Well, its on...

[dieselcruiserhead]

Kristian, if you need a gas tank for any reason I have one for a '93, should be the same I think... Cheers! Andre

 

[upcruiser]

Kristian, if you need a gas tank for any reason I have one for a '93, should be the same I think... Cheers! Andre

Really? That might be tempting. What do you want for it? Might be a more cost effective way to go then fabbing two new tanks. My current one is leaking near the top of it and needs to go.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

I was think $250 or so? Not sure if this is too much.. It is complete with everything, sitting taking up space.. Would rather get rid of it then let sit around.. I'll PM you my # if you want to call me.. Cheers, A

 

[upcruiser]

Well, it's alive! I travelled down to the cottage where I had the rig in storage. Tuesday morning bright and early I got to work on it. The replacement axle was waiting there for me in all its newly serviced splendor. The guys at Land Cruiserparts.net were great and it arrived 2 days earlier then I expected it to. It took me about 3.5 hours to do the swap which I thought was good considering I was using all hand tools. The only really PITA part was monkeying with the sway bar mounts on the new axle. They were pretty badly bent and one of them had been partly cut by a torch from its previous disasembly. I was afraid it would break as I was trying to staighten it. Luckily for me it didn't, nor did any fastners over the process of the swap. Also on the plus side, I was surprised to find that the axle came with not only the rotors but the calipers as well with fairly new looking brake pads.

After completing the axle swap and bleeding out the brakes, I installed a fresh new Optima yellowtop and turned the key. It fired right up, after 2 years and 1 month of sitting dormant in the pole barn. Gotta love the 3FE and its ability to burn though 2 year old gas without a hiccup. haha

I gave it a good bath to wash off the seemingly inch deep dust that had settled upon the rig and it looked like new again! Felt good to be back behind the wheel I'll tell you. I made the 5 hour drive back north to Marquette with the windows down, sliders open, and sunroof back the whole way on a beautiful 75 degree late afternoon/evening. God I love this truck.

Stuff that needs immediate attention though. Exhaust, its going in next Monday to have some new braces made since my last Utah trip really did a number on the system. Also my downpipes are pinholed badly and I'm hoping they can just touch it up a bit for me, versus dropping $500 for a USED set.

Winch, still waiting for my Warn 8000 that I ordered from the Winch Depot to arrive. I'm going to swap out the line for synthetic, but it won't be for a couple of months likely. I'd really like to keep it light. Scott had a great thread he wrote awhile back on this subject.

Bike mounts, I'm going to figure out a way to mount my Thule bike mounts on the roof in conjunction with the Conferr roof basket. For long trips I prefer to put my bikes inside to shelter them from the weather but I locally it is easier usually to just put them up top. My thought is to utilize one of my old Thule bar/towers and place that at the front edge of the sunroof. I'd put the fork mount on this and have the back wheels rest in the basket. The other use of the front bar would be....

Limb wires. Planning on running them from the bull bar up over the front Thule bar, then back to the basket. The basket runs from the rear of the truck up to the edge of the sunroof. With the the how heavy and thick the vegetation is in this region it should help out nicely.

Rear bed reconfiguration. For the July trip to Colorado I will not be travelling solo like I usually am. Currently I have a one person berth built into the passenger side of the truck. It measures exactly 6' long and is just wide enough to sleep on comfortably. This leaves me plenty of room, both under and next to the bed for other items like bikes, gear, etc. Since I have so many different uses for the truck, I'm trying to keep it as flexible as possible. Therefore, I'm leaning away from building rigid storage compatments, and am going to keep it open and pack it with soft bags for various things and partition things off as I need them depending on the trip. For the bed upgrade I'm planning on engineering a flip open action second layer to the current bed. So when not sleeping on it, it folds on top of the present bed. Then when needed it can be folded out. I haven't quite got my head around how yet though. My whole philosophy with this truck is keep it simple, and this will abide by that as well.

Stereo. I still have the factory system in it, and while I am no audiophile, the quality of this system and its blown speakers drives me nuts. I'm hoping to upgrade.

 

[ChuckB]

I think that your FJ80 is absolutely sweet!! Your rig actually has me thinking about picking up an FJ80 and possibly doing a H55F swap. Especially now that my wife won't let me drive the 100 any more... I know that buying an FJ(no Z) 80, goes against just about everything people will tell you on mud, but I'm ok with that :ylsmoke:

 

[upcruiser]

I think that your FJ80 is absolutely sweet!! Your rig actually has me thinking about picking up an FJ80 and possibly doing a H55F swap. Especially now that my wife won't let me drive the 100 any more... I know that buying an FJ(no Z) 80, goes against just about everything people will tell you on mud, but I'm ok with that :ylsmoke:

Thanks Chuck, I appreciate it. The H55F swap is something that I'd like to do down the road someday. I'm planning on keeping this truck for the long haul so it is in the longterm plan. I'm trying to retain as much stock componentry as possible along the way too. For doing something as radical as a tranny swap, its cool that I could keep it in the family with the H55F. As far as the FJ vs FZJ bashing on mud, these are the same people that say you can't get by without 37's and a 12,000 lb rated winch either. The 3FE is great on everything other then freeway driving. I have no problems with it but I could see it being frustrating if I was needing to drive freeway speeds frequently, especially in altitude and in the mountains. For two lane roads and crawling around offroad loaded down, it is the proverbial tractor motor.

Update for today, I got the limb wires installed. I'll post up some pictures tonight if I can borrow Dana's digi cam. They turned out pretty good I feel and I coated them in black rustoleum paint as well for added weather protection. We loaded up the canoe (and the cat) and went for a little paddle nearby, then took the back route home through some unimproved tracks with some thick brush in some sections that gave the limb wires a bit of testing.

Next up, rigging up a way to carry the bikes on the roof.

 

[adventureduo]

I'd like to see your limb risers.

I have them on my rig and have used them twice in SoCal. lol

 

[ChuckB]

Thanks Chuck, I appreciate it. The H55F swap is something that I'd like to do down the road someday. I'm planning on keeping this truck for the long haul so it is in the longterm plan. I'm trying to retain as much stock componentry as possible along the way too. For doing something as radical as a tranny swap, its cool that I could keep it in the family with the H55F. As far as the FJ vs FZJ bashing on mud, these are the same people that say you can't get by without 37's and a 12,000 lb rated winch either. The 3FE is great on everything other then freeway driving. I have no problems with it but I could see it being frustrating if I was needing to drive freeway speeds frequently, especially in altitude and in the mountains. For two lane roads and crawling around offroad loaded down, it is the proverbial tractor motor.

That's really cool, I didn't realize that you were thinking about doing the 5spd swap as well. Any thoughts on doing a toybox while you're in there?? I'm sure its pricey but it would be really cool with the manual to be able to crawl and not worry about the clutch too much. I don't have any practical experience but, from the little bit of wheeling that I have seen, it looks like having the super low gears with the manual tranny is the way to go in the more technical terrain. It's probably not quite essential for expo type driving though.
I agree about mud, there is a ton of information there, but the mob mentality is kind of in effect in the 80's section. Luckily, now I'm to the position were if I want to cruise the freeway at full speed, I'll just take the 100 and set the shocks to "super comfy" on the dial and make sure I don't spill the latte. I still browse the 60 section a lot, I like it in there much better even though I'm 60-less now.
If I do end up with an FJ80 its not going to be a DD, so freeway speeds will be what I want them to be, just cruisin. Plus from what I read it sounds like the H55F really wakes up the 3FE so it could only be a step up right?
Which reminds me... what tire size are running 33x? or 35's I can't tell from the few picts I have saved on my computer of your 80 :smiley_drive:

 

[upcruiser]

Like I said, the tranny swap would be down the road a few years and haven't really given much more thought then, yeah, I want to do it. I heard that the 3FE wakes up a bit too from the swap as well. Not sure what else I would do along with it at the moment. One nice thing with the auto tranny is that I can really creep over stuff in 4lo.

I'm running 33x12.50 BFG Mud Terrain KM's on 15's.

I tried to snap some shots using my gf's cell phone and to say they came out crappy is an understatement. I was trying to show the limb riser wires I installed, but they are barely visible. I need to invest in a digi cam.... Anyway, here's some shots that the wires are barely visible in, including one from a little canoe outing from yesterday, yeah we brought the cat.

 

[Desertdude]

Your rig is so cool, it comes through even on a cell phone photo

 

[ChuckB]

Your rig is so cool, it comes through even on a cell phone photo

:iagree:

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

I have driven a FJ62 with a H55F conversion. Literally *night and day* difference in terms of power...

 

[ChuckB]

I have driven a FJ62 with a H55F conversion. Literally *night and day* difference in terms of power...

Stop teasing me :sombrero: Kristian is a lot farther along than me, I don't even have the rig yet. I am still in the dreaming stage...

 

[Pskhaat]

I have driven a FJ62 with a H55F conversion. Literally *night and day* difference in terms of power...

That's the only way to describe it. I have an H42 behind my 3F-E and the 3F-E is truly awakened.

 

[kcowyo]

Your rig is so cool, it comes through even on a cell phone photo

:iagree:

I'm a big fan of the red/merlot/burgandy 80's. Yours especially. :bowdown: