Sweet 16 Project: Pickup body meets 60 chassis.

[PeeZed]

Well folks, after a few years away from this pit of keyboard warrioring, picture posting, opinion giving and receiving, I’ve come full circle and have somehow convinced my 16yr old son to try and take a 1991 Yota Ext Cab body and slap it onto a 60 Series chassis (frame, engine, tranny…you know, everything but the body).

This will be become the place where the project progress can be seen and remembered, and we can look back and laugh at ourselves one day. But for now, we’re too smrt for our own good and we’re committed to this Frankenstein project to work, one way or another.

To date we have placed the body onto the frame to see just how bad things line up. Honestly, it’s pretty bad.

To start we’ll need to build a sub-structure under the body so we can land the body mounts somewhere…then we will cut and add about 12” of front fender and hood to make the 3B and essentials fit in the (soon to be larger) engine bay.

Are we crazy? Maybe don’t answer that…

Are we committed? Seems so.


Oh, the BJ60 is a 1985 that had the frame replaced with an FJ62 US frame around 14yrs ago. Once our schedules line up again, the PO is going to get me the folder of receipts for which the PPO had kept over a few decades of ownership.

The only slightly questionable part of the frame is some delamination at that rear inner c-channel where the rear spring perch is riveted to. I’ve replaced one of those before so if we feel it’s actually worth it then we’ll do that. Other than that we’ll clean up the frame and make it as rust resistant as our Western rainforest climate will allow.

There is potential for the 3B to get a rebuild and a turbo, but we’ll see how the kids savings account grows over the next few months.

Plan is to build a custom rear overlanding canopy/Ute for storage with an RTT on top.

Anyways, welcome to the s***show of delight that will hopefully become an overlanding rig for this kid to go out and explore and enjoy VI backcountry with his friends over the next many years.

Cheers!

 

[Toshi38]

Seems like an awesome project!!

 

[seapotato]

Cool. That should be fun.

@Rigpig knows something about the first half of that project...

 

[GTSSportCoupe]

Right on PeeZed! Looking forward to this!

 

[bikersmurf]

If I had a do over, I'd buy the rust free 60 frame I bought the rear spring packs off of back in '92... and drop my 40 on top of it. Instead of the extremely clean 40 frame that I used for its frame swap in '92ish. Unfortunately (or fortunately) that's not how things work. I sure would like to have an extra foot or so. I am still contemplating stretching the body when I rebuild the rear 1/4s. But I'm not sure the benefits, of the extra space, are worth all the time, and effort that would be required to stretch 40 into a 43.

Is that the final positing of the Toyota cab? It looks very far back. Does the engine position dictate it be there? Could it be moved 8" os so forward?

 

[cruisedeisel]

Interesting. Though I would have made a 60 cab into a 2 door or even 4 door pickup. A popular modification in central America.

 

[seapotato]

Interesting. Though I would have made a 60 cab into a 2 door or even 4 door pickup. A popular modification in central America.

Or if he really wanted to make things difficult...

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

 

[bikersmurf]

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

Or a 4Runner frame could make things easier.

 

[cruisedeisel]

100% ^^^^

 

[bikersmurf]

100% ^^^^

Not wanting to ruin a perfectly good plan, but I do want to see it happen, and sometimes ambitious plans get scrapped, stalled, or put on the back burner... indefinitely.

I know every square inch of a 73-78ish 40 series frames. Not even remotely the same knowledge of Pickup, 4Runner, and 60 series frames.

In my mind it seems easier to swap drivetrain than mount bodywork onto a frame that's completely different than the original.

 

[cruisedeisel]

I'll make the pop corn and judge the s*** out of your work. Hahahaha!

 

[PeeZed]

To answer a few questions…

1. Body positioning.
Yes, would like at least an inch behind the valve cover before the firewall and am not interested in my engine being inside my dash, so the cab positioning is as far forward as it can be to satisfy those limits.

2. Different body on frame…
The only really bad rust on the body are the very bottom rockers, so we’re cutting this off. The plan, because we also need to land some body mounted, is to cut the rockers off as well as that nice little pinch point connection behind the rockers where they stop on the original body (often the place people jack from and they squish. We will be adding 2x8 rectangle from the outer rocker (fixes that problem right quick) and back beyond where that pinch connection “was.” This will allow us to land body mounts anywhere we want and can design the mounts to come off the frame and onto those 2x8’s easily (I hope…beyond hope do I ever hope!).

3. Keeping the ext cab instead of a single cab.
Having that little extra space, whether for taller people or for throwing a backpack and a few groceries when there’s two passengers. Keeping the ext cab will require us to do some surgery at the rear of the cab to make built in fenders essentially. That will be fun. But that’s the plan.

4. Front fenders and hood.
We’ve acquired used front fenders and a 2nd hood which we plan to chop and add into the existing fenders and hood to make thing longer. Doing so will create the space for wheels to line up, the radiator to have a home, and extra room for intercooler, batteries, and maybe onboard air under there.

My middle son has a 4Runner with some busy dents and rust. We’ve got a full set of used doors, hood, fenders, and hatch, so our plan is to do the little bit of rust repairs and then repaint the entire truck and sell it. Getting that project completed will both help us dial in our paint setup and empty the garage of the numerous body panels that are taking up room.

After that we will hit this project with some serious commitment.

 

[too tall]

To start we’ll need to build a sub-structure under the body so we can land the body mounts somewhere…then we will cut and add about 12” of front fender and hood to make the 3B and essentials fit in the (soon to be larger) engine bay.

Are we crazy? Maybe don’t answer that…

Why would you use a mini truck/4runner body if you are going to modify it to the point of not looking anything like a mini truck or 4runner? Adding 12" to the hood and fenders to accommodate the engine will be challenging to make it look like anything that doesn't deserve the scrap pile. Why not just build a 60 series? That's a lot of work for such a weird idea. I know where there are a couple of 3rd gen mini truck frames that are probably in better shape than the 60 frame you have. Much easier to put the 60 drivetrain into that then what you are planning. Sorry to doubt your idea but sometimes re-consideration of an original idea is hard based on certain subjectivities. I would take another more objective look at the plan.

 

[PeeZed]

Why would you use a mini truck/4runner body if you are going to modify it to the point of not looking anything like a mini truck or 4runner? Adding 12" to the hood and fenders to accommodate the engine will be challenging to make it look like anything that doesn't deserve the scrap pile. Why not just build a 60 series? That's a lot of work for such a weird idea. I know where there are a couple of 3rd gen mini truck frames that are probably in better shape than the 60 frame you have. Much easier to put the 60 drivetrain into that then what you are planning. Sorry to doubt your idea but sometimes re-consideration of an original idea is hard based on certain subjectivities. I would take another more objective look at the plan.

Fair questions.

Unless you know where there are absolutely mint condition frames then they aren’t any better than what we already have. This is a US frame from a 62 and it’s really nice.

As for building something custom that deserves the scrap pile, I suppose if that’s your subjective opinion I’ll let you own that. I do agree that with the modifications it won’t look like a stock Yota pickup body anymore…fair enough. And honestly, we are building something that we hope will be capable as an overlander rig and not a parking lot princess, so call it Shrek if that what suits your preferences.

Now, being naive as I am about taking things off one thing and attaching them to a different thing, for me I feel the value of a 60series chassis and drivetrain is a pretty capable piece of engineering, so in my mind why would I try and make the engine and tranny and suspension and drivetrain all customized into (I’m assuming) a very different frame, when I’ve got a perfectly good roller already assembled in my driveway.

Adding bodywork to me seems like the easy part. We need more engine bay and tire space, which we should be able to do with the materials we have in house. Will it look different? Totally. Do I care…nope.

To me, keeping the low part of the truck as stock as possible also means it’s the safest way to keep things where Toyota designed them to be. Moving a cab around and adding some thin metal here and there isn’t going to ruin the way it drives like a 60series driving down the road because I’ve not screwed around with any of the angles or anything.

That’s how my brain processed the reasons why we’re going this direction. It’s about function (and safety) over form.

Oh, and the reason we’re not building a 60 series is because (1) we don’t have one, (2) it’s not a pickup cab, (3) I spent 1000hrs doing that once already and no thank you, and (4) my kid wants a utilitarian camping setup on the back that we can custom make to suite his needs (yes, I know I could do what another member did and cut their 60 rear end off and make it into a shorter cab, but then it would look like a 60series with a small penis instead of a pickup with a long one ) …not that I care what it looks like

 

[bikersmurf]

Fair questions.

Unless you know where there are absolutely mint condition frames then they aren’t any better than what we already have. This is a US frame from a 62 and it’s really nice.

As for building something custom that deserves the scrap pile, I suppose if that’s your subjective opinion I’ll let you own that. I do agree that with the modifications it won’t look like a stock Yota pickup body anymore…fair enough. And honestly, we are building something that we hope will be capable as an overlander rig and not a parking lot princess, so call it Shrek if that what suits your preferences.

Now, being naive as I am about taking things off one thing and attaching them to a different thing, for me I feel the value of a 60series chassis and drivetrain is a pretty capable piece of engineering, so in my mind why would I try and make the engine and tranny and suspension and drivetrain all customized into (I’m assuming) a very different frame, when I’ve got a perfectly good roller already assembled in my driveway.

Adding bodywork to me seems like the easy part. We need more engine bay and tire space, which we should be able to do with the materials we have in house. Will it look different? Totally. Do I care…nope.

To me, keeping the low part of the truck as stock as possible also means it’s the safest way to keep things where Toyota designed them to be. Moving a cab around and adding some thin metal here and there isn’t going to ruin the way it drives like a 60series driving down the road because I’ve not screwed around with any of the angles or anything.

That’s how my brain processed the reasons why we’re going this direction. It’s about function (and safety) over form.

Oh, and the reason we’re not building a 60 series is because (1) we don’t have one, (2) it’s not a pickup cab, (3) I spent 1000hrs doing that once already and no thank you, and (4) my kid wants a utilitarian camping setup on the back that we can custom make to suite his needs (yes, I know I could do what another member did and cut their 60 rear end off and make it into a shorter cab, but then it would look like a 60series with a small penis instead of a pickup with a long one ) …not that I care what it looks like

Well I’ll not stand in your way. I personally hate bodywork and enjoy fabricating, so I’d rather build mounts than a hood and fenders. That said, I completely get already having the 60 frame and keeping it stock (even if it doesn’t look like it is).
That said, I’ve thought many times that if I could go back in time I’d buy the mint 60 frame I bought parts off of and build my 40 on it rather than just buying and building my 40 on another 40 frame. So I get where you’re coming from.

 

[PeeZed]

Well I’ll not stand in your way. I personally hate bodywork and enjoy fabricating, so I’d rather build mounts than a hood and fenders. That said, I completely get already having the 60 frame and keeping it stock (even if it doesn’t look like it is).
That said, I’ve thought many times that if I could go back in time I’d buy the mint 60 frame I bought parts off of and build my 40 on it rather than just buying and building my 40 on another 40 frame. So I get where you’re coming from.

It does have a 2.5” OME lift already installed by (P)PO, so it’s not “stock stock” but everything is already where it’s supposed to be and changing the cab/body has very little impact to the engineering of the chassis (imho), so I feel safer messing with that than the other way around.

But…we’ll see how things go…I’ve eaten crow before so at least the initial bitter taste in my mouth won’t be as much as a surprise

 

[seapotato]

The only thing I'm not keen on in your plan is the front extension. I'd do everything in my power to reduce that 12" number.

I did see a thread once where a guy fit a 6bt in a 4Runner and extended the front clip. I think even he got away with less than 12 inches.

Make the tires big enough nobody will notice

 

[bikersmurf]

I’ve always been told to stay with two steps of stock and that way it’ll work the way it should. That’s why my first SBC was a stock motor out of a ‘69 four door Belaire. I kept in within 2 steps of stock with an RV cam, Rochester 4 barrel, and dual exhaust. That way it’ll was simple and reliable.

I’m sure the broken pinion gear had nothing to do with 300 hp in a vehicle that came with 125… or 70 as a diesel.

But that probably didn’t cause the gear to fail… I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

 

[seapotato]

Not the one I was thinking of, but his 10" extension doesn't look too bad. Just looks like a tire clearance trim job.

cummins powered 4 door 4runner

well here's my start . i put a 1990 cummins 12 valve in my 4runner, axles are corprate 14bolt and hp dana 60 front rollin on 20,s with 38" toyo mt,s. i had to stretch the front 10" to fit it in. i'm still doin the body work

www.pirate4x4.com

 

[cruisedeisel]

Frankenstein is an understatement.