Plugs, new jack, "thunk," more gunky dirt

Replaced the plugs this morning. All the old ones were pretty horrible looking. So far I love working on this truck- the shocks the other day took me 45 minutes, and the plugs today took 10. Everything is pretty basic. I guess we'll see how I feel when it comes to the body work.

I returned that heap of Husky jack back to HD and made a return trip to Sears to buy a REAL floor jack:



I could probably hand this one down to my kids someday. You get what you pay for.

The steering wheel wrap has been coming apart and leaving my hands sticky for the past few days. I contemplated cutting it off, and figured there were 2 possibilities. 1: The steering wheel is in bad shape, and that's why the PO put the wrap on to begin with. 2: The wrap went on early in the life of the Landcruiser, and there's a shiny wheel waiting to be revealed.



I got lucky. The wheel looks great. It's hard and skinny, and it will be cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but it's solid. I didn't notice any cracks at all.

I spent a lot of time cleaning and organizing the garage this evening, and then backed the truck in and jacked it up. The jack is one of those quick-lift models that only takes one or two pumps to get it to make contact- pretty cool. Not much going on underneath, besides some age-old oil leaks and a lot of gunky dirt. See photos below.





I'm contemplating replacing the engine and transmission mounts. I can hear a scary "thunk" noise beneath the transmission tunnel/in front of the firewall. It sounds like the engine is torquing the mounts and something is making contact with the body. However, I looked around and the mounts don't look horrible. I'd like to see a new mount for comparison. I couldn't find any evidence of anything hitting the body either. Someone suggested I check the spring bushings. They're not in great shape either, but they aren't disintegrated or wobbly loose. So the "thunk" remains a mystery.