Hello Everybody,
Since I’ve always been a fan of the first gen Toyota four by fours I decided to bring one home a few weeks ago. The truck came with an extra 22R mated to a five speed and a transfer case. The truck itself has a 22R with a four speed. I plan on rebuilding the 22R that’s in the truck and swapping the five speed tranny into the truck. Also planning on installing an OME two inch suspension lift kit with OME springs and shocks. The OME kit is on order from Rocky Road in Utah. Here are some pics.
Please feel free to offer up suggestions or advice. Thank you!

 

The dry ice tip gleaned from this forum made cleaning the cab floor a breeze. Take a look at these pieces 🙂

 

Finally finished patching the floors. I used some 14 gauge metal which is significantly stronger than the original floor metal. Putting in patch pieces was tough. It was kind of two tacks forward, one hole blown in the OEM sheeting backwards. Once the switch was made from .030 wire to .023 things went much quicker. Really glad to be done with the patching.

Here’s a pic after the patches were completed, seam sealed and primed with acid etching primer.

 

Nice work on the floor patch and good to see another first gen rescue!

What are your plans with the bed? Fix it or replace it with something modern?

 

Thanks for the compliments! My plans for the bed are to fix it and modify it to accept an ‘81 tailgate. The bed’s not in bad shape but I’m not sure how I need to modify it to adapt to the earlier style tailgate. I started a separate thread in the general discussion area last night posing that question.

 

Do you have any tips on adapting an ‘81 tailgate to an ‘82 bed Punjab? I just noticed you have an ‘81 🙂

 

Got the gearshift removed, put a sling around the tranny and transfer case and brought the loop of the sling up through the floor, unbolted the crossmember and lowered everything to the floor. Then got to work on the underside of the cab getting it cleaned and ready for some Rustoleum bed liner.


Then sprayed a few cans of the bed liner on the underside of the bed and called it good.

 

Meanwhile the spousal unit cleaned the washer fluid / coolant reservoirs by using Clorox and a bottle brush. After the inside was done she used a drywall sanding sponge to clean up some yellowing and discoloration on the outside of the units. Turned out great. Should’ve taken a before pic. They were really nasty.

 

My truck came with an extra 22R, extra transmission which happens to be a 5 speed and transfer case. I dropped the four speed that was in the truck to clean the underside of the cab floor so now seemed like a good time to grab the five speed and clean it up a little bit as well as the crossmember the transfer case bolts to and a few other items. Here’s a pic of the five speed. Hopefully it’s in the truck tomorrow.

 

Sorry for the delayed update and minimal number of pictures. I was able to get the five speed installed along with cleaning up the cross member and getting it repainted. Also the spare tire lift was frozen in one position so worked on that for an hour or so using a liberal amount of PB Blaster and it works like brand new. After I cleaned it up I shot the chain with some roller chain lube I keep around for my Ditch Witch.


Also got the frame POR 15’d from the front of the cab all the way back.

 

Also I’ve been slowly getting things cleaned up and re installed a couple of the exhaust heat shields under the cab. I’m cleaning up reusable bolts as I go and repainting them black or using Grade 8 new bolts. In this pic I opted to paint the bed to frame bolts to match Grade 8 coloring (zinc oxide I think). The match is really close color wise.

 

We’ve had some unseasonably warm weather and very little snow since the storms seem to be going around us and hitting Reno or Salt Lake City so I decided to bring my bed into town and prep it for bed liner. The most effective weapon for cleaning it up was a 4” Bosch angle grinder equipped with 40 grit or 80 grit flapper discs. To get into the corners I used my cordless with a few different abrasive attachments. I used a hammer and medium sized slotted head screwdriver to lightly tap on the seam sealer and it popped out very easily. I POR 15’d the seams and then applied some new 3M seam sealer. Decided to go with Rustoleum roll on bed liner. I used a couple Rustoleum spray cans of the same product to get into crevices and under the lip on the upper edge of the bed perimeter.

 

Since it’s a tight fit getting under the truck to work on it without putting blocks under the tires I decided to get my new wheels and tires a bit prematurely to increase the ground clearance. I went with 16” wheels and 285/75 tires, which worked out to 33 x 11.25 x 16.

 

That brings me up to today which I spent rolling on the liner. Hoping it sets up nice so I can flip the bed up and do the underside before the cooler weather returns.


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This forty year old decal and identify number are kind of cool. I’ll tape over the Long Beach decal prior to paint to preserve it.

 

Lots of cleaning and painting of several small parts since rolling on the bed liner. Yesterday I was able to install the fuel tank and the skid plate underneath the tank and today cleaned up the mud flaps and their mounting brackets.




The passenger side mud flap has a near vertical slice in it which I think I may attempt to fill with some liquid rubber electrical “tape”.

 

Today I attempted to install new 5/16” fuel lines but the 4 in 1 bender I bought from a reputable restoration retailer broke on the first bend. Extremely frustrating. As a result I just cleaned up the original hard lines and replaced the original rubber lines. Also I noticed a little rust in the rear corners of the bed where the tail lights go so I sprayed some bed liner in those spots.

Also put the small can of liquid rubber electrical tape to use in an attempt to repair some damage to the rear mud flap. The rubber sets up in 2-3 minutes and can be re coated in five minutes if you want to build up an area. It was quite easy to fill in a vertical tear in one flap and a missing piece out of the bottom of the same flap maybe 1” x 1 1/2”. I used fiber mesh drywall tape on that area to give the rubber a little additional strength. Time will tell how it works. Kind of looks like Gumby did the work. Also cleaned up and repainted the fuel line brackets.

 

After many tedious hours of cleaning and repainting parts over the last few days I decided to build a crate for the pickup bed to facilitate easier handling of the bed and less risk of damaging the bed. I built the crate around the bed while it was resting on the frame. After the crate was built I skidded the bed off the back of the truck into the alley, stood it up on one side, placed a couple small sections of 4” ABS pipe underneath it and rolled it back into the shop. Once back in the shop I began prepping the underside for undercoating.


Hopefully the weather forecast for tomorrow is correct and I’ll be able to spray undercoating in the afternoon.

 

Thanks to fantastic weather for February the bed is now under coated. Had enough time this afternoon to clean up the exhaust heat shield to match the others and get it bolted back on.


Looking forward to getting the bed back on the truck and out of the way.

 

In an effort to get ready to put the bed back on the truck I ran new brake lines in back and installed some rear axle bump stops from Energy Suspension. Still need to order a new LSPV.

I still need to anchor the lines and run new ones in front. Hopefully get that done tomorrow.
Since I had to remove the bed stand off brackets or braces to clean them yesterday I opted to paint them red and reinstall them today as well.