'95 Toyota Land Cruiser, 80 Series
Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 2:06 am
My latest daily driver and off-road race chase vehicle is a 1995 Toyota Land Cruiser. It has full time four-wheel drive, front and rear factory lockers. I first upgraded the the tires up one size to 285/75/16 BFG TA KO All Terrains from the worn Perelli Scorpians. It came to me with factory front bumper/brush guard and running boards. I have since removed those items and installed a custom built pre-runner stye front tube bumper that a friend and I designed and built. The bumper is not finished yet. Today I sanded and chemically treated it to remove all the rust, then I sprayed a coat of grey primer to pervent further rust. I installed three HID spot lights and two HID amber driving / flood lights to the bumper. The high and low beam headlights have been converted to HID. I refurbished my roof rack from my 4Runner with truck bed liner paint and monted it using rain gutter mounts. It is now sturdier than ever. It has room for 4 more off-road lights, those will come later on after I save a bit more money. Today I was a little bored and decided to paint my fender flares and the bottome half of doors with truck bed liner paint. I think it turned out really well. I have installed a 2m Yaesu and a 2m/440 Alinco radios. I'm planning to soon add my Yaesu 857D all bander and Hi-Q screwdriver antenna. I just need to fabricate a mount for the screwdriver. I have a 2 inch Old Man Emu coil lift to yet install. As an off-road racing photographer I spend most of my weekends pre-running race courses all over the southwest, then camping out on the side of the race course to be ready for the trucks, buggies, UTV's, motorcycles and quads when they start, sometimes at or before sunrise. Most times I am the only person within a 10-50 mile radius. I'm usually only gone a day or two but I go prepared for a week, just in case.