I have to admit to being a little confused at the moment. After 13 years of owning a vehicle you'd think one would know what their vehicle model actually was. But I just put my VIN in the YotaTech decoder and was a little puzzled. I looked at the page 3 or 4 times trying to figure out what I did wrong but it keeps telling me that my truck is a 1986 SR5 Short bed version. I checked another site and it says "short bed regular cab 4x4" but none of them have much data other than the basics.

I've always considered this truck just the standard base model and frankly I still do. It has the base model gauge cluster (no tach), no power locks or windows. The gauge cluster could have been changed as the title is marked NAM (Mileage exempt) because of something that happened in 1993. But I have no information as to why it's marked exempt. That's all that I can really deduce from the pieces I have in paperwork.

So how accurate is the VIN decoder with this year of truck? What else can I look for?

 

Trim level is not part of the Vin, but it is on the build plate. You can find the build plate on the center of the firewall in the engine bay.
It looks like this..



You'll need to look at the model section... And compare it with Rogers's (4crawler) handy cheat sheet.
https://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ToyVIN.shtml

I have PGZA shown here.
P = 4speed auto with floor mount shifter
G = sr5-v6 (abit of confusion here, it's actually a 22RET which uses the v6 trans and axel)
Z = ( dunno not listed maybe part of the qualifier for the RET)
A = merika...

 

I have an 86 2WD SR5 X-Cab Short bed and my VIN # starts with JT4RN56S......! I never find any parts listed for a RN56 on car parts websites. Imsue the RN55 items and it seems to be the right part. Sometimes I use the wheel base if the part calls for it. There is a short @ 103.0", a mid @ 112.2" (mine or long wheel base regular cab), and a long at 121.5" X-cab long wheel base (not mine).

Those two methods seem to work all the time

 

You don't find an RN56 chassis because it doesn't exist, you can find these chassis identifiers in the FSM in the body section near the end it covers frames/chassis.

Look at the build tag above. The VIN says RN67, the model says RN61. Which of these is documented in the FSM, the RN61..

 

Well it just gets deeper. Two different paint codes for 3D7 comes back to the bright Toyota Red. However, this truck has no red accept someones crappy primer job on top of the OEM color of Dark Gray Metallic (138). Currently someone had painted it flat black years ago. Now matter where you pull the trim back it's the dark metallic gray, which I love.

The VN41 trim code is still unexplained. Can someone take a stab at that please? I've got brain over load right now. Shutting down for a nap...

The axle code is meaningless to me right now and I already assumed I had G52 transmission.