I'm a big believer in OE parts these days. Back when I started wrenching on Chevy 4x4s in my high school days, the parts store or junkyard were my preferred source, but when I translated that into fixing or maintaining my Japanese 4x4s like my Nissan, I was always left disappointed. Parts would fail quickly, they wouldn't fit correctly, or they'd not work as well. The older I get, the more I'm willing to pay for reliability and durability, and the less I'm willing to screw with aftermarket stuff that doesn't work right. I just want my truck to be dependable wherever I take it.
With that in mind, here's the new radiator.
As you can see, the design is an upgrade on the original. The raised flat panel is now much less pronounced, with more gentle transitions and flatter curves. Apparently this design does not suffer from the cracking issue that plagues the original design at all.
Reinstall is easy and much faster than I expected honestly. Hardest part was getting the trans cooler lines hooked back up before dumping a bunch of fluid, which I kind of managed. Everything else went without issue and fit perfectly. OE parts rule!
Before filling and burping the system, I addressed the heater tees.
This mess of tangled coolant hoses feeds the rear passenger area heater system by siphoning hot coolant from the main system and pushing it through the rear passenger area before re-circulating it back into the primary loop. In the 100 Series, the little plastic tees were famous for more or less disintegrating. Sometimes on their own, sometimes whenever work was being performed and they were handled roughly. Over on the Toyota forums, changing the heater tees is pretty much the first recommended maintenance item for a 100. That being said, there isn't a lot of history of this happening to the 200 Series, though that could be due to the age of the platform.
Either way, they're cheap and the job is really easy.
Simple matter of popping the clips off and pulling the old tees out. Mine were in good shape but I still swapped them for new Toyota parts.
With that done, I started filling the new radiator with Toyota SLLC coolant.
This little filler doohickey I have makes this a really simple job. Fill the rad with coolant until it slows down, then fill the funnel and start the engine. Turn the heat on full blast.
The coolant starts cycling around the engine and the vibrations will cause any trapped air to find it's way to the surface, which is immediately displaced by the coolant in the funnel. Once the thermostat opens and the coolant begins cycling through the radiator, same thing happens. Any air bubbles in the entire system will find their way to the top of the radiator, where they escape up the funnel and are replaced by the coolant. I let the engine idle with the garage door half open for about 45 minutes just to ensure all air was burped from the system.
While that happened, I took photos of my newly-installed Weather Tech floor mats that my wife got for my birthday. This is my third set of these and I think they're just about the best thing you can do for floor protection. The fit is solid, like every set I've bought. I opted for classic black because I don't really like the tan interior to be honest. I prefer gray or black. These mats keep the carpet safe but also somewhat mute the sea of beige.
I tackled some cleaning tasks while the system was burping, then shut the truck off after I stopped seeing bubbles come up. One of the great things about this funnel doohickey is being able to plug it and put the unused coolant back into the jug.
All that was left was to empty the bucket of used coolant back into an empty jug for disposal and go for a test drive.
I drove around the block a few times and everything was operating normally. I checked for leaks and, satisfied there were none, pulled back into the garage and shut the lights off for the night.
Easy job in the workshop, and one that gives me the confidence to take the Cruiser anywhere now, which is kind of the point.
So I did!
That weekend, my wife and I celebrated my 31st birthday by taking our kids to the awesome piece of Montana that is Chico Hot Springs, located in Paradise Valley just north of Yellowstone National Park. For those of you who watch the Paramount drama
Yellowstone, this is roughly where the Dutton ranch is supposed to be located. There's a little back road I like to take to get there, and that drive never disappoints.
Chico itself is somewhat of a Montana institution, with the best 5-star restaurant in the state, a resort with rooms and guest cabins, a genuine western bar, and two naturally-fed hot spring pools. Each pool is between 96 and 103 degrees, and both are within a 15 foot walk to a window that joins the bar, where swimmers can get a beer while they soak. It's a slice of heaven.
We drove the Land Cruiser out to Chico, had lunch at the pool restaurant, which is a far lower-scale place than the resort restaurant, and soaked for a few hours with the kids before taking a backroads detour into the mountains on the old mining roads above Chico. The snow made it impossible to get too far, but it was fun to play in the snow for a bit and see what the truck could do. This extremely minor run gave me a lot of confidence in the truck's capability in deep snow, and proved to me the extra width vs. my old Nissan is a non-factor in the places we like to explore.
All the while, the kids got to watch a DVD from the back seat and had enough space between them to keep from starting any fights.
On the way home, the weather moved in as we drove out of Paradise Valley into Livingston and jumped on the interstate. Notorious for it's weather, the interstate between Livingston and Big Timber is often closed because of blizzards, ice, blowing snow, and general peril. We started driving up the hill out of Livingston and discovered a number of semi trucks parked in the right lane. Slowly approaching them and attempting to get around, I watched as the big rig drivers put snow chains on. I watched another spinning his wheels trying to get up the hill. Yet another slid slowly off the road as he attempted to right the truck. Ahead of me, a Chevy Cobalt swayed a bit trying to climb the same incline.
After stopping to make sure the trucker who slid off the road was okay, I got back into the truck and carefully drove up the hill, where it spun not a single wheel. There was zero indication that the conditions were anything less than dry and clean. No swerving, no spinning, nothing. It just handled it. I crested the hill and drove straight into a wall of blowing snow. Again unfazed, the Land Cruiser easily pushed through, over some mild snowdrifts across the road, and kept marching east. No drama, just got on with it. My God, I love this truck.
We made it home without incident and put the kids to bed. My wife commented on how perfect she thinks our new Cruiser is, and that I absolutely made the right call in buying it. She said she is so excited to take it those places we love.
"Me too babe, me too."
