Part Souq, an international resource for parts

Whenever possible I try to buy parts for our vehicles locally. For the newer ones this is generally no problem, but automobile dealers seem to be increasingly reluctant to stock parts for any model more than a few years old. And when you begin your conversation with the counter person with, “I have a 1973 . . .” he looks at you like you just stepped out of a time machine. (It would be fun to run with this some time, and as he’s looking futilely at his screen for spark plugs to fit a 46-year-old FJ40, say something like, “So, do you think Nixon will resign?”)

If parts for the 40 flummox the dealer, imagine the situation with a 1993 HZJ75 Troopy that was never even officially imported into the U.S. I don’t even try.

Fortunately there are several specialty Land Cruiser shops around the country that carry at least the commonly needed items for 70-Series Land Cruisers, and a few have surprisingly extensive inventories. In part this is due to the happy fact of a model that has changed very little over its 35-year history. Cruiser Outfitters and cruiserparts.net are good sources.

However, even these enthusiast outlets can’t carry everything. And supposing you’re looking for something really arcane—like say, a Toyota factory floor mat in “sable,” the brown that is our interior color?

Some time ago I was introduced to an online parts source called PartSouq.com—“souq” being the Arab term for a market. (Amazon, I understand, recently bought the English/Arabic-language E-commerce site souq.com; I have no idea if the two are related.) I called up the site, clicked on the Toyota section (the site lists 20 brands and claims 17 million parts in its database). A prompt asked me for the VIN of the Troopy, so I retrieved that, typed it in, hit enter—and was rewarded with a complete catalog of parts for a 1993 Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ75. Engine, transmission, chassis, electrical, body—it was all there, with diagrams. I went to the interior section, hovered over the floor mat part number, 58510B (when you do this, the list on the side scrolls automatically to the correct placement), and clicked on that. It showed four factory floor mats available, three in gray, one in sable. The sable mat was located in  . . . Oman? Yep. “Ships in one day,” it said.

Needless to say, clicking “Buy now” on a $310 item located halfway around the world took a leap of faith. Only the rave reviews I’d read of the site gave me the courage to do so. Shipping was nearly a hundred dollars—hardly unexpected.

What was unexpected was finding the large box containing our new Toyota factory HZJ75 floor mat, in sable, at our commercial mail service four days later. The mat was perfect, and a welcome replacement for the sadly (and hazardously) chewed-up original. 

So if you can buy your parts locally, please do so to support your nearby economy. But if you can’t find it close, and the factory made it, there’s a really good chance it will show up on a PartSouq.com search.

Curiously useful: the offset box wrench

I never owned a set of offset box wrenches until last year. The configuration always seemed like something that could be duplicated by other tools—a standard combination wrench, even a ratchet and socket. It seemed like a solution to a problem that didn’t exist—even though I had noticed them in the tool chests of several professional mechanic friends.

But then I chanced across a beautiful German-made set from Stahlwille (say “stallvilla”) on sale online—and few things can make me reconsider the need for a tool faster than a discount price on German-made version of that tool. Since I had some birthday funds available from my wife, I ordered the set, which comprised eight tools that covered the broad and useful span of 7 to 22 mm. They were as beautiful in person as in the photos. I set them up on a wrench rack in my rolling chest and more or less forgot about them.

But over the past few months, a funny thing has happened. I’ve found more and more situations for which an offset box wrench was the perfect tool, indeed just a bit more convenient or secure than whatever I would have used before. Sometimes it was just nice to have the extra knuckle clearance provided by the offset design.

And twice already I’ve used one in circumstances where no other tool I owned would fit. The latest involved snugging the nylock nuts on the rear engine mounts on the FJ40, which had loosened a bit as the new motor mounts installed when the engine was rebuilt have compressed a tiny bit. The driver’s side bolt head is easily accessed on top of the mount, but the bottom 19mm nut is inside the boxed chassis rail, accessible only through an opening about three inches in diameter. That by itself might not have been a problem, but I have a header on my engine, and the exhaust runs very close to that hole.

I tried a socket and ratchet. No go. Short extension on it? Nope. Just a breaker bar on the socket? Close, but not quite. Standard combination wrench? Uh uh. 

Hmm . . .  I grabbed the 17/19mm offset box wrench, angled it into the hole above the exhaust, and bink. It snapped right on. 

So my who-needs-them? offset box wrenches have become some of my favorite tools. Of course you really don’t need the über German versions—unless you’ve got some birthday cash on hand.

Just in case, Stahlwille is available here.

It's 10:00 AM, and I could use a drink

I’m a big proponent of effective mirrors, and of developing the ability—and trust—to use them. I learned this decades ago while delivering furniture and major appliances for J.C. Penney, driving a 24-foot box truck and, occasionally, a 40-foot semi. You either learned to use and trust your mirrors on those trucks or you wouldn’t make it far without damaging either the truck or something the truck impacted. But I learned that mirrors don’t lie. If a mirror tells you the back bumper of the truck is two inches away from a wall on the passenger side, you can be absolutely sure it’s two inches away. This made maneuvering and backing much easier than it seemed at times to onlookers such as homeowners, whom I could (also) see in my mirrors gesticulating wildly or actually screaming as I backed up near their houses. But I never so much as scratched one (house or owner).

Needless to say, learning to use mirrors effectively is just as useful when piloting a four-wheel-drive vehicle in difficult terrain. If your mirror tells you you’re still two inches away from that tree trunk you need to back around, you can be absolutely sure you’re still two inches away.

However, effective use of mirrors depends on having effective mirrors.

The stock mirrors on my FJ40 were high-quality steel-framed units, but the round configuration was just too small. I dealt with them for years before deciding to try a different approach. My first trial was a set designed to bolt to the windshield hinges—no drilling required. They were very nice mirrors with decent area, but as it turned out the vertical tube of my front roll cage badly obscured the passenger-side mirror. Attempts to swing the arm backward just ran it into the windshield frame. Fail.

The next experiment was a set designed to bolt to the door hinge—again, no drilling required. That solved the roll-cage issue; however, I found the rectangular shape of the new mirror to be barely better than the original round mirror. They were tall enough but not wide enough. Another fail.

Tall enough but not wide enough

The solution had been there all along, and I knew it, but I’d been hoping to avoid that route. Later FJ40s came with generously sized square mirrors, but they employed a different mounting system that involved three holes drilled in the door just behind the top hinge.

Finally I ordered a set of the newer mirrors, along with a retrofit kit, from Cool Cruisers in Texas (noting on my order that no thanks, I did not want a free poster of a scantily-clad chick holding an AK47 posed in front of a Land Cruiser). The kit sat in my garage for a month while I procrastinated and found other tasks to do, like emptying out the junk in the center console, and, oh, wow, the windows really need a good cleaning.

Finally I gritted my teeth and deployed the 7/16ths drill bit called for. I was leery of the plastic compression inserts designed to hold the bolts for the new-style mirrors, but actually they snugged up reassuringly.

The new mirrors are a huge improvement, and worth the angst of applying a drill to my beautiful doors.

My only remaining regret is the slightly—no, decidedly—cheesy appearance of the plastic backing on each mirror. I know exactly how to fix that: All I need are the custom mirrors offered by the FJ Company; the models they install on their $200,000 restorations. They’ll let plebes like me order just the mirrors—for $1,200 per pair.