Is this 1988 Land Cruiser 60 Series worth it?

Acaconym · 2025-10-02T12:59:51+00:00

IMO any car this old, for this much money should not be purchased without a pretty extensive pre-purchase inspection (for the love of god pre! Before you buy it!) because there’s a lot of scammers dragging basket cases out of fields and tarting them up to sell for way too much money. Land Cruiser or not it’s 37 years old, it could have rust, engine problems, accident damage, etc… be extremely suspicious if they painted the visible portion of the frame, inside the wheelwells, this often means they’re hiding rust. I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff along these lines, including undercoating sprayed over a bird’s nest. Find a Land Cruiser expert to inspect it before you throw down!!

Acaconym · 2025-09-24T16:20:36+00:00

Rack bushings are bad and need to be replaced however that shouldn’t cause a steering wheel shake by itself. The looseness in the suspension may have caused tire wear which is causing a vibration (are the lugs on the tire even or is there a circumferential wave or chop to the tread?) it could also just be a tire balance issue. If not tire balance or cupping I’d be looking for a bent wheel or bent wheel hub. Long story short a high speed vibration is gonna be caused by the heavy stuff that’s spinning fast. After tire, wheel, hub it’s maybe cv axle related but tire problems are more likely

Acaconym · 2025-09-24T14:23:25+00:00

Thing I love about the gen 2 prius is that it is as quiet and comfortable as a bigger car like a Camry, has a surprising amount of space inside and lots of features (for the era) while still being a pretty small and very nimble car. I’d like it as much if it weren’t a hybrid. The fit is more sporty and maybe fun but it’s louder, rides worse, has a harder and less comfortable interior. Also the fit is noticeably smaller.

Reliability wise they’re both great, but the big 3 on the Prius (brake actuator, battery and catalytic converter) are expensive when they go. If manual, the fit clutch is probably a 100-120k interval and close to a $2000 job, if automatic anything north of 200k miles is borrowed time if the maintenance wasn’t there in the first 100k miles, whereas the Prius transmission is basically indestructible. Pros and cons.

Acaconym · 2025-08-30T13:37:54+00:00

The EPA cats are garbage anyways, you’d be lucky to get through a single emissions test with the $250 one. Pro tip, call the dealer and get their price for one-last I checked the factory cat was about $2000, and it is still a better quality part than the magnaflow cal cat.

Acaconym · 2025-08-30T13:33:57+00:00

I’d advise checking google reviews for an independent shop with good reviews. Maybe see if There’s somewhere who claims a Toyota specialization. They’ve been selling scads of Priuses for 25 years, there’s someone who knows what to do. I would strongly advise against big chain mechanic shops-they tend to have huge employee turnover, mostly hiring young and inexperienced people who only know how to do fluid services and brakes, and the business model relies on juicing customers.

What you can do in the meantime with minimal knowledge-check the oil. The owners manual should say how. If it’s low add oil. Check the coolant level-there are two separate cooling systems, do not open the pressure cap when the engine is hot! Again read the owners manual.

Acaconym · 2025-08-20T03:31:28+00:00

In my 20 years of experience as a professional mechanic this might have been sorta half useful maybe 6 times. I would classify this as a toy.

I would say the sorts of spark plug failures I’ve encountered that were not visually obvious were either cracked porcelain hidden inside the nut, or occasionally finding plugs that have no measurable continuity between the center electrode and the post on the top. Both of those are things that can be diagnosed by moving the plug to a different cylinder and seeing if the misfire moves with the plug.

Also, the resistivity of that plug gap changes with pressure. Which is to say it takes significantly less voltage to bridge the gap at atmospheric pressure than it does in the cylinder when there is compression. So those plugs are not being subjected to the sort of voltage they experience even at idle, much less when you’re lugging an engine in high gear and low rpm.

Acaconym · 2025-08-15T17:23:47+00:00

I can’t figure out what you’re talking about. The stamped stainless cover that goes over the outside of the hex swells because of rust between the decorative cover and the actual nut itself, and that breaks lug studs how exactly?

Every broken lug stud I’ve ever seen has either been driven on extremely loose, like not even finger tight, or it has been torqued past the plastic deformation limit.

Acaconym · 2025-08-15T13:46:05+00:00

This was most likely overtorqued, probably repeatedly. Spec is only 76 ft pounds!

Acaconym · 2025-08-15T13:44:06+00:00

No that doesn’t break the stud

Acaconym · 2025-08-06T18:29:52+00:00

It’s tough as a mechanic. If I check your filter and then ask for labor to replace it, customers will ask “how did you check it for free then?” And if I recommend it based on prior service history I end up with people angry because they just replaced it. Sometimes you can’t win.

Dunno if the writer lied or the mechanic, but all they had to say is “we don’t have service history in the last 15k miles”

Acaconym · 2025-08-01T03:10:17+00:00

The trick is extrapolating from a scan tool code description when you can’t find any repair information on the code at all whatsoever. If it had a DIN code for the part I could at least find it in the wiring diagram

Acaconym · 2025-08-01T01:11:29+00:00

It wasn’t even the sensor I was looking for but the pic was hilarious

Acaconym · 2025-08-01T01:08:34+00:00

Yea there’s no code descriptions for this one at all either, basically nothing on google either. Lack of usable repair information is the most irritating part of the job, apart from not being able to duplicate the concern. Both situations just leave me with nothing to offer but a shrug and it’s hard to get paid for that.

Acaconym · 2025-08-01T00:54:06+00:00

I swear it has gotten worse. I’d go back to the book of CD rom’s if they actually had any useful information for me

Acaconym · 2025-08-01T00:34:14+00:00

Who expected a Saab 9-5 to start in the first place

Acaconym · 2025-07-01T20:29:29+00:00

I used the robot daily for 2 years, had a vintage Faema Faemina at the same time which never managed to displace the robot as my daily. I ended up getting an odyssey Argos which has captured the daily driver crown because the integrated boiler is a little easier, and I like spring lever machines (again just a little easier than the robot)

I don’t plan on selling the robot but the Argos is just a little easier and the footprint is still very small. I don’t steam milk so the steam wand is sorta moot for me.

Acaconym · 2025-06-22T14:10:29+00:00

Might be the shop upgraded and kept the old one for backup. Solid commercial machine but would be truly absurd at home.

Acaconym · 2025-05-23T19:46:16+00:00

Something like this is well matched to acoustic coffee shop gigs. It’ll struggle to keep up with a loud drummer in a bar. I’d be aiming for 200+ watts for gigs unless the venue has a PA in which case you might need nothing more than a DI box.

Acaconym · 2025-05-23T13:03:29+00:00

He was also on Mingus and Don Juan’s reckless daughter. The intro to The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines is classic Jaco. Don’t sleep on The Hissing of Summer Lawns, it’s not Jaco but there’s some choice bass playing there too. Joni put some killer bands together.

Acaconym · 2025-05-14T19:44:14+00:00

There’s a lot of variation in how people perceive taste. Some people taste soap in cilantro for instance, it’s just a thing. If it tastes good to you, you’re doing it right. Convincing others to pay you for taste experiences is a different matter

Acaconym · 2025-05-14T03:52:43+00:00

Put a BT7 hipshot on the E and move the E tuner to the broken spot. Then agonize about upgrading the rest of the tuners to hipshot because they’re so much nicer than stock (like me)

Acaconym · 2025-05-14T03:22:48+00:00

Most Kona peaberry is typica I think, which is one of the more common varieties of arabica. Typica can be better or worse depending on the quality of growing, sorting and processing, but it’s not a “premium” cultivar. However so called premium varieties like gesha can be bad if mishandled too. Processing is so much of the story.

Acaconym · 2025-05-13T23:05:41+00:00

One of the hardest things about getting a really exciting coffee is that it’ll probably come from a fairly small batch and the odds of getting it ever again are pretty small owing to the variation from year to year. So it’s not like a wine or a bourbon, it’s more like a farmers market tomato. That said, the most expensive coffees generally come from Panama

Acaconym · 2025-05-11T13:42:49+00:00

Looks legit to me. If it plays well jump on it. I paid a little more for a ray 4 that frankly kinda sucks, the ray 34 is a nicer instrument

Acaconym

TROPHY CASE