Builds 1980 Toyota Crawler Build/Rescue (1 Viewer)

[yotadude520]

Been meaning to do a writeup on my pickup and never got around to it. Done a lot of work in the past few months so I figured it'd be nice to document it here and will document all of my future work too!

1980 Toyota Pickup 4x4
20R 4cyl - Unknown mileage, truck has 226k
5 speed out of a 1984 Toyota Pickup
Front axle out of a 1984 Toyota Pickup
1996 IFS Rear axle
5.29 gears F&R
Lockrite locker in front, Yukon in back
SOA Lift
33x12.50R15 Cooper Discoverer STT Pros

I bought this truck off of the previous owner in December. I wasn't really looking for a truck but saw it on craigslist and I just had to have it. He was only asking $1500 but I knew it was going to be a project so I went and checked it out, thought about it and bought it! He told me that everyone who messaged him just wanted to part it out, which really bugged me so I promised him that I would get it back on the trails. Steve had owned the truck for 22 years and built it himself. He was ecstatic to hear that I was going to get it back up and going and wasn't going to part it out.

The truck is definitely rough and he told me it hadn't been driving and was sitting for a couple years. Recently he had pulled the gas tank and boiled it since s*** was getting sucked up and going into the carb. When I bought it it didn't run very well and had a pretty bad misfire. It would die once it was warmed up and the choke was off, so he actually towed it back to my house for me.

Here are some pics from the original craigslist ad:

Here she is the first night in my garage:

I knew when I bought it that it had some pretty immediate needs.

First things first, I wanted to see if I could get it to run better. It would start beautifully cold and once the choke died it wouldn't hold an idle. No matter what I did with the idle screw it didn't change. After further inspection, I noticed the plate that the idle screw pushes up against was bent backwards so it wasn't doing anything. I decided to put off bending it back until I rebuilt the carb.

Next were tires, oil change, tune up and replace the wing window.

 

[yotadude520]

A couple weeks went by and I was pretty busy so it just sat in the garage. I bought the carb rebuild kit and had everything I thought I needed to rebuild the carb. Being a young kid born in 1995, I will say that carburetors are not my strong suit at all. I'd had experience toying around with the ones on dirt bikes but I'd never rebuilt one off of a car so I needed some help and figured who better than the guy who sold me the truck!

Steve came over and we went ahead and started rebuilding the carb. Everything went really well, and we chatted and I had a great time. He told me some great stories about good times he had in the truck.

Of course, things were going too well and something was bound to go wrong. The rebuild kit I had bought on eBay did not have a dust shield for the accelerator pump. So after some calling around, I was able to find that the AutoZone not too far away had a rebuild kit with that dust shield. Went down and bought it, put it back together, bent the tab for the idle screw and threw it back on.

She fired right up and ran great! Messed with the tuning a little bit and she held an idle and purred like a kitten. Was super stoked and drove it around the neighborhood and it was running great.

Crossed one thing off of the list!

 

[yotadude520]

After I rebuild the carb I started focusing on the other things the truck needed. One of the biggest was tires, and I was able to score 5 33x12.50 15 Cooper Discoverer's for $275 off of a guy locally. Threw them on the truck and god did it improve the driveability. With the old tires it would wander all over the road.

I also went ahead and replaced that wing window, and for my own curiosity I washed the truck to see if the original paint would shine up a little bit - and it did!

I fixed a couple more small things that it needed. Jerry rigged the hood latch so that it would work, put a new switch in for the headlights (used to have to jump the wires) and cleaned out the inside.

I even decided to enter it into the car show at the 2018 Roadkill ZipTie Drags. Drove it all the way out to the dragway (which was like ~50 miles roundtrip) and went out wheeling for the first time in it. The thing is a beast!!

Overall I was blown away by how reliable the truck was and even more blown away when I took it offroad the first time! This truck was slowly earning a place into my heart.

 

[yotadude520]

The truck sat for a little bit after the ZipTie drags since it wasn't registered and my temporary tag expired. Here in Tucson we have to undergo emissions testing and I knew there was no way that it was going to pass. As I tried to find a way to get it to pass emissions I did drive the truck around the neighborhood and started it up every now and again just to keep it going.

It was still misfiring a little bit and after further inspection I could hear the chain hitting the timing cover. Steve had told me about this when I bought the truck and I had intended on doing it, but since it was sitting and not even able to be driven I figured it was as good a time as any to go ahead and rip into the timing chain.

I took my time, went slow and made sure everything was done right. Couldn't even begin to tell you how bad the old chain was. There were 4 or 5 links sitting in the bottom of the timing chain cover. Spent most of my time just cleaning everything. The timing cover was covered in so much gunk it took me 3 hours and a lot of purple cleaner to get it somewhat back to where it was.

Also replaced the oil pump and water pump while I was in there. The stupid aftermarket pump had an extra hole in it for no reason, so I tapped it and put a plug in it (also covered it in RTV to make sure it didn't leak). Looks tacky, but it hasn't leaked at all!

Dropped the pan and was surprised to see no metal shavings!! Took a wire wheel to it and painted it up all nice. Tried to get the dent out but wasn't able to.

After I put it back together it ran great! The timing was perfect and I also put on new plugs, wires, distributor cap, rotor and a new coil.

Here she was the first day out of the garage:

 

[yotadude520]

In the weeks after the timing chain was replaced I drove the truck more and more. Still in the neighborhood but was driving it every day.

I bought some used off-road lights for the truck and threw them on. Steve used to have lights on there and his wiring harness was still there, so I just tapped into it and wired them all up.

Finally I was able to get it registered and then I started driving it around town. All was going well with the truck. It ran beautifully, was starting up nicely and just overall was really reliable. And then one day it all went.


I drove the truck about a mile down the road from my house to run an errand. On the way back all of a sudden I noticed a huge loss in power. It wouldn't get past 35 mph in 3rd gear. I was able to limp it home and once I did I looked the motor over and found a significant amount of coolant in the oil. The head gasket had blown.


I posted another thread on here discussing what my options were and what I was thinking about doing. I was debating whether I should think of this as an oppurtunity to redo the motor or to build a 20/22R hybrid. I wasn't sure if there was any collateral damage done to the motor since it had overheated. After much thought I decided to go ahead and just replace the head gasket and see what happens. I figured an $11 part and a couple hours working on the truck was worth it to see if I could get it to run again, so I found myself tearing the top of the motor off...again.

Sure enough there was coolant sitting on top of the piston in the cylinder.

Got the motor put back together, changed the oil and filter, replaced the temperature sending unit and it started right up! Took it on a test drive and it did great. Didn't overheat and when I got home I checked the oil and it was all good.

Here's how she's sitting today:

That's pretty much everything I've done to the truck thus far. I have many more plans for it and will definitely be keeping all of you posted on it!

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

Great character on that truck! Keep up the nice work!

 

[yotadude520]

Great character on that truck! Keep up the nice work!

Thanks very much Jerod!! Appreciate the feedback. It's definitely been a fun build and I can't wait to do more on it.

Got plenty of ideas in my head for this little truck.

 

[steffan]

That’s one homely looking truck but I love it! For the money I’d say you got a great little runner. Keep up the posts - thanks fo sharing

 

[muddonkey]

Gotta love Az, that truck would be a pile of Rusty dust after sitting so long here in Ohio

 

[KLF]

Don't paint it! That patina is awesome.

Nice work. Thanks for saving a classic.

 

[yotadude520]

That’s one homely looking truck but I love it! For the money I’d say you got a great little runner. Keep up the posts - thanks fo sharing

Thank you very much! She is a little bit on the uglier side, but for some reason I just love this little truck too. It might even be a daily someday....

Gotta love Az, that truck would be a pile of Rusty dust after sitting so long here in Ohio

Oh sheesh! I didn't know the rust in Ohio was that bad. Is it rotting holes through frames bad? This truck has got some surface rust (as seen on the cab) but nothing too crazy below. A little on the frame too but it could also be decades of dirt!

Actually being born in Tucson I'd never seen how bad rust can be up until about a week ago. I'm also on Wrangler Forum (Since I'm a little on the darkside and have a Jeep) and this guy bought the most rusted heap I'd ever seen. Poor guy got screwed on a cl deal and rust was rotting through the body and all throughout the frame was cracking. Blew me away I'd never seen anything like that before.

Never been so happy to be a desert rat!

Don't paint it! That patina is awesome.

Nice work. Thanks for saving a classic.

Thank you very much KLF! That patina isn't going anywhere and it's definitely not going to get painted. I like to keep my rigs as original as I can. Cosmetically, this truck is going to look as if it was built back in the 80's. It's still got the original radio so I'm going to replace it with an old school deck with a cassette or something rather than cutting up the nice dash.

But as far as drive train, it will definitely be upgraded. One day it's going to have the 22RE and dual transfer cases. Sooner than later it's going to be getting a hi-steer setup with the IFS steering box. I got a lot of s*** from some of my friends saying that I wasted my money on the roll bar lights and I should've just gotten an LED lightbar. But then again, I just like to keep things period correct. It always bugged me a little to see LEDs on an old school rig.

By the way, does anyone here know what options there are for aftermarket radios without cutting a hole in the dash? I'd searched on here before but it's not a topic many people have spoken about.

 

[yotadude520]

By the way here's a little treat for everybody. Steve sent me a picture of the truck from way back when. As he said, this is the truck "before all the carnage happened". Taken back in Sedona in 1997.

Also took the Ol' Gal to the guys down at Alignment, Brake & Suspension here in Tucson. They've done some work for me in the past and do a great job aligning lifted off-road rigs. I'm pretty sure they're going to have their work cut out for them today!

I'll update everybody on how it drives once I get the truck back after work.

 

[KLF]

LOL... If I took a truck like that to get aligned anyplace around here, they would refuse to touch it, wouldn't know what to do with it.

 

[pappy]

LOL... If I took a truck like that to get aligned anyplace around here, they would refuse to touch it, wouldn't know what to do with it.

I've taken my 4Runner in for an alignment before ... and walked out when they told me the price. They said they needed to align all four wheels, they needed to align caster, camber, and toe. I looked at them and asked how they were going to do that on a rear solid axle. I also told them the only thing that can be adjusted is the toe on the front.

Turds. I do it with a tape measure.

 

[yotadude520]

LOL... If I took a truck like that to get aligned anyplace around here, they would refuse to touch it, wouldn't know what to do with it.

Haha really?! That's insane! I can list quite a few shops around here that would have no problem throwing my heap onto their rack! Maybe it's because they're so used to seeing beat to s*** crawlers driving around town haha.

 

[yotadude520]

I've taken my 4Runner in for an alignment before ... and walked out when they told me the price. They said they needed to align all four wheels, they needed to align caster, camber, and toe. I looked at them and asked how they were going to do that on a rear solid axle. I also told them the only thing that can be adjusted is the toe on the front.

Turds. I do it with a tape measure.

What the?? I would've walked out too you can't align a solid rear axle...

I did my alignment on my 94 Pickup and 4 hours of cussing and screaming later I decided it was worth it just to pay the $85 to never have to do that again haha.

 

[ferg]

Check your exhaust manifold, they were prone to cracking from the heat. Still should warrantee-able. They should replace manifold and heat shield(main cause) and associated issues resulting from.

 

[yotadude520]

So I got her back from the alignment shop and it now drives straight! Thank goodness. Sketchiness level is at an all time low!!

Of course they found a couple issues in the front end, some of which I didn't know about it. So it looks like I got a couple little projects ahead of me...

Here's the tech's notes on the front end. I told them to "set the toe and let it go"

I think the next thing I'm going to do is check the wheel bearings in the front. That's kind of a big deal!

Anybody have some good shocks they would recommend? Not sure what shocks are on it now but I'd like to keep it the same height if possible.

 

[yotadude520]

Check your exhaust manifold, they were prone to cracking from the heat. Still should warrantee-able. They should replace manifold and heat shield(main cause) and associated issues resulting from.

Was there a recall on the exhaust manifold? I couldn't find anything about it online.

 

[Meatdawg]

Very cool truck, thanks for the write up. I read your note from the alignment shop about the bushings. I just replaced mine on my 1980 and it made a nice difference. The old rubber ones were completely shot. Enjoy that truck!