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The truck is a 1987 Toyota Landcruiser, technically known as an
FJ-60. I am the second owner and I bought it in early 2002 with
about 120,000 miles. The previous owner had left it fairly stock,
except for the beefy, heavy and with locking compartment front
and rear bumpers & slightly bigger 31x10.5 inch tires. These
trucks were designed for adventure, they have extra cooling
capacity (water and oil), water cooled engine oil heat exchanger,
water & dust proof distributor, and relatively tough components for
a relatively small truck.
From that fairly original beginning the truck has been in various
stages of upgrades. Today at the end of May 2007 the truck has
about 147,000 miles and numerous upgrades and fixes.
Engine: Stock except it has been de-smogged – no smog pump,
catalytic converter, EGR, or other various smog equipment. The
engine breathes through a non-USA air cleaner assembly that
hooks straight up to the Australian Safari snorkel. The engine is a
4.2-liter inline six whose best adventure attributes are low
compression (for low octane fuels), carburated (for easy road
fixes), overbuilt & under stressed, and relatively high torque of
about 210 ft-lbs at only 1800 rpm. The drawbacks are it is quite
thirsty for fuel, low horsepower, and it does not like to rev.
Driveline: A non-USA Toyota 5-speed manual transmission
replaced the stock manual 4-speed. The rear axle is another non-
USA Toyota part, a Full Floater (higher load carrying capability
and if the axle shaft breaks, the wheel won’t fall off) as opposed to
the stock semi-floater. There are front and rear ARB pneumatic
locking differentials and last but not least are the BFG Mud-terrain
255/85/R16 (33x10).
Electrical, lightning & music: Stock alternator but with a dual
battery (yellow top optimas – tougher and higher current output)
which are isolated/combined by a high current (300 amp) but low
voltage loss Hellroaring combiner. The headlights are IPF H4s
that are complemented by Hella fog lights and an IPF back up/
camp light. An air compressor is located out of the way inside the
right rear ¾ panel. Tunes come out of a Sony marine head unit
which has an mp3 input.
Bumpers & winch: Front ARB with a Warn 9000lb winch, ARB side
steps, and a Kaymar rear bumper with dual spare tire carriers.
Other modifications: An aluminum Toughy lock box in the rear and
a steel Toughy center compartment. An Engle fridge mounted on
a custom steel frame that allows surfboards below it. The
suspension has been upgraded with Old Man Emu heavy-duty leaf
springs and shock absorbers. Another bit of custom stuff are the
non-USA Toyota rear sliding windows, non-USA Toyota seats, a
42-gallon Australian gas tank and a 5-gallon Australian water
bladder that resides inside the left rear ¾ panel.
After all of this I know that the truck will brake down, it is old and
the trip is rough-- But that is just another dimension to this
adventure, I hope it will be easy to repair…
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Corn on top of Aluminum box, built by Taft
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Doug helping out.
Corn showing his baby, Aluminum top box.
Previous Owner shots
Previous Owner shots
Previous Owner shots
In Baja, trial run and midway through the
upgrades.
Scary thought, two engineers with tools.
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