Great pictures. I just started following your posts on here. Good stuff

 

this is a great thread ive been reading it off and on all day today. tons of great info on here. im getting my 85 4x4 next week. good luck to you on your project.

 

I had not checked your thread for awhile...you are coming right along...as mentioned above, lots of good info and nice job of documenting everything..

 

Thanks for the nice remarks. I think I've made a lot of mistakes but at least I'm learning a lot.

Well, we finished the durabak. Here's the pictures:
shot of interior


another shot of interior


shot of interior with seats reinstalled


shot of outside of truck with my 31" tires that it came with


finally put my 33" mud terrains on


Final thoughts on the durabak: It's a good product. I bet that I should have sanded more so I may get some of it peeling up in the future. If so I might patch it. I'm not sure yet. I guess it's another thing I've got to learn for myself. The smell is not nearly as bad as some say it is. In fact, it almost smells kind of like a new car to me.

Oh, and now that it's in I can see any water that comes into my cab. I'm thinking now that I have a leak somewhere. In fact I think it's on both sides of the truck and coming down behind the kick plates. Does anyone agree that it's probably the windshield? Is it worth it to pay a professional to reseal the windshield? I really don't want to rust that channel out...

Yesterday it rained a ton here and some of the streets flooded. I drove past an SUV and a car stalled out in like 3 feet or so of water. I was closer to the middle of the road and was probably only in 2 feet of water. It was pretty nice and I was glad for the extended breather. I checked it when I got in the driveway and it didn't get any water in it.

The mud terrains are pretty sweet. They are loud and now I'm limited in speed to around 65 mph but offroad they really give me lots of traction. Before I would slip and slide in 4wd and Monday I was able to drive through the same spots in 2wd with zero slipping from my tires. Here's some pics of some piggies that got to ride in the truck (viewer discretion again as this shows some blood):
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...ng/piggies.jpg

Next up is 4crawler's transfer stick limited travel install. After that I have to rebuild the solenoid portion of my winch, replace my missing remote, and I'm probably gonna have to buy an Optima battery as my current battery is not doing the job. I'm also still looking for a scrap piece of steel to build the rear bumper. I'm starting to think this is the never-ending project...

 

Man that looks nice.

 

That durabak looks like really nice stuff. I used herculiner in the cab on my '80 Hilux several years ago and did pretty much the same process you used. I got some paint removing wheels for a drill and ground pretty hard wherever i was gonna put the herculiner.

It held up really well until the clutch cylinder leaked brake fluid on it. The fluid melted right through the herculiner - just something to be aware of. Everywhere else in the cab was pretty much bullet proof with that stuff on it.

 

Is it noisier in there with out carpet?

 

looks nice, i cant wait to get mine.

 

I thought it was noisy when I pulled the carpet out. Noise was another reason I went with the Durabak with the recycled tire particles in it. I figured that would absorb noise better than the smooth Durabak.

Engine noise is definitely less with the Durabak. I can't really talk about road noise as I put the M/T's on as soon as the Durabak was dry. (been waiting a few months and wanted the cab floor 2 inches lower to help with the painting and reinstall of the dash and stuff)

 

I have been having surging issues with the truck. I noticed it once a month ago, twice a week ago, and then on Friday, 6 times before I got it home.

It only happens when warmed up and typically when I'm accelerating from a stop. The engine revs without any pressure on the skinny pedal. It goes until I kill the engine or if I put it in high gear and let it continue for 45 seconds or so.

I did some research on here and it really seemed like the AAP which I pulled the vacuum hose off of this morning and found no gas, not even a smell of gas. Well, I did more research and found this quote from 4crawler

"I would first check the throttle, make sure it is closing fully and not sticking partly open when you let off the gas. Then see if the dashpot is sticking or slow to let the throttle close, it is the spring loaded plunger under the throttle that acts like a shock absorber."

So I looked at the throttle linkage and you can see on the picture where it's grabbing at the brake hose. (which means new hose soon for the brake cylinder).



Here's my redneck fix using zip ties:



Windshield is still leaking. Still trying to decide between a redneck fix of silicone or drop the cash required to have a professional pull the windshield and reinstall it.

 

Its amazing how addicting it is to see build-ups.. i keep reading and reading.. excellent work...

 

yea this is a really cool project, keep posting!

 

i look forward to seeing your next project.

 

This project has been painful enough... Of course, I've already started thinking that given enough spare time in the future, I'd like to consider some kind of 4bt swap... I'd love to think I could drop that into a 'yota but it seems the easy route is to find an old ford truck.

My welder friend has told me that he can probably weld up my bumper at the end of this month. Here's the linky to that discussion:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f88/.../#post50595980

I'm also still having surging problems. It is not happening as much. I'm gonna mess around with it for another week or so and then take it to a shop. It's pretty frustrating and also not very safe.

I did finally replace a broken stud on my rear axle. I pulled the tire and drum off, pounded the old stud out with a sledge and then rotated the axle so I could slide a new stud into position. Then I slipped the drum back on, installed a few washers, and then torqued down the lug nut to pull the stud into position. Worked beautifully and only took me about 15 minutes.

Finding replacement solenoids for my 1985 warn winch is not going so well either. Warn doesn't make those type of solenoids anymore and search hasn't told me anything either. I've been told old ford starter solenoids and when I called Warn they said to match it at a Napa autoparts store. I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that that is the only thing wrong with the winch...

 

When I tested the winch I could only hear one solenoid activate and only in one of the 2 directions. Because of this I tore the entire setup down. Then I found two ford starter solenoids from autozone to use to rebuild this thing. I also picked up a multimeter and using that, determined that all the solenoids were working. I'm thinking it was due to a bunch of bad connections. So I sanded it all down, painted the rusted structural parts, bought new nuts for some of it, coated it all in vaseline to prevent more rust, and then reassembled it.

I'm hoping to keep the ford starter solenoids as spares.

Here's what I started with:


Here's a schematic of how this thing works:


I edited the schematic and the original document came from:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/8274/8274.htm

I'm also about to order an odyssey battery. It's supposed to be an upgrade from the optima. I'm hoping a pc1200 will be enough juice. It'll certainly be better than what I currently have.

Today I started dismantling the trim around the windshield. It was cracked continuously and was causing the leaks that resulted in water in both floorboards. I'm planning on using 4crawler's fix here:
http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/CheapTri...rim/index.html

I like the chrome trim better but I hate rust more and that fix looks like it would last for quite a while.

4crawler's short transfer case shifter arrived last week and I'm waiting until I get to a junkyard and find a boot for the bottom of the manual tranny lever so that I can take care of both of those at the same time.

This week I hope to get an alignment finally done as well which will finally straighten out the steering wheel. (it's about 90 degrees off)

 

All the solenoids now work and my multimeter shows 0 resistance across the correct solenoids when they activate. That means the motor is probably bad. I'm gonna try something Warn told me. You short the armature and field winding and put 12 v across the other field winding. The motor should run. If that fails I'll probably be looking for a starter motor shop around here that can look at the motor and see if it needs brushes (hopefully...).

In the meantime I've bought a used harbor freight winch for $150. It seems to be in great shape and it's an 8000 lb winch. I think that would get me unstuck. I'm gonna sell the winch carrier that bolts into a hitch and the foller fairlead and try to recoup some of the $150 with the hopes of selling the winch itself later on when the Warn decides to start working. It's just that I need a winch badly right now. It's been really muddy lately and even the MT's lose traction on some of the nasty inclines. I'm also having to switch between street tires and MT's to keep the wear down on the MT's. 2000 miles a month is a lot on MT's....

I just finished putting new terminals on the disconnects that I'm gonna use to connect the winch to the battery. Should finish wiring that tomorrow and then I can finally put my synthetic winch rope on the truck. Will be a big relief to have a working winch finally.

New issue came up. I noticed my temp was a little high last week when it was over 100 degrees and I was running my air conditioning. I shut of the AC but later on I noticed a nasty residue in my overflow tank.



I got a friend to confirm that it isn't oil. At first I thought RTV or gasket material but then I noticed something else. The hoses that connect the radiator cap to the overflow tank and the actual overflow tank pickup tube were slimey and seem to have grown in length...




Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that is vacuum tubing. A PO must have replaced the stock hoses with vacuum tubing... When I was rebuilding the motor I figured they looked in good shape so I didn't mess with them.

I've picked up some vinyl clear tubing to replace it with. I'm having a hard time cleaning the overflow tank and it worries me that some residue is in the engine and radiator. Any opinions?

 

I couldn't get standard battery cables to work based on the small room around the solenoid connections so I went with the stock disconnect and found a disconnect-to-battery disconnect to wire it all up. At first the winch wouldn't work until I broke out the multimeter and figured my disconnect-to-disconnect ground connection was bad. Used some sandpaper and the winch now works!


Wound up the 125' of rockstomper line. The engine was running and the battery seemed to handle it just fine. That now means I can wait on buying the gel battery .

The only thing I noticed was how hot the motor seemed to get while spooling in the line. This should be the longest pull I will ever do with it as the last two times I've gotten stuck I only need a 5 foot to 20 foot pull to get to good ground.

Here's my redneck tarp cover for the winch. Definitely looks redneck but who cares as long as the winch doesn't get damaged by the rain.


Here's the connected up vinyl tubing for my overflow tank.


Next project is to get the stupid bed body lift pucks replaced. I've decided to get a 3 foot breaker bar for my 24" cheater bar. Between that and a torch I think I can finally finish that job. So far I've replaced 5 of the 8 (I think that's the total back there).

Also still need to finish the windshield. Lowe's has been out of the 1/2" diameter syrofoam backing the last 2 times I've been. Gonna have to try some other hardware store.

 

killer bulid up

I love these old trucks

Ken

 

Thanks for the time you spent posting this thread.....It's a nice looking truck!

 

Thanks for all the kind words.

On a sidenote it's been raining cats and dogs here for the last few days and I found myself in a situation where I had to drive the truck through some really, really nasty mud. I had to do the rocking method where you quickly shift from reverse to 1st and back a few times to get unstuck. Anyway, it was nice to have this truck. Saved me from walking 200 yards to haul out some wild game I shot on a hunt Friday night. The sad thing was I could drive the truck to it but with the 3" body lift I still couldn't lift the hog onto the back of the truck. I had to drive back out and pick up a friend hunting a few miles away and bring him in since his truck couldn't get to where I was. So now I need to rig up some kind of block and tackle to lift these heavy things onto my truck. Just so you don't think I'm a complete wimp the hog weighed in at just over 155 lbs. That's a lot when it's complete dead weight that's dripping wet from rain and that other stuff that happens when you shoot it with a 2 oz slug. I had been tracking her for 2 weeks now with her winding me 3 times before. I'd have to rank her up as the 2nd smartest hog I've experienced.

(graphic warning again)
http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r...unting/hog.jpg

Today I was driving around and I noticed that my clutch wasn't shifting too good. I stopped and checked the clutch reservoir and it's empty... Current plan (after I refilled it) is drive it as long as I can and then replace the master and slave cylinders from wab fab. They both are covered in rust. I'd like to make it until next month.

On a sad note I've finally listed the 4runner for sale. Already cleaned it up and listed it here and on craigslist. Next week I'll park it closer to the road with a sign. It's getting cooler and the only reason I drove it anyway was because the R-12 ac was so nice. It's still my favorite vehicle ever but I can't describe the incredible feeling of accomplishment I get from driving the 1985 pickup.