Hi all !

At the moment, we are getting a 93, 12V, TLC hdj 80 VX ready for a trip to Mauritania.
the 80 is got ,at least,210.000 kmts on the clock

Julian, I did read in your post you recommend a Injection pump adjustment and cleaning after about 200.000 kts

I went to the local "diesel center" they told me it costs 600 eu. But they did not recommend me to do it unless the pump was not working well, or leaking.

Then I went to a Toy place, where they get the 80's ready for Dakar's and so on. They told me the I.P. is "retarded" (well, the opposite of advanced) and recommend me to adjust it properly. 30 Eu job. I notice nothing wrong with the IP.

The Toy guys also want to get more pressure from the turbo in order to get more power. They say it's no problema for the engine. ??¿¿

They also found about 10 minor details to take care. The main one is a leak in the exaust manifold. Even I can hear that one clearly.
The more than 1 hour check at the Toy place was done for free.

Whats your oppinion about the Injection and Turbo thing ?

thanks a lot in advance !

Hi,

The 80series 6 cylindr diesel engine is a solid unit and can be tuned quite nicely - it is used as the base for some marine application pushing out 350+ HP.

Depending on the engine you can do some tweaks to improve performance - with the 12 valve 1HD-T engine (1990-1995), can 'tune' the pump a bit as well as the turbo, although you need to keep a close eye on the Exhaust Gas Temperatures - basically the temps in the head - personally I would only trust someone with a lot of experience in these areas to do the work and then only if they are prepared to provide some sort of guaranatee - if you want to do it yourself, get a temperature probe fitted to the exhaust manifold so that you can monitor the EGTs.

The later (1995-1997) 1HD-FT engine with 24valves was slightly detuned for part of the rev range (to reduce emissions) so doesn't pull as well as the 12 valve before the turbo kicks in and there are some well know tweaks to the pump that you can do to reverse this - see the technical pages at Welcome to Land Cruiser Owners On Line - Hosted By Offroad Online Australia Pty Ltd. The other thing you can do with the 1HD-FT engine is to block of the Exhaust Gas Recirculation bits that are also added on for emissions - both of these are the sorts of things you can safely do yourself.

Ideally if you can afford it the two main areas to improve the performance on the 80 series engine is get a better exhaust system (the big front box is very restrictive) - upgrading to a high quality 2.5"-3" exhaust can make a reasonable difference to turbo response and power. The exhausts aren't cheap, although in France there are some reasonable options available.

The other big upgrade is to fit an intercooler - fitting the intercooler lowers the temps in the engine and allowing you to then increase the turbo boost and increase the fuelling which can provide a 20-30% increase in power and torque.

The intercooler option is expensive, but makes a big difference and if you aren't too heavy footed can also help with economy when coombined with a decent exhaust. I know one chap in the UK with a 24 valve manual 80, intercooler and 3" exhaust averaging 32-35mpg.

The best intercooling kit in Europe comes from Maarten at Toptab Themeset - he does a lot of performance tuning on LCs and is a wealth of knowledge.


Many get nervous about doing performance tweaks on overlanding vehicles, but you don't really have worry too much with the 80 series engine, just put a decent wire mesh in front of the intercooler (fits in front of the radiator) to keep stones out and you should be OK.

Going back to a more basic level, with the 80 series you should ideally service the injector pump and injectors every 100,000 miles to make sure they are working correctly.

If you have bought an 80 for overlanding with full serive history the chancces are that this work hasn't been carried out - dealers tend not to do and servicing on the injectors, injection pump, CVs, wheel bearings, brake disks, etc - they only ever touch them if there is a problem so these should all be checked on a new vehicle - something I always recommend as part of the baseline serviccing of a new (to you) vehicle.

Getting the injection system serviced isn't cheap particularly depending on who you take them to - some companies insist on replacing all servicable parts with new, which can get very expensive - I use some lovely old fashioned injection engineers in Swindon (UK) and got my pump stripped and serviced as well as all 6 injectors serviced for £335 - there were problems with one or two of the injectors and they also replaced all the seals in the pump and a couple of other bits.

This was at 150,000 miles on the car (a little late) and the consumption afterwards fully loaded with 2 roof tents on the roof was about the same as the car before the service running around empty, so I am hoping that once I have cleaned it out from our trip to Morrocco the average consumption will be greatly improved.

And finally, if you do get the pump and injectors done it is also worth getting the valves checked at the same time. On the older 12 valve models they have shims which are a little fiddly and a bit costly to get replacement shims (I needed new shims for 10 out of the 12 valves) - the 24 valve engine has adjustable tappets so less of a problem (and cheaper).

And if you have gone that far, you might as well replace the cam belt and idler - removing the cam on the 12 valve makes it a lot easier for working on the shims.

And... if you have a 12 valve, it is also worth doing the big end bearings - the main fault with the 80 series is that you can have problems with the big end bearings degrading with European oils - there is no hard and fast rules about the age of vehicle and types of oil, but if you are preparing for a RTW trip it should be on your list.

It took me about 2-3 days of workshop time to take off and refit the injection stuff, do the valves and do the Big end bearings on my car before my trip to Maroc and was well worth it - the injectors and pump needed the service 10/12 valves needed adjusting and 2 out of the 6 bearing sets were severely pitted which would have leant to early failure.


I have worked on a lot of 80s used for people going overlanding and it was great to finally get out to Maroc to experiencing things myself.

My next mission over the summer is to start padding out the ELCO website with some technical docs on prepping 80s etc and providing a bit more tech info like the above.

Landcruisers are used all over Africa (and the world) in standard form so the most important thing when planning your overlanding or RTW trip is to make sure that is is well maintained before you start bolting all the extras on, something most 4x4 companies seem to forget about - hopefully the articles I am working on will be able to help even the most non mechanical overlanders pluck up the courage to check and work on these things themselves.

__________________
Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Overland Cruisers - Specialising in Land Cruiser preparation and servicing.

Would definately concur with Julian. My experience is only with 1HZ engines, but in 11 years of working with various vehicles in Ghana - landrovers, nissan, toyota as well as lots of saloons (golfs, MB 123, 190) I would add that the toyota IP is actually pretty sensitive to crap fuel and wears (relatively) quickly. Power drops and starting from hot becomes a real problem. Consumption also rises (sometimes massively!). Any problems which are there will not be helped by African fuel. We recently installed a centrifuge diesel cleaner in our fuel dump and the results were amazing - manufacturer suggested weekly cleaning, we ended up cleaning every 3 hours!!!

Of course as Julian points out, the cheapest way to get the pump serviced is at an independent diesel injection specialist... Pump overhauling is a racket, we ended up spending so much we bought a test bench and started in our workshop ourselves.

A mate of mine had a badly worn pump on his 80 series 1HZ. He didn't get the pump done as we were in a hurry to got to Mali for christmas. He ended up spending twice what I spent on fuel, and the vehicle deteriorated fast - so much so that we were often wondering if it would even start. It ended up dropping a valve on the Mali/Burkina border. Cost him a small fortune to get the vehicle back to south of Ghana. Have no idea if the valve dropping was related, but he definately wished he had checked the vehicle properly! I think I checked my defender okay - it made it back, but after about 7 stupid breakdowns that basically ruined the trip as we were almost constantly under time pressures I later went the L/C route..
Cheers,
Gil

Thanks a lot !

I'll talk with the Toy guys about all your points and let you know. After all, they do prepare the hdj's for the Dakar and should know what they are doing.
But charge quite a lot an hour so I'll let my local mech take care of the easy stuff, if the is any.

The injectors only got about 40.000 kmts. So I think I'll do the following:

1- fix the leak at exhaust manifold
2- check valves
3- check wheel bearings, CV's, etc..
4- remove the medium (big one) exhaust silencer
5- use new A.T. fluid
6- check filter at A.T. and clean the sump.
7- increase a bit turbo preassure
8- ajust the I.P.

The engine sounds great, and I'm afraid checking the big bearings would be real nice but not essential ?¿¿.

Reading what you guys say about I.P. vulnerability I learn it would be great to get a PREFILTER Racor 500 FG , I guess is the one Gil talks about.


-- Do I really have to open the engine in order to check the bearings ( or just asking them politely about their well being is enough ) ???
-- Can a mechanic, non-familiar with hdj80 12v, do the valve job, since the shims thing ???
-- does the I.P got to be removed in order to be ajusted ???

I had, have, Land Rovers (and used to work in a remote place) so I'm kind of used to check everything. I fact I got myself an 80 just for the pleasure of it , I rarely had problems with the LR, perhaps, (who knows) because they are Santana. I just find the LR's beautiful and Toy effective.

Thanks for the lessons !

A couple of things about the auto box. Firstly when you drain it you will only get around 5-6 litres out, not the full 9 (or 12 litres) that are in there, do measure what you take out and put the same amount back in.

If the old oil is blackened much or smells of burning, it is advisablle to drive a couple of hundred miles and then do the change again - this should get enough clean fluid to dilute the degraded stuff.

If you don't have any lumpy muck in the oil when it it drained there is little point in dropping the pan to look at the filter which is just a fine metal mesh.

Depending on where you are going you are best off spending the money on a couple of spare toyota (don't buy cheap 3rd party ones) fuel filters.

The only way to check them is by dropping the sump - if you only have 40k miles on the clock I wouldn't worry about it - just make sure you use decent oil in it.

Yes. They do need a special service tool to make it easier, but if you remove the camshaft you won't need it.

No. You can adjust the fuelling levels and pre and on bosst fuelling with the IP in situ.

__________________
Cheers,

Julian Voelcker
Overland Cruisers - Specialising in Land Cruiser preparation and servicing.

I'd take this advice - don't fix it if it ain't broken. The pump iteself is not a serviceable item, so there's little you can do in terms of preventive maintenance.

Some diesel "specialist" can do more damage than good - I've had once my Denso 096000-6420 injection pump repaired with the use of Bosh parts, which turned it into a piece of junk. If you are really worried, take a spare pump with you.

__________________
----------------
Roman (UK)

Should have explained that the centrifuge I mentioned is a proper diesel purifier - same like is fitted to ships - flow rate about 900l/hr! I would also just stick with new toyo filters and a spare. With filters with a lower micron rating you might even get problems with the pump not getting enough fuel... or more likely you might run out of filters!!! Just try and not take the last few litres from a drum. One thing I was considering is a bag filter like is now commonly available for biodiesel production - you could put it in your filler neck and get a pretty good idea of what is going into your tank. As they are also available down to very low micron ratings you could really clean your diesel (never tried it, just an idea), and you are not restricting or changing the cars original fuel system

So long as the car is starting fine (especially when hot) I wouldn't even worry about it - personally I would get a professional to adjust the pump (if it is required/recommended) but that is all. But I honestly wouldn't be playing with boost pressures on an expedition vehicle. IMHO it just isn't worth it. I know it would probably be fine, but I would always be a bit concerned... Like Roman says, it if isn't broke, don't fix it!

"I just find the LR's beautiful and Toy effective"
Absolutely correct!!! I find that the 80 looks a bit bulbous, solid car though... We (a natural resource company in Ghana) have tried 'em all - Patrols, Landys, Hilux, Nissan p/ups, Pajeros etc. The L/C just beats them all. We finished overhauling an HZJ75 pick up at the weekend... 9 years use, NONE of that on asphalt, all of the time used by mechanics going to 'bush' day in day out.

Cheers,