Land Cruiser #26 (COMPLETED) - Building and maintenance

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

This is for the off road lovers.
Its a Toyota video about Land Cruiser's 60th anniversary.
It's very very very beautiful, I had to share.

[youtube] http://youtu.be/3SiOf8PWiPM [/youtube]

[Aeromax]

That's my hope, Ecto-DMC. The Land Cruiser is stronger and bigger than the Wrangler, so it will probably look like a Jurassic Jeep on steroids!
Now, with a good picture from the vehicle before the "facelift", I can make a good sketch of how it will probably look when done.

should have tried seeing what it looks like with black stripes... =]

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

It would look like this. Just a very fast sketch.

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

The updates from the past weeks.

I asked the steel worker to change the front bezel installing vertical bars to make it look similar to jeep's CJ-5. As I wrote before, CJ-5 is my favourite vehicle (in terms of designing) and this is my personal tribute to it. It will also make it look closer to the Jurassic Park Wrangler. The Land Cruiser lovers will probably hate me for this "desecration" of a Toyota.




I bought two doors. My old doors were soft, not steel.


Here are the seats in place for me to measure the seats holders. I'll make them better than they came when I bought the car. The seats also needs new covers.



Here are two bow shackles. The holders I drew myself with the thickest steel plate that could be bended, 1/2 inch thick. I want it to be REALLY strong. It will be fixed in a new front bumper that I also created, similar to the FJ-40 original bumber, but now in a thicker steel plate. The front bull bar is the same that came with the vehicle when I bought it. Now I'll need to change only its base to append it on the new bumper.




Here is a tow bar that I designed to fit the same holders from the bow shackles. It has the proper size to be stored under the Bandeirante's back seat and will be attached to the front bumper only when needed.

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

The front bumper with the installed bow shackles.


The same holders fit the tow bar (in progress).


I cutted the bumper with plasma to create supporting points for hi-lift jack.





Now the plans for the rear bumper.


The steel plate already cutted with plasma.


The plate being folded



Done.


The ends of the rear bumper, also with hi-lift supports.


And that is the driver's seat support.

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

Here is the front bumper in place, ready to be painted.



The tow bar being installed.


Then I carried the Land Cruiser from the workshop to another one. The mechanics from the old workshop were so slow that they barely worked on the bodywork in the last months. So I took the vehicle to another workshop for the installation of the rear bumper and now I have to find another place to finish the repair on the bodywork and the painting. Here are some pictures of my Land Cruiser being towed by my brother's Land Cruiser to the next workshop. I could see people's funny glances by finding strange a ghost car without a driver in the streets. The other parts of the bodywork and accessories were carried separately.

[DrewSmith007]

That is some pretty awesome fabrication work there, looking good!

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

I have to fabricate because I can't find things the way I want! And most of the time fabricate costs less than buy a product from a famous company.

[ImperialTrooper]

I know the feeling of having a shop take forever to finish something. I paid this guy back in November to powdercoat my wheels and lightbar, and he only just finished them all last week Friday. Very frustrating.

[Henrique_Z_Tomassi]

That's right, ImperialTrooper. In my case, they barely worked in the car since january! I mean... most the progress from this year I did myself, such as the bumpers. I was sick of it. Now I'm going to find a new shop and make a contract with it. A contract which prescribes fines for late delivery of the service. The longer they delay in delivering the car the lower will be my bill to be paid. That's the only way to make them work in time.