Sweet 1997 HZJ75 Pickup from France (1 Viewer)

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Lovely truck! I need one like this !!!

Thanks!

Unfortunately, Toyota didn't sell a lot of pickups in Europe 25 years ago, so it's hard to find them now. Most are too beat or badly modified (or both) to be interesting (to me anyway). There are lots of them in the Middle East, but same thing...by the time they get to be 25 years old (thus legal to import to the US) many are so beat down it's hardly worth the trouble. There's plenty of 70-series in South/Central America, but I don't even look there anymore--trying to find a good truck there is a very low percentage play. Australia is of course loud with 70-series utes (pickups). You can't step out of your house there without bumping into one it seems. But they're all RHD, which may be your thing, but it's not mine.

FYI, last time I checked the 'Mud classifieds, there was at least one LHD HZJ75 pickup in there from a reputable seller, and I know there's another guy on here trying to sell a nice one. PM me if you're serious about getting one and can't find them.

There are good ones out there. You'll need perseverance and money. The more of either you have, the less you'll need of the other.
 
Big spa day for the pickup today. Finally got the new wheels and tires mounted. 5x brand new OEM Toyota 42601-60262-03 wheels and 5x new 235/85R16 Toyo A/T tires.

Old wheels were generic white spokes, 16 x 7, zero offset, with old BFG 255/70R16 A/T's on them. Wheels were the wrong shade of white, and the tires were too low profile (small diameter) and too wide in my opinion.

Before:
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New wheels are 16 x 6, zero offset with proper tall 'n skinny tires.
After:
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I'm happy. Big improvement.

After I got them all mounted up, I briefly thought they were too flashy, and that the original gray split rims might look better (in the sense that they're more patina'd to match the truck and are appropriately functional looking), but the new flashy wheels/tires have grown on me already. They'll stay.
 
Also today, I got a pair of new batteries. It was around 20F (-7C) this morning, and the batteries that had gone dead on the ship (see posts above) were not happy at all. Everything was fine and dandy with the old batteries as long as the weather was warm, but they kind of sh*t the bed the first time it got really cold. Since it's gonna get a lot colder before it gets warmer around here, I figured I should just pry open my wallet and get a couple of new batteries.

Old batteries were of unknown vintage and mis-matched. One was the wrong configuration (terminals on the wrong side) which meant the PO had to "stretch" the wiring a bit to get it to work. The other one was the wrong size, so the PO had a little block of wood under the hold-down clamp to keep it in place. I've run into this before with imports--is it so difficult to buy proper matching batteries overseas? Gotta wonder sometimes.

The old ones:
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Called the parts counter at my local Toyota dealer first to see if he had the correct batteries in stock. Doesn't make a huge difference AFAIK, but it's cool to have batteries labelled "Toyota" in an old car like this (pretty sure they're just Interstates that have been re-branded by Toyota). He didn't have them, but NAPA to the rescue. Two new, matching date code, matching spec, batteries in stock. One group 27, one group 27F. Only difference is the terminals are reversed L to R, which allows the terminals to face "in" on both sides of the car, which is correct.

The new ones:
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I've got a long way to go detailing the engine bay, but I'll get to it.

When the weather warms up.
 
So I ended up deciding to get the seat fixed. The guy I go to for upholstery did a good job as always. Not a perfect match, but pretty damn close. Unless you know to look for it, you can hardly tell.

Before, with tears, repairs and a cig burn:
before2.jpg


After (the passenger seat and the driver's seat back are still original):
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While I had it at the upholstery shop, I had him put in a headliner.

Before, in its headliner-less condition:
before3.jpg


and after (added new visors, too):
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Very nice.
I'm planning to restore my headliner, too. Sourced some material but l'm not overall satisfied with the look (real fabric and color is off).
Where did you source yours? Looks very nice and accurate to original spec.

Did you do any sewing or did it glue right in?
Thanks Ralf
 
Where did you source your (headliner)?
I had it done at an auto upholstery shop. You could probably buy the headliner material from a shop near you and install it yourself since there's not any difficult shapes or angles. I believe the material comes with foam backing already attached, so it's simply a matter of gluing it and tucking it in at the edges. I probably would have done it myself, but I already had the truck at the upholsterer to get the seat done, so I had him do it all. Seat + headliner (including materials and labor) cost me $350, which I thought was reasonable. Plus, I didn't need to mess with it.
 
I had it done at an auto upholstery shop. You could probably buy the headliner material from a shop near you and install it yourself since there's not any difficult shapes or angles. I believe the material comes with foam backing already attached, so it's simply a matter of gluing it and tucking it in at the edges. I probably would have done it myself, but I already had the truck at the upholsterer to get the seat done, so I had him do it all. Seat + headliner (including materials and labor) cost me $350, which I thought was reasonable. Plus, I didn't need to mess with it.

I'm going to second that request :) if you can find out about the source for that fabric? it looks really close to OEM color?
 
OEM headliner was still available for my 1995 a year or so ago.

I looked, but didn't find any in stock anywhere. Meh...I'm happy with the way it turned out.
 
Finally had a nice day today and some free time so I got outside and did some work on the pickup. One of the things I did was to clean up the dash a bit. The PO had made some modifications and drilled some holes for mounting who-knows-what, and that kind of stuff just bugs me. Can't stand looking at it every day. Here's the "before" photo, with holes in the dash pad, broken funky aftermarket radio, odd switches for nothing, etc:

dash before.jpg


And here it is after I replaced the dash pad, the radio, and generally cleaned it up:

dash after.jpg


Just looks better to me--keeps me calm. Added a new ashtray, too, since the PO had hosed the old one.
 
Big project for the day was to add the proper "TOYOTA" decal to the tailgate. Ordered it a while ago, but it's been too cold to apply it until today. Oddly enough, I have photos of the truck during the time the PO had it and the decal was in place. He must have removed it for some reason. Whatever. I thought it would look better if it were on there, so here goes. This is the truck in its decal-less condition as I got it:

tailgate before.jpg


Looks kinda naked.

First step was to polish the oxidation off the paint (pretty easy on colors without clear coat like 045 white). I used some Mother's Pure Polish I had laying around. Then I cleaned the surface thoroughly with alcohol to remove any oils or whatever from the polish. For good adhesion, the surface needs to be cleeeeeean. Once I was sure the surface was ready, I measured and positioned the graphic. Toyota provides the graphic with a release liner on the back, and a masking layer on the front. They also kindly provide notches in the liner/masking for easy measurement and placement. Here's a shot of the notches:

decal reference notches.jpg


Once it was positioned as desired, I put a painter's tape "hinge" across the entire top edge of the graphic, like so:

decal  hinge.jpg


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I burnished the hinge until I was sure it was adhered securely, since this will be the reference for the next stages of the installation. Once that was done, I cut the "T" separate from the rest of the graphic, like so:

decal cut 1.jpg


This allowed me to lift it from the bottom, grab the backside liner from the top, and while peeling the liner downwards, burnish the letter onto the tailgate. Sorry I didn't get any photos of that process, both hands were busy. Here's the "T" adhered to the tailgate (with the front masking still on it):

decal letter down.jpg


Each letter is cut individually in turn, its rear liner peeled away, and the letters applied to the car, one by one. Here's all the letters adhered. The masking on top of the graphics is still in place (hard to see so I outlined it in yellow). Circled in red is my burnishing tool:

decal letters with masking.jpg


A little more burnishing, then the masking layer is removed (carefully):

masking off.jpg


That's pretty much it.
 
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I also added the little "4WD" graphic to the tailgate, and the rubber bumpers, which had been missing when I got the truck. Here's the finished product:

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I think it's an improvement.
 
Can't believe it was March the last time I updated this thread. I've been enjoying this truck, working my way through some "baseline" type maintenance, and taking it on errands to the hardware store and stuff.

Some of the things I've done up to now:

-Changed the oil and filter
-New air filter
-New fuel filter
-Valve adjustment
-Injector service
-Set injection timing

Since I was under the hood I started cleaning up in there. Now it looks like this:

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Better than it was.

I need to road trip with this thing again. I only go to places like this:

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And this:

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Not very photogenic, but I also got the fuse box all straightened out. The PO apparently thought it was OK to put any fuse anywhere in there. Any time he needed a fuse, he'd use whatever was handy, which wasn't always the proper rating, which led to more blown fuses, which led to more chaos in the fusebox. A feedback loop of clusterf*ckery. So I went through the whole thing and replaced every fuse with the proper value. Gee, everything works now. Go figure.

And I also repaired the seat reclining mechanism for the driver's seat. When I got the truck, it would only hold one position, which wasn't really the position I wanted. Try to adjust it and it would just flop or lock back into the "wrong" position. Like any mechanism, all it needed was to be cleaned, lubed, and adjusted. All good now.

Between cleaning the interior and tuning up the motor, this thing is really a joy to drive. It just purrs. Still rides like a buckboard, of course. What are people using to improve the ride on these (besides putting 1,000lbs of cargo in the bed)?
 

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