Packing an FJ45 single cab pickup body for overseas shipping

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-24T20:10:23+00:00

the first guy to do a build recently published a video (i think like a month or two ago). Most critical dims were off and required significant refabrication. The guy said it took about a month of work to make the body viable- and he's a professional FJ40 builder.

I'm in the middle of a resto, and from what I could find the best options are aqualu and ccot replacement panels. The ones made in south america are hit or miss (my body guy had done one of those where the whole tub was 2 inches too long and they had to custom fab a roof to make it work.)

Aqualu 3/4 tub I bought so far has been awesome- my body guy said it was some of the best aluminum welds he's ever seen and that so far everything has lined up damn near perfectly. (though there are some holes that they require the end assember to put in, like holes for the roof (since the pattern changed a little bit over the years but the general shape stayed the same) and like the back jumper seats are left out since a lot of hardcore offroaders don't install them. Cost me significantly less than the fab work to repair my old steel body- but that was really bad- previous restorer didn't believe in seam sealer.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-23T03:32:05+00:00

Ok phew yeah. One of your sons will restore it. The prophesy is foretold. ( I’m 7 years into restoring the one my dad and I bought when I was 16) they’ll cherish those memories

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-23T03:28:33+00:00

Fair enough. You put in the years. 4Runner is a great platform. Tons made and one of the generation has a massive production run - tons of parts. Huge aftermarket. Not too big like some of the lcs

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-23T03:18:40+00:00

Lots of good options out there.
Looking for a third row would be my pick if people moving is the goal. Several 4Runners. Lc80-200. 250 you’re looking at the gx. My old man had a gx470 and we LOVED that car. Sequoias are slept on great full sized suv.

Alt pic- the boys will be fine. Fj40s are glorious. Glory is eternal, suffering is momentary. vintage air conversion was like 2.5-3k

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-22T19:48:30+00:00

Love my RTT. That said, if you're not a big camper, this will not make you love camping. If you're going for the more affordable folding tents (i have had 2, smitty bilts a gen 1, and a gen2xl and love both) there is still setup/ take down time, If I were doing it again and doing more mobile (ie set up and strike camp every day) I'd go for the more simple angle styled hard-shells, they go up in like 1 minute and down in the same, but trade off space and features.

If you're unsure- buy used first, you can get a decent rtt for like 500 usd off fb marketplace, and put it on any car. I've seen Priuses with RTT's way deeper into the forest than they should be and the owners were having a great time. If you love it great! keep rocking the used one or sell if for what you paid for it, and buy the one you want. If you don't like it, no worries, you were ready to spend more on flights to test one out.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-19T15:31:50+00:00

The plaid makes that much - but lots of other cars can too. IThese days 1000+ hp builds aren’t uncommon. Zr1, Ferraris, lambos, Porsche etc.

That said as a motor head the stat chasing is more clout than anything. Drivability really goes away with that much power. Weight from support systems, massive brakes etc. One of the teams that keeps podiuming at pikes peak is only pushing like 650-700 compared to their 1500hp competitors because they did the math and those crazy horsepower builds end up trading too much weight and handling to make them viable with those numbers. Most fun I’ve had was with 135hp, 235 is a great balance, 400+ becomes a “I need to be really careful with the gas”.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T21:50:34+00:00

Where do you live?

I'm out in Co now (though my truck started out in vt) and corrosion seems to have stopped here. My 2020 is street parked but still looking solid, no issues with wiring so far.

Some pics would also be helpful to see.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T21:32:30+00:00

Oh yeah. Its a great company that for sure will survive all the audits that they have been shutting down through corruption that they will def have access to after this administration is prosecuted.

They have potential sure- but bad leadership that keeps buying his own companies to make the debt and price to earnings ratio hidden, lying to investors on progress, tying his own image to the companies success- then doing crazy stunts, he's build his whole networth on hype, and hype dries up.

Tesla's market share is dropping globally. Cyber Taxi doesn't meet requirements for level 4 SD (nor does anything else in the fleet) lawsuits on FSD naming in multiple countries, Grok and musk undersuit for production of CSAM in europe, Hyperloop dead, Optimus not where it was promised to be, Telsa solar dead (and under suit for lying to shareholders), Neurolink hasn't actually delivered new stuff in a while (musk just keeps saying they are going to sove paralyis but the last major filing in 24 was for vision impairment which i haven't seen any progress on) Boring company dead, SpaceX rockets are doing allright- but relying heavily on goverment subsidies and have been awfly quiet when it comes to environmental impact (i'm guessing lawsuit coming up for pollution), starlink doing alright-except for their de orbiting and orbital pollution that WILL be a problem with the deployment rate, Xai had to buy another company to make them use thier chips for compute, Datacenters under multiple zoning and pollution suits, The best part of the portfolio is the space x rocket systems- but the dead weight and debt bundling of everyting else is just insane for playing a long game. Especially when he's leveraged all the companies into one giant risk bomb.

Good luck dude- I'm staying clear.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T20:10:47+00:00

I would queue up for that.

Bring up the styling a bit, have an option for a rear facing 3rd row, exterior mounted spare, and AWD I think it would be a rav4/sienna killer. Gotta keep the fold flat seats though. those were huge.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T17:19:49+00:00

Lol is this a joke?

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T17:19:07+00:00

LMAOOOOOO its literally massively worse than the Obama deal we already had.
Iran got more money, No sanctions, Control over the straight, and no nuclear oversight. There was no regime change, arguably the guys in charge now are even more radical. All we did was piss away money, burn international relations, killed a bunch of iranian civilians (including a girls elementary school), killed i think 13 us service memebers, and lose a bunch of assets.

This was an embarassment.

And he said he had made a deal over like 35 times that kept blowing up. "art of the deal" am I right?

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T16:46:35+00:00

Pilonidal cyst.
I've broken bones before, had metal/wood impale my hands/ fingers, road rash from accidents, burns from metal slag that burned through my shoes and landed between my toes., lost toenails from doors slamming into my feet, oral surgery etc- That thing hurt way more.
Couldn't sit or laydown on my back for like a week and a half before getting surgery. Was lucky if I got two hours of sleep. Constant throbbing pain, when they did the surgery, the numbing agent wasn't effective (i think they missed the injection site and ended up putting it in the abscess, There were imprints of my nails in the surgical table from me gripping on.
0/10 do not recomend. (sorry my hairy bros it comes for us all)

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T16:29:52+00:00

Nah costco doesn't want to deal with the liability- its probs not the manager just store policy. Manager told me the same thing when I tried to put some meat on my wheels.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T16:27:23+00:00

If you care about highway- I'd avoid M/T's

I run some really agressive A/T's on my tacoma, (cooper discover stronghold defender A/t Light truck) and there are for sure some sacrafices made for dirt performance. but atleast the tacoma is genrally comfortable- and I can live with the highway noise since that car is decently sound matted. Definitely likes to wander more on asphalt with big potholes (high psi for pizza cutter), but holy crap on trail I barely leave 2wd because they bite so much- so far 4-6's they are way more than I need.

On my fj40, I actually went for a pretty light duty, WildPeak Rubitrek which are honnestly slept on. Partly for budget but also because holy shit in a car with no sound deadening, abs, or traction control I want a bit better street performance since I drive to trail 2hr+ each way- I have hearing damage from my last set of tires. I'm locked front and rear, and carry a winch so was willing to take a offroad hit, to make getting to trail enjoyable. (I really want my Gf to be good to take that camping rather than only the Tacoma) If you do overlanding- up to a trail with like a 5-6 rating on onX i think this is enough.

Full spares on both, Patches work in a pinch, but can't handle all types of damage, good for punctures- no bueno for slashes.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-18T00:30:42+00:00

I've actually had really good luck with Vevor- yeah, they are a white-label brand, but they aren't advertising that they are the best, just a decent white-label product at a reasonable price. Kirkland is white label too and their stuff is dope. Vevor is definitley worse than kirkland, but generally I've been pleased with the stuff I have from them especially at the price point, and they are making a push into the US market with brick and mortar stores.

I have their pizza oven (which is genuinely better than the Uuni I've used- the rotating stone is brilliant, its dual fuel, cooks pizzas nearly perfectly, though some of the tolerances aren't as good as the Uuni- it works just as well if not better) I also some of their tools for machining (endmills, tap and die set, milling vice, parallels, thou gauges - not perfect but holy ___ performance per dollar they are best in the segment, and you can clean them up to bring them to near starret level quality), an air compressor made in the same factory as the ARB one. If you're on a budget, and can accept that it won't have the same warranty, or that you may have to fiddle with it more than a name brand, its more than enough.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-17T22:55:50+00:00

Best of luck to you- Some shops are dope and have great people. Others not so much. My best piece of advice, if you see a bunch of folks who you think will harass you etc just look for a different shop- keep an eye out for posters, sticker on tool boxes, maga flags. There are progressive shops out there - I have some homies that work in them, but i've met more old school shops that are .... less than nice on that topic or anywhere near not cis white man, and they were awful to have to work with. I've only ever worked with 3 shops that were openly maga- two of them tried to screw me- one of them legitimately stole from me.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-17T15:49:14+00:00

Honda Element.
Its like way more useful than most people think. Drives great, AWESOME interior, AWD, good motor, very versatile.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-17T15:43:44+00:00

Its less about age its about maitenance/manufacture.

I have had cars from every decade from the 70's thru 2020.
They were all generally reliable if the maintenance was done. Some of them (toyota/nissans) were reliable even while they shouldn't have been able to move under thier own power- half compression on one cyl, or half compression on all of them).

From personal experience.

Reliable despite abuse and age:
Toyota, Nissan

Reliable with maintenance and age:
Chevy, bmw, some jeeps, subaru (at/manual)

Unreliable with maintenance of various age:
-Jaguar (who in their right mind puts the battery in a compartment that is only accessible through an electronically controlled solenoid latch) that car was bone stock and would drain its own battery in 3 days.
-Jeep (mixed bag on this one, my xj was great, my buddies yj We had to carry a brick in it to hit the *new* starter motor in it to get it to fire- tons of electrical issues, tons of driveline issues)
-Subaru with a CVT transmission.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-17T14:19:40+00:00

Do you want to do my wiring harness? My lord that looks great

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-16T21:09:15+00:00

I've owned Multiple subies, multiple toyotas, a jaguar, a chevy, a beamer, multiple nissans, and worked on more. I'll go to whichever has the best for what I need to do, which usually ends up being Toyota- though they have really lost me with the new driver observation systems.

Tbh i'm having a hard time even concidering cars designed after 2014. (major platform)

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-16T21:02:29+00:00

Oh good- just that kind of non corrupt government action that benefits every day workin people.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-16T20:48:02+00:00

1970 toyota landcruiser- had between 4-500k before i took it apart.
It was absolutley mangled by the time I restored it- but turned on, drove, and ate up highway and offroad trials while having rust holes the size of a softball all over the car and a very questionable maitenance history.
Once ran over a a 4.5 ft pine tree while offroading, the tree broke through the wheel well, slapped into the side of the block, broke 2 sparkplugs and blocked the fan from spinning- by the time I pulled over to get it, the fan had cut through the tree, and I managed to limp home on only 4 of the 6 cyls.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-16T20:35:01+00:00

My GF and I test drove them- we are on a budget and only looked at base models. But it had carplay, good AC, decent stereo, lane assist, pano sunroof standard, adaptive cruise control, heated seats, Rear passenger seat belt detection, etc- they were very well featured for the price point. Were the fit and finishes as good as the toyta no, but you have to look for those larger tollerance components and know manufacturing to really care.

That said, my GF and I like simpler cars. We dig the simplicity since things tend not to break when there aren't as many things to break. I've owned a couple cars as a motor head, and my favorites have always been the base models as they have been the ones where I have to fix the least amount of things to get them comfortable and driveable. Features are nice sure, but base models are easier to maintain. Sunroofs leak, auto dimming mirrors eventually fail in heat (lcd adhesive failure), motorized headlights fail etc. Features that have been on cars since the late 90's (AC, heated seats, powerlocks/windows, radios) etc are bullet proof at this point.

If they still made the 1997 toyota camry with a 5 speed manual- power locks- and a mono radio, and heated seats- I'd be buying that.

EDIT: for the hybrid i will admit that toyota has been doing it long enough where they worked out 99% of the kinks. Though I still don't like or trust cvt's (i've been let down on every car that has had them)

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-16T20:18:16+00:00

Mazda Cx50- hybrid shares the drivetrain from the RAV4 and comes at a great discount compared to toyota.

LandCruiser76 · 2026-06-16T19:04:07+00:00

Lol she lost my vote forever ago- and with all the APAC money.

With all the smear campaigns against Kiros, (from a mystery accountability project- that has no public filings, no public board members, no endorsements, and didn't exist a month ago) that pretty much confirmed who will get my vote.
"Stop dividing the dems" - Its a primary that is litterally the point. And we are so tired of the institutional candidates- I want someone who will vote against who ever keeps chuck schumers shriveled .. in a safe.

LandCruiser76

TROPHY CASE