My big lap transport

[WanderOn]

Thought I would share some of the work I have done to my 1999 HZJ105 Landcruiser.
Im putting a new radiator, hoses, thermostat, gaskets and a temp probe to monitor coolant temp. (The factory ones tend to be very dampened and I would like to see the instantaneous temp. Gauge also has an alarm which floats my boat).
I’m moving very slowly today as my little beasties have bought home the flu. I’m also 42 this year so broken sleep with a 2 year old hurts more than it did 10 years ago with my daughter.

Ive read the threads about whether needing a 4wd or not and one of the big themes I got out of it is they are bloody expensive.
I bought this car about 3.5 years ago as a daily driver/weekend explorer. It was pretty much standard except for a second battery and an aftermarket turbo. Had a good service history. The first owners were NSW police and have I bought it from the second owner.
It was well maintained but at the point where it needed a bit of time and money or it was going to end up a piece of crap at the wreckers.
Grew up with dad being a full blown British car nut and a mechanical engineer so there was always old cars around. My first car was a 1974 Mazda 929 so I already knew how to throw away money on cars. But I digress a little
I also have an amazing wife to be who loves to travel so I have an advantage straight away. This car was always for the family to enjoy which they do.
Current view of the cruiser.


coolant has finished draining so I’ll post some more soon.
Will probably end up a novel so I apologise in advance

As a side note, really enjoying this site. Don’t get the crap like facetard and other big 4wd sites.
There are opinions but not the cowardly crap. Big thanks to everyone on here

 

[Randall]

re fuel economy, it sounds like you have a reasonable amount of time. Slow travelling, staying in different places for periods of time, and the cost of fuel seems not so important. Although the real cost is how expensive fuel is in outback / remote locations It is a great thing to do; I see australia as one of the last interesting places to travel now. Wilderness is really quite contained now - that sense of remoteness for me has dissappeared, or definitely changed from when I was younger.

 

[Mozzie]

will totally enjoy your continued posting WanderOn, thumps up from me cause i love this sort of stuff.

we just got back from a few days out back of the Snowies region

 

[WanderOn]

re fuel economy, it sounds like you have a reasonable amount of time. Slow travelling, staying in different places for periods of time, and the cost of fuel seems not so important. Although the real cost is how expensive fuel is in outback / remote locations It is a great thing to do; I see australia as one of the last interesting places to travel now. Wilderness is really quite contained now - that sense of remoteness for me has dissappeared, or definitely changed from when I was younger.

Randall
Getting about 15l/100km which is not too bad for an old truck. It’s still not brilliant.
Have to give the big truck a weigh in soon. Was planning on a long range tank to replace the 50l sub tank. Kinda a bit scared I may have to re assess.

Looking forward to having time.
I wish I had experienced remoteness and wilderness when I was younger. Spent a lot of time in the bush around home and 4 weeks a year at south west rocks running wild with my brother and cousin whilst growing up. Most of what I remember is gone or really built up and crowded.
Hope I can find a space away from it all.

 

[WanderOn]

Back to my ramblings about the landcruiser.
Currently it’s in pieces as I found the water pump was a bit tired, the timing case seal for the injector pump was leaking and slowly filling up the timing case with oil and then some numpty chewed up the bolts on the thermostat housing.
Parts are ordered but I’m on the lounge with the flu and no energy.
Previous owner was pretty OCD about writing down everything he did. As far as I can see it still has the original water pump, radiator and thermostat. They are all definitely genuine. I’ve ordered genuine parts again.
Some of the maintenance so far is

• Front swivel hubs and bearings
• Rear bearings
• Typical Landcruiser windscreen rust
• All suspension bushes, tie rod end etc
• Timing belt, tensioner etc including the seal that is currently leaking
• Most of the interior was removed to repair a bit of rust in the floor from the windscreen leak then everything was scrubbed and steam cleaned and put back in
• Replaced all the diff, gearbox and transfer case oils
• Brake and clutch fluids
• Front rotors and all pads
• Bull bar looked like it had hit a roo and had extra holes from its police service days. Straightened it out, fixed the rust patches that had come through the front plate and painted it in chassis black. It looks good from a distance
• Painted the tow bar
  There will be lots of other little things I can’t remember.

 

[WanderOn]

Leaking seal. Grrrrr. Replaced this when doing the timing belt.

current engine status. Hate when it’s like this.

 

[T.C.]

Front mount intercooler..... thats a big plus for towing, I kinda regret going top mount

 

[WanderOn]

T.C.
I spent a fair bit of time thinking about it. There’s not a lot of room for the pipe work to go through.
I mainly did it for lowering EGT’s (I’ve read too many horror stories) but the change was really noticeable. It felt like the torque band kicked in lower. Made a big difference for towing our camper.
At the time of installing the intercooler the tune wasn’t right. I had the big 300000km service done by a guy near home who claimed he knew what he was doing. He over advanced the timing and told me the injector pump needed rebuilt.
I recently took it back to turbo glide who did the original turbo install to have it tuned. They put it back to factory tune and adjusted fuel etc to suit. They also confirmed injector pump was fine and explained how a failing injector pump would show up on a dyno report.
The point I’m rambling towards is that I wonder why Mr T didn’t bring out turbo 1HZ.
It drives so well. It’s not a fast car by any means but just nice to drive. Maybe I’ve been driving diesels too long and a little biased but I really like the power delivery
I used a 150 x 600 x 75mm intercooler that fitted really snug into the front.
Had to relocate the overflow bottle and used an aftermarket one which seems to work quite well.

 

[WanderOn]

Front mount intercooler..... thats a big plus for towing, I kinda regret going top mount

What model 105 do you have?
Always curious of the history of the barn door wagons as most appear to be ex government

 

[WanderOn]

Dad built a door to enclose one of the side panels of the camper trailer.
LiFePO4 Battery cells showed up from China today. 280A/H and weight about 22kg. Huge improvement on AGM.
Should leave plenty of room for other equipment storage.
Time to mount them and get it wired up to be charged by the car.

 

[WanderOn]

Probably get picked on for this one but got a diesel heater setup. Bought a Chinese all in one and modified to make it a bit more robust

Hahahaha. Boss and kids have got to be warm

 

[WanderOn]

Did a capacity test on the AGM auxiliary battery in the car. It’s over 3 years old and I didn’t look after it as well as I probably should have at first.
Was a bit hard to work out from the graph from Fullriver but I’ve still got 100A/h of the original 120A/h.
Not the best photo