1980 Beater Build!!

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Based off of all the feedback I recieved (yes that was sarcastic) I chose 4.88s because I think it will put a smidgin less stress on the axles and a bit more on the rest of the drivetrain. If I was sticking to a 22r there is no doubt I would have chosen 5.29s but I think the 4.3 will bridge the gap. A different friend picked up a used/almost new weber for a smoking deal the other day so I got tasked with desmogging his yota as well as installing the weber. I will say it is not a speed rocket but holy crap what a difference!!!!

A friend of mine came over tonight so we rolled the main bearings in my motor. Tomorrow I hope to get the rod bearings in prior to a bachelor party that I am suppose to attend that has something to do with a mechanical bull and boobs..... Something tells me Sunday will be rough.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

The 4.3 is now mated to the tranny with the centerforce pressure plate and disc. The motor has new mains and rod bearings as well as I pulled the stock manifold off and an edelbrock performer is on its way. The stock manifold was a TANK so I dont mind shedding a few pounds up there. I had already found a passenger side tubular exhaust manifold but was having a heck of a time finding a driver side and finally found that they came for sure on 1986 1/2 ton pickups. My mini no nose cone starter showed up a couple days ago and I am getting closer to buttoning this up. I know words suck so I will try and get a few more pics tomorrow:

Passenger side tubular manifold which allows easy modifications for clearance

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I am very happy with the engine placement. Overall it screwed me and my rear modified tacoma cv driveline is about 2" too short now (atleast until I get the doublers in way down the road) but, the distributor will come out without having to remove all of the heater hoses etc. and has room to breath as well as I didnt have to go to the true short water pump making pulleys a pain in the arse to find. I will still have just enough room to run a 3 core factory radiator without cutting my core support. I honestly would never do a v8 in a minitruck unless it was a pavement queen... no offense to those who have I applaud you on making it fit without placing the radiator in the back or that didnt and it actually cools. I have a wicked vertical tanked alluminum radiator but yep it wont fit because in a yota it really needs to be narrow enough to fit between the frame rails....

Here is a pic of the hei distributor location


A pic of the new edelbrock performer intake which I am guessing to be 20lbs lighter....


and I have a local rock crawl comp I am trying to get done in time for (in a couple weeks) that I figured we had better build some skids on the crossmember for the t-case. I completely realize the frame side mounting is my weak link and this was originally only temp for mud and wasn't an issue.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I had given my fj40 3/4 bore slave to my friend when we were trying to get ready for TTC as well as my brake line adapter because we could not find a 3/4 they kept ordering us 13/16 bores (most common). Come to find out my old adapter really wasnt the right one although it worked, the threads bottomed out before the bubble flare seated. I had to lathe down some of the head of the new brake line adapter to make it seat further. I threw some yellow paint on it and you can see where it finally made contact. Also I went to three towns and 7 parts stores trying to find the right one..... Also I had already cut off my 10mm stock brake line end and replaced it with a 1/4


I am haulin the yota to my exhaust guy tomorrow so I had to make a throttle cable bracket for the lokar cable.



I still need a throttle return spring

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I made a quick crossover pipe for the water as the sbc comes out on the passenger side and the yota lower hose is on the right. This is all temp as the stock radiator isnt going to stay in here....


We notched this crossover and plated it back in to clear the iroc electric fan. We had to trim the back of the grille a little to clear the motor of the iroc fan but it worked out well and is mounted solid. I am going to plate the crossover incase it sees a rock but the bumper is welded and serves as a crossover.


I had the exhaust done and finally had a chance to let it run for a while but I could hear a tick in the exhuast and thought I could feel a slight miss. I started by pulling the plug wires one by one and then followed it up with a compression check.... All the cylinders were close except number 3 was 30 to 40 lbs low I squirted a bit of oil in there and luckily no change so I screwed my air fitting in there and lined the motor up so both valves were closed and I could never make the air stop coming out of the exhaust.... So I pulled the head and sprayed some brake cleaner in there and yep even though it looked fine it poured out the number 3 exhaust valve the number 1 seaped and the back was zero seapage. This sounds bad but I am very excited as there is no lip on the cylinder walls and I can see the cross hatch still. These particular motors do not have hardeneed seats and live on propane which between the two they kill valves.... I went ahead and pulled the other head, ported them, and will be taking them in for a valve job (since I couldn't get that one to hand lap) and have them shaved a bit as well.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I dropped the heads off today at the machine shop and it sounds like they do have hardened seats but not the type that is required for propane. He was impressed at how bad the exhuast valves had sank. He is going to tank them, check them for cracks, install hardened exhaust seats, mill them if needed (already appears to be 9.2:1 so thats about where I wanted to be). He is going to do a full vavle job when done. I am going to miss the rock crawl comp this saturday but what do you do........

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

Well... it'll be better for next time!

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Thanks man I hope you're right. I was a bit blind as I always wanted to go this route but I now know why I never did

I matched the exhaust ports the best i could on the tube manifold style. They are welded on the inside not the outside and I sure as heck do not want to go too thin and end up with a leak. I was happy it is really close.


I see interco took the money out of my account when they planned if they had the tires in stock so my 39.5 x 13.5 bias iroks should be here tomorrow or thursday.....

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I came out side today and my 4 year old son aka co pilot had built a rock course out of walnuts in his sand box.....



I had an idea last night that I would swing by the machine shop and tell them if they could have my heads done by Friday instead of Monday (in time for the rock crawl) I would ensure they were given one heck of a shout out by the announcer. We are facilitating it this year so it dawned on me that this was something I could do!!! I walked in there and there were my valves all laid out I could see they were on track and right before I asked he said I have good news and bad... good is the heads checked out fine..... bad is my machines down and I took your heads out to have them machined and that guy is on vacation until monday..... Screw it I wasn't ready anyway.

So I went with 39.5s and even though my front end is forward I still rub with my 38.5s in the corner of the cab. I refuse to go more lift (other than I want 1" more) so here is my next option:


It allowed me to really open the fender up. I just need to plate it back in now.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Oh ya and the protools bender is on its way so that should help with the rest of the tube work.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

We were able to spend a bit of time today on the cab corners. We cut a card board template and then plazzed out the fillers. It took a bit of hand work bending and hammering them into shape but we were very pleased with the results. I sure wish it was easier to weld that thin dirty crap.... Spent most of our time with a chizel trying to scrape under coating.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

well I will soon find out how the golf balls for balancing the tires works. (the exhaust is obviously unhooked and laying there waiting for my heads to get back from the machine shop)

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I went from the 38.5 skinny boggers on 7" 3.5 backspacing wheels to the 13.5 on 8" with 3" backspacing and I have about the exact same clearance between the frame and tire. It is plenty and most would say run it since I have ground the round tire cutter off from the cross member but I believe it limits flex in rare cases and if I am going to run those skis for springs I am at least going to make sure they do their job as well as possible..... I am contemplating inboarding or narrowing the frame since it is boxed anyway I am assuming I can't make it too rigid especially since the tube rear cage is welded to it stiffining it even more. I was hoping to find a forum just basically to see how others have done it but can not find squat. I might not be using the right terminology. Has anyone seen a thread of such??? It looks like I could plaz out the top bottom and outside of the frame in an angle leaving the back of the frame, box out the angles on the front and reinforce the back side with some equal sized box tubing at a greater length than the cut section and be fine.... The only thing I have to contend with is the fuel tank but I might just be able to squeek something. Worse comes to worse I would ditch the stock tank cuz it already irritates me every time I look under there thinking about links. Any thoughts or links to thoughts would be appreciated.

Edit: I should have mentioned I already have 1.5" spacers, I am not interested in running 10" wide wheels, and I know I could do the ifs swap up front and the 86 or newer rear axle with the spacers. I really like my stance as it is and want to keep the benefit of the narrower stance.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

we moved the front axle another inch forward to clear the cab corners tonight. I do not necessarily like where the axle sits on the springs (rear springs flipped) with the extra inch but its a give and take. I will try and snap a decent pic this week. I will say the approach angle is sick now. I think the issue now may be spring wrap. I am sure we can minimize that fairly easily if needed.

 

[coveboy]

Great looking rig! And your son sounds a lot like I was when I was his age... My dad drove an old Grand Wagoneer and loved to take me out in the woods in it. It was lifted with some very aggressive mud tires on it, and straight piped with headers (you could literally hear him coming from over a mile away). I was obsessed with muddin as a kid, and still enjoy it to this day! Great father son time!
I've been itchin for an old beater-mud truck, but paying for college is a little more important... Love the build thread though! Keep us updated, I'm interested to see the final product (if there ever is one haha, unless you're like me always changing something around)

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Great looking rig! And your son sounds a lot like I was when I was his age... My dad drove an old Grand Wagoneer and loved to take me out in the woods in it. It was lifted with some very aggressive mud tires on it, and straight piped with headers (you could literally hear him coming from over a mile away). I was obsessed with muddin as a kid, and still enjoy it to this day! Great father son time!
I've been itchin for an old beater-mud truck, but paying for college is a little more important... Love the build thread though! Keep us updated, I'm interested to see the final product (if there ever is one haha, unless you're like me always changing something around)

Thanks man. My story is very similar only it was my uncle. I couldnt wait to stay the night at his house so I could watch his Jeep club mud run videos! I hope I can pass that onto my son. Unfortunately it is a dieing sport/hobby and will most likely be 100% controlled environment when he turns 16 but oh well like you said it is good family time.

Here is how it sits now. The rear flex is limited by the tires eventually rubbing on frame (not bad), and the front tucks the tires and droops fairly decent. The approach angle is pretty sick.

 

[coveboy]

Daggum looks good to me! And yes, sadly it is dying... Around here you pretty much have to stick to wheeling on private land, and access to such is dwindleing quickly... And how are you liking the 4.3?

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I really dont know yet. I havent played with it enough yet due to hunting season but it didnt seem to weight the front down too bad and it seems to have a pile of power even with the stock gearing. I also have plenty of room to keep it cool in the future and once i slap the 4.88s in there it might not be too bad. But I will say if I had it to do all over again I wouldnt have done it. I would have built another 22r and geared it along with my doublers and been done.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Elk season is finally over so I am starting to look at the yota again.... I ordered a 470 cfm holley truck avenger that is factory refurbished to my door for 270 that is better than the 400 plus shipping for a new one. I have heard a bunch of negative towards them and that the center hung bowl quadrajet is the only way to go but honestly it worked well enough for us to win TTC and I can promise the video will show the angles we put it in. If your wondering I kept my streak alive but barely and shot the smallest bull of my life (a forky). I had my opps one of which was the biggest bull of my life and had passed the forky bull up once in the beginning of season only to take it with only 4 days left.... Oh well I am done thank god. The last few days I have been staring at the yota and I cant take it anymore the radiator is going in the back and that will allow the winch to be mounted inside the engine compartment for a wicked approach angle.

 

[Combat Chuck]

Elk season is finally over so I am starting to look at the yota again.... I ordered a 470 cfm holley truck avenger that is factory refurbished to my door for 270 that is better than the 400 plus shipping for a new one. I have heard a bunch of negative towards them and that the center hung bowl quadrajet is the only way to go but honestly it worked well enough for us to win TTC and I can promise the video will show the angles we put it in. If your wondering I kept my streak alive but barely and shot the smallest bull of my life (a forky). I had my opps one of which was the biggest bull of my life and had passed the forky bull up once in the beginning of season only to take it with only 4 days left.... Oh well I am done thank god. The last few days I have been staring at the yota and I cant take it anymore the radiator is going in the back and that will allow the winch to be mounted inside the engine compartment for a wicked approach angle.

good news to hear!
from what I've read, the Avengers are good carbs overall, and can be "adjusted" to deal with their dislike of inclines. Mace knows more about this.
Also, it seems people either loved their Avengers or hated them, which I take as an indicator of a pretty solid product.