Im 16 and looking for a truck and i found a 85 Toyota extra cab

The Good
The body is in decent shape no rust, Recently put a engine in it, my father drove it and said it was a solid unit.

The Bad
It has no lights in the dash (probably a fuse)
the driver side window mechanism is broken, the sunroof is cracked, theres something in the wiring thats draining the battery, and it has a automatic.

He Wants $2000

Should I buy it now? or wait for something else to come along? I would prefer a manual in my Toyota. Besides the automatic transmission and the problem thats killing the battery I can easily fix the other problems with my father.

Is it difficult to switch it over to a manual? or is it better to get a truck with a manual in the first place?

And how much do you think that i will need to pay to fix everything.

I have been looking for a year now and haven't found anything that was as good as this truck. for this cheap.

Thanks for your input,
Ty





Pretty Nice

 

Myself it is hard to remember being 16 .

I know it is hard to wait till just what your looking for comes along.

Being you want a 5 speed I don`t think you will be happy with the automatic.

swapping to an manual can sometimes become a big expense.

The electrical issues who can say could be quite simple or take hours of trouble shooting one never knows.

These are great trucks but if you need to pay labor to have the work done it gets expensive fast.

You don`t mention mileage what is the rest of the truck like ??

Brakes Suspension all the other things that add up.

It seems people tend to slack off doing work they don`t like I don`t think I ever bought a Toyota 4X4 that did not need another $1000.00 in parts.

These trucks have a very regional market just where are you??

 

I live in alberta, the odormeter says 230000km, my father went and took a look at it and said it drove nice, brakes worked, engine ran good

 

Nice looking truck. Like Wyoming mentioned, be ready to put some more money into it to get it fixed right. Seen to many nice trucks like that one that had many issues. Most are easily fixed. I would swap a manual transmission in it. Somehow you need to ground a wire to make the computer think it is in neutral.

How are your skill levels and are you willing to learn and jump in and do the work? If unable to do it yourself, pass on it. You can do it but it is going to take you some time to figure it out. Plenty of information on here to help you get it corrected.

 

I know you probably don't like what I am going to say but...

Wait til you find what you want... You'll regret putting your money into something that your just going to sell later on for a manual transmission. I think the price is kind of high. When I sold my 1991 toyota with manual trans, 22re and 224 k with new clutch/timing chain I sold it for 1800$ in 2008 when I joined the Air Force. Save up for what you really want, the truck is out there.

 

I would wait until something else comes along if I was in your position. You mentioned, "Recently put a engine in it, my father drove it and said it was a solid unit."

Was the engine used, rebuilt?
Are there any leaks?
Are the gears slipping?

As mentioned above, any car with 200K+ miles, you will be fixing things and have issues later on of some kind.

 

The guy sold it already... so i have to keep looking lol.