Well I just recently found out that I'm headed to alaska for the next few years and decided I wanted to get another toyota for the awesome snow wheeling and adventures I hope to have. So I started looking on Craigslist every chance I could and came across an all stock and super clean 85 extended cab back home. Gave my dad a call and the next day was the owner of my first solid axle toyota. I'd like to give it a nice 2-3" lift and some slightly bigger tires. Not really wanting to re gear quite yet but also don't want to buy tires twice when I do. Not sure what lift to go with. Any input? I won't really be able to work on it until I take it up to alaska. Anyways, here's some images

 

Wow!!! That truck is in great shape. Sweet find. Welcome to Yotatech and looking forward to your build.

 

Awesome find!! Sooo clean. Cant wait to see where you go with this build.

 

You could probably go up to a 31" tire before needing to re gear. Depends on how much highway driving you do.

Great looking truck!

 

Ok well I ordered some shackles for up front and an aal for the rear and now that I've been having time to think about it I feel like that's not all I'll need. First solid axle Toyota so new to the lifts. I ordered 5:29s as I plan on 35s by the time I head up to Alaska. Now I am just trying to clear my confusion with lifting it. I have several people back home that are knowledgeable with Toyotas and such yet all are doing horrible at answering my questions. I'm hoping I can get some help on here before I go home to work on my truck. The more I think about it I feel that it may be easier to send the shackles back and do a ruf with some boomerang shackles and the aal. But then I get to where I'm not sure if I would have to buy shock hoops and longer shocks. I truly need all the help I can get. I have a limited amount of time I can work on it seeing as I'm in Vegas and my truck is back home until I move up to Alaska.

 

If you do RUF springs in the front you'll need a new spring hanger and you'll have to move it further forward than stock since the rear springs are longer than your stock front springs. Also you don't necessarily need boomerang shackles, I'm running RUF springs and TG 5" shackles and they work fine, I haven't had any problem with them hitting the body mount. Your probably going to need longer shocks, you can either use shock hoops or some use Ford shock towers (I believe they're cheaper). Another thing to you need to consider when doing RUF springs (or any aftermarket lift spring such as TG or AllPro that are longer than stock) is your steering. Using these springs is going to move your axel forward, which is going to affect your steering box location, most people switch over to hi-steer instead of the stock push/pull steering your truck currently has, just something to consider (and another added expense).

AAL, Chevy 63's springs or a zuk mod are all cheaper and effective ways to lift the rear if your on a budget. I ran a Zuk mod using jeep TJ front coil springs and gained 3" of lift. It rode and handled really well, but again you'll need longer shocks.

I hope this helps you out some, it's late and I'm sure I forgot some other stuff (like longer brake lines). If you haven't already, you should check out the SAS build section, although you already have a straight axel truck, those builds are going to have more useful info for the type of build you are considering. Also 775Toy has an awesome build thread on his 84' X-cab, you should check out: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f198...thread-246866/
Good luck! -Ed.

 

Omg it's beautiful ! So hard to find them clean nowadays.
If it were me and all I wanted was a simple small 2-3" lift that uses stock mounting locations I'd look into a old man emu kit. They perform very well and no welding or fabrication needed. Increases travel & rides smooth.
You have many options of re-arching springs / add a leafs / blocks ( always use steel & never block the front ) / longer shackles ( wouldn't go longer than 6" ) or any combination of the above to achieve a few inches of lift without getting the torches & welder out.
Ruf / 63s / f150s and similar wrecking yard lifts perform as good or better than out of box lifts but require quite a bit of fabrication to do it properly. All pretty straight forward though with lots of info online .
Good luck with your build.