Picked up craigslisted wheels in Phoenix on the way to our Overland Expo adventures. After shopping wheel designs for a bit, realized we love the stock wheels and wanted them powder coated grey! But the ones our’s had were dealership chromed and flaking, and when we found some that were powder coated, barely used, and cheaper than acid dipping and powder coating ours - it was perfect!

We took it in for a full 22 page A-Z inspection report at TLC!

The NOTFZJ80 got a glowing report! Still a few things to fix up, but in far better shape for a nearly 20 year old vehicle than we all expected. They are ordering parts to help us get it adventure-ready, and we’ll be doing some work ourselves and they are helping us with the rest soon.

My first time stripping a car! We cleared out all of the seats, carpets, padding, and more… I’m still amazed how easily it can all be taken apart (and reassembled!)

The NOTlabs kitchen table switched from electronics overload mode to car interior covered…

After stripping the car - we popped up to Mammoth Lakes in the Eastern Sierras for a weekend… and it was Bucky’s first time in the snow and running around the mountains/creeks!

…also picked up some research for places to go when the NOTFZJ80 is ready!

First thing we did when we got back? Dynamatting! Dynalining!

This was also the perfect time to upgrade the VERY disintegrated speakers…

Put a CB Radio in the ash tray!

Pressure washed years of disgustingness out of the carpets…

Then put it all back together! Honestly, i had NO idea how incredibly different the sound would be. It’s the difference between a tinny sound and that luxury thud when you close the door. When you tap the sides you can even tell the difference! And when you’re inside driving around on the freeway, you can actually hear each other when speaking!

It was then time for a NOTCOT sticker in the corner of the rear window!

Popping back over to TLC, we picked up All Terrain T/A KO tires that the kind folks at BF Goodrich Tires sent us! And promptly got them mounted on our new wheels. It’s amazing how different it made things look! For how off-road they look, I was surprised how quite were they are the freeway too.

We also finally checked out the magical world of Specter Off Road - which is like a Toyota Land Cruiser MUSEUM! You have to walk past quite the display of LCs (from the oldest LC in the US to some amazing firetruck variants and a Baja 1000 winner) to get to the counter of the shop in the huge warehouse filled with any/everything Land Cruiser you could need or imagine!

We grabbed some Seat Covers - the aged leather and the heat had the seats burning my thighs! We ended up with Camo which picked up nicely with the various browns better than the solid brown or tan…

And then it started… the gold package finally drove us crazy enough, we spray painted the front emblem black! Bit by bit the gold has got to go!

And I might have um, gotten too excited and forgot to take a picture of the NOTFZJ80 at this state - so here’s a crude rendering of where it was at!

And while we’ve been doing all this? Bucky mostly pokes around and then lays about like a shop dog:

More to come soon…