This may be several small posts because I'm going to be posting from my phone. Anyways I will start from the beginning of how I ended up with this truck. I was working for this body shop and a family friend came in and asked for paint job on his Toyota and wanted it cheap as it was just a farm truck so I told him about raptor liner and that it really would be the best bet for what he wanted the boss didn't seem interested in doing it but I talked him into just spraying it if the family friend would do the prep work but once he brought the Toyota over it just sat around for months and in that amount of time I switched jobs because the I got sick of fighting to get paid and when I did get paid my checks always seemed short for my hours. Well the family friend ended up just coming to me directly and asked me to do it and I agreed to get it done




I didn't get all the pictures I should have but this is what I got. Anyways I got it all reassembled and called up the family friend and told him I got it done but he decided to have me put the flatbed he built on it but he told me that the bed needed work because he built it too low and the tires would rub. Not really a big deal I just had to build spacers out of 2 inch square tubing and wire the taillights which turned out to be kind of a pain because it had a front signal bulb that was shorting out to ground that I couldn't figure out for a while but I got it all done and my GF went ahead and pinstriped the bed and put their cattle brand on the truck



after cleaning up the interior and a few things we sent the truck on it's way home and all well for about a year when the family friend came back asked for another favor, he wanted the bed pulled off the blue truck and put on a Tacoma he just bought because he couldn't get more than 10mph out the blue truck and in exchange he would cut me a deal on the blue truck and I agreed on that deal and got that done but the Tacoma he bought wasn't exactly perfect and I ended changing the third member and a few other odds and ends and put about $600 into all that and in exchange he just ended up handing me the title to the blue truck.

what it looked like when it became mine I had a lot of work to do though

I had to build a new bed I chose to build a wooden deck so I got some tongue and groove 2x6s from a local yard and some 3 inch angle iron and 2x4 square tubing

deck is done and ready to go onto the truck

mounted


start of the headache rack
almost done with welding





Prepped and painted with new Holland gray from tractor supply "sorry about my terrible pictures my phone is shot and I don't want to always harass my GF to use her phone




lights all wired up and the light bar is on a toggle switch switch so I can flip it on with the reverse lights or just on because or off

 

Cleaned up the interior and redid the door panels and sort of fixed the seats and replaced a lot of bulbs with LEDs









some decent pictures with new tires



egr delete

Not pictured but I also deleted the add system and installed manual hubs and changed out all the control arm bushings and put ball joint spacers in the front and added a leaf in the back and put a bulb back in the check engine light and found a code 53 and 21 but I fixed 53 but I'm pretty sure I'll need a new ECU to get rid of 21 because at one point the O2 sensor wires got burned and repaired and O2 sensor checks out fine and the wires are all good to the ECU

 

Changed the worn idler arm, pitman and steering stabilizer last night and we took it up on the mountain last weekend. Poor little 3vz was not real happy going up 8% grades but it made it

 

That thing was beat. A shame to see them get so much abuse. But I suppose that is what they are made for, to be a good work truck. And at least good to see it's still chugging along. Looks much nicer now, good work. Most likely it will get run into the ground, but maybe we can be hopeful that some day it gets a good restore, and gets to retire a good easy life.

 

Did a bit of a lighting upgrade


Found these on eBay for $20 and got some 1157 bulb holders and LED switchbacks but as you can tell I had to hog the holes out to get the holders to fit






Next I soldered and shrink tubed an extra wire into the park light circuit and signal circuit so I could add corner signals. I also put Deutsch connectors in so I can unplug it all. I also put new wire loom on and put the intake silencer back in because I don't think it made a lick of difference



Now I have some great park lights and Bright signals and side signals





Next I sanded the bed down a little and stained it

 

I ended up putting epoxy on the bed to seal it all up and gave it a good look, I mixed the blue chrome spray paint in with the epoxy

 

Thank you. I learned about Deutsch connectors

 

No problem, they've changed how I wire everything I can pull my whole bed off just by unplugging one connector and taking the bolts out. I even have one on my O2 sensor because it was just butt connectors when I got the truck and I even had my EGR heater connector break so I used a 2 pin to make a much cleaner nicer resistor connection

 

Well I did done messed up, I kept getting code 52 so I went to replace the knock sensor and while I was in there I must have dropped something down the 6 intake and now I have a 5 cylinder 3vz but it’s actually a good thing because I probably would’ve left that 3vz in there for a long time and suffered through many slow slow trips but now the problem is I need to find a 5vz which I think I’ve done I just got to work on some other things in exchange for it. I hope by the end of the week I’ve got a whole donor truck in the shop

 

Making moves


it was involved in a rollover it’s an automatic but it’s only 110k on the clock so it’s better than a 256k 3slow

 

Removed, I was able to start it for a second but I don’t think the fuel pump was much good anymore. Got a bit of sludge in the pan but not too bad

 

Got the crossover modified

 

3vz is out and about stripped for parts

 

got the timing belt and all of components changed and the passenger motor mount ground to fit and new spark plugs in I also swapped the a/c compressor tops

 

Spray bombed under the hood and installed the 5vz

 

Been taking care of the odds and ends, bolted air box in got heater hoses on and new radiator in

 

Update! It runs! I tried to upload a video not sure if it worked or not but either way I wired it up enough to start and at first it didn’t because it turned out I read the diagram a little wrong and needed power on the B/L wire so I just twisted it up with one of the other wires I routed (I went with a bit of standalone setup so I didn’t have to rely on relays and fuses from 1992 to run the whole thing) and I knew the something had to be done with the COR but I didn’t trust my reading skills so I just used my power probe to ground out the G/Y on the COR and I could hear the pump so I hit the key and boom she was alive. I still have an issue with oil pressure gauge, it shoots up really good upon first start but then instantly goes right back to nothing but I don’t hear any knocks so I’m assuming that it’s ok but I may stick a mechanical gauge on it for kicks and giggles. Still got some wiring to do and an exhaust to build and a hood to cut but I can see the finish line

 

I decided to get these little tiny 1 1/2 gauges and put them under the radio where the busted useless cubby hole was I didn’t use the water temp because I didn’t want to plumb it into my cooling system I didn’t mean for the paint to react that way but I actually really dig it. I also got this hood scoop off eBay, I can close my hood with the structure cut out but it rubs on the intake so I’m going to put this on and panel bond it down instead of using the crappy double sided tape that came with it because I don’t know how well it will stick to bed liner but first I got to fit it then paint it black and let my g/f pinstripe it. I also did the tach mod and had her pinstripe the gauge cluster but I don’t have any pics yet

 

Lookup on Amazon Install Bay 89-00-9031 ABS Plastic 12 X 12 X 1/8-IncH

The cig lighter can be changed out to an USB charger for cheap too

 

thanks but I’m going to use what I’ve got laying around. I try to budget build everything and this piece was free and the charger was just something I had from another project and I’m happy with how it turned out