My 1968 Toyota Land Cruiser Is Resurrected and We Go On Our First Ride In a Long Time

Tuesday February 5, 2018 Guerneville CA.

But not without a bit of a problem

The sun was out when I got it going today. I went out and fed the chickens and was back in the house for a cup of coffee.

No snow last night just a few rain showers.

I was able to finally get signed up for my free smart phone and service and am now waiting for my phone to arrive.

Setting the van up for some work

I needed to change places with my two rigs today. I needed to get the Toyota out of the car port and put the van in it’s place to do a bit of work on the van.

I moved them both out into the sun to start off with.

 

Looking forward to a drive

As long as I had tires and brakes on the Toyota I wanted to take it out for a ride up into the hills. I also wanted to get some more small redwood logs for my chickens so I put the chain saw in the Toyota and took off.

I’m stopped at the gate which I had to unlock to get through.

 

I drove across this creek to get to a spot where I could cut some small redwood logs.

 

Short walk looking for small redwood logs

I parked here and got out to look for some small redwood logs to cut down.

 

I walked up this road looking for small trees.

 

The creek was flowing nicely.

 

I didn’t go very far and didn’t find what I wanted so turned around and started walking back.

 

I looked down behind the Toyota and found some so drove down just behind the rig.

 

Got some redwood logs

I spent some time cutting the logs down and limbing them. I was going for a ride up the hill so I left them all there and would get them on the way back, at least that was the plan.

I put the chain saw in the Toyota as I might need it to get a downed tree off the road to get by and started up into the hills. I was really enjoying the ride in my resurrected Land Cruiser as it’s been out of commission for a number of years now.

I stopped here to clear this brush off the road.

 

Toyota won’t start oh oh

When I got back in and tried the starter there was nothing, no juice.

 

Loose battery clamps and more

That was when I remembered I hadn’t tightened up the battery posts so I opened the hood to try hand tightening as I had no wrenches with me.

Well they were loose but worse than that I’d forgotten I hadn’t put the battery hold down stuff back on and the battery had moved onto the hot exhaust manifold and burned a hole in the bottom of it and let out all the acid fluid in one cell.

Sulfuric acid everywhere

You can see the stuff to hold the battery down isn’t connected. I put a rope on the battery to keep it from sliding onto the hot manifold anymore and pressed the battery terminals down as best I could by hand.

 

Would it start

Would that battery start with one empty cell? I tried the key and I got a click so I went back and twisted and pressed the battery terminals down again.

Amazed it worked

I tried the key again and this time it cranked over the engine and got it started. I was amazed it would work. Now would it get me home if I hurried along?

I didn’t stop to get my redwood logs or close most of the gates and made it home with no trouble. I’m amazed again but happy I made it.

A break with the chickens

I needed to let the rig cool down before messing with the battery to see what happened so I let the chickens out to graze and sat with them for a bit.

 

The hole

After that I removed the battery from the rig to have a look at the damage. At first I was thinking that battery is toast. But after a good break thinking about it I decided to try epoxy on the hole to see if I could get it sealed up. There’s lots of rough stuff around the big hole which should help hold the epoxy on.

 

Do I have acid

But I would need some battery acid to do the job, so do I have some. I checked as I thought I had some extra acid from some motorcycle batteries I’d bought and had to fill. If I had the acid I’d try to fix the battery and I had the left overs in two bottles so I was good to go.

Let’s fix er up

So I got my best epoxy out a JB weld type. At first I had the battery out by the garage but thought I needed a better spot to let the epoxy cure as it needs 24 hours and it’s cold and damp in that spot. I decided the back porch might be a better spot to do this repair so moved all my stuff there and applied the epoxy which now looks like this.

 

That was fairly easy to do. But I noticed it’s getting real cold out there tonight so I better go out and bring it in the house to cure like right now would be a good time.

I mostly spent the rest of the day hanging out with the chickens enjoying the sun after a bit of rain we had.

Even with the problem I had I still really enjoyed my ride in the old Toyota. We’ve done a lot together over the years.

That was my day.