1981 Pickup Rebuild - SR5 Longbed (1 Viewer)

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Ok, I'm not originally a Toyota guy but I like challenges. Neighbor had picked up a project pickup that needed some help.
Original longbed SR5 4WD with 83K on the clock was rolled on black ice so the cab was totaled but the bed and chassis were fine.
He picked up a usable cab with hood, doors, fenders, dash and misc crap to use as a donor for the rebuild.
I'll try not to bore you with the details as we attempt to put this truck back together to be used for hunting and likely some daily use.

Cab had damage which had been repaired once then damaged again.

Floors in these are apparently a weak link so both floor corners needed repaired.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Battery tray area had been damaged before and needed help.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Decided to cover the lower portion of the doors with aluminum diamond plate instead of the awesome SR5 carpet strip. Since the owner is going for a black out look, these would need covered in Raptor liner to hold up. Rivnuts used to secure the panels to the doors.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Since we had it down to the bare cab and pressure washed, it got a good coating of a sound deadening product I had on hand plus a ceramic thermal product mixed in. Did the entire inside of the cab plus the inside of the door on the door skin. Maybe overkill, but we'll never know.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Now to the Raptor liner. Back of cab, bottom of cab and inside "wear" surfaces were sprayed with this stuff. I was impressed with how easy it was to spray on make to look respectable.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

I hate doing body work but better add a couple shots here too.
The back edge of the cab was dented/pushed in more than the stud gun could pull. I had to make a quick tool out of a couple 1/2" bolts and a section of shelby tubing to reach around the inside panel of the cab. Worked awesome after a turn with the borrowed stud gun.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

The owner realized he would be needing seats as the donor truck came with a bench and the complete truck had worn out buckets. Craigslist offered up a pair of tan BMW E60 seats with power/lumbar and heat for $150. Sign us up. Ebay provided the matching pigtails to complete the wiring harness under the seats and also a pair of heater switches. With minimal modification, these will bolt in quite nicely.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Being a hunting truck there were going to be weapons involved. Transport in a small cab? Some thinking commenced, ideas kicked around and shot down. More ideas and finally a merging of minds to come up with an adjustable system in the space provided behind the angled seat back. Again sealed nutserts were used through the back wall to mount the cross bars which the ATV/UTV brackets will attach.
The owner also needed secure storage for smaller items so the lockable console was purchased and base made to hold the CB, USB charge port plus the seat heat switches. Had to have a junk tray which will support a cup holder that mounts to the front of it. The factory cigarette lighter is insufficient for plugging in much that requires much juice so a dedicated port will be mounted to the back of the console out of the way. The speaker "out" port on the CB will be plumbed to the dash speaker since the CB is boxed in.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

Somewhere on here I had read about the connector pins on the ECM coming unsoldered over time. I pulled out my handy microscope and took a look. All but two of the connections had to be dealt with before it went back in the truck.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

The painter has a small paint booth so the cab and some pieces went up and got some color put on them. The bed is off to paint right now and will be coming back tomorrow. Currently updating some electrical circuits before the cab harness goes back in as well as getting some dash items ironed out. Hopefully that assembly will be installed this weekend.

WoodsTruck · Jul 22, 2020

For some reason the heater control valve didn't seem to work. Come to find out the lever on the valve was rather rusty so it didn't work well, the valve was stiff, the cable/wire was corroded heavily and the cable/wire was broken just past the control arm. You can see the broken end on the blue cable while it is sitting in the bath. Both heater controls were broken in exactly the same spot so this may be quite common on these. Go figure, it needs attention too. Since I had access to spare cables from the donor cab, I "borrowed" a longer wire from it and cleaned and lubed everything and cut and bent the wire since replacements are not available. Z bend pliers are kind of fun. I also had to replace the speedo needle as the SR5 was broken off at the hub so I polished the gauge lens while I was there. Soaking hinges, heater controls and other hard to clean items in the ultrasonic cleaner produces a lot of debris.
Oh yeah, tunes. Had to print a spacer for the 4.5" speaker to mount up to the kick panel. It is currently just stuck to the tunnel posing for the photo but will be secured to the kick panel with nutserts again.

msahr · Jul 22, 2020

This will be the nicest "hunting truck" ever. Nice work. Watching!

WoodsTruck · Jul 25, 2020

Got the cab on last weekend and the bed today but got too excited to take a quality picture. Wiring harness is ready to slide back in and the dash is ready to bolt up.

WoodsTruck · Jul 26, 2020

Got hot today so we worked in the shade. Got a lot of the miscellaneous pieces hooked up, firewall is done, wiring harness in, heater/AC mounted, dash finally installed and just a few things left on it and we can move on to seats, doors etc. It would be easier if I could remember where things go, both when installing and where the heck I laid them down.

Manhattan · Jul 27, 2020

I can't put an Ikea bookcase together as fast as you assemble a truck!

I'm really digging watching this all come together. Keep the updates and pics coming!

jakey poo · Jul 28, 2020

That dash!!!!

I'm jealous. I got my '83 in pieces so its like a jigsaw puzzle, but even when finished it won't look half this nice

WoodsTruck · Aug 1, 2020

Minor updates as things were slowed down while paint dried. We tried watching it but that didn't speed it up any.

Actually got to fire up the engine tonight, so hopefully with some good effort tomorrow it will drive under its own power. Maybe I'm dreaming, but the truck sounds like it runs a lot smoother than before so I'm attributing that to the solder work in the ECM. I printed the other kick panel speaker pod. Had them wired up so when the truck fired up we had tunes.

The little clips that retain the grille are hard to find so I'm printing some up. Hoping they work ok.

WoodsTruck · Aug 7, 2020

Making some progress. Mostly wiring which I have a love/hate relationship with. I like it more than body work though. It's always satisfying to bolt parts back on.