 

[aperturebrand]

The next thing on the list was to figure out the puzzle of why the PO had so many transmission issues. I ordered a transmission service kit and some fresh ATF and started work on the transmission. There was ATF all over the underside of the car, and apparently it had previously puked its guts up, so I was keen to open it up and get a good look inside it.
After draining the fluid, I got under the car to start removing all the transmission pan bolts, and every single one was loose. Probably the cause of all the ATF all over the under side of the car. One thing I will note is, the ATF that came out was very clean (although a little low), and once the pan came out, there was no sign of anything in the bottom of it. I had pulled it all apart with the expectation that the transmission would be junk, but it didn't seem that way. After finding that the transmission filter didn't fit, I had a bit of a poke around and found this:

The valve body has been replaced with a Wholesale Automatics heavy duty valve body, and by the look of it has been recently rebuilt. Pretty happy about this one. Judging by the state of the inside of the gearbox, I was happy to not replace the filter (it didn't fit anyway), and just stuck the pan back on with a new gasket. Fresh ATF was added, and that was the end of that. Upon further inspection, it looks like the OP had removed the transmission cooler completely (and bypassed the one on the bottom of the radiator) to fit the front mount intercooler, so I'm currently in the process of custom mounting the biggest cooler I can under the front mount. More on that later.

Next up was to convert the front brakes to the larger late 80 series size. I've seen heaps of write ups on this, so I won't go into any detail, apart from the fact I used standard 80 pads (just in case there's any funny business passing the roadworthy), and I trimmed the brake backing plates instead of buying new late 80 ones. One thing that was on the cards was to replace all the brake lines with braided hose, but this had already been done. Once I got all the parts fitted up, I bled the brakes with high quality brake fluid, and that was it. Haven't driven it yet, so I don't even have a baseline to compare to, but if they're better than the stock 70 series brakes, I'll be happy.
At the same time as replacing the brakes, I inspected and rebuilt the front bearings. These seemed to be in ok condition, but will be replaced at a later date before any big trips.

I should also mention that behind the scenes I'd been working on the general reliability of the car. Converted it to 12V starting, added in better grounding cables, replaced battery terminals, cut out redundant wiring, did a general clean of the internals, repaired the shift selector bushings, repaired a stuck transfer case shifter etc. By this stage it was starting to look a bit more like a reliable family camping rig.

Until next time!

 

[duece71]

The next thing on the list was to figure out the puzzle of why the PO had so many transmission issues. I ordered a transmission service kit and some fresh ATF and started work on the transmission. There was ATF all over the underside of the car, and apparently it had previously puked its guts up, so I was keen to open it up and get a good look inside it.
After draining the fluid, I got under the car to start removing all the transmission pan bolts, and every single one was loose. Probably the cause of all the ATF all over the under side of the car. One thing I will note is, the ATF that came out was very clean (although a little low), and once the pan came out, there was no sign of anything in the bottom of it. I had pulled it all apart with the expectation that the transmission would be junk, but it didn't seem that way. After finding that the transmission filter didn't fit, I had a bit of a poke around and found this:

View attachment 3625065

The valve body has been replaced with a Wholesale Automatics heavy duty valve body, and by the look of it has been recently rebuilt. Pretty happy about this one. Judging by the state of the inside of the gearbox, I was happy to not replace the filter (it didn't fit anyway), and just stuck the pan back on with a new gasket. Fresh ATF was added, and that was the end of that. Upon further inspection, it looks like the OP had removed the transmission cooler completely (and bypassed the one on the bottom of the radiator) to fit the front mount intercooler, so I'm currently in the process of custom mounting the biggest cooler I can under the front mount. More on that later.

View attachment 3625070

Next up was to convert the front brakes to the larger late 80 series size. I've seen heaps of write ups on this, so I won't go into any detail, apart from the fact I used standard 80 pads (just in case there's any funny business passing the roadworthy), and I trimmed the brake backing plates instead of buying new late 80 ones. One thing that was on the cards was to replace all the brake lines with braided hose, but this had already been done. Once I got all the parts fitted up, I bled the brakes with high quality brake fluid, and that was it. Haven't driven it yet, so I don't even have a baseline to compare to, but if they're better than the stock 70 series brakes, I'll be happy.
At the same time as replacing the brakes, I inspected and rebuilt the front bearings. These seemed to be in ok condition, but will be replaced at a later date before any big trips.

View attachment 3625069

View attachment 3625071

I should also mention that behind the scenes I'd been working on the general reliability of the car. Converted it to 12V starting, added in better grounding cables, replaced battery terminals, cut out redundant wiring, did a general clean of the internals, repaired the shift selector bushings, repaired a stuck transfer case shifter etc. By this stage it was starting to look a bit more like a reliable family camping rig.

Until next time!

View attachment 3625073

Nice truck. I have seen a lot of pictures of 80/105s down under and most if not all of them have the side fender bars extending back from the front bumper. What are these side fender bars for? Fashionable trail trend or added protection for just in case? Are they overkill or really quite necessary? Are they required for Australian roads/yearly inspections etc…? Just curious which is why I ask. I have a wholesale automatics tranny fluid cooler coming (hopefully soon) that I will install during a radiator replacement. The hood badge (bonnet) looks cool, a bit of unique flare.

 

[aperturebrand]

Nice truck. I have seen a lot of pictures of 80/105s down under and most if not all of them have the side fender bars extending back from the front bumper. What are these side fender bars for? Fashionable trail trend or added protection for just in case? Are they overkill or really quite necessary? Are they required for Australian roads/yearly inspections etc…? Just curious which is why I ask. I have a wholesale automatics tranny fluid cooler coming (hopefully soon) that I will install during a radiator replacement. The hood badge (bonnet) looks cool, a bit of unique flare.

They’re for added panel protection. I probably won’t be driving it hard enough to need them, but they should save your panel if you’re pressed up against a bank or whatever. My 70 has them too, and I don’t remember using them, but there is paint missing from the bars, so they must be doing their job!
The hood badge does get lots of comments from mates coming to check it out. It’s definitely different!