Project Fauxverlander 200 Series Land Cruiser Build Thread
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cruiseroutfit
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That bumper has been sitting here for a few months... and it's for the older front end
Yours was here when I got back in town!
cruiseroutfit
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Life has been busy, that is good for business and adventures but bad for making progress on the 200 and thus the old 100 has still been seeing the bulk of the trail duty this past spring and early summer. Then the revolt came. Prep of Monica (the Canguro Racing 200 Series) was already deep under way for the 2017 Baja 1000 and we were starting to work out the details of our chase plan. That plan is a highly orchestrated (and often chaotic) effort of where, who and how 30 people get to Mexico and down the race course adding fuel, performing checks, repairs and swapping drivers/codrivers in and out of the race car along the way. @dmc champions the chase planning and pours countless hours into the logistics effort.
My posse (affectionately know as Chase 3 for the past 5 years) was exhibiting some major push back with another year in the "Ol' 100" they wanted some Fauxverlander action. On top of that the 100 is ready for another set of tires, needed a new battery and some other minor tweaks. I could spend some time on the 100 or hurry and tie up some out the loose 200 ends. Plus I'd rather spend 75+ hours driving in the 200 Series as well.
Really, the hitlist was minor and many items in this round of mods could have waited until after Baja. I needed to finalize my Ham radio install, a must for Baja as we rely heavily on car to car comms between chase teams but more importantly the race car and race ops. I needed a way to haul some gear on the rack including a pair of dump cans for fueling the car. What I needed to do was make some progress with my parts stash and this was my excuse.
Table in use during last summers Eclipse in Wyoming
While I was in rack mode, I finally mounted my Eezi-Awn table which slides under the rack in what is otherwise useless space. I've used these tables a bunch with Expeditions7 and XOverland... while I love a tailgate for table space it's been nice to have twice as much accessible table space in under a minute. I tweaked the mounts on the rack to tighten up the table, I loathe rattles and don't like mind it's almost too tight.
Alubox Rack boxes. These ended up functioning quite splendid. We were literally able to put 4 tents in the one and 4 sleeping bags in the other. We could pull into camp, drop the bins and everyone was ready to set camp with just a single bag needing to come out of the back per person. With 4 adults and camping gear things were bound to be crowded but the ability to securely store soft-goods on the roof was key. Eezi-Awn announced their new rack mounts for the Alubox weeks shortly before the trip and I convinced Pablo @ Equipt to put my name on a set. I mounted them up and was instantly in love. Super quick action to secure the Alubox and remove plus they are low enough profile that I can remove one box, stack it on the other and sleep on the roof rack, my air mattress cushions against mount.
A total non-need but an indulgence for my leather was the Escape Gear set covers. We had these in the Expeditions7 vehicles and I was always amazed by how they held up to abuse, wet clothes, mud, dust, etc... still visit them at the museum and the look clean. Paul @ Equipt set me up with a set of covers and I was waiting for the right time to install them. Well, the right time was Mexico and I didn't even have to do it, Pablo offered to install them while we did race car contingency so I packed them along and sure enough he fitted them in the hotel parking garage.
Like the seat covers is the ash tray update. I don't even know where I heard about these (perhaps a ih8mud thread?) but I brought a couple of these over from Japan last summer. They are basically the exact same ash tray but with a felt lining and they lack the upper flap found on a traditional tray. As such this makes a much better change tray and it's a fun OEM Toyota JDM part. You have to swap your "face" from tray to tray, they are color and LHD/RHD specific while the tray itself is not. It's a 5 minute install and that includes opening the box. While I was getting knock-knacks from Japan I ordered a TRD start switch. It's big and red but I love it... I'll be putting one in the racecar soon too.
I need to snap some pics of the other pre-baja updates and get caught up on the past stuff. From there I'll work on current projects (new rear axle bearings, ARB Air Locker, Helton shower install) and future projects (ARB LINX system, finishing the dual batteries, etc)
With that... here are some random pics not related to the build but related to having fun with it
My posse (affectionately know as Chase 3 for the past 5 years) was exhibiting some major push back with another year in the "Ol' 100" they wanted some Fauxverlander action. On top of that the 100 is ready for another set of tires, needed a new battery and some other minor tweaks. I could spend some time on the 100 or hurry and tie up some out the loose 200 ends. Plus I'd rather spend 75+ hours driving in the 200 Series as well.
Really, the hitlist was minor and many items in this round of mods could have waited until after Baja. I needed to finalize my Ham radio install, a must for Baja as we rely heavily on car to car comms between chase teams but more importantly the race car and race ops. I needed a way to haul some gear on the rack including a pair of dump cans for fueling the car. What I needed to do was make some progress with my parts stash and this was my excuse.
Table in use during last summers Eclipse in Wyoming
While I was in rack mode, I finally mounted my Eezi-Awn table which slides under the rack in what is otherwise useless space. I've used these tables a bunch with Expeditions7 and XOverland... while I love a tailgate for table space it's been nice to have twice as much accessible table space in under a minute. I tweaked the mounts on the rack to tighten up the table, I loathe rattles and don't like mind it's almost too tight.
Alubox Rack boxes. These ended up functioning quite splendid. We were literally able to put 4 tents in the one and 4 sleeping bags in the other. We could pull into camp, drop the bins and everyone was ready to set camp with just a single bag needing to come out of the back per person. With 4 adults and camping gear things were bound to be crowded but the ability to securely store soft-goods on the roof was key. Eezi-Awn announced their new rack mounts for the Alubox weeks shortly before the trip and I convinced Pablo @ Equipt to put my name on a set. I mounted them up and was instantly in love. Super quick action to secure the Alubox and remove plus they are low enough profile that I can remove one box, stack it on the other and sleep on the roof rack, my air mattress cushions against mount.
A total non-need but an indulgence for my leather was the Escape Gear set covers. We had these in the Expeditions7 vehicles and I was always amazed by how they held up to abuse, wet clothes, mud, dust, etc... still visit them at the museum and the look clean. Paul @ Equipt set me up with a set of covers and I was waiting for the right time to install them. Well, the right time was Mexico and I didn't even have to do it, Pablo offered to install them while we did race car contingency so I packed them along and sure enough he fitted them in the hotel parking garage.
Like the seat covers is the ash tray update. I don't even know where I heard about these (perhaps a ih8mud thread?) but I brought a couple of these over from Japan last summer. They are basically the exact same ash tray but with a felt lining and they lack the upper flap found on a traditional tray. As such this makes a much better change tray and it's a fun OEM Toyota JDM part. You have to swap your "face" from tray to tray, they are color and LHD/RHD specific while the tray itself is not. It's a 5 minute install and that includes opening the box. While I was getting knock-knacks from Japan I ordered a TRD start switch. It's big and red but I love it... I'll be putting one in the racecar soon too.
I need to snap some pics of the other pre-baja updates and get caught up on the past stuff. From there I'll work on current projects (new rear axle bearings, ARB Air Locker, Helton shower install) and future projects (ARB LINX system, finishing the dual batteries, etc)
With that... here are some random pics not related to the build but related to having fun with it
cruiseroutfit
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So things haven't been completely peaches and cream. After a 5k mile trip down and up the Baja Peninsula she started to protest. I suppose I should be thankful they all happened within a few hours of home rather than the bottom of Baja? First up was a dead battery in the Swell during the Outlaws Run in early December. Normally not worthy of even mentioning but this was different. It was a newer battery but nothing exotic, I've been holding off on finishing my dual battery system until the ARB Linx system comes out and as such I had a standard AutoZone lead acid battery installed. I went to start it on our final day of camp and the dash cluster lit up for just a brief second as I pressed the start button and then nothing. Like nothing nothing. Zero response to the ignition switch, no lights or headlights, door locks were inop, etc. It was dead in the water. We tried Jackson's battery jump pack and it didn't respond to that at all. We started trouble shooting and found out that my battery wasn't just dead, it was causing a short so it wouldn't jump from a jump pack or even Treeroot's FZJ80 with his dual batteries paired. Remember that electric solenoid rear hatch all 200's come equipped with? Well without power and I couldn't open my hatch, which mean I couldn't open my tailgate, which means I couldn't open my drawers, which means no access to my tools... great. Thankfully I was with some prepared guys and tools weren't scarce.
At least it was parked in a shady spot
To confirm our analysis we took a battery out of Treeroot's 80 and temporarily mounted it in mine, we now had power such as dash lights, functioning ACC mode, headlights and thankfully the ability to open my rear hatch but zero crank and my start switch light wasn't illuminating. Did both my vehicle battery and FOB battery die simultaneously? Very unlikely. Jackson (also a 200 owner) and I ran through some random fixes, swapping relays, checking fuses and testing the voltage on my FOB battery, everything was in check. On a whim we pulled out the factory owners manual (who does that right?) and found that there is a reset procedure for the immobilizer system. Sure enough we followed the steps and after some time it reset and fired to life with the donor battery under the hood.
Remember these steps
So I needed a new battery. Jason ran me into Castle Dale, an hour away. The NAPA had battery in stock and I was happy to pay them for it Jason wouldn't take any gas money but let me buy him a burger in town before we rolled back down to camp. We quickly installed the battery and she fired right to life, no additional reset required. On the road again...
Next up was this this lit up dash disaster
Fast forward a few months and I'm driving over to the machine shop on a rainy afternoon, rushing to snag some parts. Just as I roll around a slight left sweeper at ~40 mph my brakes go bonkers. The dash is lit up with error lights and the ABS is modulating all over the place, much like the feeling of Crawl Control in use. I'm able to get off the road and pop the hood, thinking I'm going to see my brake master/booster purging fluid or melting, nothing. I quickly look over all of the brake hard lines and hoses and everything is tight and in tact, weird. I restart and it drives fine outside of the lights and lack of ABS (which also prevents use of Low Range by the way), so I get it home and park it. It's a few days before I have a chance to troubleshoot but my code reader indicates a few ABS errors. I reset them and all of them stay away with the exception of a LH Rear ABS Speed Sensor code, it would come back on within a few seconds of movement or just stayed on with each attempted reset. I crossed my fingers it was just a bad ABS sensor and got a pair of rear sensors ordered. They arrived and I pulled out the LH rear and found it a tad dirty on the end but nothing crazy odd. They should be running in a sealed part of the axle assembly with a sealed bearing on the outside and a seal on the axle housing side. The grease I encountered was a bit odd but I chalked it up to a bit of weeping at the rear seal and gunk accumulating in the end of the tube, think dirty gear lube.
With the new sensor installed and the wiring inspected, I reset the computer once again and crossed my fingers. Sadly I didn't even make it out of the shop before my dash was lit back up and the LH sensor code was back on. Boo! I happened to be with my buddy Brian who is a mastertech at one of the local Toyota dealerships and he offered to take a look at it on their computer and see if they were getting any signal out of the sensors, new or old. That would at least verify it was bad sensors (new one too), a wiring failure between the sensor and the ECU or something in the axle itself. He confirmed my fears after a short inspection and it was in the axle. Knowing that, he ran his bore scope into the housing via the sensors hole, something wasn't right, there were what appeared to be debris chunks in the housing. More boo! I ciompiled all the parts I would need and snagged the SST we build for separating the rear shaft and bearing assembly, not super easy task. We built the tool for the regular rear bearings swaps we do on Monica (the Canguro Racing 200) and it's since seen a bunch of use, mine was just the latest axle needing bearings.
So, that isn't right...
We made quick work of the tear down, modified the backing plates so we didn't have to crack open the rear brake fluid and slide out the LH shaft. The axle bearing was hosed, fully failing. The design incorporates a magnetic ring as the inner face of the inner bearing, that magnet had broken into pieces and the ball bearings were rolling loosely in the void. Fortunately they can't migrate further inward towards the diff as there is a seal and baffle that would prevent it. OK, so I could get by with a single bearing assembly and a few seals on that side but what did the other side look like? And even if it looked good from the outside, what would it look like inside the bearing? I opted to just replace them both and ended up ordering both brake backing plates at the same time. Both of mine had some corrosion/rust forming between the tin brake dust cover and the caliper bracket it's spot welded too. The LH side was much worse and after a bit of poking I had a full rust hole through the plate.
Decent RH bearing top left, the bad bearing and it's parts are on the right.
The rusty backing plate. The vehicle is overall really clean underneath but that laminated design is rust prone
A bucket of fun, ARB equipped diff with new carrier bearings.
While I was waiting for the backing plates to arrive I got a core rear stock diff and ARB in the hands of my diff guru, I figured it was a great time to add an Air Locker to the rear axle. With all the parts in hand it went together in a few hours, plumbed the ARB, assembled the rear shafts and filled it with fluid. The ultimate test... any lights? Zero
At least it was parked in a shady spot
To confirm our analysis we took a battery out of Treeroot's 80 and temporarily mounted it in mine, we now had power such as dash lights, functioning ACC mode, headlights and thankfully the ability to open my rear hatch but zero crank and my start switch light wasn't illuminating. Did both my vehicle battery and FOB battery die simultaneously? Very unlikely. Jackson (also a 200 owner) and I ran through some random fixes, swapping relays, checking fuses and testing the voltage on my FOB battery, everything was in check. On a whim we pulled out the factory owners manual (who does that right?) and found that there is a reset procedure for the immobilizer system. Sure enough we followed the steps and after some time it reset and fired to life with the donor battery under the hood.
Remember these steps
So I needed a new battery. Jason ran me into Castle Dale, an hour away. The NAPA had battery in stock and I was happy to pay them for it
Jason wouldn't take any gas money but let me buy him a burger in town before we rolled back down to camp. We quickly installed the battery and she fired right to life, no additional reset required. On the road again...
Next up was this this lit up dash disaster
Fast forward a few months and I'm driving over to the machine shop on a rainy afternoon, rushing to snag some parts. Just as I roll around a slight left sweeper at ~40 mph my brakes go bonkers. The dash is lit up with error lights and the ABS is modulating all over the place, much like the feeling of Crawl Control in use. I'm able to get off the road and pop the hood, thinking I'm going to see my brake master/booster purging fluid or melting, nothing. I quickly look over all of the brake hard lines and hoses and everything is tight and in tact, weird. I restart and it drives fine outside of the lights and lack of ABS (which also prevents use of Low Range by the way), so I get it home and park it. It's a few days before I have a chance to troubleshoot but my code reader indicates a few ABS errors. I reset them and all of them stay away with the exception of a LH Rear ABS Speed Sensor code, it would come back on within a few seconds of movement or just stayed on with each attempted reset. I crossed my fingers it was just a bad ABS sensor and got a pair of rear sensors ordered. They arrived and I pulled out the LH rear and found it a tad dirty on the end but nothing crazy odd. They should be running in a sealed part of the axle assembly with a sealed bearing on the outside and a seal on the axle housing side. The grease I encountered was a bit odd but I chalked it up to a bit of weeping at the rear seal and gunk accumulating in the end of the tube, think dirty gear lube.
With the new sensor installed and the wiring inspected, I reset the computer once again and crossed my fingers. Sadly I didn't even make it out of the shop before my dash was lit back up and the LH sensor code was back on. Boo! I happened to be with my buddy Brian who is a mastertech at one of the local Toyota dealerships and he offered to take a look at it on their computer and see if they were getting any signal out of the sensors, new or old. That would at least verify it was bad sensors (new one too), a wiring failure between the sensor and the ECU or something in the axle itself. He confirmed my fears after a short inspection and it was in the axle. Knowing that, he ran his bore scope into the housing via the sensors hole, something wasn't right, there were what appeared to be debris chunks in the housing. More boo! I ciompiled all the parts I would need and snagged the SST we build for separating the rear shaft and bearing assembly, not super easy task. We built the tool for the regular rear bearings swaps we do on Monica (the Canguro Racing 200) and it's since seen a bunch of use, mine was just the latest axle needing bearings.
So, that isn't right...
We made quick work of the tear down, modified the backing plates so we didn't have to crack open the rear brake fluid and slide out the LH shaft. The axle bearing was hosed, fully failing. The design incorporates a magnetic ring as the inner face of the inner bearing, that magnet had broken into pieces and the ball bearings were rolling loosely in the void. Fortunately they can't migrate further inward towards the diff as there is a seal and baffle that would prevent it. OK, so I could get by with a single bearing assembly and a few seals on that side but what did the other side look like? And even if it looked good from the outside, what would it look like inside the bearing? I opted to just replace them both and ended up ordering both brake backing plates at the same time. Both of mine had some corrosion/rust forming between the tin brake dust cover and the caliper bracket it's spot welded too. The LH side was much worse and after a bit of poking I had a full rust hole through the plate.
Decent RH bearing top left, the bad bearing and it's parts are on the right.
The rusty backing plate. The vehicle is overall really clean underneath but that laminated design is rust prone
A bucket of fun, ARB equipped diff with new carrier bearings.
While I was waiting for the backing plates to arrive I got a core rear stock diff and ARB in the hands of my diff guru, I figured it was a great time to add an Air Locker to the rear axle. With all the parts in hand it went together in a few hours, plumbed the ARB, assembled the rear shafts and filled it with fluid. The ultimate test... any lights? Zero
NudeLobster
Member
about 99% sure I saw you on I-15S going into Vegas last night! Sorry for the trail of drool behind my GX. It presented me a chance to explain to my buddy why LC's are king and why I'll probably have a 200 after the GX.
Rallyroo
Expedition Leader
Electrical gremlins and modern electrical designs replacing mechanical simplicity. Land Cruisers aren't supposed to come with Lucas Electrics (I've owned a Land Rover before......never left me stranded in the backcountry though).
That reminds me of the news of a guy and his dog that died in his newer generation Corvette (2007) in Texas. The battery had died after he shut the door. Electronically actuated doors so he couldn't reopen the door or start the car. There was a backup mechanical release for the door under the seat, but he was unaware of it. He and his dog died of heat exhaustion. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news.../texas-man-dog-die-trapped-corvette/71053474/
I guess that's one of the reasons why I'm stuck in the 90s for trucks that I'm willing to take out into the backcountry even though I occasionally contemplate getting a used 200. I'll still keep of the 80 of course. I can't give that up.
SportsmanJake
Adventurer
What ham radio are you running in the 200?
cruiseroutfit
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cruiseroutfit
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Kenwood D710G
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Supporting Sponsor: Cruiser Outfitters
cruiseroutfit
Supporting Sponsor: Cruiser Outfitters
Catching up on this thread
Not my 200 (which makes it funner to push hard right?) but @sleeoffroad, Ben from Slee and I joined ARB and a handful of their tech/sales staff for a new product training and demo day. Ironically I think Christo and I have the first two BP-51's setups in the US (I installed mine in Oct 2015). It was good to see a closer look at some of the new internal mods, discuss rebuilds and tuning, etc. Plus doing this over and over is always fun.
Not my 200 (which makes it funner to push hard right?) but @sleeoffroad, Ben from Slee and I joined ARB and a handful of their tech/sales staff for a new product training and demo day. Ironically I think Christo and I have the first two BP-51's setups in the US (I installed mine in Oct 2015). It was good to see a closer look at some of the new internal mods, discuss rebuilds and tuning, etc. Plus doing this over and over is always fun.
cruiseroutfit
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8155 Chase 3 doing what it does best
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We also do this pretty well
Tacos! We've been hitting this taco join religiously for about a decade
The Fauxverlander aka Chase 3 getting work done as Nakaya and I get in the race 200
Tacos! We've been hitting this taco join religiously for about a decade
The Fauxverlander aka Chase 3 getting work done as Nakaya and I get in the race 200