The Restoration And Build Thread For My 1992 FJ80

[Joonwilds80series]

Thanks I appreciate it. I am actually a full time college student. I build and sell swing out kits when I have time and then do odd jobs here and there to fund my trips and whatnot. In regards to painting the engine bay, we kind of did. I would have loved to do it all, but it just wasn't something that was going to work time wise. If you go back to page 2 and look at the OBA install, you can see where the engine bay painting stops and where the original white retains. When I get around to a 2UZ swap, I will be painting the rest of the engine bay at that time. Paint, tape, rubbing compounds, and other supplies were right around $1000. My dad had quite a bit of paint actually left over from one of the the fj40's he painted. Up until this summer, nothing I have done has been truly financially costly, but there is no telling how many thousands of hours that have been poured into all the projects.

I had a feeling that there were some early pictures of when it stopped. But I super appreciate the response. As I've looked into my approach I've found out that painting isn't actually as large as a task as I had assumed it would be and it for sure saves a ton on the backend. In order to get an original toyo paint do you know if you can purchase it through them? I am sure I can research that more.

Very nice! My wife is a full time student for nursing so we understand the grind. Keep making those racks man, I might even need to buy some prints off you for the future so I can fab my own when I leave how to weld at some point.

About to head to Peagosa springs ourselves here for the first time! Looks amazing mate. Take care and I hope to cross paths one day in the cruiser life!

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

I had a feeling that there were some early pictures of when it stopped. But I super appreciate the response. As I've looked into my approach I've found out that painting isn't actually as large as a task as I had assumed it would be and it for sure saves a ton on the backend. In order to get an original toyo paint do you know if you can purchase it through them? I am sure I can research that more.

Very nice! My wife is a full time student for nursing so we understand the grind. Keep making those racks man, I might even need to buy some prints off you for the future so I can fab my own when I leave how to weld at some point.

About to head to Peagosa springs ourselves here for the first time! Looks amazing mate. Take care and I hope to cross paths one day in the cruiser life!

Any automotive paint store can blend up what you’re looking for from it’s paint code. All of my stuff is PPG.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

I took a 650 mile trip out to Bentonville this weekend with some friends and the cruiser hit 414k miles. Before leaving, I rotated all 5 tires, and cleaned the contact point where the coil igniter bolts to the inner fender. I had read about some people with 100s having grounding issues causing random shut offs so I figured I had nothing to lose. I truly have no idea if it worked or helped since I had zero shut off issues. This was my first longer than usual drive since Colorado, and I wasn’t exactly sure it would make it without shutting off but thankfully it ran great the entire trip.

Annoyingly, the tires now have some slight vibrations which I had hoped would have gone away shortly after rotating but they show up at certain speeds. I rotated them with slightly over 3k miles. They are still quiet which has led to me noticing a whine coming from the transfer case lever.

I’m hoping it’s either being transmitted from the rear drive shaft’s u joints, or it’s because I’ve been running without a front driveshaft and have had the CDL locked. When driving around town, I have also been noticing a slight vibration in the steering wheel when applying throttle around 20 mph. Not sure what’s going on with that, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be looking at some of the parts in the steering column. It’s a little sloppy compared to the other 80s in the family.

My knuckles are also leaking again...pretty badly...like dripping onto the tires. So looks like I’m going to be buying new axle shafts in the near future since I’ve known about a groove on the long side shaft for quite sometime and have probably exhausted setting it at other depths. Might just wait on all that until this summer and I’ll pull the whole axle and recondition everything on it like it did with the full float axle I swapped in.

I won’t know what’s up with the whine until I have time to rebuild all 4 u joints. After my school schedule lightens up here in the next couple weeks, I’ll finally have the 4runner road worthy and be able to dig back into some 80 series projects.






If you’ve been thinking about making it out to NWA to ride, do it. I’m amazed every time I go there. The weather wasn’t ideal this weekend, but we still had an awesome time.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

Yesterday morning with food in the oven, my dad and I finally got around to replacing the u joints in my front driveshaft. He used one of these NAPA (SKF) u joints awhile back on his 40th anniversary and I had to get them. They make greasing the drivelines so much easier by not requiring special attachments to get grease up into the u joint or dropping one end in order to access the zerk.





Otherwise I haven’t done anything with the cruiser lately. I’ve barely even driven it, and since getting the 4runner road worthy, I kind of feel guilty.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

Several weeks ago, my dad and I took a weekend trip out to Arkansas and the cruiser didn’t skip a beat. I had been skeptical it would make it without the random shut off issue, but all was well. Before leaving I did thoroughly clean some grounds bolting to the engine block. Turns out the roof rack is also very well suited to hauling pipe.


This past weekend, I knocked out some prep for a spring break trip to Utah and Colorado. This prep included an oil change w/ Napa gold filter, transfer case oil change with synthetic 75-90w, emptied coalascent filter, topped off oil in the York compressor, washed the road grime off it, installed the RTT, set up a new air hose, and installed a new brake booster from CruiserYard.

My oem booster made it to 360k miles before going out. At the time there were two options. New from Toyota, which was around $800 iirc, and there were remans from local parts stores for $200-250ish. In the past 55k miles, I’ve swapped out 5 or 6 remain ones from orielleys due to failures or inconsistent feelings.

New booster feels exactly like it should and gets progressively harder as the pedal is pushed down unlike just about every reman booster I’ve had.


All that’s left is to hook up the gps, toss the sleeping gear in the RTT, fill the fridge and cooler, and top off on gas and we will be on the road. We are hitting up all the biking areas we have been itching to go starting with the Palo Duro Canyon, then up to Phil’s World, and onto Moab, Green River, and Grand Junction/Fruita, then maybe switchgrass in Kansas on the way back home.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

My friends and I got back from Spring Break yesterday evening, and the cruiser ran great the whole way.

2300 miles and 9.91 mpg and with gas and groceries split 4 ways with friends, it was a $170 trip.

Apart from steep hills and windy areas, it mostly did 70-75 or more(if on a downslope). I didn’t have a single random shut off which was a huge relief. Only weird quirk was that it started missing/idling a little rough intermittently. If throttled up to 800-1000rpms it was perfect smooth. The AC that my dad and I charged the night before stopped working the first day in which we kind of figured would happen as it didn’t seem to want to charge. Obviously there’s a huge leak somewhere in the system so I need to fix that ASAP before summer hits. Luckily the outside air temps were very nice and we weren’t feeling uncomfortable until the final highway stretch home. The cruiser definitely smelled pretty ripe in there with all 4 of us.

All said and done I did 2400 miles of driving. We biked about 85 miles and unfortunately snow/mud prevented us from riding a couple areas like Phil’s World.

Camping in the Texas Panhandle near the Palo Duro Canyon


Santa Fe National Forest by Cuba, NM after t shirt biking weather in Benallilo, NM. This night got a little chilly.


Little bit of poison spider action to freak a couple friends out. Despite being way heavier than the last time I went up Poison Spider with my dad, the rear locker made it effortless. I just had to be thoughtful of the bikes on the back and not dip into any holes.


A friend made the drive out from CB to come camp with us in Moab a night and brought his hundy.


Bike was so dialed and handled everything from long climbs to 8ft+ drops and double blacks. Aggressive trail bikes for the win.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

After getting back late in the day on Friday, I drove 100 miles round trip down to my house to get my bike ready for some racing and grabbed my number plate. Then I drove 130 miles to race bikes and camp Saturday night. Sunday afternoon, I fired it up after racing ready to head home and boom clank rattle horrible sounds

I visibly saw the inner front crank pulley moving in and out. I chopped the AC belt off, and then I drove 15 miles out of the woods to a highway junction that my parents happened to be driving towards from Arkansas. Then my dad and I attempted to tighten the front nut/bolt to no avail. Decided to tow it home to play it safe to prevent any possible crank damage assuming it doesn’t already have any/the main bearings aren’t the culprit.

I won’t have time until next weekend to tear into it, but I’m hoping the front crank pulley just gave up and separated and it’s not something more serious requiring a new motor/rebuild because I don’t have and won’t have the time/money to do anything serious until maybe this fall or next spring.

Cruiser leaving me gutted once again. Oh well. At least it was 100 miles from home and not 1200.

 

[bkg]

here's to hoping that the balancer just separated... crank would not be fun.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

here's to hoping that the balancer just separated... crank would not be fun.

Yeah that turned out to be the case. My dad jb welded the pulley on one evening and that stopped all noise. Obviously it is still getting replaced since it is out of balance but now it can at least limp in and out of the garage. If the main bearings had been done, this motor would have been tossed. I am really glad this 3FE will live to see another day and who knows how many more miles. Although it is a little bittersweet that I am going to have to continue trudging along with the 3FE haha

 

[GsCruiser]

How did you go about deleting the EGR from your 3FE?
Thanks!

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

How did you go about deleting the EGR from your 3FE?
Thanks!

My dad did the desmog long before I ever worked on this cruiser so I can’t really give you a solid answer. Most of it was left hooked up, but blocked off or with lines capped/plugged. Searching 3FE desmog on good will pull up some informative threads.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

Stressful weekend working on the cruiser. My dad had started putting some stuff back on during his free time in the evenings. I got into town Thursday evening and we set to work getting it so that we could begin tightening the female threaded crank bolt down. Friday morning, I set to work reinstalling the belts, fan clutch, a pulley, fan/shroud etc. my dad had a battery die in one of his 40s so he picked me up a fresh one and took my slightly used one for his 40 so I also installed that. I had everything buttoned up, I changed the oil, and began burping the coolant. Needless to say, I realized I only had so much daylight left and I needed to go preride a course that I would be racing on Sunday so I did that.

I got back and we finished up adding coolant that night. As I was about to pull the cruiser out of the garage, it sprung a huge oil leak. Probably 1/4 of a quart of oil in a couple minutes coming out of the timing cover/oil pan/front engine plate area.

We weren’t sure if it was the front engine plate, which would have required removal of the cam and hence either motor or front end of the truck so I was coming to the realization that the cruiser might not be running for the foreseeable future.

Thinking what else is there to lose, I tore it all down again the next day. Then I did a little bit of work on the 4runner, and read through the cruiser’s fsm again. It specified loctite 242/243 on a couple bolts that my dad had not used so I picked that up. Reassembly was nerve wracking as these tiny m6 bolts were spec’d to 18 ftlbs and some m8s were spec’d to 43 ftlbs.

Once it was all buttoned up, we let it sit in order to let the loctite cure. This morning, we fired it back up and began adding coolant. Thankfully, no oil leak and all appears to be holding fine. I took it on a short trip to the car wash to get all of the spring break grime off it and then started detailing the exterior.

Praying it continues to hold and it earns my trust back.

 

[redthies]

At least you’ve got the 4Runner for a back up rig. Mine was very handy to have when the Dodge ******** itself again. Second trans failure in its first 95,000 miles. At least it was a warranty repair and I didn’t have to fork out the $6500! I was also pleased that the tow truck was a Hino... It would have sucked being towed in by anything other than a Toyota product.

 

[Summit Cruisers Jr]

At least you’ve got the 4Runner for a back up rig. Mine was very handy to have when the Dodge ******** itself again. Second trans failure in its first 95,000 miles. At least it was a warranty repair and I didn’t have to fork out the $6500! I was also pleased that the tow truck was a Hino... It would have sucked being towed in by anything other than a Toyota product.

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Yeah having the 4runner has been so clutch. It’s still annoying regardless but at least in the grand scheme of things, nothing has been too severe like what you’ve experienced with your Dodge. Lately I’ve been realizing how spoiled I’ve been having been around cruisers. Really a couple breakdowns are all mine has ever had and they’ve been at 400k+ miles which really is remarkable all things considered. I don’t know if you get the “your car’s extended warranty has expired” spam phone calls but every time I give them my vehicles info they just immediately hang up haha

 

[redthies]

Nah, I don’t get the spam calls like that. I’m lucky (smart?) enough to have the 4Runner and 100 series as back up. I’ve owned a lot of Cummins trucks for my business, and this one is the best overall truck, but it has had the two glitches. Given the use it gets, I’m not surprised I’ve broken the odd thing. I know guys with over 400,000 on stock trannies that pull 10-15,000 lbs full time. I guess I just got unlucky. Hopefully the latest fix sticks.