Hi guys,
I haven't done much in the way of posting but I've done a lot of reading of the forum and have always blown away by the amount of knowledge on here so I thought it was time to enslist some of your wisdom. 6 months ago I purchased a '78 long bed 45 and after putting only a couple thousand gentle kilometers on it, she done blowed up. Was cruising on the freeway at about 90kph and the poor old 2F developed a bad knock. I nursed it for a short distance to try to get back home but finally just had it towed to avoid ventilating the block. Haven't gotten it apart yet but it sounds like a wrist pin in one of the rear cylinders. No big surprise given it had very low oil pressure but a shame as I was hoping it would last until I was able to do a full restoration of the entire truck.
The plan was to keep it stock and use it for some mild wheeling and camping. I really like the truck and would like to make some long distance trips with it but to do so, it would certainly benefit from a few improvements for driveability. Power from the F and 2F's on my other Cruzrs has always been adequate for my needs but fuel consumption, range, rpm at highway speeds, and crawl ratio could be better for a rig that I'd like to drive a thousand miles for a trip to Moab, etc.
Considered fuel injection, an H55, or an add-on OD, but recently I've begun thinking a diesel transplant might be the way to go. I want to keep it all Toyota so a turbo'ed 3B, 13B-T, 12H-T, etc. and H55 is what I've been thinking. However, since the truck is in decent, original shape, I'm really torn between improving it and getting more use out of it, or an unmolested, back to original rebuild. Restoration vs resto-mod. I would do the transplant to look as factory as possible and the only outward change would be a slight lift and 255/85's.
Pros / Cons of either route? What about the resulting value of the truck? Any historical value for keeping it all original? Recommendations for the power train? Whatever mods are to be done, I want to keep the option of returning it back to original so I plan to avoid any engine/tranny combo that requires a lot hacking.
Any insight and wisdom is greatly appreciated.
I haven't done much in the way of posting but I've done a lot of reading of the forum and have always blown away by the amount of knowledge on here so I thought it was time to enslist some of your wisdom. 6 months ago I purchased a '78 long bed 45 and after putting only a couple thousand gentle kilometers on it, she done blowed up. Was cruising on the freeway at about 90kph and the poor old 2F developed a bad knock. I nursed it for a short distance to try to get back home but finally just had it towed to avoid ventilating the block. Haven't gotten it apart yet but it sounds like a wrist pin in one of the rear cylinders. No big surprise given it had very low oil pressure but a shame as I was hoping it would last until I was able to do a full restoration of the entire truck.
The plan was to keep it stock and use it for some mild wheeling and camping. I really like the truck and would like to make some long distance trips with it but to do so, it would certainly benefit from a few improvements for driveability. Power from the F and 2F's on my other Cruzrs has always been adequate for my needs but fuel consumption, range, rpm at highway speeds, and crawl ratio could be better for a rig that I'd like to drive a thousand miles for a trip to Moab, etc.
Considered fuel injection, an H55, or an add-on OD, but recently I've begun thinking a diesel transplant might be the way to go. I want to keep it all Toyota so a turbo'ed 3B, 13B-T, 12H-T, etc. and H55 is what I've been thinking. However, since the truck is in decent, original shape, I'm really torn between improving it and getting more use out of it, or an unmolested, back to original rebuild. Restoration vs resto-mod. I would do the transplant to look as factory as possible and the only outward change would be a slight lift and 255/85's.
Pros / Cons of either route? What about the resulting value of the truck? Any historical value for keeping it all original? Recommendations for the power train? Whatever mods are to be done, I want to keep the option of returning it back to original so I plan to avoid any engine/tranny combo that requires a lot hacking.
Any insight and wisdom is greatly appreciated.
