If you carry each spare who can be mission critical - then your travel weight is that heavy that you have an breakdown soon.

If you really worry about an item, know that it has to replaced on that milage your car has too - then you replace that stuff better before your journey start.

Surfy

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About Overlanding, Travelogues, Equipment
Trans-Africa over the west coast

Hi, my first post on HU. Have you considered looking at things the other way round, i.e. importing a vehicle into the UK from Oz? I'm a Kiwi who generally lives in Sydney but at the moment we're in Europe in our 79 Series in which, next year, we're planning to drive to Vladivostok via the Stans & Mongolia. We had the 79 shipped from Sydney to Felixstowe for AUD2,800 (around GBP1,500). If you do it that way you'll (a) get an Oz spec vehicle and (b) have a lot less trouble with the importation. If you bring it into the UK as a temporary import you can use it for 6 months without having to pay VAT or go through UK registration bureaucracy.

Take a look at Used Cars - New Cars - Search New & Used Cars For Sale - carsales.com.au and you'll get an idea of what AUD36k could buy. From experience, I'd go for a HZJ105 although the FZJ105 (petrol) is likely to be cheaper. For that money you should find a decent one with a few offroad mods. As an example, see 2001 Toyota Landcruiser HZJ105R GXL. Re the gearbox, yes, the 105 manual gearbox is weaker than the 100, but since the 100 puts out around 150kw as against the 96 of the 105, in reality it's not a problem unless you turbocharge it, which is NOT recommended.

Anyway just some thoughts for you. Happy to give you any further advice from my own experience which includes fitting the 1HD-FTE (24v turbo from the 100) into a 105.

Lawrence

Personal opinion, having driven and overlanded LR's and LC's.

Go for an 80 or 100 series Cruiser. He in the UK, they are more readily available, so you will have a fair few to choose from.
Once the vehicle has been sourced and purchased, take it to Julian at Overland Cruisers | Overland Cruisers, specialists in preparing and servicing Toyota Land Cruisers

He will give give you good solid advice, as to what you need rather then what you might think you need.

Chris

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ChrisC

I have a 61 and I've not seen another one for sale since I bought it, if you wanted one I think Japanese import would be the way to go. What I would say is parts are a pain to get hold of in the UK, often a long wait though Australia does seem to be a bit better for them. It was a luxurious car in its day so it is comfy and has air con but it is fairly loud on the motorway and not very fast. 60mph cruise is ok but anything faster starts feeling unwise.

On the plus side it is simple and has been very reliable, the few age/miles related work it has needed has always signalled well in advance of any failure. The power and torque come in beautifully and it has been capable beyond my abilities off road, and I took some tuition too.

There is a certain charm though of being stuck at 60mph, that urge to rush and hurry evaporates as the miles roll by. The leaf sprung suspension also means that slow is better when it' rocky eg Morocco

Edit: Huh, just checked the timestamp. Looks like this chat finished. Oops.

Nice sounding truck Alex, and a very rare beast in this country. Some sources for parts you may already know about are LL Landcruisers in Holland and Andy Lomas in the uk. He is based in Sheffield and has around 20 60 series models (yes you did read that correctly, 20!) He reckons he has only seen a couple of 61s in the UK. I would love a 12ht motor to go in my 60!

No worries. I still drop in and read from time to time.

All contributions much appreciated.

FWIW, I used a Jap import 80 for my trip and it was fine apart from when the cold start advance/retard cam broke off and wreaked havoc inside the fuel pump in Turkey. Also I think the auto gearbox didn't last much longer after I sold it to the next person - I didn't realise it was so near the end of its life when I sold the vehicle but, in retrospect, the number of times it overheated when I was driving in sand in Libya probably had something to do with it. So, if you can get one, a manual not an automatic.

My site has a section showing the preparation I did.

mark

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www.overlandcruiser.wordpress.com

We're pretty much set on a 100 series if we end up with LC.

The only problem is finding a good one for a reasonable price.