Truck3 build, 86 fj60

[goose4433]

I've been spending so much time on mud lately that I thought I would add my own build thread. First, the name. Truck3 got it's name because I live in San Francisco and who knew that cars get stolen left and right? About 5 years ago I bought a 1982 22re extended bed. I loved that truck. 550k miles on the original motor and 20-25mpg. Whelp, needless to say it got stolen from in front of my place and was never found. Looking to replace it I stumbled across a fj60 with a Chevy 350 in it for sale nearby. Figured I'd go and see it for the hell of it. Afterwards, for some weird reason, I couldn't get it out of my mind how awesome it was. After some back and forth, Truck2 ended up in my garage. I had that 60 for a little over a year and really fell in love with that thing.

Didn't do a ton of mods since it was in good shape but we took it camping and skiing a ton. Lo and behold, Truck2 got stolen from the same spot as my pickup! In my mourning and slightly irrational mindset I decided I needed to replace it ASAP. Had to be a V8 and had to be rust free. After a short while I found Truck3 in Bakersfield. 1986 fj60 with a 350 in it. Had it inspected and drove down to check it out. Hardly any rust, 4wd worked, drove ok and I bought it. Truck2 was found about a week after I bought Truck3. Ugh. My insurance company was no help either, but eventually we worked it out. I wish I had known what I know now though.... Here she is:

Truck3

• goose4433
• Apr 4, 2017

Minimal rust, Chevy 350, lifted, bedliner on the inside, stock 4speed mated to an overdrive, baked in the Bakersfield sun it's entire life.

 

[goose4433]

Deciding to take care of all the drivability issues first I took care of:
- New clutch
- Overdrive whine was awful and impossible to shift so I had the gears "gone through"
- Starter/Alternator went (which turned into a huge saga)

But overall it was a decent wagon and we were getting to know each other. Almost exactly a year after I bought it she blew a rod and a hole in the bottom end driving home from the airport. This was a big deal to my girlfriend and we went through a long period of deciding what to do.

Eventually we decided we'd have Truck3 for a long time and we should just bite the bullet and get a new motor. Called up Luke at 4x4 labs and he assured me he could get the work done for a reasonable price. 4 months or so later she had a new Summit 350 TBI crate motor installed. I was stoked! Luke did a great job and some cool fab along the way:

 

[goose4433]

Of course, now all the weak links started breaking.
- Tons of electrical gremlins
- new distributor
- rewired the ignition due to a ground somewhere (the PO had a rats nest of wires going on)
- computer went bad
- o2 sensor went bad
- overdrive was leaking like mad, had to get that repaired as well
- Huge hesitation when cold. It's hard to say what fixed this but it appears to be O2 related.

Ok, at this point I wished I had just bought a nicer truck to begin with. And my girl was none too happy with the cost. But slowly Truck3 became more reliable. We've had lots of good trips in it. The check engine light is usually off (knock on wood). So now that it's running better I've started to do a bunch of the fun mods:
- new shocks all around (bilstein 5100)
- upgraded headlight harness and new lights
- 4 Runner wiper arms
- Some sound deadening around the shifter boots
- Headlight warning buzzer
- 62 mirrors
- 3 point rear seatbelts from seatbelt planet (I was lucky to have the threaded hole)
- Added new aquarium line for the rear windshield wiper and nozzle
- Hours of cleaning the headliner...

 

[goose4433]

4x4 fabbed this custom slave cylinder bracket:

New headlight harness

and shocks:

 

[goose4433]

Up next is the steering damper. It looks as if the PO added a second steering damper?? What is that? Can anyone recommed a path forward? I've got a OME damper coming in the mail, should I just replace both of these with the new one?

 

[goose4433]

Got around to putting in some Dzus quick release fasteners in the back. The PO had fabricated some aluminum covers but had them screwed in and a PITA to take on/off. Since I fixed the rear sprayer I wanted some sort of easy access to the bag and the extra storage is nice. These were a huge pain to install and I'm not quite sure it's going to be the final solution. It could be that I bought cheap fasteners from amazon but they aren't that easy on/off.

 

[goose4433]

I've been looking for BMW seats for a few months and nothing reasonable has come up until earlier this week. Found some nice manual e46 seats in beige on CL. I thought they would be a quick install with the Torfab brackets but, of course the PO has for some reason removed the stock mounting points. so I guess I'm going to have to fabricate some brackets which should be fun since I don't know how to weld. Going to put the old seat back in for a bit until I sort this out.

 

[goose4433]

Talked to a bunch of people and figured out a no weld bracket for the seats. So far so good! It's a pain when you have no real work space to get these types of projects done. Had to get a metal shop to cut the steel for the brackets and the HOA isn't stoked on me crawling around the garage all the time.

As others have said these are a huge improvement. These replaced some cloth GMC seats (I think) that were pretty comfy but kinda disgusting and did not match the truck in any way. Truck2 had stock seats and these are way better. Also, the color match of the e46 beige looks perfect.

Figured since I was doing all this I might as well get new seatbelt planet belts up front too. So far they are REALLY finicky and can't always get them started. Need to do some more adjusting but it looks like this is a known issue that gets better.