Deal was very loose but I think I was very clear that my goal was to stay below $9k. The same day that Root Beer Brown Beauty sold (congrats!), I get a message from Franken-Seller that the price needs to go up by $250, and that those lovely Optima batteries need to be switched for the lead acid batteries in his truck. I can’t blame him for wanting the batteries and I do think it is good that he spent more time to figure the prices, but I’m sorry he had to raise the price. Fact is he’s been getting lots of interest ever since he agreed to sell to me, so a little seller’s regret. Too bad he agreed to it on the phone though… Sigh. Anyway, no sweat, just a little thing in the big picture.
Message today asking if I wanted spare parts. I agreed. Includes extra parts for dash, heater, glass and… sway bars… which are NOT currently installed on the cruiser.
Sway bars are important for tall vehicles, and even more so when they are lifted to even taller. US 60 series cruisers didn’t come with sway bars, and didn’t even have mounts for sway bars on the rear, canadian (or maybe just later canadian) 60s came with front and rear sway bars. These are essential for good highway manners, especially when loaded, and double-especially when the truck has its center of mass raised with lifted suspension. Fortunately the sway bars are easy to install although I’ll need to get some extension links to mount them on this lifted truck. Seems the extensions for 4 corners are readily availabe and will cost about $70.
From reading the land cruiser forums on the internets I am finding an unusual misunderstanding of suspension and the roles of the various components. Even for the internets the memes around land cruiser suspension are very wrong. This is not a case of small discrepencies, but people lifting trucks and throwing out sway bars, then trying to fix by purchasing a different brand of shock. Nowhere have I seen any mention of corner balance, center of mass, or calculations to determine the correct spring/sway/shock rates. I might actually get a chance to do some math here.
CanadianBJ 