Pacific Northwest Backroad Adventures

Today, I was planning on getting a lot done on the assembly of my 80-series Land Cruiser 3FE engine. I ended up spending about seven hours in all disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling the rocker arm assembly.

Call me a little anal when it came to the cleaning, but the rocker arm assembly looks brand new. The rockers had baked on oil residue from nearly 200,000 miles of use on the FJ80. I soaked everything in citrus based solvent, wire brushed and eventually used a wire wheel on my grinder to take each piece down to bare metal.

It may be a little over board for some, but I don’t want to chance a chunk of the residue breaking off and causing problems down the road.

Steve

Here is the latest update on the progress of getting my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser up and running again.

I received the head gasket and oil pan gasket order I was waiting for last Thursday. Over a long weekend, between soccer games and family time, I was able to devote a few days to cleaning, inspecting and assembling my 3FE engine. Here is a progress report of what I have completed so far.

NOTE: This is NOT a step-by-step instructional guide for assembling an engine. You need to consult the proper factory Toyota Land Cruiser service manual for instructions on assembling your engine.

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After a busy week, I was finally able to order the remaining parts (hopefully that’s all) that I need to assemble the 3FE engine for my 80-series Toyota Land Cruiser.

The parts I ordered are the factory Toyota head gasket, oil pan gasket, thermostat, hoses and belts. I have an aftermarket head gasket and oil pan gasket in my possession, however with the amount of money I’m investing in my FJ80, I’m going to do things right.

By the way, I’m ordering my parts through John Hocker at Sierra Toyota in Sierra Vista, Arizona. John is the go-to guy for Land Cruiser parts on the Toyota 3FE group on Yahoo.

Today I picked up my rebuilt Land Cruiser 3FE short block and head from the machine shop.

Now comes the cleaning, inspection (and buy new parts) and reassembly process.

I need to go buy a small parts washer to make the job easier. Probably Harbor Freight for me.

I’m going to replace all the hoses, belts, thermostat, etc while it’s apart. I noticed that my radiator appears to be leaking so that may need a rebuild. Who knows what else I’ll find during the inspection process.

No estimated time frame when it will be done. I know I’m tired of being a one vehicle family.

Here are some photos of the short block and head.

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Brandon over at olympiafj60.net mentioned to me on the Whiskey Dick trip about a thread over on ih8mud.com in the 60-series forum on an adjustment that can be made to the Toyota Land Cruiser 3FE engines. There happens to be some type of fuel regulator on the fuel rail near the firewall that be adjusted. People are reporting increased power and even better yet, increased fuel ecomony.

You can see the thread at What the deuce is this thing?.

Well I went ahead and popped the plastic cap off and tightened the screw a couple of turns. Initial impressions while driving around my house seemed to be an increase in low end torque (a very unscientific approach).

I now need to take a test run over Snoqualmie Pass to check against my baseline mpg of 13.4 when traveling from Federal Way to Ellensburg, Washington. Hopefully, I’ll have a little more power on the climb to the summit. When I have the data, I’ll report it back here.

Thanks Brandon for the tip.

Steve

Who would have thought that a Friday trip to the Whiskey Dick Road Management Area near Ellensburg, Washington would bring out more participants than most weekend trips.

Well Jerry (aka SoggyMountain) picked a wonderful day for a Backroad Drivers Northwest tour of the Whiskey Dick. Hands down, this was the warmest day of 2008 to date.

The meeting place that morning was the Bar 14 restaurant in Ellensburg. In attendance for the days trip was of course Jerry from Yakima driving his full size Jeep SJ Wagoneer; (and if I get the names wrong, please forgive and let me know to correct them) Phil and his son Travis from Newcastle, driving the white Ford Explorer; Paul from Tacoma driving the other Ford Explorer; Jim (stucky) driving the white Chevy Pickup (I forgot to ask where Jim was from); Trish and Tammy from Bothel driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; John and Cindy from Monroe driving a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon; Sid from Renton driving his Jeep Wrangler, Peter and Don (I forgot to ask where they were from or if I did, I didn’t write it down) driving the Sportsmobile van; myself in my 80-series Toyota Land Cruiser; and Bill from Ellensburg who joined us for breakfast but had to supervise a fencing property today so he couldn’t join us.

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Originally we had planned to meet in Montesano, Washington on Friday morning, however, because of a paving project on the Wynoochee Road from Montesano to Wynoochee Lake, the location of the meet up was changed to the Taylor Towne restaurant just South of Shelton.

Attending was Ray from Edgewood (driving his Toyota 4Runner), Kevin (riding with Ray), John in his Jeep YJ Wrangler, Dick (riding with John) and Randy from Shelton (riding with me in my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser).

Our goals for the this rainy spring day were to:

• Locate the train wreckage from the 1961 film titled “Ring of Fire”. During the filming of the movie they set an old railroad trestle and some passenger rail cars on fire and dropped them into the canyon. (See Brians site at Georgia-Pacific No. 9 and Ring of Fire Wreck Site for a great write up of the details of the movie and the wreckage site.)
• Visit the Wynoochee Dam and Lake.
• Visit the High Steel Bridge over the Skokomish River.

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Since I’ve had my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser, I’ve only had to deal with a few electrical issues, the Center Diff Lock, the Window Actuator Motor and the Fusible Links from the battery. The first prevented the transfer case to lock up in four wheel drive, the second prevented the window from rolling up, and the third prevented the engine from starting.

Now that I’m a year into the ownership of the Land Cruiser, I’m onto my fourth wiring issue. The engine will simply not start. It started last Thursday when I made a run over to the Cle Elum River near Salmon la Sac. I had one episode where it would not start for about two or three minutes and then it started up fine for the the rest of the trip. On Saturday, it happened again, this time in the grocery store parking lot. This time it would not start until after about ten minutes of trying. Finally, this morning (Monday) when getting ready to leave from work, the little tractor motor would only spin and would not fire up. Of course, this was accompanied by record rainfall in Western Washington. Perfect timing.
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Having one successful storage box build behind me for my old Jeep YJ Wrangler, it was time to build a storage box for my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser. The storage box I built for my Wrangler was very simple. It was basically a box with one very large divided drawer that was bolted into the cargo area in place of the rear seat. In the storage box, I was able to store and provide easy access to all my tools, spare parts, recovery gear and spare fluids. Having all the above gear stored in a storage box allowed me to carry additional stuff (tent, sleeping bag, food, cooler, clothing, etc) on top of the storage box, basically doubling the cargo space. Gone were the days of having everything piled on top of other stuff. With the storage box, with a little creative packing, I even had room for my dog to ride in the back.

I purchased my 80-series Land Cruiser to be able to carry my family, my dog, and my adventure gear. The only way that this was practically going to happen was by building a storage box for the back of the Land Cruiser. In addition to the extra storage capacity, my needs list included an interior sleeping platform for my solo camping trips as well as having a place to install an auxiliary battery for my FJ80. Unlike the newer models (1993-97) of the 80-series Land Cruiser, there is no easy way to install the second battery on a 3FE powered (1991-92) FJ80 without heavily modifying the engine compartment components.
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When I purchased my 1992 Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser, the previous owner informed me that the four wheel drive system did not work. I knew the transfer case was a rebuilt unit so I figured it would be something simple such as a switch or a relay. Little did I know that I would spend hours trying to troubleshoot the problem. Hopefully this article will walk you through all the diagnostics needed to check the complete center diff lock (CDL) electrical system so you can figure out the problem much faster than I did.

You might ask, why did you spend hours diagnosing the problem? My answer is, I don’t like to spend money replacing parts when the part being replaced was not the problem. I’ve been a victim of paying people to do just that. Never again.

As in all repairs on the Land Cruiser, you should purchase the factory Toyota Repair Manual and the Toyota Electrical Wiring Diagram for your specific year of vehicle (order the factory manuals at techinfo.toyota.com). A Chilton’s or similar service manual won’t cut it when you are diagnosing specific issues. Invest the money in the factory manuals. It’s worth it if you (or your mechanic) does any diagnostics or repairs on your Land Cruiser. Purchasing the correct manual will pay off only after a few repairs because you will be diagnosing problems and not throwing parts at the problem until it is fixed. The reference for this article was the USA version for 1992 model year Toyota Land Cruiser. Even though there are similarities between all 80-series, there are differences between the various years of Land Cruisers and world markets so be aware of this when making repairs to your Land Cruiser.
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