Land Cruiser 90 Series - making me a newb again!

I’m envious of your commute, if one has to commute as I do as well, that sounds like a great adventure compared to the 57 freeway. But I digress, as commuting sucks no matter what the terrain.

My commute is roughly an hour each way. Two hours a day. Five days a week. Which comes out to 40 hours a month spent sitting in traffic.

On the plus side, it’s a good time to feed my head podcasts or catch up on the phone, but when Google suggests it might only take 15 minutes more each way to ride my bike…

Still, the wide open spaces and snow look nice.

Grass. Greener. Etc.

I hear you all. Routine in any form can get tedious. I’m in my 19th year of this commute. It keeps me looking for new roads to explore.

Today? Well it’s been snowing since I got here this morning so it should be particularly treacherous on the way home. I’ll look for the road less travelled and it’ll be good fun.

Reminds me. This rig has no roof rack yet. Need to get on that so my traction boards and shovel have a place to reside, away from the passenger compartment. You never know when they might need to be called upon?

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So cool!
I love when lazy manufacturers build one harness for 16 different models. We used to add a trunk light of all things to the 90’s Impreza’s because they all had the wiring for them, but lacked the $26 switch and light bulb holder.

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My base model, 97 Talon didn’t come with a radio.

The plan was get the deck installed with one paycheck (this was back when a CD player was still $600, by the way), then get speakers two weeks later.

The installer and I were surprised to discover the car had speakers from the factory.

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What would be really handy is if it had the rear e-locker installed and all I needed was the knob? That might be too good to be true. Lol.

I really do need to get some pre-heat into this rig. I’ve done more than a few -15°c starts now, and yes, it’s started, but a fair puff of smoke and some bumpity-bump for a few seconds.

Nowhere in the world that I can find documented, has anyone done a frost plug heater in a 1kz-te. I’ve even gone so far as sizing up the block via parts fiche for a suitable location to put one anyway, but you just don’t really know what’s behind the plug until you pound it out, so… I bought a lower rad hose heater. :slightly_frowning_face: I’ll put it in when I do the hoses and timing belt in a couple of weeks. Not my favorite method, but better plugged in than not at all.

All the diesel generators I have on campus run these rather than the traditional kind that uses a freeze plug. Might be a way to go for you. Could probably find a place to mount it easy enough.

Interesting. I’ll have to look into that. Does it run off a heater hose, or…?

I’ll snap a picture at work tomorrow of how its set up on one of the generators but a heater hose would likely be ideal.

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So I’ve just spent my first decent amount of cash on this rig… And it’s on a fun bolt on, not maintenance. Woohoo!

Been looking at racks as usual, because shorties, even when they have decent room in the back, still need aux space. And rooftop tents, love em or hate em, don’t sit directly on the rooftop. Lol. So…

I looked at several options. I didn’t want a full basket this time. Flat platform was my goal. And bare load bars are fine for rtt’s but not much else. Also, the lower the profile the better, since this is still my DD.

*Rhino Rack Pioneer: spendy, and you still need to buy bars to mount it.
*Frontrunner Slimline: also spendy, and sits a little high…

Both of these would be north of a grand by the time I was done. Ouch! I don’t mind spending a little more on the rig itself but my accessories are usually tried-and-true-budget versions (you have heard of the Edgestar Fridge, right?).

Enter Smittybilt. They make a wide variety of Defender racks, and one is a platform with a small raised section at the front 1/4. Looks perfect. Also available are short clamps which hopefully will clear the roof by a little, but keep things low. 10% off an already competitive price at 4WP got me over the edge. Ordered it last night. Hope it is the ticket?

smt-45555_wu

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Got back from our Christmas vacation last night, late. It was “Real nice, Clark. Real nice…”

Today I went to pick up my new rack since 4wp left a message yesterday that it had arrived.

I put a blanket on the roof, along with four towels, one in each corner, before my wife helped me hoist it up there. After some fiddling with the brackets, and adjusting for minimum height, I’m quite happy with how it turned out.

One big surprise though, was the size. Every place I’ve seen it, has listed it as 4 1/2 feet wide by 5 1/2 feet long. When i picked it up (thankully i took the 100 series) I had to leave the carton and packaging foam at the warehouse. It just barely fit in the truck. And that was with the seat racked all the way forward. Yikes!

After we had laid it up on the blanket, I did some measuring. It was 54" wide as advertised. But the length was another story. It was heading towards 7 feet long! I was happy because it is almost exactly the length of my roofline, which works great, but something to keep in mind for sure.

I am going to get another set of brackets for the middle section to further reduce deflection under load. I mounted it at the minimum gap from the roof sheetmetal, and don’t want to risk damage.

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Outside shot because there are far too many garage shots so far…

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And… Today I dove headfirst into the timing belt. More to come…

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That looks awesome, Phil. Suppose you could mount it with a little overhang in the rear? Hang a small awning back there? Just a thought.

Also, what’s the story behind “Bagged Ass Rd”?

My awning is wider than the truck so has to be parallel, meaning side mounted. My plan is to sell or trade my current pop up RTT for the book style again, and have it fold out over the back, providing a covered space over the back door, with awning to the side. Also gives me enough room to put my maxtrax (COPIES) at the front of the rack, in front of where the RTT will sit on occasion. These boards will stay up there all the time, since sliding off into the ditch on the daily drive is always a possibility this time of year - LOL.

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RAGGED ASS ROAD

Also the name of an album by veteran Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane:
Ragged Ass Road https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B000002TX7/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4bJcEb2BGM24K

A buddy of mine moved to Yellowknife, and sent me the directions to come visit him, written in sharpie on the back of the sign.

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Very nice, Phil. Sounds like it’s gonna be a most excellent setup. :slight_smile:

I find myself thinking more and more about camping in the year ahead. Might get me one of those Gazelle tents, a proper, 2-person cot for under my 2-person sleeping bag, and just plan on loading all of the above on the roof rack. (Mine’s not the cool guy, flat setup, though.)

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Timing belt!

This truck has a 100k km interval timing belt change. And a week or so back she finally reached that number. Not bad for 20 years old?

So once back from vacation… It was time to dive in. Pulled the rad, fan, all access belts, plus upper and lower hoses and thermostat, since I was gonna be changing those as well.

Pulled cover and the original timing belt looked like it was almost brand new. No oil leaks. No other signs of distress. I put a new belt in place, along with the new parts mentioned above, and bolted it all back together.


Something tells me it won’t be 20 years until the next cam belt change?

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New belt in place… Notice the yellow marks on the belt? Handy feature… Line up yellow marks with marks you’ve used to line up TDC on your pulleys and crank case. (The picture was after a few hand rotations of the engine to check for continued alignment of all the moving parts, which is why the yellow line is no longer lined up)

But overall… Wow. What an easy belt change.

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Now… More fun stuff! Remember my quest for winterization? Well… I cut the new lower rad hose and put an inline heater in place. And, even more interesting, dual batteries are now onboard and functional.

I used a Sure Power 1314 priority charging solenoid. This designates one batt as main and the other aux. When the main gets up to full charge, the solenoid automatically close the circuit and parallels the two, giving lots of CCA’s and reserve capacity.

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