’89 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ-62
A Second Chance
The Finished Product
The vehicle is mostly stock minus an upgraded 2.5″ suspension lift, American Racing wheels, 33″ BFG All-Terrain Tires and upgraded touch screen stereo with navigation and reverse camera. The nice part about the sound system is that we are so used to having modern features at the tip of our fingers and the stock opening allows for a large unit due to the oversized and bulky factory stereo setup. The reverse camera is also nice safety feature. The vehicle was also painted an early 80s Land Cruiser light blue metallic vs. the red paint it came with stock.
Another really cool part of this truck that Greg really liked personally was that it has a build production date close to his birthday of 12/1989, which meant they are about the same exact age. The production date was also the hardest part of the build, because a lot of the parts we were trying to get for the mechanical aspect of the project were hard to find or mismatched. This was due to it being at the end of its production run, and Toyota threw any parts they had in to get these trucks off the assembly line. Overall, the customers were more than pleased with the outcome. The owner even told me that his daughters were afraid to be driving in it before, but now absolutely love it!
VEHICLE OPTIONS
| Engine : 4.0L 3F-E 6 cylinder EFI (NOS short block) | Transmission : Rebuilt 4 speed automatic A440F | Suspension: 2.5″ cool cruisers suspension lift |
| Wheels: American Racing Satin Black Wheels | Tires: 33″ BF Goodrich All Terrains | Stereo system: Kenwood Touch screen w/ navigation and reverse camera w/ upgraded speakers. |
Engine : 4.0L 3F-E 6 cylinder efi engine (nos short block)
Transmission : Rebuilt 4 speed automatic A440F
Suspension: 2.5″ cool cruisers suspension lift
Wheels: American Racing Satin Black Wheels
Tires: 33″ BF Goodrich All Terrains
Stereo system: Kenwood Touch screen w/ navigation and reverse camera w/ upgraded speakers.
The Backstory
Midwest To Massachusetts
This Land Cruiser FJ-62 lived most of its life in the salt belt of the Midwest. It was purchased online from World Wide Vintage Auto in poor – okay shape. The owners found us on the web and the Land Cruiser was on Nantucket for the summer. This is close to us (only a few hours away), and we do a lot of work on the island for customers. A lot of stuff was covered up from the previous owner, and it was a basket case…Below is a link to some of the pictures before we started on it:
The Restoration
When the vehicle was sent to us, our first thoughts were that his truck was unrestorable due to the amount of body and frame rust / rot it had but the vehicle ran and drove nice minus the blown brake line. The plan for the vehicle was to just restore it mechanically enough so it would be safe to drive to enjoy for the next summer of 2021, and then find a rust free candidate to restore. However, as restorations usually go, we just couldn’t overlook many issues and the truck ended up turning into a full restoration when we found out the vehicle blew a head gasket. At that time, we decided to pull the trigger and do the full restoration since we had a deadline for the project, and this is where it got the nickname “Second Chance”. We performed a nearly full restoration on the vehicle within just over 2 months of the vehicle shipping over from the island. We had all hands on deck at the shop with 5-6 people per day working on the vehicle around the clock to get it done.
