Junkers88

I've never had a thread concerning one of my own builds before so you folks now get the honor of reading and watching my first Toyota Build. We'll call it the Survival Build since I'm a survivalist and think I finally have a vehicle that will make a good platform for a build. I figure my little 86 pickup will do nicely.

First things first. Drive train. I can't count the number of idiots who throw a lift, tires, lockers etc into a rig when the engine, tranny or t-case is in trouble. We're going to avoid that by getting my drive train in top notch shape. Along those lines I actually have one little idle problem left in the engine compartment. I've replaced the belts and hoses that needed it, new radiator (really big 3 core), wires, cap, rotor, spark plugs etc. A valve job was done recently and as far as I can tell there isn't a fluid leak anywhere. I'll be changing the tranny and t-case fluid soon as well. From there we go to the differentials and the gears there in. I'd like to drop some 4.56's in the front and rear to maintain my street ability with the 31's that are going on there and will do the gear swap at the same time I install two Aussie lockers and rebuild the axles.

Not planning much on suspension lift other than an add a leaf in the rear to level things out and give me more capacity for hauling.

Rock armor will be next but I'm building all of that myself to save some money. Pictures to come later.

Ok now onto some questions. I need to put a small storage rack on the cab since I don't thing the camper top will hold up very well. Do any of you know where I can purchase a little rack that will fit on top of an 86 Extra cab?

Storage. I'll be putting Rhino Liner in the bed (and along the bottom of the body panels) and need to build some sort of storage in there. I'd like to have something that uses the bottom half of the bed for storage (extra battery, gallon of oil, sleeping bags, food etc.) and has a place to sleep on top. I'll need to make a large area of the bed for sleeping since I tend to toss and turn and my 75 pound puppy does too. Ideas on this one? I'd prefer to go with aluminum if I can to save some weight.

So keep your eyes here and I'll post up pictures while I work so we can all laugh together.

And as always any help or suggestion is greatly appreciated.

bigarms23

its an 86 so do it this way a 84toyota front axle with longfields polyperformance inner shafts yukon ring and pinion. allpro diff guard.an axle truss some longfield u-joints for the back yukon gears diff armor long ujoints and a pair of je reel drive shafts that should do it

Luvmeye22re

If you want a cab rack and you have the capability of building your own rock armor why not build your own rack? Most of the ones on the market are fairly expensive and made of pretty weak material. You could purchase a couple of the gutter mounts and build your own solid rack out of some 1x1 square tubing.

muddpigg

iTrader: (1)

with auto lockers front and rear you'll probably want a twin stick for tight turns as the front locker sometimes won't reach the threshold to release and turn. Kind a PIA. If you going to regear you may want to go with 4:88 more bang for the buck and eventually your going to want more ground clearance.

Just food for thought.