New suspension

This upgrade was already on my list since the beginning. The original suspension pack installed by the factory was over 30 years old, therefore lost its flex and lowered the cruiser about 5 cm from its original height. Besides that the driving behavior also changes during that time, in the end the steering tends to react too much on road conditions and curves. It starts to drive a bit nervous and therefore dangerous and exhausting.

Sliding window weatherstripping

This week I received the long awaited weatherstripping for my sliding windows. Like many other parts, this was no longer available through Toyota, so I had to source for an alternative.

Hood silence pad

Driving noise is something you have to live with when owning a classic land cruiser, even more when owning a diesel version. That’s why Toyota assembled the Diesel cruisers in some markets with a factory silence pad under the hood.

OEM Door weatherstripping

Ok just a short notice: bought the aftermarket front door weatherstripping/seals a while ago and tried to install them properly… That turned out to be a big failure!!!! So this time, I bought the Genuine Toyota ones from cruiserparts.net.. what a difference!!

New Tires

This weekend I got myself a nice pair of sneakers!! And then I don’t mean a new pair of “hard to get” Nike’s, but 5 brand new BF Goodrich All Terrain Tires.

JDM Emergency Flare

Since we are talking safety, lets focus on a very nice and Japanese Domestic Market only item; the Safety flare. Due to Japanese traffic regulations, every Japanese car needs to have an ’emergency flare’. This is basically a piece of firework that can be ignited the way you lit a match.

New seat belts

If you have followed this blog for a while, you’ll remember how I did my best cleaning up the Factory original seat tan belts, they looked great (for the most part), but somehow sometime refused to work properly… And there’s something I won’t try to save some money on.. my safety!

Glove box part 02

As I’ve mentioned before, I was in the run for producing the original JDM 4 speed shifting plate for the dashboard glove box.
After some hard work reproducing these nice and iconic plates, they are finally finished. Took me a few days cleaning up the scans and convert the artwork into vector. But the result is as I hoped for, or even better..

Installing headliner

Ive sanded the inside of the roof top to a nice smooth surface. The inside was covered with glue and pieces of foam from the old dried out headliner. Its time to replace this with a nice foam backed & perforated vinyl headliner.

Roof top Weatherstripping part 01

Yes, like everbody else, my rooftop weatherstripping was shot to pieces, completely dried out, eaten away by rust and teared in some places. Time for a replacement!!!

Upgrading head lights

Since electricity is all in working order, engine starts like It never stopped running for a longer period, I started to finish installing the lights at the front. Originally my cruiser came with the factory Koito sealed beams, that means that the light bulb is integrated with its housing. You buy them in one piece.

New Parts: part 2

Last week I received the order of new parts form Cruiser Corps. Very nice and helpful company, with a great website: www.cruisercorps.com.

New Parts – part01

The first batch of parts finally arrived on my doorstep, this time from Cool Cruisers of Texas. Mainly rubber items like the door seals (I ordered their “best” quality option) but also

Fender mounted mirrors

As from 1980, all JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) LandCruisers were, because of Japanese traffic regulations, equipped with mirrors mounted on the front fenders. These are the only LandCruisers with these type of mirrors. Pre 1980 Landcruisers had

Solution for the rusty doors

After a “less happy” period of one day, I decided that I somehow have to get over the “hidden secrets” of the right front door and right ambulance door… (see post: Rust Damage ) These 2 doors were far beyond repairing with the welding skills I recently learned.

New wheels

I think a lot it seems…
Also regarding what type of rims I should use on my cruiser, if I ask friends and members on forums like http://www.Ih8mud.com i get different opinions: