I'm going to travel to pick up a 1983 , I need the outside measurement of the frint wheels to see if it will fit this old tow dolly I have

 

I don't know the measurement but mine fit on a U-haul tow thing just fine.

 

Ya this is a strange old dolly , I'd hate to do 2 hour drive and find out it no fitty on the dolly

 

If I had stock wheels I would measure my truck for you but I have 33's. About all I could do is measure between the outer most parts of the front fenders.

 

4WD
Tread width(front) 55.9"
Tread width(rear) 55.1"

2WD
Tread width(front) 53.0"
Tread width(rear) 53.1"

 

55. 9 is to the outside ? Thanks guys , I'll pay if forward. I'll have some pictures coming also.

 

Tread width = outside-to-outside distance of the tire treads(not the outer sidewalls, or the outside of the wheels/rims)

As opposed to Track width. Track width = wheels/tires center-to-center distance

 

Here is a picture I took yesterday of my stock 81 4x4 with stockish tires:



It looks deceiving, but the number I got was around 65.5" from the passenger side outside tire to the outside driver side tire.

 

Damn, that's going to be close , thanks for taking time to do that for me . Looks like a 1/4 on each side will be all ill have

 

Good luck. I hope my number is off by a bit for your sake.

 

i can get my 81 on my dad's tow dolley with 13.5" wide tires and 1.5" wheel spacers.

any time you tow with the rear wheels down, be sure to remove the rear drive shaft...
Marlin Crawler recommends it as the t/c doesn't get lubed correctly.

and you run the risk of destroying your drive train if it some how gets kicked into gear...
Yes I did it once, expensive lesson to learn..

 

Luckily I didn't rent a tow dolly right away, I would of towed rear down , a friend told me what you mentioned , not in as good of detail. You guys are awesome , I welcome the help. It started stalling two weeks ago about 5 miles from where I brought it , radiator was "boiling" , so I'm prepared to do a new head, if the block is screwed up , I have seen a few running 22r's on cl I might have to consider. There is a RV that has a good motor in it , whole thing is 900.00 , I'm thinking I take the engine and my 10 year gets the "fort" that's left.

I was going to play around with this one till I could find a nice gen 1 , not so common in central fl, but it's becoming quite the project , and after all the time and cash I'm sinking into this one, it might have to become " the project "

I will take some photos tomorrow and share how well the 4runner does dragging this heap home , I'm going to track the mpg , not that anyone cares

 

here is a pic of some of the damage I did...input shaft to my crawl box.

here you can see the fubarred bearings:

i don't think the spline coupler in the tranmission is supposed to come out when you pull the transfer case


as near as I can tell the t/c went into low range or the transmission went into gear. destroyed one L52 transmission and a t/c...all because I was too lazy to lay on the ground and pull 4 bolts

 

So it made it home ok. Thanks for all your help