1. Been there, done that — sorry about your back. I drive a (certified) Trail Ready Jeep Liberty, and it is a lot more capable that I am. I want to tell you an anecdote I thought you might enjoy, since yours is a Toyota Land Cruiser. When I lived in Australia, there was some guys called “The Leyland Brothers” who used to put on a 4-wheeling in the Outback show periodically, called “Around Australia on Highway One,” sponsored by National Geographic. The ‘outback’ in Australia is REALLY OUT THERE; many of their shows had them near five hundred miles or even more from the nearest habitation. These expeditions were always entirely self-contained with food, water, and every possible replacement part for the long wheelbased Land Rovers they drove. They drove three of them, one for the brothers and stores; one for the film crew and equipment, and one fully loaded with every spare part they could carry. One aspect of these shows was laughable: I don’t know if it was intentional for the dramatic effect, but they always broke down at least once on every segment, and it seemed the NEVER had on hand the exact part they needed, so they always had to use the Flying Doctor Service radio to call for a helicopter to drop them parts and sometimes more supplies.
   The show I remember best had them bashing the bush in the Queensland jungle, and they managed to get themselves thoroughly and completely bogged down in a swampy jungle mud bog, right up over their tires. They were stuck, two hundred miles from the nearest settlement, and they didn’t want to call the FDS because there was nothing they could bring that would have helped them. They worked their tails off for three days trying to get out of there without success, and were just about to give up and call FDS for more food and water, when what to their wondering eyes should appear, but a Toyota six-cylinder Land Cruiser just bopping around the countryside on a day trip! The guy had no special gear, a minimal survival kit, and a couple of jerry cans of fuel, and that was it. Figured he’d be home by dark. So he hooked up a towing strap and winch and one by one had all three of them out of the bog and on the hard, ready to roll, in about an hour. So much for the much-vaunted four-cylinder Land Rovers with pistons the size of dinner plates. 🙂

   1. LOL.. that was not an unusual thing for any off roader to do: To help idiots getting stuck because they were overly confident. Thanks for sharing “D
      The Blue Beast moniker came about the day a neighbor’s Fiat dump truck died on a job site and he could not get a tow truck to take it to the shop a couple of miles away. I volunteered and my Landcruiser (veeery slowly) did the job. The neighbor said my “jeep” (all 4x4s were called Jeep in Venezuela) was a beast.

      

2. I’m sorta missing my late 70’s diesel BJ 40 Landcruiser- sold it to a friend, so she’s doing fine- I keep an eye on how she’s treated.
   I do like the 40 series better than the newer 70 series (my work truck). But, after a lot of bumping down bad PNG highways, a new Isuzu Dmax with turbo, soft seats, and good suspension is a lot more appealing.

   1. Getting old sucks, ain’t it?

3. My dad had a land cruiser, later gen but still with the solid live axles. Great little truck. Sad that the Toyotas in the US are such incapable vehicles and the land cruiser is an $80k luxury vehicle.

4. yes, but do you regret the shorts?

   1. I could get away with it back then… 😀

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