I’ve previously mentioned that we’re importing a Toyota BJ42 from New Zealand. That’s it in the picture. The ship it’s on is named “Texas”. The ship arrived in the Port of Baltimore today. I’m curious how long it’s going to take for the shipment to clear customs and make its way up to Maine? We’re heading into peak Holiday season so I’m not expecting to see the truck until the week of January 7th.
I’m excited about its arrival and a little apprehensive at the same time. We purchased the vehicle through Ebay based on a seller’s description, a short YouTube video and a series of less-than-ideal photos. I’m expecting it to be a project car but that will be fun. I’ll teach my wife how to do bodywork. I have a new engine on the way for it too. So there’s an engine swap in the cards at a minimum. The engine that’s currently in it has 230k+ miles which is middle-aged for a diesel but I’d still feel better with a fresher engine.
I’m sure we’ll end up customizing the truck quite a bit after we get a chance to make sure that all of it is in working order. I hope to design and fabricate a roof rack similar to the commercially-available one in the picture above. I’ll build it out of 1″ aluminum tubing so it will be much lighter than a steel one.
The BJ42 is about the same size as the older Jeep CJ-5 or CJ-7 series. There’s not a lot of room in the back for dogs and stuff. The back has two fold-up jump seats mounted along the sides instead of the more traditional mounting position of a bench seat. Here’s a picture of the back of ours. You can see there’s some rust and bondo back there. I wonder what other surprises we’ll find.