75 troopy project

[erez]

Hi everyone,

My name is Erez, I live in Israel. I have a workshop for offroad vehicles specializing in custom works. This is my website - http://www.overland.co.il - the site is in hebrew but there are a lot of pics, although it is still under construction.

I'm a newbie in Toyotas. After 15 year with LandRover Defenders (90, 110 and recently 130) I bought a 1998, 75 series troopy, ex-military.

The truck is in excellent mechanical condition (it originally came with a broken transfer case but we've already fixed it) in spite of it having done 450,000 kms. However, the body looks like somebody gave it a good beating. It feels like the suspensions are welded to the truck (I have a wheel travel of 0 ).

I started working on the truck, the first stage being cutting and exchanging the rotten floor panels, sealing the floor and then isolating it from heat and sound.

Since the truck came only with front seats and they too were torn, I replaced the front seats with Honda Accord seats, but I am going to replace them again (I don't know to what yet) because they are too small for me (I am a big guy).
In the back, I want to put a rear set from a Renault Kangoo (I used to install these in Defenders and they were very comfortable).

In the very near future I want to start working on the suspensions. I bought a rolling chassis from a LC 80 1991 model and I plan on using the suspensions and the axles on my troopy. I have a lot of questions about this - expect them soon :-D (I searched the forum and found a lot of answers but still have some questions).

Tyres - I changed them to 235/85/16. In the future I may change them to 285/75/16 or 255/85/16 (the bigger tyre size is important for me more for highway cruising than for hardcore offroad).

In the near future I plan on working on:

front bumper - I am undecided whether to buy one after-market or to build it myself

rear bumper

rock panels

snorkel

Aluminum roof rack

3rd or 4th door conversion

Here are a few pics:







and the floor:




More pics and updates to come soon .

Erez

[erez]

Hi again,

I brought the LC 80 rolling chassis. It's a LC 80 1991 model, petrol, manual gear.
I want to use its' axles (they are wider than the ones on the 75) and also transfer the complete suspension system, including the brackets and the radius arms, stabilizer, etc.

I have a few questions. I searched this and other forums but could not find a post about a complete build like this (just beginnings, and when there were pics they weren't informative enough and no pics that I could really learn from).

Starting with the front end:

1. Do I need to make changes in the steering box or Pitman arm? (I want to convert to the LC 80's steering rods).

2. Does anyone have pics or measurements for the location of the panhard's upper bucket (chassis side)?

3. Again, does anyone have close-up pics or measurements for the radius arm brackets ? According to my measurements the brackets are going to sit on the gear box's bridge. Can anyone tell me from experience whether this bridge is strong enough to hold this?

Enough for now, here are a few pics of the rolling chassis. The truck used to belong to the UN, with a very low mileage.







Thanks,

Erez

[crunk81us]

Do a search for 75 series axle conversion I found one today, was interesting.

[pinkfloyddsotm]

you could try put the 75 cab onto the 80 chassis, if not you'll have to do it all custom and basically any measurments you take off the 80 chassis are thrown out the window cause its totally different under a 75 chassis cause its chassis rails aren't as wide. also look at how the radius arms are mounted to the chassis on the 80 then look on your 75 ,you'll notice the crossmember will be in the way so you'll need to customize something for it to fit. cheers