My mechanic Jay called with the good news recently that the long-standing (and unintentionally long) Lexus LX450 / Toyota Land Cruiser project has finally hit its point of substantial completion - from the mechanical side, anyway.
The rebuilt engine has been turned up and run, with no apparent issues. Jay claims it runs well with no obvious issues arising from being torn down and rebuilt piece-by-piece after the long-festering headgasket issue revealed that the internal coolant intrusion has led to corrosion materializing between the head and the block.
Jay has not only mated the decked and refreshed head with the cleaned-up block but also installed an Old Man Emu lift 3-inch lift kit, which looks fantastic in the photos he sent me. There's also a new ARB brush guard as well. A Gobi-X rear bumper is en route, and some IPF driving lamps will also be installed. Then, we kick it over to my body guy Nelson to fix the rust in the rear inner fenders; I may have him stick a slab of metal in the back to replace the rusty rear cross-member, but not sure if it really matters with the monster rear bumper on there.
More to come, but big time milestone days, for sure.