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Hi y'all I've been lurking here for a number of years and watching builds stealing your cool ideas and I figured it was about time I posted a little of my 4 truck 9 year first gen obsession.
It starts with this picture my dad showed me of him and his 1981 sr5 long bed that he got new it was love at first sight and I set out looking for one just like it.
Some time in 08ish I forget the exact year I found the truck that would take me on many adventures until about 2013 more on that later for now here she is.
I did what any young man would do and started throwing every cent I made at it and doing stuff in the woods with my friends learning a ton as I went about these rugged little rigs.
I added tires and a newer style rim, had the bed lined and my best friends dad and I made a 10 gal in bed fuel tank so we could take long trips into the mountains.
At some point I decided I needed more money for mods and such and joined the Navy. Ended up in San Diego with some of my best friends and kept wheeling and doing what I could to make the truck better.
Sadly in 2012 my baby was stolen. Good news I did get her back, bad news they beat her like a rented mule. New fenders bumper and so so much work on the inside and suddenly I could get back to upgrades and not repairs. Rock sliders an ome lift kit went on and most of the parts for dual t cases were picked up.
So here is where the story goes down hill in a very literal sense. In 2014 while on a camping trip in some beautiful hills I went from photo one to photo two when the road I was driving down on the way back to town gave out. Freak accident but it more or less put my baby in a hurt locker. She held together for somewhere around 20 rolls before a rock was nice enough to stop us about 200 yards down. I by the grace of god and the skill of toyota engineers walked away. I payed $80 to buy her back from the insurance company and stuck her in grandpas barn.
Now I can't leave ya'll fine folks on that so in 2016 after two years looking for a good truck to frankenstein my baby into I found a sweet little 1980 San Diego truck with no rust and all the options I wanted that need a loving home.
The new truck while very nice looking from a distance did need a ton of TLC as you would expect for a truck of its age. I did a ton of work to get the inside cleaned and replaced all the lights and a million other little things. I also began taking all the torn up decals off and most important I had the bed lined so it would stay nice like it was.
At the same time I took a trip home and stripped as many good parts off the old truck as I could in a week. The motor had been in good shape and a surprising amount of the parts I had on the truck survived.
Now being as nothing ever goes 100% right on said trip home from San Diego to Oregon the 20R in the new truck started burning a gallon of oil every 45min at speed. As such I started the rebuild of the 22R from the old truck in my garage as soon as I go home.
Now I am sure that none of you thought I was ignoring the rest of the truck while I was building myself a new power plant. During the time I was doing that I got the inside cleaned up fairly nice and got new decals put on and shined her up to blind oncoming traffic.
May 18, 2018 | 04:04 PM
. As such I started the rebuild of the 22R from the old truck in my garage as soon as I go home.
