2000's Landcruiser

Lot's of pictures for those who don't like to read

Enjoy


Nope, not another Tacoma , bare with me. Lots of reading, but trust me. A few beers later you will enjoy it. Or at least I did writing it. I spend 99% of my forum life on IH8MUD.COM , I am on TacomaWorld since I have a few friends on the forum and it's fun to be apart of forums, meet people, wheel with them, always a fun hobby. Expensive, but fun.

2000 Toyota Landcruiser 100
4.7L V8 2UZ-FE W/ ATRAC and VSC




Back in the early 90's my dad had a old white Chevy Suburban. It was a great truck and did what it was supposed to do. After many family trips he started looking for a new car. He then came home with a green Chevy Tahoe. Served us well for many years to come, going to Florida, Skiing, the daily Costco runs. At the time I was in Middle School and didn't know anything about cars, but I knew I loved them (my first word was "dardar", which in my language was car). My dad then started looking for yet another daily driver. Something nice, and a step up from the Chevy lineup. He looked into the Toyota line-up. Back in December of '99 he pulls up in a brand new "Toyota Landcruiser". I was sitting in the garage working on a huge project with a friend of mine. I saw it and thought "wow, what is that? It's huge". I ran over and looked at it. It was awesome! My dad had officially bought a 2000 UZJ100 Landcruiser, which at the time I knew it was a Toyota and it wasn't American. That's how much I knew. After 80K and 5 loyal years of a Daily driver it became my Landcruiser. I went to get my drivers permit with my dad and I passed. We walked outside the DMV and started walking through the parking lot back to the 100. I hear from my dad, "so, you wanna drive home?". I had driven a little. By that I mean through parking lots and sitting on my moms lap steering through the neighborhood. Absolutely nothing compared to Atlanta traffic and streets. I was nervous and didn't want to say yes, but I was excited I could drive so I didn't say no. I kind of gave a nod and he handed me the keys. I turned the 100 on, put it in reverse and backed out. Driving home I was so nervous I started sweating, it was a huge truck to drive for the first time on the streets of Atlanta. Traffic everywhere, blind drives, people driving 90MPH past me on the interstates, tail-gaters, everything I DIDN'T need on my first drive home. I guess I could blame me for the tail-gaters due to my 90 year old grandma style driving at the time. I drove it to school, and that was it. After a few months I soon began to hate it. I was trying to find a way to sell it and get something sporty. Being young at the time (and still am) I wanted something fast and cool. Like a 1997 M3 coupe in Azul Blue and black leather! I found one and wanted it so bad I never stopped talking about it. I really thought I was going go crazy if I didn't get it. I guess the spoiled factor could have a small factor in it (being given a 50K SUV at the time). My good friend soon found out I drove a Landcruiser. He asked if I really drove one with a excited and shocked sound. I told him "yeah, why?", he said "you ever watched 4WD Weekly?"... "nope, whats that?"..."its a really cool offroad show and Landcruisers are always on it, you should really take yours offroad"...." why the hell would I do that??? It's a big old soccer moms truck, i would get stuck or break something". O.K, at the time I knew pretty much nothing about wheeling. He asked if it had lockers, I said yeah it does (showing him my key and pointing to the door lock button lol). After 45 minutes of him ranting about how good these things are offroad I told him "sure, whatever lets go offroad then". Well, from that point on I didn't stop. It kept going and going and going and climbed everything I drove up and over and went through anything. My brother had smashed up a 4Runner Sport offroad so you can kind of tell where this is going with the parents. I had to wash it and detail it every-time I went home. Which was pretty much 3 times a week. I soon started tackling harder trails and noticed these "running boards" kind of hang low, but my dad would notice and beat me to death. I then brought up the question of "dad, can I take off the running boards ?". He didn't say yes, nor did he say no. I took it as a no. A few weeks later I put the smallest scrape in the running boards and I knew I was screwed. I scratched dads truck! After about 3 hours of waxing that same spot I figured he would either find out or I could say a basket at Costco did it. Then I made the mistake of going mudding, I brought the truck after cleaning most of it. But forgot about the frame and underside. It was so obvious. My dad simply said "cool, how did it do?". All hell broke loose after he said "cool". I lost the running boards the next week and was hunting for more challenging trails. I then started liking it, but nowhere near keeping it loving it. I found IH8MUD (great site with great guys in lots of info) and saw some of there built and armored rigs. Lifted 100's, 105's, snorkels, ARB's, Slee Offroad stuff, roof racks, 4 wheels, 3 wheels, 2 wheels, 1 wheel and no wheels on the ground!!! I joined and that started the whole shebang. I was hooked. I liked the 100 a bit more. Starting to realize these things are really built for wheeling and expedition driving. Being on a very tight budget with no job. I started with some mods that I now regret. I bought a chrome brushgaurd and put that on. At the time I liked it. I threw some KC Day-lighters on it and loved those.

Here is a picture in stock form, but without the brush-guard and lights


I saw a few rigs with black rims. Looked pretty sharp. I really did like the black rim look. I then spray painted my rims with a flat black paint. Looks great and has held up great (even after 3 years). I have since then sprayed my D pillar vents, entire grille, and the side moulding.

After that I started looking for lift kits. I knew of one. The Old Man Emu 2" lift kit. It was around $900 without the Slee diff drop. No way that was happening. Now, the 100 Series has a torsion bar IFS setup upfront. Torsion bars are adjustable (meaning you can crank them to raise or lower the suspension), I thought for a while and wondered if I could put some OME springs and adjust the front. Well, it seemed possible. A few months of saving and I bought some used OME-866 rear coils. I installed them in about 2 hours with basic tools and a help from a friends shop. Outcome was great! So my suspension was OME 866's in the back, factory shocks and factory torsion bars.

Here are the end results




I drove it another 10 miles after the lift and noticed my CV boots are leaking. A quick run to Home Depot and $3 later I had some hose clamps around the boot. I was careful not the cut the soft boot with them. I now have 25K on the lift and still no diff drop and they don't leak or have any issues.

Since I blew my money on the lift and spray paint I could not afford new tires. That, and we had just replaced the 275/70/16 Michelin LTX's a few months ago and still had about 90% tread left. I couldn't justify selling them, nor could I get a new set with the money. I waited about 7 months and got a job working valet over the summer. I was looking for a tire that could handle offroad but would last as long as the Michelin. That wasn't going to happen. I saved up some money and started calling around and asking opinions. I found the BFG A/T's. I wanted 285/75/16 and was going to buy them. I saw some 295's. oh boy, the little extra width and height changed my plan. But was concerned about rubbing since everybody was saying 285's were the biggest you can fit. How bad could it be??? I bought some, yea, they rubbed. And no, I didn't care since they were 100X's better than the stock tires. The stock tires got me stuck in f'ing moist grass, pine straw. They sucked massive.

 

I started wheeling a bit more, since I had a lift and tires I went further. Now the 100 stock bumper is short, and sits up high (compared to most SUVs now days), but I still found myself sliding and bumping it on climbs. So instead of saving for a new front bumper, I bought some more lights.




Lights... oh I love lights. I added two more IPF's. They were shaweet at night. So back to the bumper, I started wheeling more. Which meant my bumper got pretty banged up. It was missing several tabs holding it on, and was scratched up. I saved for about a year and had my eyes (and wallet) set on a 03+ ARB Combo Bar. I finally ordered it and was so anxious to get it I called the shop every day to see where it was. It was shipped from the ARB distributor in Seattle,WA and was on there truck. 7 days they said...7 long, tiring, anxious days. I dreamed about installing it, i dreamed about how awesome it would look. But I was concerned about the weight. You see, I still had a lift... but I had factory torsion bars that had already seen (at the time) 105K. I wasn't sure how they would hold up with the added weight of the ARB dangling over the front end. I guess I would see. I called the shop on the 7th day and they said it was in Orlando, FL. WTF??? I had to go through Atlanta to get the Orlando! Apparently the shop didn't unload it and it would take another 2 days to get here. I was so pissed.

2 days later they call. I was so excited I sped off and went to the shop. I pulled in and there was a sweet looking 80 there. The owner had bought a brushgaurd (i removed mine the month before because I whacked it and bent it a little, and hated the way it looked) and said he was getting it installed. I said with a cocky voice, "geez, thats great. I just bought an ARB". He had never seen or heard of one so I showed it to him. It was still on the crate and all boxed up but I destroyed the box in excitement. I was thrilled and he was shocked at how well built and nice it was. He then proceeded to the front counter and said he didn't want the brushgaurd installed. And ordered an ARB lol. I drove home and installed it.







the ARB had 2 light mounts on the bottom and 2 on the upper bar work. I thought it looked stupid having them on the upper bar work, so I fabbed up a custom light bar that held the 2 lights.


I ran several trips, some easy, some hard. I blew the driver rear shock at RiverRock ORV in GA. That was a nice touch, especially since I had HD springs in the back. Then the following month I had a seized shock from over extension and encountering 2" thick ice (shown in the video below). I replaced the with 4X Bilstein HD shocks while keeping the factory torsion bars and they ride wonderful. Of course anything rides better than shocks that have 130K on them, one seized and another blown. It was a rough ride for the week of busted shocks. They HAD to go.

After I year, I still wasn't satisfied with the light output (mainly low beams). Poor projection and it was just not bright enough. In the rain it was dangerous, I had to check to see if my lights were even on sometimes. I ordered a 55W DDM Tuning 5K HID kit.

 

Let's pause and stop reading. Now you can just look , my first round of worthy offroad mods and I was a broke as shit college student. Enjoy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBcf38jRC5M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdcXxBIm6KQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-cB7OR-eVk&feature=fvw

 

added some White Knuckle Sliders, tested them out and they are nice. Next modification is most likely some skid plates as mine have been destroyed pretty much. And rear bumper since my current on is being held on by 2 bolts. Sliders have 3 feet and are extremely well made. They were a touch over 6 bananas shipped. Which is 4 bannanas less than Slee's sliders (not knocking Slee, he makes great stuff). Which was a no brainer









and just for fun :sombrero:

pre-sliders...

 

Few shots from last fall before my next small round of modifications. RiverRock ORV in Milledgeville,GA. It was a fun weekend, but along with my wheeling sytle I racked up some repairs.

Some of the things that didn't fair to well and need to be replaced:

Power Steering : Main seal blew going from the shaft into the rack, it's a class II leak (saturated parts, but no spraying). The pump is starting to have a "dirty" hiss and a "clean" whine, I flushed the entire system out, but no luck.

Skid Plates:Cracked the transmission skid plate in two pieces. Needs to be replaced. Bent the front ARB and main front skid up pretty bad.


Rear Bumper: Broke that again, even after redesigning and reinforcing the mounts it was still ripped off, did not come off but it tore the mounts clean from the body.

Body and Paint: Came off several ledges, which caused my rear quarter panel to slam into multiple rocks and "kiss the wall" pretty good. Some of the scrapes are through the paint down to the metal. Those will need to be touched up. I don't plan on fixing the dents, since those will probably just happen next trip out there .




Sliders: I managed to slide full force into the driver side slider, resulting in a rather large dent in the out rigger. I came off another ledge and slammed down into the slider so hard it actually flexed up and went into my rocker panel (it's not the sliders fault, I could of taken another line and chose the harder one, I have to sliders mounted as high and as close to the body as possible too)


Control Arms: Could not make it up a ledge, I had to back down and landed on a sharp rock. It took a good bite at the rear control arm (or trailing arm for some). I don't feel any pulling, but plan on fixing that issue sooner or later as it doesn't look good.

Rear Diff: I wish there was a true diff armor cover for the 100 Series, I took the first layer of metal off of it and was constantly getting hung up on the rear diff and driveshafts. I barber polled the DS pretty good.

Tires: Ran them at 26PSI and still had major chunking. No sidewall cuts nor flats which was good, but the tires seriously could of held up better.


CV Axle: Cut a boot, ordered a new oem axle from Toyota, swapped it out and rebooted. Trail spare for the future.
Here are some pictures since you guys probably don't want to hear about my problems lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srLIqQSdwRI

 

My next round of modifications were 305 KM-2's, welding the ARB rock guard so it would not get bent again, handheld CB radio, re-vamp of the 10 year old stock sound system with all new speakers and subs, onboard air...

After a few runs with the KM-2's I am amazed with them. 12psi and they are fabulous in all situations.












:whoops:















YouTube - RiverRock Ledge Climb in a LandCruiser



slow and steady wins the race

YouTube - RiverRock Climb


YouTube - Some nice creaks
After a while it sounds like this... quite funny when you go through a parking lot and people stare at you while you squeak your way into a compact parking spot

 

Went to Durhamtown last weekend and of couse, me behind the wheel I went bat shit crazy. Had a blast though. Came home with one less body part. Decided to just leave it off and black it out since the bumper was broken and cracked in several locations.



Stupid stupid me and piss poor line planning, ruts carried me straight into this one. I was not happy, it wont buff out and it's kind of ugly. But it's not like I don't have scraped and scratches everywhere



I needed a strap once, that was because the ARB bottomed out in a mud hole and....well you can see the rest below. It was NASTY. I had to stick the nozzle in the mud and spray it. Resulting in a explosion of mud all over me, what a PITA LOL. So worth it though. the arb skid plate had about 20lbs of mud in it. Since I welded it on I can't' remove it. I had to reach in with my hands and pull cold freezing mud out for 2 hours and then spray my radiator and everything else about 300 times.

 

and there ya go. My shortened build thread for Tacoma world. Stay tuned for upcoming trips, pictures, and yada yada yada it's a god damn money pit.


Hope you enjoyed it.

Nick

 

Nice! Have you ever considered taking it easy?

 

Never, it's to boring taking the bypasses and watching. I have to take a bite of everything, sometimes I choke on them, but I always make it through.

 

Touche. Props to you

 

Damn dude you don't play around off road lol. That's how it's done.

 

Nice!

 

looks nice

 

Thanks guys. It's a slow build. I copied the first few posts from expo, so now it will be "real time". I have to do front brakes and replace a frozen caliper and rotor in the rear coming up. Which I really did not want to do.

Also will be rebuilding my old CV. I'll keep you guys posted and hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoy sharing my build and trips

 

Sick ride dude. I've always wanted a cruiser. More so than an FJC.
Nice to see that you actually wheel yours as well. Too many of them just cruising around on the streets under speed limit. lol

 

Nice rig dude

 

Looks good bro. I like the brush wires. I'm gonna make some when I get my new bumper. What size wire did you use? Any closer pics too?

 

Nice!

I have seen you driving around a few times.

We need to go wheelin sometime.