FZJ80R from Devon

[chapel gate]

it doesn't look like the seal itself is distorted?

the metal is quite malleable. I bet you could get most of it out with a fat bolt ground to the same profile.

 

[stumog]

That looks as if you just need a new seal.

 

[Richard Turner]

It is hard to take a picture of, but it is very distorted, the metal of the seal is rippled, and where it is distorted the rubber lip has worn and split because it has been pressed against the spindle too hard.

I come across this on the front hubs of lorries quite often, either the new seal is hard to press in and can be damaged, or it pops out again after a few thousand K's.

I will attempt to make it round again, we may have a big socket in work that I can use to get the shape back.

 

[Richard Turner]

So I have got a few bits done this week, mostly trying to tidy up the front of the truck and fit some recovery points.

First job was move the rotten power steering cooler as it is in the way and I am worried that it will start leaking and wreck the power steering pump.

When I had a look I decided to get rid of the transmission heat exchanger and just use the transmission oil cooler, I don't like the idea that the heat exchanger could fail and put coolant in the transmission. I have piped the power steering return through the heat exchanger instead, I don't think it will get too badly damaged by coolant, not as badly as the transmission could anyway.

Loads of room now. It is quite an easy job to re pipe it, everything fits nicely and actually looks more logical in the engine bay intead of pipes criss crossing!

 

[Richard Turner]

I wanted to tidy the wheels too but unfortutely no funds for a proper refurb. I wire brushed the paint and alu oxide off, gave them a nice coat of zinc cold galvanising spray, and laqured them.

The sad looking but unbuckled spare.

The inside of the wheel is still good.

An hours worth of knotted wire brush on the 5inch grinder.

Zinc spray and laquer

New tyres...

Didn't bother with the centre caps as they are in good condition.

I think they look ok, they are not a pristine job but good for a cheap tidy up whilst i had to change the tyres anyway, cost wise it is about 2 hours work per wheel, and £25 in zinc and laquer, you could do all 5 with 2 cans of each.

I have done 3 out of 5 wheels so far as I only have the one spare so have to do them one by one, also iritattingly my manual tyre changer at home can't break the bead as the tyre is too tall to fit in the machine. So I had to get ATS to strip them down and balance the new tyres, payment in cups of coffee!

 

[Richard Turner]

Now I have the power steering out the way I made a start on the front recovery point. I am going to make a front reciever hitch so I can put the towhitch in the front and move a trailer in my yard as it is too tight to do it by reversing. Also I can use it as a recovery point, and if I wanted a winch I could use it on the front and back of the truck and store it inside the truck out of the weather etc.

Trimmed about 2mm from the chassis rail as it isn't flat at the end, and so I could put a bolt through the RSJ without being too close to the edge. Rounded the top and bottom to allow the RSJ to sit flush.

I am using the stock mounting points as they have lovely captive nuts with high tensile 1.25 threads, M10 and M12 at the top.

The bumper mountings just bolt on top and right through the tow bar mounting.

I had to drill the crossmember to bolt the rear stay of the bar through it, you can get to the nuts easily though.

Filled and sprayed the front bumper, it took a fair few skims of filler as it was well used, it is in filler primer in this pic.

I cut a square out of the bumper so the reciever can fit through nicely.

All welds ground back and painted in my favorite, red oxide!

 

[Richard Turner]

Final fitment:

There is still some room for the bumper to be pushed back in an impact, except where the reciver hitch pokes through.

The fit at the bottom is very good, although this is more luck than judgement!

I still have to paint and fit the corner bumpers. I think the number plate spoils the look, but the square plate I had to fit, cant fit because of the hitch. I will get a rubber cap like I have on the back to cover the hitch.

I am pretty pleased with the front hitch, I think it was about 9 hours work, costs were minimal, £40 for the special reciver hitch metal and the rest was offcuts and scraps, £20 ish in paint and stuff. It looks pretty strong, strong enough to be recovered from anyway.

 

[Richard Turner]

Took the LC80 down to a pay and play day down near us, it was very very muddy! We learnt a couple of things - Diff locks, although very useful, are not some kind of invincibility against getting stuck, and when you have all 4 wheels turning it is much easier for the truck to slide side to side instead of where you want to go! Also, when you are on thick clay mud no matter what tyres you have you will still get stuck, it's just a matter of when...

We only had to get pulled out once though, and had a nice lunch from the burger van.

Recovery point works well.

This guy had to be winched out by the tractor, which kept being pulled into the ditch by the winch!

 

[Richard Turner]

So I am stuck in a lorry with a flat battery waiting for someone to give me a jump start, thought I would give a quick comparison of the BFG KO2 to the Michelin road tyres they replaced:

The noise of the tyre is the same, or, you can't hear it over 50mph because of the howling roof rack anyway.

The BFG seems very well made, all the mouldings and tread sipes are well defined. The tyre is very heavy though, probably double the weight of the Michelin.

The on road grip seems the same, although I don't really ask maximum cornering from the tyres. Not had to do any emergency stops on either tyre so not sure there.

The biggest difference and most surprising is the handling and ride quality. The BFG has transformed this. Before, I thought I needed new shock absorbers and suspension bushes. Well, I probably do but the BFG completely masks this. Rough corrugated and potholes roads are now transformed into smooth motorways. No more crashing and banging. Where the 80 used to pitch and lean into corners like a Spanish Galleon, it now feels completely tight and flat. It runs lovely straight and smooth down the motorway and is unaffected by tramlines, and the wind seems to push it about less too.

I have still 36psi in the tyres which I had before, so it is a direct comparison, best money I have spent on the 80 so far, and perhaps the biggest and best change I have ever had on a vehicle.

And they look cool too!

 

[chapel gate]

I think that would be due to the stiffer side walls being a LT tyre. With my winters on at the moment there is more roll and a bit softer ride.

 

[Ben Stratford]

Mine are at 38PSI Rich and definately form part of the suspension. The 60 does get affected by motorway tramlines generally in the left lane but wind not much of a problem. Still loads of tread after 25k miles so they should last you ages

 

[Richard Turner]

The sidewalls certainly are stiff, they were tough to get on the bead, had to use an old empty fire extinguisher as a bead blaster!

 

[Richard Turner]

For Christmas I got my Dad a guided tour trip on Salisbury Plain with 4x4 Adventure Tours, I thought I had better take the 80 along too to give it some more testing and hopefully improve my driving skills. Here are some pics from the day.

Lovely and sunny day, but bitterly cold in the wind. No problem for the climate control in the 80 though.

The tour guide's 110 Land Rover, and a Jimny which was very impressive and went anywhere it was pointed.

One of the older discovery caught his tow hitch on a rut and had to do a roadside repair. Later he found he had a hole in the drivers side wheel arch right into the cabin, as when he went through deep water the cabin filled up with water almost to the top of the transmission tunnel. He had to keep opening his door to let it come all pouring out.

My 80 got very muddy, there was a lot more water than I was expecting, I had 95% of a breakdown as the distributor cap got water in reducing working cylinders to 2. Managed to dry it out and sealed the coil and cap with a good buttering of lithium grease and it was fine for the rest of the day.

Dad's LR90 went fine all day, no getting stuck or any break downs, even on normal M+S tyres. I think it has very narrow tall profile tyres which gave him good ground clearance and cut through the mud.

Near the end when the two tours met up again.

Back home eventually. There was one very narrow lane which gave me a lot of problems as the entrance to it was a steep drop from the road and I bashed the underneath of the truck on the edge of the road. I havn't investigated where it hit but the sills seem ok. On that lane also I caught a tree stump on a bend and broke the rear arch trim off. It was a lesson learnt for me as really I should have seen the stump and made more effort to turn slightly later, as we were following deep ruts I wasn't paying enough attention to the position of the truck. Luckily I retrieved the arch, and in time to stop Dad doing the same thing to his 90 so not all bad news. I should be able to repair the arch.

All in all it was a good trip, it was much better that it was a guided tour as we got to do all the good bits that we may not have found or attempted had it just have been 2 trucks following an OS map.

The 80 went very well indeed apart from the misfire which highlighted a problem area that I can fix. The grip forwards backwards and sideways from the BFG KO2 was perfect all day, even at road pressures. Clearance was good apart from the time I caught the road edge so I will have a look where it hit and decide if more driving skill is the issue or more suspension height is needed.

The only issue with the tour itself was that we had to go much faster than we would have normally driven to keep up with the guide, but I don't think we would have made it round the route before we ran out of daylight otherwise, and various minor problems, breakdowns and stoppages ate up time as well. It would be nice to do the same route but over 2 days, with a camp stop overnight so will look into this for when it gets a bit warmer.

 

[Richard Turner]

Had a look under the truck last night to see if there was any damage to where I dropped on the edge of the road. Can't see any - think it was on the rear trailing arm mounts on the chassis and they seem ok. Found the transmission mount was completely detached though, have done a repair...

 

[Richard Turner]

Thanks to @chapel gate for my nice new radiator caps!

 

[karl webster]

Looks like the cap was ready for changing Rich.

 

[Richard Turner]

Yes it was completely seized. Luckily no other problems with the cooling system other than the collapsing hoses phenomenon. Next I need to sneak the expansion bottle through the dishwasher without darling wife noticing!

Started the repairs to the broken off wheel arch, the mounting points were snapped and one completely missing, so stitched one with heat and used plastic resin, the other made a new mount out of an old MR2 under seat sub box to keep it Toyota.

Just need to mark and drill the mount for the little button that holds it on the wing.

 

[Richard Turner]

Not got an awful lot done on the Cruiser this week but I have been working on the wiring on the rear of the truck.

Metal tubes welded on the bumper to hold the reverse sensors.

Sensors installed.

Trailer sockets installed. I don't need a caravan socket really but I am planning to use it as an exterior socket perhaps for camping with an extension lead on or for a lead light.

Fuse/Relay box from an MR2 wiring loom repurposed into a rear fusebox. Quite time consuming having to remove all the pins but then I could re arrange them into the fused spurs I need as well as some relay fed bus bars for various controls, reverse light, permanent live, acc live etc.

Reverse sensor control box.

Used my new crimpers to make these waterproof connections.

Very good crimp every time, much, much faster.

Used 4 wires from the 7 core cable I laid into the passenger side floor conduit the other day, reverse sensor cut out for when trailer is on, rear light bar switch, and a permanent live and acc live for usb and cig lighter sockets I will fit into the centre console.

Repurposed MR2 foglight switches.

Dodgy wiring diagram...

 

[Richard Turner]

We went on an event called 'Land Rover all 4x4 Charity Vehicle quest' on Sunday. It was only £5 to enter, and had a very good turn out, more than 60 trucks. It was basically a Treasure hunt (routebook with questions to answer alomg the way) but on roads and byways, on Dartmoor and the South Hams. It finished at a hotel in Torquay (that didn't seem to mind a car park full of 4x4's and lots of customers wearing boots!) And there we handed in our answers and swapped tales of green lanes with other people on the event.

There were 4 routes to choose from, Road, Road and easy green lanes, road and medium green lanes, or road and harder green lanes.

Here is a pic of some of the trucks at the start at Hay Tor.

As it was my wife Emily's birthday and it was the first time she had done any off roading, we thought it would be best to go for the road and harder green lanes, as the route included the infamous Simms Hill, which I have attempted in the trials car but never climbed, it is very steep, and is stepped slippery granite...

After some worrying whether we had made the right descision we set off, trucks doing the easier routes went first, as they were going to approach Simms from the top and watch the trucks doing the harder route climb it.

As we got near the bottom of Simms, Emily decided perhaps she would rather not start off roading on a very steep hill with loads of people watching, so we swapped over, and lined up at the bottom of the hill watching a land rover 90 climbing. A land rover 90 has very flexible axles but even this didn't seem to be making it easy for it!

Can even be attempted with leaf springs!

Well I put the 80 in low range, and the auto box in L, front and rear diff locks in, and it just drove up it like a road... we got to the top with people cheering and as I had my window down we heard one of the spectators say 'well he didn't have any problem did he?'

We were very impressed with the 80, and Emily straight away wanted to drive again, later in the day she said had Simms been the last lane of the day she would have had a go, but that doesnt matter there is always next time.

We carried on to the next lane which was another I knew from car trialling, called Tipley, it is fairly steep and rough, loose fist sized rocks apart from half way up where a seam of granite runs across diagonally and creates a tricky slab to climb, which tries to push you across into the bank. Again, no problem for the 80.

 

[Richard Turner]

We carried on round the route following the route book and answering the questions, the route book was very well written and accurate and time has obviously been put into it to make it so.

We only saw one other land cruiser on the event, this smart looking Prado, but we didnt get a chance to speak to him as he was doing the 'road and medium green lanes' route.

Here is a pic of our truck in a clearing that has been abused by some 4x4 owners, the big concrete blocks have been put out to try and stop people going off the track and wrecking the woodland, very sad to see.

Another lane further on one of the narrow type (my truck is now fully pinstriped down both sides)

One of the lanes was so narrow that in several places there was only an inch beween tree trunks both sides with the wingmirrors folded in. Luckily Emily is a far more patient driver than me and got through the whole thing with no damage to the truck.


We met the driver of this G-wagen at the end and had a chat and a look round his truck. His diff lockers (triple) work with hydraulics, and are apparently reliable! The rear diff lock on the 80 got stuck in early in the day, and remained stuck in until I freed after work on Monday. It made parking difficult and noisey! The G-wagen is good but I prefer the 80 especially the interior.

A vid of us in the start of the narrowest lane... Emily later compared the noise of the branches scraping bodywork to 'the bit in Titanic where it sinks!'

A bit earlier where we are trying to answer some questions on the route 'how many pylons can you see?'

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155127430257414

I don't know if this vid will work but it is a great vid of the cruiser taken from a 90 that was following us.

So in conclusion it was a very good event, well organised and only £5 very cheap, I have another copy of the road book so can do it again whenever.

I need to fix the diff lock more permanantly and it would be great to have a CB radio as I think we missed out a lot on the radio chit chat. The next one is in June.

And the Land Cruiser 80 is a fantastic vehicle.