My '94 Land Cruiser

[RyanV]

Rather than continuing to jack Soren's thread with my Land Cruiser I thought I would start a new one. I know this isn't a truck forum, but everyone likes a clean vehicle right. I purchased the truck from Mark at Brave Auto, and just like everything he seems to sell it's stellar!!

I had previously purchased a Nissan Terrano from mark (which was also in really good shape), but after only three months of ownership it was stolen and written off. After dealing with ICBC and contemplating which SUV I wanted to buy or if I even needed/wanted one I decided on the LC. I considered a few others, but even though it was more expensive I kept coming back to the LC as being the vehicle I wanted.

I e-mailed Mark with the spec I was looking for and just by fluke he had just picked up one with that exact spec. I think the truck has every option except the winch and winter package plus a number of extras. I really like the colour of it, and when it is all shined up the paint looks AMAZING

When the truck first arrived I was actually surprised by the size of it. I never really paid attention to how big these things actually are plus the bit of lift and 33" tires it has just increases it's presence. I've put about 8,000 kms on it now since I got it and nothing has gone wrong. I've done all of the recommended preventative maintenance now, so I should be able to enjoy it for many years to come!

[GregA]

Very nice. My aunt-in-law or however that works is getting one of these. Probably at the docks when you guys went with Shaun to get his 100th WRX. I think it's made it over to the island now though.

On a side note, how retarded bright are those JDM yellow lights? I always seem them on Delicas, but never on.

[RyanV]

I actually haven't stuck my face in front of them while they are on, but I actually find the factory fog lights (built into the headlamps) are brighter. Or at least they light up the road more for driving visibility. If I need high beams at night I actually use the factory fogs rather than the high beams because they seem to work better LOL

[RyanV]

**Stolen from the other thread**

Ryan your LC looks to be in nice shape. They look so good with the roof baskets.

Thanks William! Yeah I think they look good with the roof baskets too. I took it off to wax and claybar the roof and I thought what the hell happened to my truck! It doesn't look nearly as good anymore! LOL

When I took it off it also made me realize how much space there is in the basket. It doesn't seem that big when it's on the roof, but I guess that's because you look at it in comparison to the size of the vehicle.

[Griffinpwr]

The roof baskets are full of win! Love the LC, could be because it's toyota, but also the power of the inline 6 turbo diesel that can handle anything that's thrown at it. Ryan - awesome example of a LC, and I envy your ride

[jdmvip]

Nice ride RyanV, I personally don't like SUVs but this Land Cruiser is appealing. It has a turbo and it has some very sporty bucket seats which is very cool IMHO.

[RyanV]

I wouldn't say I've been busy working on the LC, but I have done a few things recently to upgrade the audio in the vehicle

The stock speakers and head unit in this thing are garbage. You turn on the audio and you think "hey, how come 50% of the sounds are missing from this music!!!" 17 year old stock speakers apparently don't put out very good sound. Surprising, I know

First thing I had to do was remove the fascia from the front of the dash. This wasn't as easy as I was hoping it would be. There are a lot of switches that need to be disconnected and I have about 6 additional switches with two wires going to each....and all the wires are yellow... First time I saw this I thought @$%! it, I don't want to deal with this. But another month of listening to crappy quality music and a nice day and I changed my tone. I took the time to label all the yellow wires so I knew where they would go. I also had to be really careful with the fascia because it carried over top of the steering wheel and was thin there, so it would be easy to break.

Here's what things looked like with the fascia off



Then I pulled out the cassette player and the GPS. I couldn't believe how much wiring was all over this truck for the GPS and amps and everything that were wired into it. So, GPS and cassette removed



Spliced in the CD player to a harness picked up at Visions and gave it a test



One mistake I made was I left too much extra wire on the harness. I ended up with a mass of extra wires in the dash and I couldn't put the ash tray back in when I was done. I also could have purchased a newer head unit, but I already had this one laying around and didn't feel like spending money on another one.

Put everything back together and even with just the head unit putting more power to the speakers the audio sounded much better

[GregA]

Clean install. That rats nest of wires is nuts. What are the switches on the top left for?

[RyanV]

Step 2: Install new speakers in the front

I wanted to keep the door panels and speakers looking stock, so there aren't a lot of speakers out there that suit the mounting depth required to fit in the doors of these trucks. I didn't need to get super high quality speakers, just something new would likely sound 100x better than what was in there.

I ended up going with 6.5" Sony Xplod XS-R1644 speakers. Mounting depth is about 1-3/4" which seemed like it was about right after I did some research. There are a couple of other common speakers out there that people have been installing, but I found these at Wal-mart for $47 per pair, so I figured I couldn't go wrong.

First step was removing the door panel since the stock grille doesn't come off I was pretty nervous about doing this because I only did it once before and ended up getting annoyed and breaking parts of the panel. This one was actually pretty easy to do though



The speakers I used



Spliced into the factory speaker harness



Speaker installed



One thing I should have done and may still do is fill the gap between the speaker and the door panel. I've heard it will improve sound quality, but for now it's ok.

So here's the problem with the mounting depth



I have the back of the speaker resting on the window rail. I have it just touching, so it doesn't impact the movement of the window at all.

Door panel back on





Still looks factory with the door panel barely sticking out at all I think there was only one plastic snap that didn't go back in. It may have if I forced it, but I figured there's no point in doing that.

First impression...WTH...it doesn't sound any different. Go for a short drive to pick something up, jump back in...wait a minute....this sounds WAY better Just wish I had done this sooner because I've been driving so much for work lately.

Next...I forgot to add that I wired up everything for an amp and a sub when I put the CD player in. First I ran two 8" subs...sounded like garbage, so I hooked up a 10" sub that came in one of the vehicles from Japan. MUCH better . But it only worked for about a week and now it cuts in and out (mostly out), so I think I'll get a new 10" sub, then on to the rear speakers.

[RyanV]

Clean install. That rats nest of wires is nuts. What are the switches on the top left for?

TBH I only know what two of them do. I have two horns, so one switches between them and another is for the fog lights. I can't figure out what the other ones do But I haven't tried too hard to figure it out. I can get all of the features of the truck to work, so it doesn't concern me too much. Maybe I'll trace the wires ones day