Landcruiser 70 series Rust-o-Mod: "OLBETSY ZX"

Dried and ready for some fasteners to keep my little metal tab (now POR15’ed black) on the inboard attachment point…

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Built, not bought, right?

Good job, Phil!

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I drove to the carwash yesterday! With mudflaps. Zero rust. And a big rattly smile on my face.

Also I found a 10JPY coin under the center console. Which I think is lucky. Immediately made it into a key accompaniment. :rofl:

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Man, that is a MILESTONE right there. Congrats Phil. That has to feel awesome.

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It really does. She’s come a long way since October,

A few updates which I missed in my haste to show her out of the garage:

All new rubber plugs in the rockers.

Tried to reinstate the running boards, but they were too far gone unfortunately. The aluminum was gone completely at some points where they were riveted to the brackets. I probably could’ve made something to help them reattach, but I wasn’t 100% sold on putting them back anyways, since eventually they’d be replaced with proper sliders. This just puts an exclamation point on it.


Mudflaps are very solid, which I’m super happy about.


You can see where the front one it shaped to fit the running board into, but not much I can do about that, if I’m not putting them back on…

And a few interior adjustments:

Put my “odd iron offroad” 3d printer cupholder in, a Christmas gift from my wife -

Took the OEM shift knob not being used on the Prado, and swapped it in place of the worn 70 series shift knob. And fired up ANDROID AUTO which now allows you to change the background.

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I really wish the trooper dash had a double din slot, android auto looks so good!

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So much progress, Phil! Way to go!

This is good stuff. Keep it coming.

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Another boot about town…

Have a tail light out. Better get two, because 24v is life.

I believe I might wire the trailer harness next?

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Just curious, why is it 24V? I know it’s a diesel thing, but…

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More juice for the starter to turn the motor over, and more juice for the glow plugs at cold starts

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Tightened my wheel bearings. So nice to be able to service something instead of having to throw it away!

And today I mucked with the bumper some more and decided on minimalist for now…

Added some serious fuel system cleaner, and I’m hoping to take it to work this week. Weather dependent. Kids are pretty stoked to see it!

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Tightening wheel bearings?! :exploding_head: That’s awesome!

*edited

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Ummm… Whut?

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Fixed, lol, my bad.

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Gotcha. I had to go back and see if it was me that had typed something wrong, since it usually is. :smiley:

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I mean, they might as well be angel bearings, right?

Looking good, Phil. What’s the fuel system cleaner? How does it compare to, say, Sea Foam?

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Diesel Purge. Made by liquid moly, which is super high quality German engineered non snake oil. :joy: I’m not sure how it compares to foam of the sea. I do know it’s.more targetted to diesel fuel systems specifically. And I didn’t lay down a smoke screen this morning. :rofl:

Today I drove it to work and back. Woohoo! Lots of driving impressions to come.

For now suffice to say it’s an adventure!

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160kms yesterday. No leaks. No overheats. No real issues. Needs wheel alignment. Maybe wheel balance. More weight in the back perhaps? But the baseline is very good.

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Is this your first solid front axle vehicle? I can’t remember but I assume the Prado is IFS

Handling will never feel totally right compared to IFS vehicles. Get the wheel alignment, but just don’t get your hopes up too high :joy:

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Thanks for clarifying, Phil. I’ve been thinking about swapping in a set of freshly cleaned/balanced injectors on Fezzik this fall. 235k on these, I’m sure they could use the cleaning. I’ll look into the Liquid Moly stuff before I do that. Can’t hurt to do some homework.

Ol’ BetZx looks like she’s on the surface of Mars in that picture. :man_astronaut: Let us know if you see Perseverance or Curiosity out there.

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