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Hello from Iceland

samuelhj

New Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2021
Messages
9
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iceland
Hi all, thought I might as well introduce myself since I bumped into this forum by random chance last night.
I'm Sam and I'm (as the tittle states), from Iceland.
I own a HZJ73, 1990, driven somewhere north of 300,000km.
Minor mods include: 38" tires, LR coils rear, extra radios, IPF lights in front, working lights rear, 1:4.56 differentials, HF radio, VHF Radio. On board air pump.
Future mods: coils in front, 42" tires, crawler gear, replace e-lockers with pneumatic control system (keep the lockers though), automatic tire pressure control. system, search light on top, extra VHF, cabin heater, ARB or custom made front and rear bumpers, winch and probably more ridiculous things.
Edit: Some work I've done on the truck since I bought it 4 years ago:
Rebuilt front and rear axles with new differentials (1:4.56 instead of 1:4.1). Land Rover coils in the rear instead of leaf sprung suspension. New "roof rack" for antennas and search light (coming soon). Some extra interior lights (red for night vision and white for normal use). Rebuilt the gearbox last summer. Replaced sills and floor on the left side (right side is TBD next summer) along with repainting those parts.
Currently working on: Automatic tire control system with on board York AC compressor for air, and LC90 Prado seats.
 

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Welcome, great intro and fantastic pic. You will fit right in here
 
Welcome, Great Truck and a Great Country.......
 
What a picture! Iceland is on my bucket list :)
And very nice truck, it fits right in!
 
I love Iceland an amazing place only been there once but I’ve been looking at the ferry from Denmark but it’s stupidly expensive to take the truck over.
 
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Might be jumping the gun a lot but that picture has got to be a serious consideration for a Cruiser calendar welcome Samuel beautiful truck exceptional picture
 
Hi Sam, its great to have you on the forum, you will be very welcome here. Its good to see another really well turned out 70 series joining, yours is a lovely looking truck. And a great photo too. Your conversion from leaves to coils is a nice improvement, and quite a lot of work, I think. It would be interesting to see photos of how you did that. The fact that you have lowered the diff ratios to 4.56 seems to indicate some hard core off road trips. Do you have any trip photos you would like to post, along with stories of any journeys? We would love to see more.
 
Yes, it was a bit more work than I anticipated for but worth it in the end, I still have some fine tuning of the suspension to do, since the coils I picked aren't the best fit and I need to relocate the shocks. (Range Rover Police Special coils). I will also be going coils in the front in the next few months, just waiting for my new garage before I can start working on that. I'll find some pictures from trips and post here in a bit.
In the meanwhile, here's a picture of the cruiser with 42" Iroks that I recently got, along with the new wheels I was preparing. The weird looking thing in the rim is a connector for air, that runs from the car to the tires so it can be adjusted from inside of the truck while driving.
 

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Here are some pictures from the coil conversion. It is pretty much a copy of the suspension that I built for my 44" 4Runner but instead of using LC80 rear coils I used the Range Rover Police Special, which turned out to be a mistake (they just don't have the load capacity for it).

The 4link I used was initially designed for Hilux but I just extended it to fit the cruiser, hence the "extension" from the 4link to the frame. IIRC the panhard bard comes from 4Runner along with all the other linkages, but I intend to replace the links with different bushings later on, since the 4Runner bushings are a bit difficult to find, are expensive, and a bit too stiff for my taste.
 

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Wow! A lot of fabrication involved there, and tricky to get right without clever design software to model it beforehand. Very nicely done. Although you say it still needs fine tuning you must be really pleased with all that articulation you have achieved. Pretty impressive.

I wish I had that inflation system for some of the desert trips I have made. Deflation, really. I remember one place in southern Libya where we ran into an extensive area of soft sand unexpectedly and dare not slow down to reduce tyre pressures because we would get bogged if we did. So I just had to keep the speed up for 30 minutes or so until we reached firm ground again. But then we didn't need to slow down any more. Fun in retrospect but nerve-racking at the time. That gear looks heavy. do you have trouble balancing the wheels after fitting it, or is it only used at low speeds? I love those giant Icelandic tyres. What size are they?
 
The inflation/deflation system is very useful in these kind of situations, sometimes when we are crawling up very steep mountains in the wintertime we *really* don't want to stop but at the same time air pressure increases as we ascend... So either it's to deflate straight down to 0.5psi or be able to deflate on the way up, and useful on the way down as well since we can inflate the tires on the way and reduce the risk of damaging them with too low pressure.

The balance is fine on the wheels, just need to be mindful to centre the unions correctly, but I also never keep the airlines connected unless I'm off road or on gravel roads, no reason to drive around with them. The tires are 42" Irok. Here's a better picture with all the system installed on the wheels. (I just went to the tire shop today to have the tires fitted on the new rims)
 

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Hi and welcome! Iceland has the most fabulous scenery and the most amazing trucks! Yours is up there with the best Imho. Good to have you aboard. :thumbup:
 
Thanks!
Yeah the scenery is pretty awesome, some things about Iceland I don't really like (like cost of living...) But the nature is what keeps me here.
Here is a picture from a recent trip this spring. The side slope was getting a bit scary so I ended up turning around, and shortly after breaking all the stud bolts for the left rear axle shaft... So we had to remove both of the axles and the drive shaft and drive to town in the front wheel drive.
 

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Hi Samuel - welcome - nice truck, and fantastic country - we took a couple of Defenders to Iceland a few years ago and had a fantastic time exploring the interior during the summer. :)
 
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