Newbie from Western Europe!!

[Rockall]

Good evening all

Stumbled across this site by accident

Still own a 1997 Colorado LWB manual diesel with 417,000 miles, currently mothballed as she needs a bit of TLC - intend doing a total rebuild for overland expedition - more later.

Now driving a recently acquired 1998 LWB Colorado manual diesel with 'only' 214,000 miles and in very nice condition - I actually bought it in East Midlands and imported to Ireland.

My Landcruisers work for a living - in and out of quarries etc as well as normal day to day driving.

I had a 2001 Mercedes ML 270 cdi automatic in between - lovely and comfortable, good on fuel but two things made me move away - you needed a laptop to talk to it for the lights on the dash syndrome and it is just not suitable for in and out of quarries.

I will be doing a viscous fan service on my current one soon.

I recently met a retired Toyota mechanic who was the 'Landcruiser' man in the garage. He mentioned quite a few things about the Colorado/Prado but regarding overheating etc he recommended the following
1: Remove and reverse flush your rad every 60k miles when doing the timing belt - I did my first Colorado at about 300K miles for the first time and was gobsmacked at the amount of 'sludge' that came out
2: Change your rad ideally at 5 years if a high mileage user but definitely by 7 years even under normal conditions
3: Keep the area between the airco rad (if fitted) and the engine rad clear at all times of the debris that collects - leaves, hay etc
4: Check viscous coupling oil every time you are doing a timing belt - 60K miles.


Regards

Bill

 

[Shayne]

417,000 miles on one and only 214,000 on the other brilliant

Welcome along Bill the cooling issues of the collie are well documented on here but i think you can lay claim to the highest miler we have on the forum

 

[Rockall]

417,000 miles on one and only 214,000 on the other brilliant

Welcome along Bill the cooling issues of the collie are well documented on here but i think you can lay claim to the highest miler we have on the forum

Well my 'Sunday' car has got 330,000 miles on it - if you look after your vehicle - it will look after you. Mileage never worried me so long as the vehicle has been serviced regularly.

 

[GerryTLC]

You must have good driving habit aside from regular maintenance. Those sounds quality high mileage!

Share some pics.

 

[StarCruiser]

Welcome Bill and thanks for a fantastic intro. Those are some excellent tips for Collie longevity and the evidence is in your trucks.
Good to have you on board. Looking forward to photos.

Best wishes

Richard

 

[Garfieldus]

Welcome Bill.

 

[clivehorridge]

Welcome to the forum Bill, where yer been all this time?

Good advice on the Collie cooling, it's good advice for any truck IMO, especially if is spends any amount of time off the asphalt.

Impressive mileage though, a testament to good maintenance and sympathetic driving

Photies?.... We love 'em

 

[hopeless wanderer]

Welcome aboard

Let's see em then (Fnarr Fnarr)

 

[Rockall]

Good evening all

Thank you very much for the warm welcome - much appreciated.

Ok, driving style: I have been driving diesel cars for over 30 years now - back then diesels were not popular. I actually converted quite a few petrol cars to diesel in may day. They were mostly Renault 25 V6 petrol automatics into which I fitted the Renault 2.1 turbo diesel and a manual box - lovely comfortable cars. I had more time than sense back then!!

One thing I tend to do, with any car, is to allow it to warm up fully by driving it but keeping the revs below say 1500 - 2000 rpm - naturally depending on the car and gearing. Engine blocks and transmissions are made up of so many dissimilar metals all with different expansion rates that I always 'feel' for an engine when I hear or see it being revved and driven flat out from cold.

I am well past my boy racer days and back then cars made more noise than speed anyway. My other rule of thumb is that the speedo needle at the 12 o'clock position is the ideal cruising speed. My view of the speeds shown past 12 o'clock is that they are for the odd overtaking movement. I tend to drive the Landcrusiers at 100km/hr 60 mph and find that if you drive even at the motorway allowable speed here of 120km/hr that your fuel consumption increases significantly. Landcruisers were originally designed for off road/back roads and not for belting down motorways.

The other thing that I am quite religious about is lubricants - I spent over 15 years in the Oil and Gas business so some of my thinking is naturally influenced by what I learnt. I dont know if we are allowed to mention names here and if not moderators please delete. I have always used Millers Oils products - full synthetic engine and transmission oils. I gave a full service and naturally an oil change at every 10,000 miles on the clock and transmissions every 80,000 - 100,000 miles.
On an automatic I would change the gearbox oil/filter at a max of 50,000 miles - I do the auto box and filter on my ordinary car every 30,000 miles.

One tip that may be of value. When I purchased 'Betsy' - my first Landcruiser back in 2002 - she had 136,000 miles on the clock. I always fill the diesel tank to full. Over the first year or so I would normally get about 475 miles to a tank before the light would come on. I then changed all the transmission oils - Gearbox/transfer box and diffs to a full synthetic oil - my mileage per tank increased to approx 525 miles. We underestimate the friction losses in the transmissions - especially in a 4x4 - so for a small investment in good quality transmission oil I reduced my diesel consumption dramatically.

I only recently heard that the automatics have a higher ratio transfer box - is this correct? and will an auto transfer box bolt on to a manual box?. I never tow and have always felt that the Colorado could do with a higher gear to drop the revs a bit. Will a 6 speed manual from the later diesel models mate to the Colorado engine?

Another tip worth doing for some users: The rear calipers tend to seize on a lot of Colorado's - mine did. My retired friendly mechanic explained that the load sensing valve needs to be adjusted slightly if you never tow or carry heavy loads as the rear calipers do not get enough use when lightly loaded.

One other thing I changed was shock absorbers - I found that the Toyota shocks were just not man enough and seemed to only last about 60,000 miles. At about 225,000 miles I fitted a full set of Koni shocks - they are still on Betsy, nearly 200,000 miles later and still working well. I have replaced the bottom bushings on the front shocks twice. I live on the West Coast of Ireland so the back 'roads' in places are potholes linked together with bits of tar.

'Betsy' had 265/70/16 tyres when I bought her. When I went to put on her last set my tyre man asked me to try 275/70/16. Now I know it is only 7 mm extra in sidewall height but I was amazed at the difference in comfort. It felt as if I had fitted a new suspension and I regret not having fitted them earlier. They are Maxxis tyres and have just over 50,000 miles done with possibly another 5,000 or so left. I am old school and yes I do switch wheels around to even out the wear!!

The initial photo's below are of 'Betsy' - there is now 417,000 on the clock. I will get a photo but what has surprised me is that the leather seat is still in great condition.
The other photo's are of my new lady - yet to be named - as she was when I bought it. Now showing 216,000 miles - I thought it was less last night!! She is very fancy - wood trim, no less !!

Main differences are:
Betsy has roof rails, heated electric seats, airco and only one battery
The new lady has no roof rails, electric seats but no heat, two batteries, original factory sunroof, airco and electric diff lock

Regards

Bill

 

[Steve H]

Good evening all

Stumbled across this site by accident

Still own a 1997 Colorado LWB manual diesel with 417,000 miles, currently mothballed as she needs a bit of TLC - intend doing a total rebuild for overland expedition - more later.

Now driving a recently acquired 1998 LWB Colorado manual diesel with 'only' 214,000 miles and in very nice condition - I actually bought it in East Midlands and imported to Ireland.

My Landcruisers work for a living - in and out of quarries etc as well as normal day to day driving.

I had a 2001 Mercedes ML 270 cdi automatic in between - lovely and comfortable, good on fuel but two things made me move away - you needed a laptop to talk to it for the lights on the dash syndrome and it is just not suitable for in and out of quarries.

I will be doing a viscous fan service on my current one soon.

I recently met a retired Toyota mechanic who was the 'Landcruiser' man in the garage. He mentioned quite a few things about the Colorado/Prado but regarding overheating etc he recommended the following
1: Remove and reverse flush your rad every 60k miles when doing the timing belt - I did my first Colorado at about 300K miles for the first time and was gobsmacked at the amount of 'sludge' that came out
2: Change your rad ideally at 5 years if a high mileage user but definitely by 7 years even under normal conditions
3: Keep the area between the airco rad (if fitted) and the engine rad clear at all times of the debris that collects - leaves, hay etc
4: Check viscous coupling oil every time you are doing a timing belt - 60K miles.


Regards

Bill

And I thought mine was getting on a bit at 220k! Thanks for the tips, Bill and welcome to the club.

 

[Scott]

Welcome Bill, your posts are a great reminder that with proper maintenance our Land Cruisers can achieve some very high mileages. Thanks for the good advice.

 

[clivehorridge]

Good post Bill

One observation on my HZJ80, when I went to 33" tyres, the cruising top speed dropped. Before, it would do 130 kph, now it dropped to 115/120 kph.

In fact, on a very slight incline, it will pull faster in 4th than in 5th. I suspect the higher gear generated by the larger diameter tyres is a little too high for the normally aspirated HZ.

Mines done close on 400 k km, significantly less than you can boast, but it runs Ok.

My boy racer days are long gone too, I'm more interested in 100 kph cruising now, and in a 21 year old truck, I think that's no bad thing.

Ive always been put off going full synthetic, folks say engines are more prone to leaking oil using fully synth, is there any truth in that do you think? I use semi, well on the bottle it says part synth, 10/W40.

 

[Rockall]

Good post Bill

One observation on my HZJ80, when I went to 33" tyres, the cruising top speed dropped. Before, it would do 130 kph, now it dropped to 115/120 kph.

In fact, on a very slight incline, it will pull faster in 4th than in 5th. I suspect the higher gear generated by the larger diameter tyres is a little too high for the normally aspirated HZ.

Mines done close on 400 k km, significantly less than you can boast, but it runs Ok.

My boy racer days are long gone too, I'm more interested in 100 kph cruising now, and in a 21 year old truck, I think that's no bad thing.

Ive always been put off going full synthetic, folks say engines are more prone to leaking oil using fully synth, is there any truth in that do you think? I use semi, well on the bottle it says part synth, 10/W40.

Clive
Thank you for the comments and advice on wheel sizes.
Regarding oils etc - For years I have had a policy of using the best quality available and I had zero leaks in my older 90, although I do see a small wet spot now on my current one.
I have decided to put up about 10-15,000 miles first (currently at 219,000) and by then I will have discovered all her little issues. The difference in price between quality and bog standard oils is minimal in the overall running costs and definitely with transmission oils the full synthetic oil makes a big saving in fuel costs.

Regards
Bill