I was going through your build thread looking at the floor pan replacement, and it struck me that the stiff brake problem hasn't been addressed yet. Hopefully your diagnosis and repair will go good and able to get the young'n in a tent this weekend. Thanks for the update, as I'm working up a wishlist for the four corners, booster and M/C. I was thinking of adding a hotrod booster/mc combo, a dual 7" booster. Something like this
http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/Mzc1WDUwMA...T8Tpv/$_12.JPG
Would you think this is a viable option other than Toyota, in your experience?

 

What happens when you press the brake pedal, and hold it while you start the truck? Does it go down slightly?

That clamp holding your booster vacuum tube looks real tight too. You sure its not pinching off the vacuum?

 

I have come to realize that, with enough creativity and work, anything is possible! Let me know how it works out if you go for it.


Good eye, but that clamp is just there for a fitting that I used to connect two hoses - it isn't pinching the hose at all. I needed a formed hose to make the bend to the booster and that was my solution at the time. I am planning on making a permanent solution soon. Brake booster trouble shooting results will be in the next post.

 

So I managed to get my brake system back together before our mini camping trip. Turns out that the push rod from the brake booster to the master cylinder needed a severe adjustment. After making the adjustment (rod was adjusted too short), I reassembled the MC after verifying that there was nothing wrong with it and gave it a good bench bleeding:


Re-installed everything and bleed the brakes again. The pedal feel is still a little stiff, but it is much better than it was before. I attribute the remaining stiff "feel" mainly due to the fact that my Tundra has extremely soft brakes so in comparison everything "feels" stiff. Nonetheless, it is better than before and I feel much more secure driving it now.

While I was out for a test drive, I went to Walmart to pick up some food for our camping trip. There is a pharmacist there that drives an old beat up '83 long bed. I can't believe this thing is still on the road with the amount of rot it has - the frame is nearly rusted in half behind the front shackles! Obviously, I HAD to park next to him and snap a couple pictures. I've never actually met the guy so I then went inside and showed him the pictures. I kind of embarrassed him, but he was impressed! He said he wanted to restore his truck some day but I told him, "honestly, I hate to say it, but that truck may be a little too far gone to be restored." I kind of deflated the guy, but it is truly a WHOLE LOT worse than what the pictures below show:





So Saturday morning it was off to the campgrounds! We were only going to spend one night at a State Park about 30 minutes away up in Delaware, but I wanted to take enough supplies and entertainment with us to make sure that my son enjoys his experience enough to want to go again. So I packed a bunch of food, our bikes, fishing poles, chairs and the tent. I didn't even want to take any technology, but I needed my phone so I could take some pictures of his first trip.

Got the truck loaded up:


We were about to hit the road and Camden said, "We need to take a selfie!" So we did:


Then my wife had to take a picture since she bought us our shirts:


Got to the campsite and set up our tent:




And of course I had to take a couple pictures of my truck:




I got him fully exhausted with some fishing, biking and playing on the playground that he passed out - I was pretty impressed that he made it to 10PM!!


I woke up the next morning to a 3-year-old flying at me across our air mattress:


But once he settled down...


...I got to enjoy the great view from our tent...


Man...I had a BLAST and Camden did too! The heat index was supposed to be around 105* Sunday so I wanted to hurry up and pack up to get out of there so he didn't have to suffer in the heat on the ride home (No A/C remember?), but he is very excited to do it all over again!

Guys, these are the moments I live for! My wife never understood why I have gone through such great lengths on this truck, but now she is starting to understand. Now I either need to find a truck with a couple more seats or fabricate some safe removable brackets to mount some rumble seats in the bed for my wife and younger son.

 

Forgot to mention, I started counting the number of people that came up to scope out my truck while I was there. Before I even finished unpacking and pitching the tent, I had 7 people come up to me asking about my truck and 2 offers... It is truly incredible how many people notice these trucks - I LOVE IT!!!

 

Brutal...That's like telling a man his wife or kids are ugly.

 

I added a little modern convenience tonight - a 3.5mm aux input and a USB input plug for my radio. I mounted it in the glove box in lieu of drilling a hole in the dash:


I also use a 3.5mm Bluetooth module to wirelessly connect my iPhone to my radio so I can listen to iTunes, Pandora, MLB games, etc. These things are great!! I bought on for the boat too so I can throw my phone in dry storage and not have to worry about my phone getting wet or falling overboard, but can still listen to music on my phone.



I also got my dash finished up, thanks to the dash pocket and ashtray frod lledwood!


I also want to wire a 12V power outlet directly to the battery so I have a constant power supply to charge stuff when the engine is off. I definitely want to mount one in the glovebox next to the aux outlet that I mounted tonight and I may also mount one in the bed somewhere or somewhere towards the rear of the frame.

 

I like that USB/ 1/8" jack in the glove box, it's a very neat idea.
Do you get any noise from the power side of it through the audio side?

 

If I have my phone pluged into the power supply and the audio plugged in via the 3.5mm cable then I do get a little noise, but if I use the bluetooth module then I don't get any noise at all.

 

Lol. I stare at my truck also. First gens have the right curves.

You mentioned a next truck with more seats? Please please please import a 83 double cab from some lucky continent and rebuild it like this one. That would be epic!

 

Nah, I want to do a HJ45 (diesel FJ pickup). I want to build it with a couple jumper seats in the rear. Worst case scenario I'll settle for a FJ40 diesel

 

So my clutch was feeling kind of squishy and was releasing a little further out that I would like in the pedal travel so I decided to give it a quick bleeding figuring that I may have some air in the line. When I went to bleed the clutch I noticed that the fluid was coming out completely black! I've never seen this before so I completely drained the clutch system and flushed it out several times with new fluid. This is a glass full of the fluid that came out as well as the fluid that was used to flush the system:


I used Prestone DOT 3 Synthetic brake fluid which is originally clear in color. The master cylinder, slave cylinder and all the lines were brand new. I used this exact fluid on my brake system but they didn't bleed out black like this so I wouldn't assume that it was the new lines. Does anybody know what may have happened here?

Nonetheless, I bleed the system and now my clutch feels much better.

On a different topic... This past Saturday my best friend was having his birthday party on a sand bar down at the beach in Ocean City. I told my wife that she could go as long as my Mom watched the kids and she rode in my truck down to the beach... It was almost like proposing, she said YES!! So off we went to hop on the boat and head to the sandbar!



When I got to the docks, my friend was already there so I pulled into the spot right next to his H1 Hummer. Talk about making a man feel tiny.....


Then Sunday I went with my Pops to a car/motorcycle show . I was a little too hungover to drive so my oldest son and I rode with him in his '55. The show is called the Chrome City Ride hosted by the nuns at the Benedictine Foundation and is about 1.5 hours away in Ridgely, MD. It is an organization that educates and trains mentally and developmentally handicapped kids and young adults. From the last I heard, they raised over $85,000 in one day from the show. It's a really neat show! The sheriff in my town (Mike Lewis - if you watch Fox news then you have likely seen him on there recently) is big into bikes and community programs like the Benedictine Foundation so we had a full blown police escort the whole way to the show!! We cruised at about 70mph the whole way there and never stopped for a single red light! Once we got there, the students were lined up on either side of a long half mile lane watching the cars and bikes roll in. They LOVE IT and it's a real feel good show.

Here's a link to video news coverage on the show:

http://www.wboc.com/clip/11713548/th...rome-city-ride

Here is our sheriff with his custom HD Street Glide, which won best of show at the event. It looks very simple, but the details are amazing up close and has some pretty trick features that you can only really appreciate at night - There are tiny hidden lights that project the 2nd amendment on the street next to the bike and really cool, but tasteful, lighting. And yes, there are two real Colt revolvers holstered on the bike...


And here are a few shots I took during the police escort and at the show:










Overall, a great weekend!

 

My clutch fluid also does that. It's gritty. Even with new components and a very thorough flushing it still does it. I figure it's an inherently poor design. No other explanation I can come up with.

Just want to say thanks as well. I've been seriously considering selling my pickup even though I love it. It's my daily and my road trip vehicle. I've been trying to decide if I want to put serious time into making it what I want it to be or just getting a newer one. Your thread inspires me; I have always loved the square headlight first gen and I see a 3rz and some cab mods down the pipe for mine.

 

All new components in mine as well, a year later and 3000km it is a little bit yellower than before but I've never seen black fluid like that! Maybe take a sample and send it for used oil analysis as well as some engine oil to get a break down on how everything is going would be interesting? Can it be the rubber inside deteriorating for some reason? Or aluminum oxidising? that's strange!

 

The only thing that I think it could be is either the seals breaking down (but everything is new) or possibly water that reacts to the brake fluid (but I let it sit in a glass for a week and it never separated). Kind of has me stumped

 

I've been a little M.I.A. lately so I haven't had time to check in. This past weekend we had one of my friend's bachelor party. We're all baseball guys so we rented a 30ft RV and went on a baseball road trip. The 6 of us left my house in Salisbury, MD Friday morning and caught the Rockies vs Nats at Nationals Park in DC on Friday night, Dodgers vs Pirates at PNC Parks in Pittsburgh on Saturday Night and Twins vs Indians at Progressive Field in Cleveland on Sunday afternoon. It ended up being about a 1,100 mile road trip before we got home! Such a fun experience and tons of memories made! I think we're going to turn this into an annual event.

As for the truck, I missed it while I was gone so I took it for a drive when I got back. I've been adjusting the fuel mixture after each fill up and I think I finally got it to where I want it to be. It's been weird because it runs so well (and the same) at such a wide range of adjustments, but I was able to get nearly 23mpg on my last tank of gas!! Eventually, I would like to get a stoichometer to nail down the exact proper adjustment, but for now I am very satisfied!

I have also not been very pleased with the angle of my seats so I worked on a redesign for my seat brackets. Currently my seat angle is rather flat and it makes my rear go numb if I'm driving for a long time so I'm going to angle the front up about 2.5" to make them a little more comfortable. Hopefully that will work out well. I'll post some details on that project when I get to it.

 

well that road trip sounds like a great idea, and fun and exhausting

Thanks for keeping it updated, such a great build thread, and everytime I visit it I get the hankering for a first gen again

 

Glad you're getting everything dialed in and keeping us updated Dave! Just to add my two cents, I would really encourage you to get a stoichiometer (or wideband afr as they're more commonly called). I installed one in my truck and it has been an invaluable tuning resource. I believe it's really the only way to accurately jet the upper circuits and jets on a weber. You can watch the afr change as the carb transitions through the circuits and re-hey accordingly.

I haven't done a lot of fine tuning yet, as my engine isn't fully broken in, but I already have a pretty good idea of what jets I need to change.

 

I wouldn't mind getting a stoichiometer gauge, but I really don't have a place to attractively mount it right now. I have considered trying to track somebody down with a stoichiometer diagnostic tool to get it dialed in, but I haven't got around to it. Right now, I'm just doing minor adjustments at each re-fueling to dial in the fuel efficiency - like I said, performance seems to be about the same over a wide range so it's trial and error for right now. My last refueling I got 22.7 MPG on ethanol free 89 octane (mid grade) and before that I got a little closer to 23 MPG under similar driving conditions so I am getting in the right neighborhood.

 

This past weekend was pretty fun. We started off by taking a trip down to the beach with my son to cruise through Ocean City on Saturday night. On our way down I decided to stop by to show my truck to the guy that I bought it from. I thought for sure that I was about to make a 55 year old man cry... He had no idea that I was stopping by and it was the first time that he saw it since he sold it to me on that faithful day in January 2012. He was literally speechless! After about 15 minutes of scoping out the truck he finally asked "how much?" I told him to make an offer so he shot $14,000 back at me. No dice, but at least he respected my work enough to make a semi-reasonable offer.

On Sunday my Pops, Son and I headed a few minutes up the road to Delmar, DE for the Chevy Super Sunday. Even though it was a Chevy only show, I took my truck and had to park in the spectator lot. It's still pretty cool to see Chevy guys checking out my truck. The show was awesome! Tons of VERY nice cars, drag racing, beer and food! My son fell in love with Junior Dragsters so I might try to see what I can do to get him into that. They start at 6 years old so we have a couple years to get ready. I was pretty amazed to see these 6 year olds running 9 second 1/8 miles at 75 MPH! Pretty crazy!!

Here he is drooling over of over of the dragsters. I told him that he needs to flirt with the GIRL that drives and maybe she'll let him take it for a spin!


Keep in mind that these cars are driven by KIDS ages 6-12 - they are so fortunately to have the opportunity to race like this!


Then he stumbled across the super dragsters (6 second cars!) and wanted one of those -unfortunately for him, my pockets aren't that deep! But at least the dude that owned it was cool enough to let him sit in it.


Here is a video of that same guy (far lane) making a pass. The video really doesn't do the actual speed justice!


I forgot to take a picture later on in the day, but here is a panoramic of the drag strip and about half of the cars that showed up for the show:


Two of my Pop's friends actually shared the best of show. One was that 1,300 HP 69 Camaro that I posted pictures of earlier (and in the background below) and the other was this 1955 Chevy wagon packing a 5.7L LS1. This thing is absolutely impeccable!!! Like I said above, there were A LOT of great cars at this show and it is really cool that I personally know the owners of the best two!





At the end of the day, my boy was all tuckered out - passed out on the ride home:


All-in-all, a great weekend! September starts wedding season for me. I have to go to four weddings and I'm in two! I'm hoping to squeeze in this import car and truck show in Virginia Beach on one of those weekends - they have a 4x4 import class so I'm hoping to bring home some hardware!