Build Field Crust - Reviving a 1982 Pickup

[The Machinist]

More than enough room for 35's now.

This is the reason for adding the short overload to the front springs. Although it would probably ride great like this for a while, I'd probably have to replace these springs in a couple of years with this much strain on them. They would also be way more likely to crack or break if abused. (The short overload will be visible in the next post)

 

[The Machinist]

The next picture shows the short overload I added, its just enough to spread the load out along the longer leaves without increasing the spring rate much.

While I was staring at the truck thinking about what leaves to swap out, I remembered that I had a pair of stock shocks sitting in the corner that came off of the rear of my Tundra with just a few thousand miles on them. (they were horrible on that truck) I did a few quick measurements and they seemed to be in the ballpark for what I would need up front on the '82. The lower eye bushing sleeve needed to be ground down to fit, and the shock tower eye needed to be enlarged ever so slightly. I used a pair of rubber leaf spring bushings that matched the diameter of the shock rod as upper bushings. They are not perfect, but considering that I was going to throw them away otherwise, they actually seem to be working pretty well!

All in all, its quite a bit taller than I was originally planning to go but the truck is still the shortest one in the driveway and has plenty of clearance on the garage door still.

 

[The Machinist]

And just for laughs, here's how bad the rear springs need an extra leaf.

 

[aztoyman]

Many people don't take the time to play with the leaf packs. It's definitely a lot of work but I'n my opinion is the best way to go. It's coming along. Nice work.

 

[MinneYota507]

Where did you order your extendable Torque bar from? most of the ones i've found have been located in Australia.

 

[The Machinist]

Where did you order your extendable Torque bar from? most of the ones i've found have been located in Australia.

I got that on ebay, and it did come out of Australia. I couldn't find one in the US either.

 

[The Machinist]

Life has been busy lately, so not a whole lot of progress on this truck.. but something is better than nothing. Got the rear springs sorted out by adding a left over leaf from my front pack. It rides nice and sits level now, just need to order some longer shocks. I upgraded the headlights with a Koito harness and some new bulbs on a lazy Sunday afternoon; as has been the theme with this truck, a pile of abandoned hornets nests were packed in behind the bezel. Also finally got around to making the brackets to mount the passenger seat.

After messing around with the front driveshaft and seeing for myself how bad the angle is with the lift and a single transfercase, it is clear that dual cases and new driveshafts is the best way forward. (as was previously stated by others in this thread and in person )

 

[The Machinist]

Picked up dual cases and a set of 4.88:1 gears from a buddy while down in California for the holidays. Also started tearing down the front axle last week, always a messy job. The inside of the housing was coated in a pretty thick layer of oil/grease sludge, presumably from sitting for so many years, and the knuckles were caked in mud that needed a hammer and chisel to break apart.

Drivers side top trunnion bearing was loose, rust pitted and full of flat spots and the wheel bearing surfaces on the spindles are a little worn.

Bolted on the new Marlincrawler drag link and 80 series tierod ends after getting everything cleaned up. Always satisfying seeing the clean parts go back together with a fresh coat of paint.

Just waiting on a bearing puller to show up and I'll hopefully be able to get started re-gearing the front diff and getting the ARB installed this weekend.

 

[The Machinist]

Moving at a downright glacial pace on this lately. I unfortunately got sick not long after the last post and didn't work on much for almost two weeks. I got the hubs cleaned up, repainted and reassembled with the upgraded chromoly splines while I was sitting around sick.

Over the last week I tore down the front diff and got it all cleaned up and the housing painted and drilled and tapped for the ARB bulkhead fitting. Started setting up the new gears yesterday. Assembled the ring gear on the ARB and pressed in the carrier bearings; everything was going smoothly until I started on the pinion. Unfortunately I learned the hard way today that there are two different size pinions for the Toyota 8" and the bearings need to be matched correctly to make them work interchangeably. The ring and pinon sets that I have are the later style "long pinion head" version (1986-1995), the ones that are coming out of my truck are the earlier "short pinion head" version (1979-1985). In order to install the later pinion in an early 4-cylinder housing I'll need to get the shorter inner pinion bearings that would be for an 1986-1995 4-cylinder housing and unfortunately the setup kits I ordered a while back came with the same size bearings that were stock in my truck. As a result, my pinion depth with the original size bearing and the later style "long" pinion is over a half inch too deep right now.

Part numbers I'll need to order (both are the same bearing):

KOYO TR070803C-N

NACHI 35KC802

Here are some links with some useful information that helped me figure out what was going on.

ATTN: All, you must read! Toy FAQ

www.pirate4x4.com

Toyota bearing cross reference

toyota differential bearing listing

www.gearinstalls.com

Old and new pinions for comparison. "short" style on the left, "long" style on the right.

An old spindle from my 60 is the perfect size tube to press on pinion bearings

This bearing puller from amazon would have worked great for removing the pinion bearing without damaging it, but unfortunately none of the three cups are small enough to get under the bearing shell. If you are doing an 8", save your money and just get a cheap bearing splitter from harbor freight.

 

[The Machinist]

On a more positive note, some more parts also showed up in January that I am pretty excited to get installed.
A very nice set of dual case shifters from Northwest Fab that should keep keep the floorboard trimming to a minimum (or at least keep all the shifters coming out of the same hole).

Crossmember/skid plate from Budbuilt for the dual cases.

 

[Lucille]

Those triple sticks are super nice.

 

[84 yota dude]

Awesome!

 

[The Machinist]

Those triple sticks are super nice.

I'm really looking forward to using them! I saw them a few years ago and always thought they would be cool to have if I ever had the right project to put them in. Its also always interesting to see someone else's machine work all assembled; I rarely get to see what the parts I make every day actually turn into.

 

[The Machinist]

Two steps forward, one step back. Got the new bearings in last week and got started on those over the weekend. Had to grind the corner of the pinion head slightly for clearance on the ARB carrier, then dropped it in the housing to see how things looked. The original pinion shim from the old gear set seems close enough to run a pattern. Somehow though, I managed to overlook the very obvious engraving on the new pinion that says "29" (spline) and didn't think to compare the old flange so I had to order a pair of new flanges. They showed up today, so hopefully I'll get this differential back together before the end of the decade.

Once I realized that mistake, I spent the rest of Saturday cleaning up the brakes and painting a few miscellaneous parts. I was going to just paint the old calipers and put new pads in but one had a dragging piston that cooked a pad so I decided to just pick up a new set from the parts store. Eventually this truck will get upgraded to vented rotors and V6 calipers, but these should get me through the next year or two. Everything other than the center section should be ready to go back on now.

Rear shocks also showed up. Went with a set of Bilstein 5125's, ~12" travel with the softer of the two valving options. They are just slightly too long right now to get the full up travel I want, so I'll probably inboard the upper mount studs a few inches to gain some of that back. They should work pretty well once that is sorted. P/N: 33-230382

I'm also officially registered for TLCA Rubithon now; nothing like a deadline to get a project finished quickly! Four months left to complete everything and take it out for a few shake down runs.

(Some assembly required)

 

[voorland80]

awesome work and great save of a classic
thanks for the details and great pics!

 

[The Machinist]

Front axle is back together again, although I did have a few minor setbacks with reassembly. The backing plate eliminators I got needed to have a few bends added to clear the early non-vented rotors (I'd imagine they would fit fine with the later brakes). Unfortunately that meant that the short hard brake lines from the caliper to the backing plate needed some "adjustments" to reach. (aka I messed up the original ones trying to bend them ) I had a new OEM set already on hand though and got one of them to reach nicely, the other one I accidentally cracked. A quick run to the parts store for a generic straight piece of brake line with the correct JIS fittings and I had it sorted in no time.

 

[The Machinist]

Had to work through last weekend so I tried to make up time this weekend with knocking out a few easier tasks.

I swapped out the accelerator pump cam for the one off of the original carb to help reduce some hesitation when transitioning from part throttle cruising to full throttle. I noticed the profiles were different at some point while I was messing with something a while back; the original cam is way more aggressive than the one on the replacement carb. I'm assuming its related to emissions stuff for later engines. Seemed to help a little, it might be why I was struggling to get it to tune nicely last year; I'll go through and re-adjust it eventually.
(OEM cam on top, later/Chinese cam at the bottom)

Managed to get a few hours after work last week to get this Auxbeam switch panel and junction box mounted. It has 8 switches on a convenient and compact panel and only needs one wire ran through the firewall to the switch panel. It seemed like the fastest and cleanest way to run all the wiring for the air lockers, compressor, and a few different lights I plan to setup. Disregard the messy wiring, it will all get re-routed and loomed once I have everything installed and I replace my battery cables.
I was able to use one of the mounting brackets that came with it to attach it to one of the factory fender well brackets that used to hold a bunch of VSV's and other emissions related items. Slightly relocated the fuel filter and the HACV to add a little extra clearance. I just had to make a simple tab to connect the included mount bracket to one of the original threaded holes. @mattressking had his zinc plating setup out so I went ahead and plated it instead of painting, pretty happy with how it came out! (its the silver tab to the lower right of the fuse panel in the second picture)

 

[The Machinist]

Got a few packages from Marlin Crawler in this week as well. I now have all of the gaskets, seals, and mounts I'll need to get the dual cases setup. The new rear bumper and sliders also showed up on Saturday.

I wasted no time in getting the rear bumper mocked up, as I suspected I might need to "adjust" the mounting holes some and I didn't want to drag out a simple bumper install over a week of half-hours in the garage after work. I ended up slotting two of the holes and adding an additional pair of holes to get the clearance on the tail lights I wanted. (They do note on their website that this might be needed on first gen trucks) I spent a slightly excessive amount of time deburring and chamfering the bumper with a 2" sanding disk and an air chamfering tool. It was totally unnecessary for a bumper intended to be dragged against rocks, but these are the little details that will make my machinist brain happy to look at 5 years from now.

It's nice to finally get rid of the park bench rear bumper! Paint is currently drying in the garage, will probably mount it for good next weekend. I also put a soft topper shell on my Tundra this weekend to make sleeping in the back an option when I tow the pickup down to Rubicon. (Sleeping in the cab sucks and I'm over it lol)

This picture is midway through adjustments so its not perfectly aligned here

While on my lunch break at work last Sunday, I took a few minutes to re-draw the rear shackles and get them ordered on Send-Cut-Send. These showed up three days later for less than the cost of a generic set of shackles from one of the handful of builder parts websites. I decided to reduce the length from 8" to 7" for these as I feel like the shackle angle is a little too steep after the add-a-leaf.

Sliders mocked up just to get an idea of where they might land. Going to wait to get to those until the transfercase and rear axle are done. (also because I don't have a mig welder at the moment...)

 

[aztoyman]

That was quite the difference in pump cam profiles. It's all looking good.

 

[The Machinist]

Dual cases are rebuilt and almost ready to go in. Just waiting on new output flanges, stake nuts and a missing c-clip for the input gear. Rear bumper is mounted too.
Test fit a 315 (not my tires), things are starting to come together!