amgraham

I've been trying to find a rig to build to get my dad out on the trails with me. He doesn't like to drive a manual so that made it difficult but we finally found a 1986 Xtra Cab with the limited edition "lightweight bed". Here's what it looked like when bought:














We got it cheap because of the rust plus it had a dead battery, a miss in the motor, and a blown rad. hose. It's a one owner truck though and I drove it home stopping once to add water. After a tune up with all NGK stuff and a new rad hose it runs pretty good (I still need to adjust the valves though).

amgraham

It didn't take me long to decide that it wasn't worth messing with this bed so out came the sawzall and torch:







There it sat for a few weeks while I got some other projects out of the way. I cut up the old bed and also got rid of that old light bar the front bumper ends and brackets. Took all that stuff to the metal recyclers (got $23 for it ). Also, I'm thinking about selling my 88 DD so I swapped my Taco wheels and 31s off of that with the stockers that were on the red truck. Here's what it looked like Friday:

amgraham

I had been hedging on getting a sandblaster to clean all the rust scale off the frame and see what was left. Friday I finally got one of those cheap Harbor Freight deals and about 150lb of media and had at it. Fortunately everything is pretty solid with the exception of the spare tire crossmember. After I got it cleaned up and started priming I decided to fab up the new "bumper" so I could go ahead and eliminate that crossmember and paint everything.

Cleaned up and fabbing up the bumper with receiver and shackle mounts:






Welded in the bumper, cut out the old rotted crossmember, and bobbed the frame 4.5":





All painted up and purty:






Next is the flatbed build. I'll hopefully be able to start on that this week.

thook

Are you going to regear it?

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Very cool project, nothing like getting your dad out on the trail with you.
What other plans do you have for it?
Locker, SAS, ect?

strykersd

What is the 'ECT' thing on the gauge cluster? The one that says Norm and PWR. Is just overdrive? Nice looking project

AndYota

That 'ECT' thing is for the Electronically Controlled Transmission. You turn it on with the little button below the shifter. The 'Power" setting makes the A/T hold the lower gears longer to get more oomph out of the engine. It can be useful, but It usually just annoys me because it lowers the already low fuel economy. Maybe for the 4-cyl it could be nice.

Andy

amgraham

I'm not going to regear for now. It has 4.30s which will be enough for the 31s for now.

Corey, right now the plan is to just get the bed done and get it on the road. Then I'll do some tweaks to try to get some more flex out of the suspension, skids, and possibly a locker. We'll probably just wheel it till the IFS breaks then SAS (I have an 83 that looks about the same so maybe we'll end up with matching pickups ).

AndYota answered the ECT thing.. Just messes with the shift timing a bit.