1986 Toyota Land Cruiser 70-Series for Slow Exploration

I haven't posted in a while, but I have been chipping away at this project in the background as work, road trips, and motorsports events take place.

Now that the crack in door is stabilized, I've made good progress fairing it in. My current garage is awesome, but is not suited for spraying, so any paint work is with a brush for the time being. There's still more coats, wet sanding, clear, and polish to come.

I ticked some other small tasks off the list as well. The wiper blades were heavily-sun-bleached and seemingly-ancient RainX blades that mostly seemed to excel at smearing E36 M3 around, and failed miserably at wiping anything.

Stock Toyota wiper blades are awesome. They work really well, and when they wear out, you can buy just the rubber insert for a couple bucks and replace just the rubber part. Sadly, most people don't know this, and drive to Pep Boys or Auto Zone or whatever, and spend $29.99 for some inferior aftermarket units, and throw that precious refillable Toyota blade in the trash! 😫😤

I bought the proper Toyota blades, and picked up some refills while I was at it, so I'm good for the next few years. Looks better too. 😄

Sound deadening work continues! After reading quite a bit on Sound Deadener Showdown when it still existed, as well as reading a lot on Resonix Sound Solutions, plus talking to Nick from Resonix on the phone, I've learned that good sound deadening addresses multiple different issues, and those different issues require different solutions...there is no single product that is a panacea for all NVH ills.

The door skins get a constraining layer damper to address resonant vibrations, topped with a sound absorbing foam layer.

There will be some additional work on the inner door skin and door card with a decoupler to further prevent rattles/squeaks.

Love it!

Looking forward to hearing about how well it works

Looking forward to hearing about how well it works

In reply to mechanicalmeanderings :

I'll be happy to report back once I finish this round of work and get it back on the road.

While I was working on the windshield wipers, I fixed a small crack in the plastic trim part that covers the bottom of the driver-side wiper arm (from the base where it bolts on to the motor to the hinge where it pivots when lifting off the windshield.) The plastic is really thin, and the crack was really small, so I used epoxy instead of attempting a plastic weld. The first coat of paint after the repair is a bit too glossy, but I'll hit it with some semi-gloss soon and I'm guessing it will be hard to detect.

The driver side window was quite hard to crank. I have a new Toyota regulator with a perfect tracks and plenty of grease to replace the funky old one.

I tackled the other sometimes overlooked contributor to window drag: dirty side window channels and dirty side edges on the pane. It wasn't too hard to get the caked-on layer off the glass, then I ran rags up and down the channel rubber, and then squirted silicone spray into the rubber channel...should be nice when I reinstall the glass. 😁

The other gratifying task I ticked off the list was fixing the sound deadening that partially tore/peeled back up as I struggled with removing the backing paper inside the door after it was partially stuck down! I was able to squirt some contact adhesive in from the top, and once tacky, re-adhered the foam.

If anyone following along is attempting something similar at home, I'd advise getting the foam into door with the backing paper on as a first step, then positioning it hard against the inner door  skin to maximize space, and somehow securing it there while peeling the backing paper through the window slot in the top of the door (long hooks, pliers, tweezers, sticks will be your friends) before finally sticking it down. Otherwise just cut it into several smaller sections to make it easier to handle, or call over your surgeon friend and ask them to bring their full arsenal of tools for working in tight spaces, or maybe grow some prehensile micro-appendages.

Don't do what I did and jam a nearly door-sized piece of foam into the door cavity, and then simultaneously try to peel the backing paper paper off what is now the side away from you through the few tiny access holes in the inner door skin that are on the wrong side and blocked by the foam itself and also position it at the same time and stick it on with zero extra room to work with. 😅

The main hangup with putting this door back together is the dubious door lock cylinder in the driver side. Unfortunately new genuine lock cylinders are NLA. I tried a Rock Auto cylinder, hoping to rekey it to match, but it uses a completely different keyway, so that didn't work. I have zero interest in rekeying the whole truck. I'm highly motivated to fix the driver side to match everything else.

I finally sourced a used 80's Toyota door lock cylinder as a core, and also sourced a brand new aftermarket face cap. The idea is to disassemble both Toyota cylinders, assess the guts, and put the best-condition parts that match the existing key together, top it off with the new face cap, and pop it back in the door.

I dropped both lock cylinders in the ultrasonic parts cleaner this evening, figuring it couldn't hurt before disassembly. I'll let you know how it goes once I pop them apart another day.

Over the weekend I realized I haven't run this rig in three months or a little more! I pushed it out, cranked the had throttle a few turns, turned the key, and it instantly fired up! No battery tender, no fussing around with anything! Gotta love the ends-of-the-earth reliability of a Land Cruiser! 😅 I took it for a spin, no side windows, or interior door cards, or interior door handles, but it was fun and everything worked well.

At some point I will need to address the oil leaks, but I'll leave that for another day.

Sad news on the Toyota pickup lock cylinder; even though they are both sized for the same hole in the door, the diameter of the cylinder (and the exact width of the keyway) is different! Land Cruiser on the left, pickup on the right.

I reassembled the original lock and got it working so-so. There are grooves worn into the pot metal of the outside part of the cylinder, and the assembly is also badly pitted and cracked in a thin area. The other issue (and I suspect the root of the wear issues) is that the return spring that closes the door when retracting the key rusted away a while ago, so grit and dust fills the lock. The pickup spring is a different design. I thought about buying the right gauge of spring wire and trying to wind my own spring, but gave that idea up before long because it is a really tiny fine spring, and the cylinder is worn anyway.

The US-market crossover is 10/1982-09/1986 Camry SV11. If any of y'all see a boxy first-gen Camry at your local pick n' pull with an original looking door lock, let me know, I'll be happy to compensate you for pulling it and shipping it to me.

Otherwise I have to rekey the whole truck with cheesy aftermarket Chinese locks, which I'm not excited about.

After getting frustrated with the lock, I got the top of the Cruiser door polished and ready for clear coat.

I got sound deadening installed for the door latch rod and lubed all the pivots and springs for interior and exterior latches.

I got two coats of clear on (no photos, sorry) and got new outside belt line molding installed.

I've been busy with everything but the Cruiser lately, however I have squeezed in a bit of time to work on it here and there in the past week.

I got multiple coats of clear on the top of the door, wet sanded, and did some buffing. This project got that tricky balance point of trying to make the smoothness and shininess hopefully roughly match and not exceed that of the rest of the paint. I figured I'd better stop here. I'm sure a concours judge might spot signs of repair, but I think it looks pretty good for a truck that will get used.

After lots of monkeying around and several unfortunate maybe-it'll-fit lock cylinder purchases, I ended up just lubing and reinstalling the worn and beat up original lock cylinder in the driver's door. I did get a return spring working on the door to the keyway. After wasting an hour or two winding sizes of various spring wire, I gave up on getting a centering return spring on the lock barrel functioning. My third and best effort looked good, but while installing it, the eroded and slightly cracked pot metal tab that the end of the spring hooks over snapped off! 😣

For the record, these locks below all use a different smaller diameter cylinder and barrel. The form is the same, but the scale is different, and parts don't interchange, and they don't fit the same hole in the door:

1984-1989 4Runner/Pickup

1980-1984 MX63 Cressida

1983-1987 E8x Corolla

90's E100 Corolla

Apparently 1983-1986 SV11 Camry is an exact match according to the parts fiche, but I wasn't able to find any.

I replaced the window regulator with new genuine Toyota. I was going to clean the old, de-rust the spring, paint the spring, straighten the tracks, lube it and reassemble it, and then I priced out the replacement and it was cheap enough I said forget it, I'll just buy new. Maybe I'll rebuild the used one some slow rainy winter evening and make it a spare.

I got the regulator, inner belt line molding, and window glass reinstalled...so smooth and easy-cranking!

I've got a trip planned in one month, and I'm planning to take the Cruiser. The oil leak that I suspect is the front main seal hasn't been getting better, and I'm hesitant to take it hours from home in case the leak becomes catastrophic, so I guess there's no time like the present for fixing it!

I figured it would be easiest to come up from the bottom, so I started removing the various sheet metal splash guards

Unfortunately one of the fasteners gave me a heck of a time. It came a turn or so, then seemed to be spinning without coming loose any further. I couldn't reach the backside to feel, and couldn't really see either...the radiator was right in the way. I tried a zillion different angles to no avail. I eventually got it by putting a prybar under the washer and applying pressure in the direction of removing the bolt, which eventually came a bit more loose in fits and starts. Once I got it several turns loose and had all the other bolts out, I was able to get enough room to move the tin slightly and squeak some fingers in behind. I confirmed that the nut on the backside was spinning, and eventually fumbled around through the little gap enough to land a box end on the nut and hold it from spinning so I could get the bolt all the way loose. The original hardware was a captive nut welded on to the back of the mounting tab, and it broke off at some point, so someone decided the best thing to do was a bolt with a lock washer and nut on the backside, and just give 'er until the lock washer catches, and make future removal someone else's problem, AKA, mine. 😡

Now that I could see, my confidence in the main seal as the culprit for the leak increased. (Sometimes hard to tell with the timing cover, front axle, oil pan, crank pulley, and inner fender are all covered with oil.) My theory that it would probably require pulling the radiator, or at least the fan and shroud was also confirmed. Given that I've had hot running issues, and haven't changed coolant since buying it, I figured I'd just pull the whole shebang.

I got the clutch fan removed, and took off the belt, which has a bit of oil on it, so I should probably replace it.

The splash guard that was under the crank pulley...yuck! I definitely don't remember it being this dirty before.

I started draining the coolant, which definitely had a rusty look, and realized that I would have to pull the grille to get the radiator loose. I probably should have just done that first. Ah well, hindsight...

With a thick core and a heavy-gauge steel shroud, that sucker is heavy!

So much room for activities! 😆

I cleaned up the front axle housing, steering parts, frame rail, and inner fender a bit.

I started breaking down the radiator/shroud to clean and flush everything. The clamp on the radiator end of the lower hose was rusty and seized pretty solid. I couldn't get it off without destroying it, but better to find out now than to try and reuse it and have the head snap off while tightening it during reassembly!

I blasted lots of dust and debris out from between the fins of the radiator with compressed air. Then I washed it thoroughly outside, and flushed a lot of rusty sediment out of the inside.

The shroud got a wash, as did the overflow reservoir. The splash guards went into the solvent tank, followed up by a wash and rinse. Everything got a little summer sun while drying off.

Back inside the garage, I employed the impact, a long bar, and dug through my selection of awesome pullers that were a gift from my dad (leftovers from his foreign car repair shop he used to own) and found a suitable one to remove the harmonic balancer.

I got the pulley off and I think it is safe to say that we've found the culprit for the oil leak!

I got the area roughly cleaned up, and got the old seal out.

New seal ready to be installed.

There's a slight hiccup; the backside of the harmonic balancer has a small groove where the seal rides.

Here's where we stand:

• The original diameter is in the ballpark of 50mm/2 inches 
• The difference in diameter between the main part of the pulley and the bottom of the groove is about 0.009" or just over 0.2mm 
• The engine has around 206,000 miles on it
• It did not have an apparent leak when I bought it 10-11 months ago.
• I don't know how old the old seal is
• I didn't notice signs of oil around the front of the engine until some months after picking it up, during which time I drove it a few thousand miles
• The harmonic balancer is NLA, so buying a new one is not an option unless one of you GRMers knows of a NOS Toyota 3B diesel harmonic balancer for sale.
• The diameter of my pulley outside of the groove is larger than the maximum diameter recommended for any of the ready-sert/speedy-sert crankshaft repair options
• The recess for the seal in the timing cover does not lend itself to positioning the seal in a way that it will be offset from the groove

I decided to call it a night so I can reconnoiter.

How deep a groove is too deep? Am I crazy to consider minor shimming or machining of the backside of the pulley to change the depth slightly and move the seal out of the groove? Obviously I would have to respace the water pump and alternator pulleys to match to keep the belt happy. To that end, how much angle can a V-belt hold over a foot-long span on a <4000rpm engine? Would respacing the crank pulley 2-3mm or so throw a belt?

Edited: I had my measurement screwed up.

Could you weld/braze the groove and then turn it back down?

what about putting a thin washer behind the pulley so the seal rides on a fresh surface? I wouldn't think a thin enough washer would offset the pulleys enough to matter  

you could also adjust how far the seal sits in the cover   Maybe pull the seal and put a spacer behind it? (Probably requiring a new seal)

that is if it's even bad enough to bother.  Not sure how appealing it is, but you could reassemble and see what happens and then revisit if it still leaks.  Now that you e done this once, the parts should come off pretty easily and quickly

.039" is a lot. That's almost exactly a full millimeter. A repair would probably involve filling up that groove with weld, then cutting it back down to size and blending and polishing the surface on a lathe.

Adding to jfryjfry's suggestion: The least invasive approach is probably to see if the new seal can be installed at a different depth so that the lip rides on an unworn portion of the damper. The face of the original seal appeared to be just about flush with the timing cover. If you are able to install the new seal so that it is either recessed into or proud of the timing cover by about 2mm, it'll ride on fresh metal, and we can all pretend everything is fine for another 40 years or so.

Sorry, I was tired last night and screwed up my measurement and my conversion. The depth of the groove is 0.009" or just over 0.2mm.

Thanks for the suggestions so far.

I thought about trying to run the seal at a different depth, but there is a shoulder that it is supposed to seat against that prevents you from being to install it recessed. When installed and pressed into the recess, the seal is almost flush with the front of the timing cover; it actually sits just proud of it. Installing it further proud would mean losing some contact area between the seal and the timing cover. It might be enough to hold it in place, and it could be tricky to get it perfectly square. The new seal is already installed, so attempting this means pulling it out and ordering another one.

Given that it seemed to go from not leaking at all to leaking fairly recently, I am leaning towards the seal failing, rather than the groove slowly wearing deep enough to suddenly start leaking, but I can't be certain of that. If I am correct with this assumption, the new seal may be enough to work with my current pulley, but I don't mind putting it to the hive to see if I am crazy with my line of thinking.

Sounds entirely reasonable to me. That seal could have walked off the job overnight. The wear took years to develop.

Ship it. If it leaks, then fix the balancer, and if it doesn't, you're done. 

I cleaned up the balancer and since earlier I struggled to get bolts into it for the puller, I chased the threads in all six holes.

Installed and torqued! 🤞 I decided that while I'm in there, I might as well do the upper radiator hose (I already sourced a lower) and replace the V-belt, so those are on the way.

In reply to ae86andkp61 (Forum Supporter) :

Like DarkMonahue said, if the seal is installed, worth a try to see if it seals.  If it doesn't, I'd get the seal dimensions and number off the seal and see if there is a similar OD / ID seal but thinner to get it to ride in a new area.

Not a lot of spare time this week as I've been chipping away at my new project (build thread coming soon, I promise!) and also prepping for my sports car club's double header at ORP this weekend in the FR-S. I did get the cleaned and flushed radiator reinstalled. Now just awaiting incoming new hoses, clamps, and belts to complete the reassembly. Thinking I will run just water for a bit to help flush the block and heater core. I'll probably even change it out a few times before going back to a coolant mix before winter.

A bunch of parts have arrived over the past couple weeks, including upper and lower radiator hoses, new clamps, alternator/water pump belt, and an o-ring for the radiator drain plug. All genuine Toyota. So today was the perfect day to get going on reassembly.

Lower hose in, water pump pulley, clutch fan, and new belt installed and adjusted.

Next up I got the upper hose.

Finally coolant overflow reservoir, air intake snorkel, and getting the wire harness situated and constrained again.

I filled it with water for now, anticipating a few rapid flush/refills in the immediate future.

She fired right up, and quickly settled into a normal idle on this hot August afternoon. I left the radiator cap off for a couple minutes, topped her off, and went for a short test drive.

I opened the heater core, and drove around until the temperature came up and then plateaued. It felt great, and ran really well for the short drive. 

After returning home, both radiator hoses were hot, confirming the thermostat opened. The coolant reservoir was down a little, which isn't surprising given my half-assed bleed. Once it cools, I'll pop the cap and see if it needs topping off.

I crawled underneath and no apparent leaks, either coolant or oil...hooray!

I got the grille reinstalled, and swapped places with the FR-S so the Cruiser is near the door. 

On the advice of a friend, I drilled two small holes in my seemingly-irreplaceable waterlogged rear indicator light, flooded it with rubbing alcohol, shook it up and drained the nastiness out, then blasted it out with compressed air. The thought being that if it still worked after that, I could seal up the holes and the rest of the exterior with some sort of sealant. 

Well, the alcohol plus compressed air did something, alright!

I heard a little "pop" and all of the sudden the alcohol/air was blasting out of half of the seam as well as the outlet hole I drilled! I stopped with the compressed air and started gently prying along the seam and the lens came free, but with a couple cracks propagating across it! I guess that the seam was already failing (hence the water intrusion) and the alcohol plus compressed air pressure worked to soften up and leverage on whatever bonds between the halves of the case were left.

The light still works, so I disassembled the light further, cleaned up the rusty soldered joints on the board, and put it back together, sans lens. I suspect the lens is PMMA, which is not a plastic I have repaired before. I'll do some testing to try and confirm, and then research the proper repair method. I really doubt it can be plastic-welded, so I'm probably looking at some sort of epoxy. 

Here it is a bit cleaner.

A week-plus before my planned trip, which includes attending a car show, so I gave her a quick initial wash to give myself a leg up on next week's thorough wash and detail. I'll be showing the truck at P.S.T.O.F. (Puget Sound Toyota Owners Festival) at Griot's Garage in Tacoma. I'm super excited because I've always wanted to go; it looks like an awesome mix of everything Toyota: cars, trucks, old, new, stock, and modified. I'm going as a vendor, taking a display, some signage and some scheel-mann seats for people to try.

I filled the hole I drilled in the taillight lens using a Polyvance Plastifix kit. Here it is totally raw. I'm optimistic after a sanding, polishing, and possible touch up with clear amber model paint it will be good.

I touched up my previous repair on the plastic trim cover on the wiper arm. Not perfect, but can't make it too perfect, otherwise it stands out too much!

I got the front splash guards reinstalled.

After months of futzing around, I finally got the new driver door card installed, with sound deadening, new Toyota vapor barrier, and new butyl rubber sealing strip. The Toyota vinyl is thin and fairly stretchy, so it needs a bit of heat gun and massaging to smooth it out. I'm super-happy with the results: no cracks in the metal door skin, much quieter, smooth and easy window winding and door handle release, and no rattling while driving along...or at least no rattling from the driver's door! 😜

I pulled the rear carpets out, which were doubled up with a E36 M3ty aftermarket carpet on top of the worn OE carpet. They were filthy.

The carpets were all full of very fine silty dust. The truck had some body plugs missing on the rear doors and on the floor when I bought it, which I'm sure didn't help. On top of that, the crappy aftermarket carpet has a backing that is failing, so when you touch it it sheds buckets of bits of backing material that look and feel like gritty sand, and fall into the stock carpet. Add in a few past spills that weren't well cleaned, and it was dirty. I tossed the top aftermarket layer in the trash. The original carpet got two passes with different vacuum cleaners before I took the photos above.

After the vacuuming, I did two passes scrubbing with a bristle brush and Purple Power cleaner, rinsing it out with a pressure washer. The water coming out was brown!

The next morning you could see some of the leftover silt on the drive!

All cleaned up, dried off, and reinstalled. I didn't tackle the front section, as I don't have the time at the moment to pull the seats, console, shifters, lower dash, etc to get the front carpet out.

The long term plan is still to replace this once I'm confident there's a good aftermarket option. The only currently-available Toyota stuff I've found is either A) rubber instead of carpet, B) tan instead of grey, or C) for a model so far removed it may be of limited use (for example a longer-wheelbase five door wagon, RHD, with a separate floor-mounted heater for the rear seats) and usually at least two of the three. Oh yeah...and it also cost close to $1000! There's a couple guys on the ih8mud forums who are sitting on aftermarket options I've considered, so I'm waiting to see what their install impressions are once they get to that stage of the build. I'd love for a fellow 70-Series owner near Alabama to take one to ACC so they can use it as a template, but that hasn't happened yet.

While swinging the spare out of the way, I stabbed my finger on the cable leash for the safety pin because some previous owner handled it in such a way to fray the cable end. I've only done this almost every time I've used it and I decided today was the last straw.

I thought about cutting them off flush, but that presents multiple ways to go wrong. I got the loose strands roughly aligned with some needle nose pliers, and then added a second smaller crimp over the sharp frayed ends. Easy and should protect my fingers while fumbling around under the spare. 😅

With the newly-quieter door, I was able to finally track down the world's most annoying intermittent buzzing rattling noise in the dash! It turned out to be the back edge of the instrument cluster surround against the top of the clear plastic cover over the face of the gauges. I'm going to clean the dust out, and then put a decoupling layer across the edge of the opening.

My last task for the evening was some sanding, polishing, and touch up with clear amber model paint on the taillight lens. Once mounted, the light is flush with the bumper and only the face is easily visible, so I think this will be undetectable.

Unrelated note, the hobby shop thanked me for my purchase with a discount code for a future purchase, and the code was "Train Nerd." 🤓 🤣 It was a funny feeling; appreciated and recognized on one hand as I am undeniably very nerdy, but on the other hand, I'm not exactly the train kind of nerd, so missed the mark slightly there.

I love Land Cruisers, and I also love slow burn build threads, so I'm allllll in on this thread. 

In reply to golfduke :

Glad you are enjoying! Stick around for another five years, and we may get the start of the Toyota Century V-12 swap!