Box Rocket 1995 FZJ80 Build

I picked this up over the weekend. It was briefly owned by Greg@RME a year or so ago so it's coming home to Utah in a way.

There are a few dings etc consistent with what you'd expect from a 20 year old car. Like a lot of 80s the front seats were trashed, split leather and bad foam. Before going to get the truck I got a lead on a pair of front seats in decent condition that were at a shop there in GJ. I arranged to go take a look at them after I bought the truck. It worked out great. It was a shop I'd never heard of called Metric Offroad that specializes in Cruisers. They had 20-30 trucks in the yard at the shop and the owner said he had another lot with another 40 trucks. A whole range of trucks from 40's to 80s and some 4runners and minitrucks too. Really cool guy and the seats he had were pretty dry but the leather was fully intact. We worked out a good deal on them with my new bad seats as partial trade. So the worst thing on the truck was fixed before I even got it home.

The rest of the issues with the truck are mostly cosmetic. The clearcoat is peeling on the hood, roof and flares. The front axle needs to be serviced and a couple other minor things looked at but it runs great and everything works. Even has lockers. The drive home was nice and it felt soooooo good to be back in an 80. The plan is to swap everything from my '93 over to it in the next few weeks. I'll use my OME J spring suspension, bumpers and sliders. I've ordered a set of 345/75R16's to go on the OEM wheels. So it should be ready to rock within the next month. My old 80 will get the suspension from this truck and keep the 315's that are on it and get the stock bumpers and then get sold cheap.

I already started cleaning up a few things. I painted the handles and the flares black and it is looking much better. I didn't get pics with the flares done yet so all you get is the handles.

Details:
1995 FZJ80
Moonglow Pearl
Tan interior
Factory lockers
Rancho 2.5" springs
285/75R16 General Grabbers
Naked roof (no roof rack from the factory)

Plans:
OME J springs, L shocks (from old 80)
Adjustable panhards (from old 80)
Slee Caster Plates (from old 80)
ARB front bumper (from old 80)
Wildyoats rear bumper (from old 80)
custom sliders
PrInSu roof rack
Tepui RTT
345/75R16 BFG KM2s
4.88's sometime down the road.
maybe a snorkel
address the peeling paint.

Here's some pics from tonight.






blacked out handles


peeling flares


peeling hood










 

OCNORB

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Location
Alpine
Nice. no pics? banned!

Aw, crap.

Too dark now; just did a tie rod end and patched up the muffler in hopes of passing inspection tomorrow.

Pretty sure it belonged to a member here, so my bet is you have seen it around. I'll get a shot of it up before the ban-hammer drops!!
 

OCNORB

Well-Known Member
Supporting Member
Location
Alpine
It had a bad case of oil leaks when I picked it up. Fixed all the leaks a few weeks ago. Can't stand leaks. The front axle needs a rebuild. (PO threw in a kit he had purchased- seems to be a theme with these) Trying to decide if I want to get new birfs and wrestling with the old OEM vs. aftermarket question.

It probably needs new valve seals, but its not too bad yet. The previous owner threw in a complete spare motor, but I haven't made it up to get it yet. Plan is to have the head from the spare motor rebuilt, then do head gasket, ARP studs and install rebuilt head one weekend.

277k miles, but it still feels very tight and quiet. There's a little rust on the tailgate and roof. I plan to go after those soon. Hate the roof rack!! It will be removed after I use it as portable scaffolding to paint the eaves on my house in a few weeks! Rear bumper tire carrier and cargo rack should be plenty of room for us. We're used to loading up the Willys, so the 80 seems huge in comparison.

This is my first Toyota truck (had a few older cars), so I'm super excited about it.

The flare- Its in the truck; that is actually a new door- the one that came on it had a damaged window seal that allowed water to run down and rusted a hole in it from the inside out. None of the other doors have that issue. It looks like a bored kid sitting in the back seat used the window seal as his drum kit. Hoping the Toyota dealer can get me the clips for the flare and the new window seal I still need to install.
 

Box Rocket

bored
Location
Syracuse, Utah
had a few awesome days down south for Labor Day weekend despite a pretty good "stuck" in a riverbed. Spinning the tires in the mud/gravel in the riverbed destroyed the finish on my OEM wheels.


















You can see the paint pretty chewed on the wheels in this pic.


It was good timing on ruining the paint on my OEM wheels because I got a partial sponsorship last week from Stealth Custom Series Wheels and I had a new set of 5 wheels ready to go on when I got home yesterday. Got them mounted up this morning.


 

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
Dude, Tepui tents are so cool that the milky way aligns itself to your tent when you deploy it.

Killer shots as always Adam.
 

Box Rocket

bored
Location
Syracuse, Utah
Hmmm. Couple changes since I last posted. I tweaked my tire carrier a bit. Tire has been mounted vertically since I first built it. Seemed like it was maybe hanging out a bit far so I cut the mount and rewelded it on an angle to follow the rear lift gate and tuck into the truck a bit better. This necessitated relocating the hilift so it's vertical now instead of on an angle behind the tire. Minor change but I think I like it better.
Before:


After:








Also switched out the latch for a "locking" Destaco


2 years ago I bought a set of chains for the Tacoma. I was glad to find out last night that they will fit the 315's on the Cruiser. Now to find some snow.
 
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