My 1983 SR5 Long Bed Build.

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I gave All Pro a call about the problem and was given this simple explanation, "All of our on the shelf units have the same location of the transmission drain hole as your skid plate. We cannot explain why your transmission drain plug is different." Wow I have just been given the best reason not to use any of their products in the future. I do not believe they could not know the location of Marlins MC7 drain plug. When I ordered the cross member, I even asked will it work with Marlins MC7 and they told me yes. I know that I may be making a big deal over a quick fix with a plasma cutter but, I just pisses me off when something as simple as a location of a hole is incorrect. It is like they just did not give a s*** to do their R&D.

I asked one of our welders to cut the oval, simply because he can cut a better looking hole than I can and do it quicker. I guess that I why he is a welder and am a mechanic. I have it hanging under our porch, drying from paint.
Here is a pic

 

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I have done a little more with the cross member. I installed the parking brake disks, cleaned and painted the rear flange and installed most of the hardware. The blue stuff is a cover to keep dirt out of the open shift rails.

I installed the skid plate and now the drain plug is accessible.

I cut the bracket that the front park brake is attached to. I did this so I can move it forward, away from the brake. All Pro recommends replacing it with a cable from a short bed. I see no point in buying another cable when I can move the bracket 4 inches to the front. I will take it to work sand blast it and weld it in this weekend.

I also cut one of the original rear park brake cables and removed the clevis. I then cut it so I could fit the front cable in. I will weld it shut this weekend. This is attached to the new park brake arm.

 

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I finished the park brake and cross member, the park brake works great.
Last night I had a problem with the spring hangers. TG sent me the sloped hangers for the rear and with their 6 inch measurement the hanger sat on the radius of rear of the frame.

I ended up notching the frame just enough to make a flat welding area.

This morning I cut the frame for the other hanger, cleaned all areas that needed to be welded, and welded in all four hangers. I also hung the rear springs.
I am a bit concerned about the shackle angle, but I do not plan on making any changes until I build the flat bed. If anyone has any input on how they should look without any load feel free speak out.

Here is a pic of the first hanger and how hot I burned it in.

Here are the springs.

I used this an Harbor Freight die grinder with a cut off weld to remove the old front hangers and the rears too. It was given to me over 20 years ago and has not died yet but, after this work I think it has just about had it.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Once you get some weight on those springs, they will likely flatten out a good bit. I wouldn't worry about it until you get farther in the project.

Good work thus far!!

 

[dngspot]

I did not get as much done as expected I would with a day off from work.
I welded in the perches and set up the pinion angle. I used a string and square to determine the angle. It was done pretty quickly. They can be seen in this pic

Top view

The shock mounts are a different story. I eye balled the angle and welded in the shock mounts to the axle. They are slightly out of alignment but, not enough to pull them off and re-weld them. I attached them to the stock mounts on the cross member and they looked very compressed when the axle was hanging. I put the axle on stands and placed as much weight I could find on the frame, about 200 lbs. I then used mechanics wire to let the shock out so 5.5 inches was exposed. I marked the cross member and drilled through it with a 1/2 inch bit. I used the same shock to mark the other side too. I went to HD and picked up 1/2" bolts 3 and 5 inch long, two each, I also picked up nylock nuts and 4 washers. The washers 1 inch in diameter. I welded the 5 inch bolts to the cross member. The three inch bolts installed in the axle mounts, they used nyloc nuts. The washers were installed on the 5 inch bolts, one on each side of the shock rubber isolators, then nylock nuts. the bolts are grade 8.
Another mistake I made, I did not clean the zinc from the areas I welded and that does not make for a pretty weld.

In the last pic the spot on the floor under my diff is from a loose drain plug.

You should see most of what is described in the pics.

 

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Most of the suspension has been removed. What is left is the radius bar and drag link. I will remove the steering box and drag link together; the radius bar will come out later when I am finished with the axle. I spent most of the morning removing the stuff.

Here is an old Rancho 3 inch lift.

I will be taking the axle to work tomorrow and pressure wash it. It started leaking oil wile it was parked and is a mess.

The reason that I went with the 4 inch lift, I had the Rancho 3 inch and was using 31 inch tires. I wanted to go with the 33 inch tires and thought with a flexi suspension they might hit. So I ordered the TG 4 inch suspension thinking I would have a max gain of two inches. I leveled the truck on the rear springs with the axle about 12 inches from the floor. The truck frame is now 30 inches from the floor. I am 6' 2" tall and now the truck is taller than I am. I now feel that those 33 inch tires may get lost under the truck, might be a bit small.

 

[Combat Chuck]

would you be interested in selling your old Rancho front springs off?

 

[dngspot]

Not much new to add. I intentionally did not work on the calipers before I took down the front axle. This is because I would have a little time to work on the calipers during the week.
This weekend is the beginning of my vacation; I am taking one week and am going to Colorado for a visit. The wife said if I help with a project at my mother in laws house, I can have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to work on the truck. We will be leaving on Wednesday.
Sunday I took the first caliper apart let it soak in solvent over night. Last night I took the caliper out and honed the bores and emery clothed the pistons. This morning I took them to work, I sandblasted the outside of the housing. To do this I put plastic plugs in the bores and black tape over any orifices I could not put a plug in. I also sand blasted the outside of the pistons. This was done lightly, just enough to remove most of the rust. This afternoon I assembled the caliper with a new kit. I will be painting it black. I also took the second caliper apart and put it in the solvent. If there is any question if I got all of the solvent out of the caliper, I cleaned it with two cans of brake clean and hit every orifice.

It’s a small job but, it is something.

Here the unfinished one is next to the caliper ready to paint.

Not bad for $7.00 and a half hour of work.

 

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I have been tied up like you would not believe. The wife volunteered me to put in a concrete slab for the in-laws. She is afraid they are getting to old and might trip on their way into the back yard. I love my wife, but sometimes she can look at something and think it is easier and less time consuming than it truly is. So there you have it, slab time and no truck time.

Tomorrow she and I are heading to Boulder CO. for a little R&R. I hope to return to work next weekend.


I managed to sneak out in the garage and installed the calipers on the ass end of the truck. I did manage to build one and paint both of them today. I would have attached the brake lines, they are nasty and I will clean and paint them when I get back from Colorado.
In the second pick you will see part of the front diff then in the back you will see the caliper. There are a couple boxes to the right of the dolly, which are my freshly acquired IFS hubs and lockouts. They need to be disassembled and cleaned. They came off of a '87 Toy.

 

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Well I am back early. We arrived in Boulder CO Tuesday night. When we woke up Wednesday, we jumped into the Mazda truck and I placed my foot on the clutch, the pedal went to the floor with no resistance. I checked the fluid in the clutch master reservoir and she was empty. Oh crap came to mind, I felt like I was going to have someone else remove the trans and install a slave cylinder for me at an outrageous price. I did what most mechanics would do, and put fluid in the reservoir and pumped the crap out of the pedal. We planned to go to the Rocky Mountain Forest Park and then to Coors Brewery. Yea, I was not going to give up free beer and a tour of the brewery so off we went. The clutch worked well enough to get to both places but, I did not feel very secure and kept thinking the slave cylinder would totally fail. So we came home early and stopped tempting fate. Oh yea, Coors stopped giving tours on Tuesday and Wednesday after Labor Day. That totally sucked. Tomorrow I will be pulling the trans out of a 2002 B3000 with 62,000miles to change a clutch and slave cylinder. The Toyota never gave me trouble like this.

 

[2ndGenToyotaFan]

That's why I practice driving without the clutch occasionally... Glad you made it ok though.

 

[Combat Chuck]

Glad to hear you're okay, now you've got yourself an incentive to get the Yota back on the road!

That's why I practice driving without the clutch occasionally... Glad you made it ok though.

I'd really like to learn how to do this.

 

[Matt60]

i would have went to Lyons and had some fresh Dales Pale Ale at oskar blues but thats me..

oh and i'm HIghly jealous of your great build keep the updates coming....

 

[dngspot]

Well it was not the Old Toyota; this clutch slave cylinder was a pregnant dog to bleed. I had to use a pry bar and push the throw out bearing back while opening the bleed valve when the pedal was held down. This is the only way I could get all of the air out of the slave cylinder. To add, the reservoir small, I have had shot glasses that held more than it does. All in all, it is done after six hours of work. The Toyota can be done in two hours; I am pretty practiced at it. Let’s face it, from a mechanical view there isn't much out there that is as easy as my Toyota.

 

[dngspot]

I have been one busy guy, but on both of our other vehicles. My wife has a PT Cruiser that we will be unloading next year. It has 33,000 miles on it and so far it has taken a cylinder head, power steering pump, intake manifold gaskets and lower a-arm bushings. Yesterday I spent time removing an air conditioner line that was leaking. I hate to think what that thing is going to be like when it sees 75,000 miles.

As for the Toyota, I had some time this morning to begun disassembly of the front axle. I managed removing the lockouts, hubs, birfields, and knuckles. I have not removed the third member and will do this after I get things cleaned up. I intend to remove unneeded brackets from the axle also. Earlier this week I took the IFS hubs to work, I striped and sandblasted them.
All of the above mentioned stuff is in the back of my truck. I will take it to work and use the wash cabinet to clean them.

The axle.

The parts.

 

[Combat Chuck]

smells like progress! or axle grease... they both smell good

Looking great, it's giving me a few ideas of what I'd like to so The Mule!

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Wow, sorry to hear about the bad luck with your PT cruiser, but it is a Chrysler product. I don't suppose you should expect any less.

Good thing you're going to have this super reliable Toyota to drive around for the 20 years after your PT cruiser is dead!

 

[Combat Chuck]

Wow, sorry to hear about the bad luck with your PT cruiser, but it is a Chrysler product. I don't suppose you should expect any less.

Good thing you're going to have this super reliable Toyota to drive around for the 20 years after your PT cruiser is dead!

Very true statement!
At the Santa Rosa Pick-n-Pull heeps, dodges and chryslers outnumber everything else.
last I was there, there were:

3 Toyotas, 8 Nissans 15-20 Chevys/GMC's 25-35 Fords (I lost count after a while) 40+ Dodges (two whole columns) 25-ish Jeeps, and at least 25 Chryslers, and this was the truck/SUV/Van third of the lot, the rest are cars, and what I saw was mostly American-made.

It's my belief that before buying a vehicle, one should first check out the local wreckers, and get an idea of what's going to find its way there in 200,000 miles.

 

[dngspot]

Yep, it will be our last Dodge/Chrysler product and not only for the problems we have had with the PT, but their product support sucks the big tail pipe too. But that is another story for another forum.

I have cleaned up the parts that I took off of the front axle. Not much to look at but a bunch of clean parts.
I did cut up the brake backing plates. I need their spacing for reassembly. I simply cut the inner ring from the plate with a die grinder and cut off wheel. I then cleaned the cut edge on the lathe.

I also got a package today. It was the 1.5 inch spacers for the rear axle. I had bought a set of 1/4 inch spacers to accommodate the front lugs on the rear axle,. The lug nuts run out of threads on the lugs. I had to use the 1/4 inch spacers with the 1.5 inch spacers because of the lug issue. I plan on running the spacers for 100 miles and re-torque them. I may remove one lug at a time and apply Locktight then re-torque. I did a test fit and took a couple pics.

The wheels are going to be on one heck of a wide stance when this girl is done.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Mmmmm, wide stance.