Well, its on...

[upcruiser]

That's the place that I talked to actually. I ordered the axle through them. Orginally they thought they had a hub to hub front FJ80 axle with 30,000 miles on it since its last service. Apparently that didn't exist in their inventory. I ended up with one with overall fewer miles and they went and serviced the axle for $200 extra. That's a good deal in my eyes as I'd rather pay that then go through the mess to do it myself.

[Desertdude]

Small world sounds like you got a great deal.

Oleg has a few 80's parting, out he may have something - http://www.irbisoffroad.com/

[upcruiser]

Actually, I'm pretty sure it was you who had recomended LandCruiserparts awhile back. The axle arrived today, unfortunately I'm in San Diego at the moment(actually its pretty nice to be here).

I also ordered up a shiny new Warn 8000 tonight. Pecking away on the 'ol checklist. Anyone know if you can squeeze a Warn 8000 on without removing the bullbar on an FJ80?

[pskhaat]

Get someone to help (maybe two), but yes you can get a winch on there. I put my w12k on mine with the bar still on. PITA to get the bolt holes lined up, but it did work.

Advice, go buy some extra-long mounting bolts of the same thread pitch/diameter (don't remember off top of head). You can use those long bolts to secure the winch in the proper position from a greater distance away, and then use the provided bolts to mount.

[upcruiser]

Get someone to help (maybe two), but yes you can get a winch on there. I put my w12k on mine with the bar still on. PITA to get the bolt holes lined up, but it did work.

Advice, go buy some extra-long mounting bolts of the same thread pitch/diameter (don't remember off top of head). You can use those long bolts to secure the winch in the proper position from a greater distance away, and then use the provided bolts to mount.

That's some good advice, I'll heed it no doubt.

[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