Recently bought a 1983 Toyota pickup Sr5 shortbed 4x4. 142,000 miles. few problems beautiful truck. i have an exhaust leak out of the manifold and the bed is rusty. Anybody know where to get the new parts? also i was thinking about putting a little more power into it with a turbo or a supercharger. any suggestions? i love the truck but it gets 15mpg with the tires and the way i drive it. does anyone suggest an engine swap for a little more power and better gas mileage?

 

3rz or 5vz for a motor swap probably cheaper than a turbo on a carbed truck
And toyotafiberglass for a new bed
assuming your riiiiich lol

 

Fix it up how it is. Its a first gen toyota pickup. Dont ruin your truck. There are fewer and fewer of these left. If you were looking for power...you made about the worst choice on the planet. Leave her alone and treat her right.

 

Yeah good luck on a bed I been looking for one for way to long but I will never pay $3000 for a fiberglass bed way to much money you can buy a truck for that kind of money

 

our beds are $1895.00 for a short bed , $1995.00 for a long bed ...
it is not our fault shipping is so expensive !!!!!
please don't hate us for conditions we CANT control .

we would encourage anyone interested , to come to our shop an pick it up themselves .


.

 

Ohh no sorry to offend you I should say this though very good product the best out there just to steep for my pockets lol

 

no worries .. you didn't offend me at all ...
just posting the facts


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I agree with HighLux, if you want power then you definitely bought the wrong truck. Although my truck still had a little bit of pep left in it at 132,000 miles before I started my build so you might just have a tired engine. An engine swap isn't guaranteed to give you better gas mileage, but I can tell you that it is possible to easily get into the 20's for fuel economy with a 22R. After I desmogged my truck, installed a new exhaust and slapped on a Weber I was getting 21-25 mpg. Sometimes it is just a matter of cleaning out 30 years of bugs.

For your bed situation, GOOD LUCK! I actively searched for nearly two years. I called damn near every salvage yard within a 1,000 mile radius of me, scoured eBay, begged people to sell me their nice beds instead of trashing them on the trails and even almost bought a couple of trucks with 'ok' beds for a few grand. I have since quit that quest and just ordered a bed from ToyotaFiberglass - It's amazing how much time I now have since I quit searching for a damn bed! LOL Yeah, they may seem a little steep but you get what you pay for and you have to look at the plus sides... They are NEW so you don't have to worry about some BS repairs or hidden damage from the previous owner. They are FIBERGLASS, guess what fiberglass doesn't do? Rust, dent, rust, ding, rust, bend and did I mention rust? It is also a whole lot easier to repair fiberglass damage than steel. People also fail to understand that $2,000-3,000 for a bed sounds expensive, but it is also relative to what you plan on doing with your truck. After the amount of money and time that I have spent on my tuck, I'll be damned if I'm going to put a used beat up bed on it! But if this were a trail truck that is likely to see some trees, flip or flop then I likely wouldn't drop that much dime. I've already spent well over $12,000 on my truck so that bed is just a drop in the bucket by now.

 

Only follow high-lux's advice about ruining your truck if you plan to sell it down the road. Otherwise customize it and make it your own.... you'll love it more that way anyway. But make sure you know what your biteing off before you start torqueing your nuts you don't want a half finshed project

 

Sounds like somebody has been hanging out over at Pirate a little too much. He was asking for suggestions, not for people to belittle others' suggestion. Play nice

 

Wasn't trying to belittle anyone, and I've never been on pirate...
Just saying what is ruined to one person might be a gold mine to someone else.
If I had the money to do it I'd definitely do a motor swap and cherry it out.

 

regearing helps. go to 5.29s for local driving or 4.88s if you do alot of hiway driving and fine tune that motor. then if your not happy do some upgrades on the motor. remember its a small 4 cyl, how much power do you want and what are you doing with it will determine if you really need to swap to a bigger motor. if you do swap, oil up the original and keep it. those first gens are going up in value and alot of people like to keep them original.