Builds My mini-truck buildup thread...'86, 38's, FJ80 front axle, etc...
- Thread starter Arya Ebrahimi
- Start date
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- Thread starter
- #142
Wildman, I did a complete flush on the entire system. Had the radiator dipped and the guy said it was pretty clean to begin with. I replaced the water pump and all the radiator hoses. The thermostat was replaced with a new unit from Toyota to the tune of $35
Everything in the system should be in perfect shape, but the gauge still creeps up into the red when under load(climbing a steep grade on the road, etc). Only thing left to check/replace is the fan clutch.Kavik said:
That pitman arm is from Trail Gear. Sky and Marlin Crawler also offer flat pitman arms I believe.
Ary
That sounds like a fan clutch issue. My 80 is doing the same thing 
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2004
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- 533
- Location
- 86 miles from Elwood, Texas
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- www.toyotatrailriders.com
Ignition Timing? Cam Timing? Rich/lean? Just some other ideas...
- Thread starter
- #146
Could be, but I would think the timing would have to be way out to cause these problems, and it's pretty damn close. I'll check it again and see what it looks like.
Ary
that may explain why it's leaking!! My roomy ordered some steering components from trail gear for his tacoma and they were junk.
- Thread starter
- #148
Ha, I've actually been pleased with the quality and customer service of everything I've ordered from Trail Gear, it's the ethics that turns me off from them.
BTW the box was leaking before I installed that pitman arm.
In other news, I got up to work on the truck this past weekend, and my welder crapped out on me 4 hours into the 3 day weekend
I did manage to figure out that the cooling system is functioning just fine, and it's the gauge cluster that's F-ed. I borrowed a VDO temp gauge from my uncle(was sitting in his spare parts bin) and just fished the sensor into the radiator neck through the upper rad hose. When the stock gauge was reading full red the VDO gauge was only hitting 160*. It settled around 180-185* driving around and climbing hills. It did spike up to about 210 at one point, but I know why it did that and I'm not concerned(water was leaking out around where I fished the sensor wire in, and I think an air bubble hit the sensor).
I also made a small bit of progress on the rear tube work, but not enough to even take pics of.
I will be up there again next weekend to hopefully finish the bulk of the fab work and then :crossingfingers: bring it back to school on Sunday.
Ary
- Thread starter
- #149
I got a new liner for the welder and now we're back in business.
Added a little bit of tube to the rear of the flat bed to add some strength and a little bit of style. I plan to do a roll pan of sorts maybe with some dimple's thrown in for good measure, and then recess the license plate into it. I'm hoping/planning to put the gas filler behind the license plate and make the license plate flip down to access the gas filler.
I also added a hitch reciever and braced it off to the sides. Don't really plan to tow anything with this, but it will be used as a recovery point.
In the mean time, here are some pics.
Added a little bit of tube to the rear of the flat bed to add some strength and a little bit of style. I plan to do a roll pan of sorts maybe with some dimple's thrown in for good measure, and then recess the license plate into it. I'm hoping/planning to put the gas filler behind the license plate and make the license plate flip down to access the gas filler.
I also added a hitch reciever and braced it off to the sides. Don't really plan to tow anything with this, but it will be used as a recovery point.
In the mean time, here are some pics.
- Thread starter
- #150
Couple more
tooo cool
cool truck man!! nice work on the frame , pipes , axles and stuff..
but dude! the sheetmetal-work in the floor does not match your other work;p... why didn't you cut out ALL the rust, instead of cutting and welding right through it?
but dude! the sheetmetal-work in the floor does not match your other work;p... why didn't you cut out ALL the rust, instead of cutting and welding right through it?
- Thread starter
- #153
cool truck man!! nice work on the frame , pipes , axles and stuff..
but dude! the sheetmetal-work in the floor does not match your other work;p... why didn't you cut out ALL the rust, instead of cutting and welding right through it?
I did cut out all the rust
Bending tube from scratch is easy, cutting/fitting sheetmetal to fit a hole in the floor that is a pretty complex shape is not so easy. Once I paint/herculine the interior it will be a lot less noticeable I think.
I did cut out all the rust
Bending tube from scratch is easy, cutting/fitting sheetmetal to fit a hole in the floor that is a pretty complex shape is not so easy. Once I paint/herculine the interior it will be a lot less noticeable I think.
Ok... sorry... no hard feelings...
in the picture it looks like there is a big patch of very rusty metal between the bodymount-hole and the piece you replaced :whoops:
Hi... it's me again
I was wondering, will you truck be legal to drive on the road?
I mean will cops stop you and demand to see papers on all the modifications and stuff?
Do you have to show it to the DMV ?(or what ever you call it)
Over here we are basically not allowed to modifye our cars and trucks very much without using approved parts with "papers"
Are you free to do whatever you want to? if so... good for you. (maybe not so good for road-safety)
I was wondering, will you truck be legal to drive on the road?
I mean will cops stop you and demand to see papers on all the modifications and stuff?
Do you have to show it to the DMV ?(or what ever you call it)
Over here we are basically not allowed to modifye our cars and trucks very much without using approved parts with "papers"
Are you free to do whatever you want to? if so... good for you. (maybe not so good for road-safety)
- Thread starter
- #156
Ok... sorry... no hard feelings...
Oh, I see what you're talking about. I think that's just the camera/lighting.
As for driving it on the road, I will have to wait and see. There are no official approvals necessary, but there are laws that must be abided by. Technically anything more than minor suspension modifications are illegal, but the laws are not enforced that way. The two major laws enforced are frame height and tire coverage. IIRC the frame can be no more than 30" off the ground in the front and 31" in the rear. Also your tires cannot extend past the fenders more than 4". There are exceptions/ways around these laws, which I am hoping to employ to my advantage.
With all that said, I don't really intend to drive it very much on the road. Maybe to the corner store every once in a while. I do plan to drive it to local trails though, so it will definitely have to stay streetable for now.
Ary
well... good luck on that.... i think i looks really cool.... i bet it will be fun to go wheeling with....
.. i think i looks really cool.... i bet it will be fun to go wheeling with....
Blue77FJ40
SILVER Star
Verrrry nice design to the bed base. Quite inventive. Look forward to how you finish the bed off.
high steer set-up
4x4 Labs has a pretty nice high steer set-up for the 80 axles!
4x4 Labs has a pretty nice high steer set-up for the 80 axles!
Ok, so I've been getting some requests to put a thread up on here about my mini-truck buildup. I thought I had started one, but apparently I didn't.
Basically my goal with this truck was to have a fairly economical "trail truck" that I could thrash without worrying about it. I wanted a truck that I could roll over and not care. I also wanted a truck that I could toss the keys to a buddy, let them tear it up, and really not give a ****. So, enter the $700 '86 Toyota Pickup. It's an '86 EFI/IFS 22RE powered Xtra cab w/ the auto tranny.
This is what I started with:
A buddy of mine had a set of 38x12.50 Bias TSLs that he wanted out from under his deck, so $400 later I had a set of tires and a call to summit later I had wheels. I removed the bed, and put the tires on(after we mounted them by hand. That was a BLAST) and this is what it looked like:
That was about all the progress I made for about 4 months. Late this summer I hauled the truck from my apartment parking lot at school to my garage in WV. Once there I decided to undertake the task of reparing the rust damage on the rear frame. After a bit of discussion and a few beers it was decided that the best method for repairing this damage was to cut the back half of the frame off.
So we did
Next we fabbed up a set of new frame rails out of 2x4x.188 rectangular tubing. We mitred and bent them into shape(cut 3 sides of the tube, leaving the 4th intact). Once we had tacked them up and made sure they would fit and work to my liking, we pulled them back out and gussetted them.
Then we put them in and started mocking up the rear suspension:
That's as far as I've gotten with the rear frame. I still need to weld the new pieces into the old frame and add a rear crossmember before I set the truck on its own weight.
I had 2 friends helping me out and it really only takes 1.5 people to do the work shown, so while I was fabbing and stuff my buddies gutted the interior and did a tune-up on the 22re. We discovered a bit of floor rot in the driver's side footwell, but it's not bad, and is definately fixable. Here's the interior post-gutting:
That was done in preparation for a full interior cage and then a pair of these:
The seats will be tied into the cage as will a set of 4-point harnesses.
Lastly, I picked up an FJ80 front axle from a guy in AZ. Gonna do the SAS in the coming weeks hopefully. Plans include at least hydro assist, more likely full-hydro due to the lack of hy-steer arms for the 80 axle and the difficulty of getting a draglink to the passenger's side knuckle through the leaf springs. Regardless of assist or full, a double-ended cylinder will be used and will most likely be located behind the axle(stock tie-rod location for the 80).
Oh, and the axle came with these in it:
Those are 4340 Chromo Longfields and Polyperformance inners.
That's as far as I've gotten to date. The truck has 4.88s in the rear w/ a welded carrier. The front axle came w/ 4.10s welded which will be swapped for 4.88s welded. So far I've got about $4000 in the truck with about $2k to go to get it completely setup the way I want functionally, but without any bling accessories.
Future plans include either a tranny swap from an XJ w/ a twin-sticked D300(can you say front digs? I thought you could), OR a small block/SM465/D300 swap. That's still up in the air. Depends on if I can live w/ the 4cylinder(I tend to like the pedal on the right ;p ).
Anyway, I'm sure I've forgotten stuff, so feel free to question/comment.
Thanks for looking.
Ary
- Thread starter
- #160
Just about finished w/ the bed. Just gotta paint it now.
