I broke my own rule again with a 1994 petrol pickup "Iota" (1 Viewer)

[John Young]

I have enough old Land Cruisers. I don't need any more. Really.

But the other day I was sitting with my older boy and chatting with a friend in Abu Dhabi over Whatsapp (he has an 80 he's putting back into service). I've be sharing a lot on my battles with the 93 model 80 here in the garage in Virginia. Anyways we sometimes chat about ads we'd noticed for cruisers and for some reason a string of mid-90s pickups had been going through Emirates Auction. I wasn't shopping. And I saw this lonely old fellow:

487K km (300K miles) on the clock, and that's a lot. But it has the fold-down windshield that I like, and it looked pretty straight from the photos. And perhaps most significantly it had AC, and some extra fittings in the cab under the dash that suggested it was a government truck, hopefully indicating it had regular maintenanc.

The bay engine did not look messed with:

The bed looked pretty good:

And surprisingly it even had Yokohama Geolanders on the split rims. Mostly what you see on these old pickups are really cheap tires, so this was quite unexpected. I'm sure they are out of date and need to be replaced, but someone had some budget with this thing.

I guess I kind of saw a diamond in the rough. The bidding stayed pretty slow until the last few minutes and I had some fun bidding in 100 AED increments (about 30 USD). The way they run these auctions is that if a certain number of bids come in in the last five minutes they extend the auction for another 30-40 minutes. Very annoying as a bidder, but probably they get a bit more money that way. The auction got extended and I put in my final bid and either the other bidders got bored or went to dinner or something, or I overbid, but I ended up being the high bidder. (I don't want to publish here what the price was, because I might end up selling this truck at some point, but if you are really curious, PM me.)

I like the look of this one. The telling will be when my mechanics get their hands on it and start going over it.

 

[John Young]

In case you were wondering about the name in the subject line...

I think I might actually black out the 'Y' and 'O' completely.

 

[2fpower]

Looks pretty clean.... hopefully the mechanic has a good report.

 

[Honger]

I'd missed this one... and updates?

 

[John Young]

I just asked Jobin to give me his thoughts. His last comment was:

"DEWA pick up is not good.but we can make it perfect.we started painting here in dip." ​

'DEWA' meaning Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and 'dip' meaning Dubai Investment Park 2 where the garage is located. The truck was down in Abu Dhabi so I was thinking it was ex-police, but maybe he's seen something in the glove box which suggests DEWA. Certainly an ex-government truck of some kind.

I'm thinking about asking them to do a frame-off restoration. Then to replace the bed with an Australian-style aluminum flat back with the fold down sides. I saw one once in a scrap yard but it was sold already. There are plenty of new beds for 79 series pickups; what I don't know is if they will fit on a 75 series without extensive modification.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I just asked Jobin to give me his thoughts. His last comment was:

"DEWA pick up is not good.but we can make it perfect.we started painting here in dip." ​

'DEWA' meaning Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and 'dip' meaning Dubai Investment Park 2 where the garage is located. The truck was down in Abu Dhabi so I was thinking it was ex-police, but maybe he's seen something in the glove box which suggests DEWA. Certainly an ex-government truck of some kind.

I'm thinking about asking them to do a frame-off restoration. Then to replace the bed with an Australian-style aluminum flat back with the fold down sides. I saw one once in a scrap yard but it was sold already. There are plenty of new beds for 79 series pickups; what I don't know is if they will fit on a 75 series without extensive modification.

There are several threads on here where a 79 bed has been modified to fit a 75 frame. No expert but IIRC you have to shorten it by a few inches and then deal with modifying some or maybe all of the mounts.

 

[coldtaco]

I just asked Jobin to give me his thoughts. His last comment was:

"DEWA pick up is not good.but we can make it perfect.we started painting here in dip." ​

'DEWA' meaning Dubai Electricity and Water Authority and 'dip' meaning Dubai Investment Park 2 where the garage is located. The truck was down in Abu Dhabi so I was thinking it was ex-police, but maybe he's seen something in the glove box which suggests DEWA. Certainly an ex-government truck of some kind.

I'm thinking about asking them to do a frame-off restoration. Then to replace the bed with an Australian-style aluminum flat back with the fold down sides. I saw one once in a scrap yard but it was sold already. There are plenty of new beds for 79 series pickups; what I don't know is if they will fit on a 75 series without extensive modification.

As WarDamnEagle has said, has been done and documented on here a number of times. I did this on my 85 75 ute. If you are interested you can look through my build thread. All mounts line up since the 4" longer is in the front of the bed, so the 4" would have to be removed after the front wall but in front of the front body mounts. Of course there are different ways of doing this.

 

[John Young]

The existing bed is not terrible.... Maybe I will just let them do some body work on the existing bed if I cannot find a aluminum tray.... Thanks for the feedback!

 

[Gun Runner 5]

Unless the bed has issues that are evident in the photo, why not clean it up and spray a bed liner type material?

 

[janyyc]

Some pics of Iota from my early-December trip to Dubai.

A bit dusty

Strangely, a bit of rust here:

A bit banged up, but it has the spare tire mount @WarDamnEagle

 

[John Young]

My younger boy reminded me that I have not posted much about 'Iota'. The guys had moved the truck into the warehouse space after sitting out since last September.

So at least the old fellow is out of the weather. I've started poking at it a bit. When I opened the hood I found the carb was missing. At first I was not sure if it had a carburetor when I bought it at auction, but it turned out that lacking any specific instructions the guys had gotten started on it. The carb is back in the truck now.

No we don't have power in the warehouse unit yet. This light is from a pair of fantastic Braun work lights.

Jobin (the owner) and Arjun (his foreman) told me that the were checking it over and found that the gas was bright red. The've drained the tank and now have rebuilt, at least partially, the carb, and they are getting ready to turn it over and see what we have. But this is a 1FZ that had been in government service an likely had received at least some maintenance so I'm hopful this will go well.

I've started thinking about what I want to do with this truck, changes wise. The tailgate is a mess with lots of filler. It needs to be replaced entirely. I've always liked the AUS drop-side trays and I'm mulling over swapping the bed out on this old pickup. During my trip to Sharjah last weekend I saw a couple of possible candidates.

You can see it peaking out behind there in the back. This is a steel tray, not aluminum. But it also seems to be old enough that it might be a direct swap in without having to worry about the frame rail spacing.

Then there is this fellow here. Aluminum. I spoke to the owner of the yard and he says he pulled it off a 2010 truck. I'm going to have to educate myself more on this. Both steel vs aluminum and the frame rail spacing. I expect to go back up to Sharjah on Saturday for a closer look. I've also got a list of other stuff I'm searching for including a new aircon / heater box for the troopy which was stripped out and used to get Golden Boy going and comfortable for the US weather conditions before we shipped it over.

 

[yourID10Tdriver]

Funny, this old government service truck may just be put back into service once again! Once mechanics breathe some new life into it, it shall continue to soldier onwards.

 

[John Young]

Reminded me of the old Bolo Mark XXXIII

 

[coldtaco]

Just in case you aren’t aware of this, remember that the 79 bed is 4” longer than the 75 bed, this extra length is in front of the front body mounts.

 

[John Young]

Just in case you aren’t aware of this, remember that the 79 bed is 4” longer than the 75 bed, this extra length is in front of the front body mounts.

HI CT, all I knew was that the frames were different and the rear axel is in a different location. I did not know about the length. I'm going to study up (here) on all this.

 

[coldtaco]

HI CT, all I knew was that the frames were different and the rear axel is in a different location. I did not know about the length. I'm going to study up (here) on all this.

I believe the added length in the frame was done between the rear cab mount and the front bed mount, I not sure on the exact extra length but I know the bed is 4” longer on the 79 and the cab I believe is also 4” longer, so if you add the empty space between the bed and cab total extra length should be around 9”-10”.

 

[John Young]

Well I've been doing some reading and some searching and have found a few useful things. Here is the dimensional drawing for the back half of a FJ75 pickup frame (out of a manual published in 1994 and covering up to 1990):

Here is a dimensional drawing of a 79 pickup frame:

So at least two critical dimensions are identical. The box mount points are 1170cm (the width) apart and the distance front and back are 1904cm (length) from each other. This suggests to me that if I get a tray back for a 79 it should be at least dimensionally compatible with the 75. Yes, the rear diff is in a different location but for a tray back that should be something I can deal with.

 

[coldtaco]

That’s a nice find. I don’t know on what you are basing your find about the rear axle is in a different location? Yes it would be as the wheel base is longer on the 79, but it is still in the same location referencing the bed. As you probably already know I put a 79 bed on my 75, everything lined up even the axle location, the only thing I, and others, had to do was remove 4” from the front of the bed. Maybe I am not understanding what you are talking about referencing axle location

 

[John Young]

I, and others, had to do was remove 4” from the front of the bed. Maybe I am not understanding what you are talking about referencing axle location

CT, I'm confident you know much, much more than I do about this whole thing. Still very much in learning mode. I'm kinda inclined to go the tray route and I was primarily concerned with the width between frame rails. I'd think it should be possible to move mount points on the aftermarket (salvage yard) tray bed. Or maybe they engineered it to accommodate both. I had the intention of driving up to Sharjah this evening but I had a big night last night and the traffic to Sharjah is murderous on Thursday afternoon just before the weekend. Plus they have been cloud seeding and there are reports of hail, believe it or not. So I will get up earl on Saturday and go up and try to have a real good look at both tray candidates, presupposing they both still are there! Thanks again for the reply and observations!

 

[coldtaco]

CT, I'm confident you know much, much more than I do about this whole thing. Still very much in learning mode. I'm kinda inclined to go the tray route and I was primarily concerned with the width between frame rails. I'd think it should be possible to move mount points on the aftermarket (salvage yard) tray bed. Or maybe they engineered it to accommodate both. I had the intention of driving up to Sharjah this evening but I had a big night last night and the traffic to Sharjah is murderous on Thursday afternoon just before the weekend. Plus they have been cloud seeding and there are reports of hail, believe it or not. So I will get up earl on Saturday and go up and try to have a real good look at both tray candidates, presupposing they both still are there! Thanks again for the reply and observations!

My humble opinion is that either will bolt on, just if one is made for a 79 they will be 4” too long, in the front. Have fun there.