Pacific Northwest Backroad Adventures

When I purchased my Toyota FJ80 Land Cruiser, I knew there were issues with the power windows. Except for the drivers door, all the windows rolled up and down, not perfect but they worked. Then one rainey day last Fall, I rolled down the rear door window and pop, the window would not roll up any more. Luckily, I wasn’t too far from home.

As a temporary fix, I wedged a door shim between the glass and door panel. There it stayed until I had a dry day to diagnose and fix the problem. Here are the steps I took to disassemble, diagnose and repair the problem.

After reading a few threads on ih8mud.com and with my factory service manual in hand, I was ready to tackle the problem.

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After only having my Land Cruiser for about three weeks, I had had my first equipment failure - the number three belt that powers the air conditioning unit broke (the belt closest to the engine).

Normally, I replace belts on a regular basis and use the existing belts as spares in case of a failure, however this time around they looked in good shape so I waited. Luckily, it was only for the air conditioning pump and I wasn’t far from home on some back road adventure.

Since I haven’t done my research to find out the best belts to purchase (probably Toyota OEM) and because I wanted to get the project done as soon as possible, I visited my local auto parts store and purchased the needed belt. While there, I asked for the price and availability of the other two belts and found out that they only stocked the belt I needed and that one belt was available from the warehouse and the other is a four day order. The local availability of the other belts confirmed the need to have a full set of spare belts while traveling, especially if you need to rely on a small town auto parts store for a replacement.

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