Ok, first off... I am new to all things lifted and Toyota so please cut me a little slack . I just made an investment in my first ever 1983 Toyota 4x4 and it currently has a lift. I bought the truck from a elderly man (who only bought the truck from a dying old man, never drove it, and it is basically a one owner ...so I have no clue what's invested in it). First thing is I'm trying to figure out what kind of lift it has so I can replace the shocks. there is a old logo in the cab that says downey off road... not sure what that means as far as if that was the brand or not. The truck has dual front shocks on each side, rear bags and shocks, some rear lateral shocks (not sure of purpose) , and front and rear leaf springs. The second question is that its a little hard to start (Alaska weather I know), But once It starts and warms up, the rpms jump up and down about 300 at idle, It runs smoothly and perfect at highway speeds and when driving around town. I put a can of sea foam and premium in the tanks ( it has a secondary tank that was installed at the rear on top of the spare tire). I guess my question is what do I need to do first so I can save money trouble shooting it. the rig only has 56,500 miles on it and the carburetor looked perfect when I took off the air cleaner. I was thinking of doing an engine oil flush with a engine cleaner to see if that helps. any help you can provide would be appreciated. Ive attached a few pics to help... if it works lol

 

Not sure about brand, doing research on it to see...





Front shock setup





The engine





My project.





The lat rear shock





Rear air bags

 

Welcome! Where in Alaska?

No pics that I can see. What site are you using to host them?

I'm not sure what lift it has either, and I'm not sure it matters; if you need to replace the shocks and they are the correct geometry, just pull them off and either read the part numbers, or measure and come up with something equivalent.

As for your idle issue... besides what you've done, I'd check for intake leaks. Having fixed whatever you find (read: "having replaced several nautical miles of vacuum hose"), proceed to fiddling with the idle screws. Just keep track of where their baseline setting is, especially for the idle mixture.

 

I live in Anchorage Alaska, I just posted them as a reply so they should be able for viewing. Im wondering if it has the 4.5 inch lift or larger. Im also looking for shocks that will be the best all around. I don't do rock climbing, but if I want to go somewhere I don't want to bottom out. I was contemplating skyjacker but not sure what others use... Again im new to this.

 

Just wanted to show how great pf shape its in! Not a bad truck for $2700!!!!!!

 

Pretty sweet deal IMO. Body looks pretty clean.
Looks to me to about a 2" lift, but really hard to judge from pics.
That front dual shock setup is dumb unless you went to a heavy V8 engine or really heavy winch. I'd get rid of it and weld on a new hoop with a good single shock.
The lateral shock is a "trac bar", sorta. It's supposed to help with spring wrap. You could try to replace the shocks, if you can find something that would fit, or just delete it and likely not notice at all. Also, looks like you have add-a-leafs in the back. Seems like the previous owner thought this thing was a poor man's one ton truck. Don't know what he thought he was going to haul, but it must have been heavy.

Hope that this helps out a bit.

 

I know the owner had a cab over camper on it. I think he only used it for camping. On a separate note I've never drove a Toyota pick up (I just know they are gold), I've only had a newer lifted Toyota FJ cruiser and it rode awesome! My question is... do all Toyota pick ups ride like a brick and bounce you all over the place, or will most of that go away with new shocks? Right now I have to go about 2mph over a speed bump (or something similar). another thought is can I just replace the dual front shocks with a single shock, without removing the existing hardware... or would that look dumb? Thanks for your insight and input.

 

Yes, solid front axle Toyotas ride like a brick. They WILL beat you up on long trips. Man up!
Kidding, except for the riding poorly part.
New single fronts on existing hardware would likely work fine. How it would look is rather subjective. A lot more options in longer shocks with "eyes" on both shock ends vs. the "pin top" type. Your call on that though. (weld on hoops swap you over to eye on top)

Ride improvements. New single shocks, front and rear, I say stay away from rancho rs5000's, they're kidney busters.
Delete the bags and add-a-leafs out back to soften up the ride as well.

Good luck!

 

Is there a place to get the weld on brackets and approximately what would be the shop cost to have it installed. I don't have a welder and would like more options in the future. Is that dual setup factory or an aftermarket set up? I don't mind a rough riding truck, I just don't want to hit a bump and have to worry if it will break something (again, I don't do extreme off roading... just 4 wheeler trails). If I keep with the dual setup (this may sound stupid but just a thought... again new to the sport), do they make different strengths of shocks? Use one shock for smother travel and if that one is being pushed beyond a certain level the second one kicks in and gives more support (my brain sees that it could work... but I tend to think over complicated thoughts too)? Thanks again for your input!

 

The dual shock tower is an aftermarket thing. The intent was if you swapped in a V8, had a massive winch bumper, or were hauling a cab over camper you could have 2 shocks to double the dampening. This is some 80's to early 90's stuff here, and I don't remember that well, but I believe your choices in shocks with different dampening valving were rather limited compared to today. I get what you were thinking but shocks don't "kick in" to cover for the other, at least none I've ever heard of. For the record, I run the softer valved Bilstiens on my truck and they're just right. If/when I get around to fabbing a winch bumper (and/or the 1UZ swap) I may step up to the stiffer valved ones in the front, but running duals on these light trucks is kinda silly IMO.
Shock hoops are everywhere, 2 examples:
http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/toyot...-hoops-13.html
http://www.sky-manufacturing.com/cgi...ey=TOY-FSH-001
I think a shop would charge you $100 at most to weld those on for you, but I don't know, I weld my own stuff.

Marlin Crawler and LC Engineering are also great sites to find stuff for your truck. Drool away and try to not listen to the whimpering noise coming from your wallet.

If you wanted to improve the ride, new springs might be helpful as well. If they are Downey lift springs, they may be fairly stiff, I know the NWOR ones of the same era were. Cheap lift springs will likely ride poorly. Seems like almost everyone on this forum says that Old Man Emu springs are the way to go on these trucks for a "general use" setup. Also, in general, the higher you go, the worse the ride gets.

 

Yeah, even on stock springs, Monroe shocks, and 29" tires, my truck rides like a shopping cart, with about as much sound deadening. The reason is the ratio of unsprung weight to sprung weight (and to a lesser extent, leaf springs vs. coil springs). A stock longbed SFA 4x4 weighs around 3000#, and the front axle is probably around 200# without wheels. An equivalent IFS truck weighs about 3500# and each front corner is... rough guess here... 30# minus wheel.

Ain't no Lexus. However, having done a two-day 1000+ mile trip, I can say that good seats make an enormous difference. Mine are out of a mid-80's Cressida; barely fit but very comfy and supportive.

I still don't see pics, and this time it's not a JavaScript issue. What site are you using to host them?

 

Downey went out of business a while back, but they made good stuff.

The lateral shocks are kind of like traction bars for anti-axle wrap.

Looks to me like you have about a 3 inch suspension.

If you're looking for a good smooth on/off road suspension, go with Bilstein 5125 shocks, Old Man Emu springs and 5" Trail gear shackles. That will net you about 3" of lift and keep the ride comfortable.

Those dual shocks will certainly cause a stiff ride and unless you need to haul heavy loads, the bags aren't necessary.

You carb may "look" clean, but it doesn't mean that its is. You might want to rebuild it or upgrade to a Weber 32/36.

There is ABSOLUTELY no need to put premium fuel in these engines. These engines do not have high enough compression and are not designed to run on higher octane fuel. Using premium fuel will not clean an engine any more than 87 octane will and will likely cause the engine to run worse. Seafoam is also a bad idea. It can cause more harm than good, especially on older engines. Put it this way... it essentially steam cleans your engine - when has it ever been considered a good idea to put moisture in the combustion chamber of an engine? I'd stay away from that stuff in the future.

Just get her cleaned up and serviced (battery, plugs, rebuild carb, oil change, timing etc). These old trucks can be finicky - sometime is just takes some time and tweaking to get it to run properly.

 

Great buy there buddy. That interior looks good. Check for rust under the carpet around the front body mounts. As far as the ride...it is what it is! The front springs are so stiff I actually for laughs drove mine without front shocks to the end of our road and back, you couldn't tell the difference but I was more or less under 50KPH (30mph). I'd strip all that add on suspension stuff off and go with OME spring or have a good spring shop re-do them and add a set of Bilstiens all round. I have RS5000's and they're O/K but the Billies on my Taco are way better. When I'm done my engine work there are Bilstiens going on mine. As been said all that suspension stuff looks Downey. Some may be NWOR...the two of them were always fighting with each other over who had the best...lots of stuff said such as "the other guys springs are not new" and "our spring engineers". Basically both were just retail outlets that sold someone else's stuff or just re-packaged Toyota parts. No matter what you do it'll ride rough, be glad yours is a long box they ride a bit better then short boxes that most of us have. Those "other" shocks on the rear axle were called "kicker shocks" from Downey. Back then most lifts were re-arced factory springs with a stiffer leaf or two put in, some "kits" were a totally re-engineered spring such as Rough Country's. From the looks of them your fronts are Rough Country, good springs but horribly stiff. A buddy of mine had them and triple front shocks on his 1980 Hi-lux...the front suspension was un-compressible and back breaking. But that was the thing back than.


The back lift was usually done by blocks which are a 100% bad idea, thus various track bar/kicker shock schemes to control axle wrap. A proper rear spring set-up has practically no axle wrap. Those clamp on springs usually resulted in an even more rough ride and from what I recall put a lot of stress on the rear springs in places which would result in broken springs. Suspension options for these old trucks has come a long way from the stuff on your truck which was available back then so look into them.


I've had minimal problems with the stock carb, it works and thats about it. I think from what I've seen here its a fairly O/K carb but gets messed up with smog stuff and lack of care. Mine is a Canadian truck so we had absolutely no smog stuff on them back then. That said if I develop any issues with mine I'll just go with a 32/36. Check the distributor weights, mine stuck once and gave me problems

 

I just wanted to thank everyone for the good Reponses and advice. I'm going to start with my general maintenance this week and get it ready for the summer. Come winter I will get down and dirty with it. Ill try to add pictures of him out and about enjoying the summer and eating mosquitos!