OnlyDirtRoads

Auxiliary Fuel Tank:

One of the more profound mods has been my extended range fuel tank. I purchased an auxiliary tank from Man-a-Fre (before the suspension part fiasco). It wasn't cheap, but the 19 gallon tank doubles the range of the FJ. As the FJ Cruiser has a short range out of the box, once you add on bumpers, winches, etc., you wind up with a portly truck that gets mediocre mileage, especially under acceleration and climbing hills.

The tank is a fairly simple bolt on, although not without complications (of course).

Hours were spent trying to make sense of MAF's install instructions, which were not only misleading, but wrong. The kit consists of the tank, which fits between the frame rails at the back of the truck, an external fuel pump, a sending unit, which delivers fuel level info to a fuel gauge, and the gauge itself. There is also a switch to turn on/off the fuel pump and a modified filler tube.

The tank bolts onto the frame with 5 bolts going into existing threaded holes. That's easy. 1/2" rubber fuel line connects an outflow fitting to the external fuel pump, and runs from the pump to an inlet barb added to the filler tube. Upstream of this new barb is another, which runs from the filler tube to an inlet port in the top of the tank.

The tank is filled by filling the OEM tank, at which point fuel starts to back up in the fill tube until it can flow through the added tubing into the aux tank.  As you drive and deplete fuel from the OEM tank, you can then turn on the external pump and transfer fuel from the aux tank, through the modified filler tube, into the OEM tank.

One must also deal with a vapor line that vents the system through the factory vapor control system.

The sending unit is pretty old school, and I intend to research possible newer units. It's clearly not designed for modern vapor-emissions controlled vehicles, and must be carefully sealed with form-a-gasket to prevent leaks. This requires some trial and error and required dropping the tank a few times to minimize "Check Engine" codes.

The 38 gallons of gasoline apparently creates more vapor than the FJ's evap system can handle, as I'll get a CEL most times when either (or both) tanks are partially full. One quickly learns than a Scan Gauge or similar code reader is necessary to clear codes. A by-product of using a ScanGauge is greater awareness of driving behavior that results in lousy mileage. When you can see that rocketing away from a traffic light gives you 4 mpg; you tend to avoid doing so.

The most time-consuming part of the install was deciding on  a location for the fuel gauge and fitting the gauge in place. I decided to install the gauge in the silver panel to the left of the dashboard. It's easy to remove however there is a lot of structure behind it, and I had to carefully plan where to remove enough plastic so the 2" deep gauge would fit. After creating a cardboard template and a lot of measuring I carefully used a Dremel tool to carve away enough plastic substructure so the new gauge would fit into the hole in this panel.

Wiring the gauge to the sending unit was straightforward, and wiring the fuel pump to the switch, relay, and power source should have been easy, however the MAF install sheet erroneously called out pin locations on the relay. I eventually drive to AutoZone and bought 4 relays, and through trial and error eventually figured out the correct pin locations; burning out a couple of relays in this process.

The entire install took 8 hours. Today, I could do it in 4.

 Carrying 38 gallons of fuel gives one a great sense of security when you are far from a paved road. The tank is tucked far up into the back of the truck and is out of the way. There are two wrinkles with this design. One is the external fuel pump bolts to the back of the rearmost crossmember. It seems a vulnerable place to run fuel line; although if I got rear-ended hard enough for this to be an issue, I decided it would be only one of many problems I'd be facing. Another issue is the exposed fuel line in the several inches between the back of the tank and the front of the frame crossmember. The fuel line, pump and filter are very exposed to gravel. I intend to cover with an aluminum gravel guard at some point.

I've had this second tank for a couple of years. If I ever had to replace my FJ, installing another auxilary tank would be the first thing I'd do to it.

And the mods begin....

Roof Rack

I'm not sure I can remember which mods came in which sequence. I practically lived on FJCruiserforum.com and took advantage of the collective wisdom and experience of many of the other owners there. Some have since sold their FJs, a few rarely post, and a couple have gotten banned. I feel like quite a few people there saved me some money and a few more saved me from doing something really stupid.

 Perhaps the first mod was a Gobi rack. I called Gobi, not far away near Denver and arranged to have them install it. It didn't take very long, and I drive back home with my OEM rack stuffed inside the FJ. I sold it for half what I paid for it; a disturbing trend that would be repeated with a number of other TRD options.

Skid plate, control arms and track bar:

Similarly, the optional "skid plate" (AKA:"bling skid") was another $600 option that I was happy to sell for half that. Installing a Man-a-Fre skid made me worry less about driving off road. Over the years, that skid has held the entire weight of the vehicle. It's scratched and rusty, but without dent. Now, when jacking the front of the truck up to change tires, I'll just slide my floor jack under the skid and lift the entire front end. It's that beefy. Occasionally I think about getting alloy skids to save some weight, but I'm not there, yet.

With great effort, Man-a-Fre also supplied beefier upper and lower rear control arms. These should be easy bolt ons, although the drivers side upper control arm is next to the main gas tank, and is buried behind the auxiliary gas tank (more on this later). The lower control arms were an easy upgrade. Changing out the upper arms was complicated by the fact that Man-a-Fre's customer service has issues. They sent me the wrong control arms. Twice. Every call regarding the repeat mis-shipments started with something along the lines of "those FJs have lousy quality control, and there is a lot of variation in specs". Really? By three or four inches? The arms they kept sending were WAY too long. Eventually I got the proper arms, but had to remove a lot of stuff under the truck in order to get in and remove the old ones. It would have been easier if I'd done this in advance of other mods.

I had a similar experience with Man-a-Fre when trying to order a new track bar for the rear axle. This long link connects the rear axle with the frame, and helps keep the axle located while articulating. Three times, MAF sent me a bar 4 inches too short, and three times, they blamed it on Toyota. I bought a bar from TotalChaos.com; which bolted right in. I'm resolved to not do business with MAF again, until I see evidence of rational customer service. The place hasn't been the same since !Cruzer! Moved back to Oz.

Starting...at the beginning

The FJ Cruiser.

In October of 2007 I test drove an all-black TRD FJ Cruiser.  I have a tendency to buy cars on a whim; which concerned my wife. Twice since we'd been married I went out to wash my vehicle and came back with a new car. Nancy had owned three or four cars since she started driving; I've owned 33.In an effort to appear responsible, I told the sales guy at the Toyota store I wanted to think about it. At 10 the next morning, I called to buy the FJ; but someone had purchased it an hour after I'd left.

I painstakingly optioned out a new FJ in an attempt to replicate the TRD. Of course, it was impossible to replicate the black on black paint. I wound up putting a deposit on an FJ scheduled to be assembled in Japan in the coming weeks.

On 14 January 2008, I got the call that my FJ had been delivered to the dealership. However, so had three transporters of new cars, and I was told it might be a few days before my truck would be prepped. I drove to Liquor Mart, bought a few cases of beer and dropped them off with the service advisor, and went back to work.

Two hours later, my FJ was prepped and ready.

I took the rest of the day off from work and spent the afternoon under the truck and under the hood. I'd run the various modules of the FJ mini-website on toyota.com and wanted to see how it was put together in real life. I finally just sat in the FJ, in the driveway. For some time.

Later, Nancy came home from work and we drive to get dinner out. "Did you know you smile when you start the FJ?"

I didn't, but I know I still do.