Third times the charm. 1997 Fzj80 overland build.

[UMphreak95]

Ill try to keep the introduction on this one short and sweet. My name is Ian. I was born and raised in Atlanta Georgia and I just recently moved to Boulder, CO. Its been a dream of mine to live in Colorado for over 10 years. At just barely 20 years old I'm completely self sufficient. My parents don't fund a dime of my lifestyle, me moving to Colorado or my car builds. Don't get me wrong they would totally help if they could, but It's just not a possibility at this point in time. I work in Wheat Ridge as an automotive technician and am a communication major at CU Denver. Sadly that doesn't leave me a whole lot of time for wrenching, but I find time whenever I can. I can't promise this will be a build anything out of the ordinary, but I absolutely love my cruiser and the places it takes me, so why not document it?

Reason behind the title: This is my 3rd 3x locked Fzj80. My previous two being 93's and my current is a 97. Ive always struggled with keeping cars for a long period of time, but I can guarantee this ones here to stay. Of the 90 something cars Ive owned, most have been drift cars so the whole 4x4/wheeling thing is still a bit of a learning curb, bear with me!

Quick run down on the Cruiser when I purchased it:
1997 Fzj80 Collectors Edition
Factory E lockers
Headgasket done by Toyota @231k (Previous owners doing, and a huge selling point for me)
Bald Michelin ht's
Homemade rocksliders (ugly, terrible fitment)
3 month old OME Nitro Charger shocks 850J's up front and random 3.5 inch TJM springs in the rear.
When I picked it up in Georgia a week before our move date:

Drove 10 hours round trip to Nashville to purchase some oem 80 series wheels.

The next day I picked up a set of 285/75/16 Goodyear MTR's ran over to my buddies shop and threw them on. World of difference imo.


Tossed on a OME steering stabilizer the PO never got around to installing. Disregard the hitch pin "mod" that was fixed immediately.

Then installed my caster correction bushings because the PO told me it only had a 2.5 inch lift, not a 3.5... what a waste of time. My caster is still almost 4 degrees out of spec:/ (I'll be addressing this soon.)


Ran over to ACC and cut out a chunk of quarter pannel on their "farm truck" for some rust repair I'm having fixed in November. Can't thank Emalee and everyone else enough for helping me out!



I'll conclude with that for tonight. Next up, the 1500 mile trip from Atlanta to Boulder, a good bit of exploring, some maintenance and so on...Ill try to update later on this week if I'm not too tired after work.

 

[Willman]

Rear bumper time!

Love your 80. That color is sure nice!

 

[UMphreak95]

Thanks! Every time I wash it I fall in love with what's left of the color

 

[UMphreak95]

Sorry for the lack of updates, been busy with work, school, being lazy etc... Done a decent bit of work to it, broke some stuff and made a few pretty rad trips between Colorado and Utah. I just need to move all the pictures over to photobucket.

 

[ExpoGeorgia]

Pics ASAP! I was searching for an 80 in this color before I found my LX, keep us updated!

 

[fullybalanced]

Moonglow Pearl (I think that's the name) is my favorite color behind my Antique Sage Pearl

 

[UMphreak95]

Been meaning to find out the actual name of the color lol. Im pretty sure BoxRocket's is Moonglow. Not positive on that though. Ill have more pictures up tomorrow! Too much adventure to update on.

 

[UMphreak95]

Ill try and pick up where I left off here! We left Georgia on the 8th of July and arrived in Boulder CO on the night of the 9th. My Girlfriend and one of my roommates drove my 80 while I drove the 26 foot moving truck towing my Girlfriends Xterra the whole trip. I was the only one out of our group of six with tow experience so I drove the truck, too fun... lol

Here's one of our stops for food (Pretty sure we were in Kansas at this point)


Kept with this overlandish 6.7 powerstroke most of the second day of our trip.


Somewhere in Kansas after emerging from a teetotal ******t storm


The glorious moment when we made it to the CO state line (Of course the Toyotas got to steal the show)


I'm going to try my best to document the trips and maintenance in order, but some of it may be a tad mixed up so forgive me!

Had to make one of my first of many stops at Slee :sombrero:


The guys got our first camping trip up Bright View trail. Super cool little spot.


Went to St. Mary's Glacier, hit up a nearby trail. Can't remember the name off the top of my head, but It wasn't very well maintained so we had to make a sketchy turn around about 4 miles past the trail head.


Started working at a shop in Wheat Ridge. My bosses supercharged 3x locked 40th anniversary :drool: (I've gotten to do the majority of the work to it since this point and its coming along much nicer than mine lol)


Finally got around to swapping my springs around to the correct sides (Previous owner installed them on the wrong sides) I was sooo happy to finally have a cruiser that didn't lean.


Diff flushes



Made a day trip to CO Springs, saw garden of the gods. Found a dirt road in the park, decided to take it.


Got a little rowdy


Found some pretty sweet views too (Go Pro does no justice)




There was a lot of day trips to the trails in between that I didn't document very well, but our next big trip was to Imogene pass. Well actually, we traveled from Boulder to Breckenridge for breakfast. From Breck we drove to Telluride, up over Imogene down into Ouray only to find that every camp site and even hotel room was booked up for the weekend... Oh what a joy. Needless to say our lack of preparation bit us in the *** again! So we left Ouray for Boulder at 11:00 PM that night. Got home just before 4 A.M. 20 hours on the road in one day, and it was totally worth it for the three and a half hours we spent driving Imogene.

Before we left for Imogene I finally got around to installing my Aisin blue hub fan clutch with 30k Rc diff fluid swapped out for the stock fluid. Best mod ever!

Here's when I drained the fluid in the oven back in GA


Installed


Coming up from Telluride during the rain made for some extraordinary sights. (Photobucket isn't cooperating, as soon as it does, I will add the rest of the Imogene photos)






About 100 yards from the top my buddy said jokingly "What if it snows at the top, ha-ha-ha-ha." Sure enough, the cruiser got its first snow on 9/5/15 atop Imogene Pass!


Didn't get any pictures of the descent down to Ouray as clouds rushed in and it started to get dark as soon as we finished taking pictures and face-timing our parents/girlfriends/friends from GA. Can't believe I actually got service up there! Lol, anyway, the drive down was pretty ruff as it got pitch black extremely fast, and the cold rain and on and off snow didn't make things any easier. We made it to the bottom only to find zero empty campsites. So we moved on into town in search of a hotel room, NOPE. All booked up. From there we headed back to Boulder.

 

[UMphreak95]

Welp, Ive neglected this thread to say the least. The cruiser is at the body shop for a little rust repair. So excited to get it back Friday. In the meantime I figured I would upload some photos from last months Moab trip, a few random camping trips in CO and some wheeling.

We arrived in Moab Thursday night around 3:30 in the morning. We camped along the main highway in an RV park. The next morning we set out to find a new spot and lucked out finding a place along the Colorado River.

That afternoon we hit Kane's Creek. Got about 3.5 to 4 miles down only to find the trail was to narrow for the cruiser. The wrangler behind us couldn't squeeze through the spot we turned around on either and ended up following us back to the trail head. The older couple in the wrangler had nothing but compliments on the cruiser. This obviously made me happy lol.






A few from Fins. Really wish I took more photos and videos, the Cruiser killed it.



Album cover for the groups new mixtape :campfire: (Kidding lol)



Quick photo from our hike up to the Arches. Of course my Iphone died before we reached the top...

Moab was an absolute blast. I cannot wait to make another trip out there.

A buddy was in town, so we took him for a quick camping trip up Sugarloaf mountain. (Switzerland Trail)






Found another trail too small for the LC, so of course the natural thing to do is find something to leave your mark on. Or at least pose for scene points.


Solo session on Bunce School


Had to rescue my buddies 13' Taco. We went wheeling on this local trail the night before and a freak snow storm made him decided to leave his truck on the trail over night.

Had to drive through a two to three foot deep water crossing backwards just to hook up to his truck. I need a winch I know.


After airing up, the only thing that seemed reasonable to do next was a burnout.


I really should get better about taking photos. Forgive the mix of Cell phone and Go Pro photos. Ill be investing in a DSLR soon enough. Ill update with all my recent-ish basling, mods and the finished product of the rust repair later this week!

 

[Scat Adams]

Glad to see you hitting a ton of trails and using that cruiser for what its made to do!

Cheers!

 

[UMphreak95]

Nothing better for it! I can't stay out of the hills.

 

[Mad Matt]

Have you checked out Rising Sun yet? We are an awesome group of Land Cruiser and Toyota 4x4 enthusiasts. We meet the first Wednesday of every month at Stevenson Toyota in Golden.

 

[UMphreak95]

Yeah! Christo at Slee told me about yall on my first visit to the shop. I've been meaning to stop by, its just been one bad Wednesday after another. I should be able to make it that first week of December.

 

[eurosonic]

awesome pics. Nice build

 

[UMphreak95]

@eurosonic thanks bud!

Just got the car back from the body shop yesterday. The chunk of quarter panel I cut out of the lx back in Georgia was used to repair my gaping rust hole on the passenger side. So nice to have a 99.99% rust free cruiser! I'm beyond siked. Im flying back to Atlanta tonight for a nine day visit. So no updates on the cruiser until late next week.

Looks so much better now.