Well reached kind of a crossroad on my truck.
I want to do a flat bed on it but I also want fuel injection as well.

However I found a dude selling a 88 4 runner v6 for cheap he wants $1600 for it.
I keep thinking I should just get it. Buy another front axle for my truck take the wheels and tires and diff's out it an put some smaller used 34x9.5's or just take the 33x12.50's off the 88 4 runner and use the open 4.10's sell the truck for $2500-3000 and use all the other stuff I have to SAS another rig.
I dunno why I am thinking this way maybe a already fuel injection truck is more appealing to me.
Someone talk some sense to me before I do this.

 

4runners are sensible.

 

keep the truck. trust me. i went the 4runner route and i somewhat regret it. while your truck can be easily flatbeded, the 4runner's rust issues are not as easy to deal with. even if the truck looks good, chances are it is full of bondo and there is rust sitting underneath waiting to rear its ugly head.

i would keep the truck, do the flatbed, and save up for EFI or propane.

 

Shad,

Keep the truck.

 

Yup I guess I am keeping it then.
I spent the last 3 hours wire brushing the frame getting all the gunk of it so I can rust treat it and paint it.
Man I am getting red need some sun screen it got hot out there today.

 

What's rust?

 

4runners are great...however that v6 might turn into a headache...for a trail truck stick with what you have...id never trade my 86 carbed toy for that 88 v6...i KNOW my 22R can run for days and days...heck ive rolled it on its side and winched it back over...started up on the first try. those v6's are problems...especially in the older trucks...ive got the v6 in my 94 runner and its been good...lots of torque off road..but its a gas hog..and if you dont do regular maintence they can become trouble.
put a 22RE in your truck if you want EFI...but seeing your truck..id flatbed it first...its fairly cheap and if your 22R is running good then why EFI? my 22R with 32/36 weber runs up and down all kinds of hills...ive never had a problem with it on a steep hill yet.

 

instead of spending more money on a spent bed...just take it off and flatbed it. looks better...works better

my truck has a perfect bed/shell but i already want to flatbed it...lighter, more utilitarian and no more worries about denting or scratching bedsides...

 

The bed is gone already. It had some rust scale in spots. Much of the waxoil under coating is still there and has been coming off so I can see metal again.

Some pics of the truck today.

 

your frame looks to be in excellent shape. good deal.

also, i bet you never realized how much that rear bumper reduces your departure angle until now that the bed is off, lol.

 

where's the trail pictures??

 

None yet.
My truck is still under construction.
I may start construction of the flatbed this week.
My buddy offered to let me use his welder on my truck.

 

Do an EFI Conversion. I finished mine about 2 months ago.

Here are some tips:
- Get a wrecked vehicle if possible (then you'll have everything)
- 1985-1987 are a much more simple EFI system (less vacume too).
- Rebuild the motor while you have it out.

I purchased a 85 motor with blow hg w/ wiring including computer. I spent a ton of extra money tracking down misc parts, brackets, etc. An excellent resource for rebuild parts: http://www.engnbldr.com

Here is my long post about the EFI Motor Swap:

http://gitout.com/forum/viewtopic.ph...er=asc&start=0

 

Tha's a pretty cool write up there aren't alot of them for older trucks like ours unfortunately.

I did some other stuff yesterday. I got bored had some rust control blue paint so I decided to be different and paint my hysteer arms and tubes blue instead of red or black.




I also wire brushed the whole back of my frame and used rust converter on it.
Here's what it looked like before I used the rust converter.


The frame really wasn't that bad alot of the waxoil coating back there protected alot of the stuff I had to painfully scrap all that stuff off it took about 3 hours to clean it all off..


I painted it with some BBQ grill rustolem.

 

Also another option I am looking at is swapping a newer cab onto this frame. I found a newer 88 reg cab rust free it looks like a nice canidate.

 

does the cab come with a title?

 

It would but it would be a salvage title.
I also checked with them they have a rolling chassis from a early 80's truck with the axles.
I think they want around $300ish for it. It was a engine fire early in it's life so the frame is really solid minimal work on it to have a nice truck.
It's funny to find a junkyard like this. The place isn't well known so it's kind of a hidden yard people don't really know too much about it. They have older trucks only about 4 other SFA toyota trucks mostly carberated and one SFA 4 runner..
I also picked up a nice yakima rack from this guy for $40. He said it came off a VW Jetta. I told him after I bought it these are about $300 he wasn't really concerned about it though.

 

first of all, dont do the salvage title. should you ever want to sell your truck, you prett much wont be able to. some insurance companies wont insure a vehicle with a salvage title either.

dont get the truck with the engine fire either. it doesnt take much heat to completely ruin all wiring in a truck and anything plastic. if the heat was more intense, the heat treating on the frame could be shot or it could be slightly warped.

why are you contemplating swapping cabs? yours doesnt seem to be in bad shape after all?

 

Actually in Vermont if a vehicle is more than 15 years old you don't need a title register it you just need a bill of sale. I found that out today.
He said he would let me have both the 88 cab from the one truck plus the gas tank and EFI parts for $200 and the 80's truck frame with axles and transmission for $100. He wants the stuff out of there. If t's not out of there in 6 months he is crushing it.