went up to the shop Sunday and finally got the front bumper finished up. Rounded fence post caps came in and got those welded up and ground down to give the ends a finished look (and unlike the smittybilt plastic caps, water WONT be able to get in the pipe as it's fully welded all around). Of course I"m mocking this up on my '89, and someone at some point had put tow bar mounts on the front of mine, so I had to cut those off to be able to even mock it up. Drilled and bolted the winch plate on to the front frame member, removed the body mounts for the other mounting tabs, mocked everything up so it was square and even and stitch welded it in a few areas....pulled it all off and then went and burned it in. Also got the light tabs welded on, but haven't drilled them out yet or ground the welds down (so not 100% ready to paint, but I can drill the holes at the house and do whatever grinding I need to there.

I have to admit, after lugging it around for past few weeks in the back of my rig, it sure felt nice to toss that old rusty bumper in the garbage.

Here's a few shots of the progress, and one or two of me cutting my thumb to the bone with the grinder (it's healing up nicely now)

winch plate burned in

side shot - the smaller rectangular fog lights will mount on the underside of the winch plate

rounded tabs going to the front body mounts (still need to be drilled out in the center, but it's marked.



with the hawse fairlead mounted

rounded caps on the ends of each side

hawse fairlead



Ouch!



Pretty much to the bone.....even clipped the nail a bit. Those cutting wheels move quick!



and now for some more sad news. I'm ˟˟˟˟ting oil everywhere again. I think (Hoping) my old oil cap is just cracked and the seal is blown. I put some RTV on it, but will pick up a new one today at lunch. However, it could be something much worse, like a blown front main seal or a more major leak from the timing cover. If either one of those is the case, I'll rebuild the other block and swap it out. Maybe even get the bumper mounted to the '86 and get it running and driving so I can still get to work? who knows. Lets hope the oil cap fixes it.

 

New oil cap didn't fix the leak and I'm back to Exxon Valdez meets Deep Water Horizon. Guessing it's blown the front main seal (was installed new) or blew out the side of the timing cover (more than likely from the increased crankcase pressure that may be a bigger issue). Either way it's a ton of oil leaking out and I won't be driving it at all this week. At this point, it makes more sense for me to fill it with oil and stop multiple times on the way home Thursday after work to check the levels (I'll just stay at the office until then) and take off Friday and possibly Monday so that I can spend that time sitting down and rebuilding the LCE motor that's still in my living room. Get it bottle brush honed, re-ring it, replace the bearings, and do all new gaskets, reassemble, and drop it in after I yank the other one out.

Sounds like a weekend I've had before.....or is this a Bill Murray movie called Groundhog's Day?

 

Got the originally machined motor that's been laying in my living room for a while finally torn down. Planning on rebuilding it and pulling the current one in the '89 (turbo block) to swap in the fresh one. Pulled the crank, and got it on the engine stand out on the porch. The cylinders weren't bad or had major scratches, but I wanted them to be just like they would coming from the shop and so they would have the correct crosshatch pattern to seat the new rings. So I used the traditional style 3 stone spring hone (bought it at sears) first to even out the walls and make sure there weren't any low or high spots. Then pulled out the Brush Research Dingleberry crosshatching bottlebrush hone to get the final crosshatch pattern.

Cylinders prepped and ready to reinstall the crankshaft, rear main, and get those pistons re-ringed and in there.

after the stone honing



Using the Brush Research Dingleberry hone to get the correct crosshatch pattern to cut the rings in







I am off work tomorrow, so I'm planning on trying to drive the '89 home tonight.....however, there's a catch. I've got to stop and meetup with the guy selling me the tires for the '86. Currently the cargo area of the runner is full of "cargo" (parts, electronics, wiring, tools, bumpers, etc. So i'll have to unload a good portion of that onto a pallet here at work and head home with a tool kit and enough room for 4 super swampers. Of course I've got 8+ quarts of oil and will be spewing it the entire time, so I'll have to stop and double check it frequently to fill it up. However, barring any major disasters, I'm hoping to get the truck home to be able to work on it and swap engines this weekend. And don't worry, I'll take plenty of pictures of the full rebuild and swap. Wish me some luck.....I'm definitely going to need it.

 

Made it home...got the tires...massive oil dump

I think there's an oil leak.

 

I can't say how happy I was that I made it home Thursday. Before I left work, I had to clear out some of the stuff in the back of the rig to make room for 4 Super Swampers. A lot of what was back there were tools that I may need when swapping motors, and no matter how hard I tried to fit in in there, I had to leave the new bumper for the '86 at the office. I stopped and met up with the guy that had the tires and filled it back up with oil, but there was so much oil leaking that all of my belts were slipping, no power steering, and I could do nothing but watch as the oil pressure and battery gauges just drained as I meandered my way through rush hour traffic. Pulled up to the house and realized that it would be much easier to pull the motor if I backed up and aligned the vehicle a little better, but alas.....only a click. The battery had drained lower than is needed to start it up and I was dead in the water. Don't know how much further I could have made it, but I'm extremely grateful that I got it home.

I still think I got a great deal on the wheels for the '86. Rims were a little rusty, but cleaned up and painted matte black looked pretty decent. They also came with the "Toyota" rear center caps, and the tires were practically new. I bet they only have a couple of hundred miles on them and not a speck of dry rot or cracking. They definitely made the rig look much tougher and were a huge upgrade for only $350 over the junk tires and original rims (that I'll sell later). We went back and painted the center cap bright red to match the front hub locker and tow hooks( not shown), and I'm thinking about adding the diagonal stripes to it in bright red as well, or I may leave it all black....we'll see. . Also got the top bolted down, the other door on, and windows cleaned and ready to put back in.





Addition of the Super Swamper LTB 31x11.5x15 and some factory steelies from what I'll assume is a T100 or later model 4Runner. Looking tough in spite of the one headlight. Also got the grille painted and buffed out and ready to put in, but that's also not shown.


Most of the work on the '86 was done by my buddy Duey who came over Friday and Saturday to help out. I on the other hand was busy trying to rebuild the LCE Red top motor. I had already honed and cross hatched the cylinders and was ready to clean up the pistons and put them back in. I took my time, making sure all of the rings were facing up and in their correct grooves. I double checked the machine shop #'s on the side and had kept them in order (and with their bearings and lowers) from when I pulled them out. Installed new Clevite 77 Bearings in all of them and one by one, got them back into the block and bolted up. However, after getting everything put together I decided to double check and make sure that it matched the pattern on the head. Something was wrong. I guessed that I must have put them in 180 degrees out and pulled the crank to spin the pistons in their cylinders (was easier than pulling all of the pistons again). After doing that, I got the crank back in (new bearings) and everything bolted back up....spun the motor around and it still didn't look correct. I google image searched the motor with Keith Black pistons and realized that the Machine shop had the pistons in the wrong cylinders. Luckily although the valves had knicked the top of the pistons, they hadn't bent as they were the higher end hardened SS valves. That in and of itself was a revelation as to some of the past issues I've had with this motor. I pulled each piston and swapped it into the cylinder that it should have been in from the beginning.

you can see where the valves nicked the top of the piston. Good thing I didn't have a stage 5 high lift cam!

Everything finally where it's supposed to go.

After that, pulled all of the valves (one by one) and cleaned the oil burned crud off of them, replaced them, and went on to the next one. I Also got the timing cover put back on with the accessory brackets, installed the head gasket and head, as well as the timing chain and cog, everything but the front crank pulley and oil pan. I'm going to re-degree the cam and adjust the valves, get the rest bolted up and get it ready to drop in before I pull the other one. Luckily my niece had a birthday this weekend and my dad brought up the old red T100 pickup to let me borrow so I didn't have to kill myself trying to rebuild and swap a motor in 2-3 days. Another nice thing about that is that now I can get that bumper back to the house and get it painted and put on the '86 along with the refinished grille and new headlights and corner lights. Lots of stress wondering if I was even going to make it home Thursday, but did, and even more stress relieved by my dad letting me borrow the truck again so I am not stranded until the 4Runner is back up and running.

 

here's a quick little photoshop of what the '86 would look like with some red stripes. I didn't show the ones on the driver's side of the hood, but I would do those as well. Not sure if I'd use gloss paint over the top of the urethane UPOL Raptor, or if I'd buy a liter or two of the tintable raptor liner and tint it hot rod red.

What do you guys think? Keep it Murdered out, or go with the red stripes?

 

I wanted to apologize, I probably should have started a second thread for the '86 renovation to keep the confusion between the two projects down, and at some point I may go back and do that.

I loaded up the bumper from the office in the back of the truck to get it home and try to get it finished and on the rig this week. I got home just as I was losing daylight and slapped on my trusty headlamp and managed to get the bumper primed. I had thought about trying to clean up all the welds and fill in some of the rust pitting that was in the pipe when I bought it (oil well drill stem pipe isn't always in the best condition and was probably laying in the field for a good while before I got ahold of it). However, I was a little too excited to bondo or use spot and glazing putty and decided just to go for it. Although the rest of the rig is done in the UPOL Raptor, I wanted something for the bumper that was rattle can and could be easily touched up if it got scratched or dinged, so I went with Duplicolor's bed liner spray cans. Honestly, a far inferior product in my mind, but functional and will probably leave a can of it for touch up with the car. Anyway, it was fairly thick and covered a lot of the minor pits and welds, but not nearly as much as the UPOL would have. Overall, I was fairly happy with how it turned out, and it matches the rest of the ride fine. I've still got to drill a few holes for the body mount tabs, and a second frame mount hole, but will hopefully get it mounted up tonight. I had all three 5" Piaa Ralley lights with me and went ahead and mounted those, but only had one of the PIAA projection fog lights (for mock up) and didn't show the other PIAA Ionic fog lights that will get mounted below the winch plate. I also painted the Hawse fairlead bright red to match a few of the other red accents on the ride already (hubs, tow hooks, and potentially the stripes in the post above) Anyhow....here's the bumper this morning after getting painted and having a few of the lights mounted up.









Better shot of the locking hubs painted red and the new tires



Front tow hooks (also mounting points for the bumper via the winch plate) painted red. Also notice I flattened the front lip on the radiator support body mounts so the tabs I welded to the bumper could slide in there. Also a good look at the new tires.

 

I love this thread. Have you had a tetanus shot in the last ten years? I know I need a new one and I keep cutting myself, but not that bad. I no longer have feeling in one of my fingertips. Thanks Toyota. LOL. About the stripes. If you intend to paint with a bed liner the texture is going to make it impossible to get a clean line on the stripes. Try it first on a scrap piece of metal and you'll see. I don't think it will look good up close. You seem to be a perfectionist and that's what makes this a great thread.

 

ha! It seems like everytime I get hurt, I'm at a hospital that doesn't have my records and gives me a tetanus shot just for good measure. I bet I've had 9 of them in my lifetime. I went for about 8 years without insurance and was doing construction at the time, so I got really good about taking care of wounds, giving myself stitches (with 2 lb test fishing line), and learning how to keep things clean and from getting infected. The cut is almost healed now and probably should have had a few sutures when it happened.

IF i decide to do the stripes......First off, UPOL Raptor liner may look like some of the thicker LineX or Rhino type rubber liners that i've seen built up to 1/4"-1/2" in some instances. Actually it's much thinner than that and not rubber at all, it's more of a hardened urethane non-slip texture you'd see on stairs or something and less than 1/16" thick (or at least that's about how I sprayed it). Since it's urethane, you can paint over the top of it with urethane paint and it'll stick (unlike painting over rubber bed liner) On several of the other things I had masked off (around the hood, windows, etc) regular 3M automotive tape gave a crisp edge....much more so than I was expecting, however.....if I'm really concerned about it I'll buy some of the super fancy metal wire edge tape they use for the Rhino or LineX type liners to literally cut the bedliner at a the edge of the tape and can even cut an an angle depending on how you pull it. Link below is an example:

Wire Trim Pro-line

I'm still kind of on the fence about the stripes. I'd do them for sure if I was keeping the rig, but since I'm just trying to sell it, it may sell better (to a hunter or someone like that) if it's murdered out). IF i do decide to do them, I'll definitely do a test on some wood and on top of a layer of already cured Black to mimic the conditions it would be on the truck. As the goal here is to sell this rig for as much as possible, I'm always looking at things that don't cost much ($50-$100 for enough pipe to make the bumpers and rock sliders, $300 for the new Super Swampers, $150 for the Warn M8000 winch, Ebay PIAA light sets) and may take a little time and effort to do, but will up the value of the truck considerably. I'm also super on the fence about having the windows tinted. basically I have all of the glass out of the car at the moment and a guy that would tint them with top dollar film (3M) for $100 because he wouldn't have to crawl inside a cramped car to do it.

I've got an out of state wedding in Colorado I'm going to this weekend, so budget and time aren't on my side for a lot of the things I need/want to do.

 

those pistons being in the wrong holes is VERY telling about some of the issues you had with that engine!! definitely shoddy work with a lack of attention to detail that went into that. It's really too bad.

That front bumper turned out amazing!

 

The bumper turned out really well! Can't wait to see it mounted!

 

Got the bumper mocked up / mounted on the '86 last night. It's a little off because I mocked it up on the '89 frame which is flawless and the '86 has been hit in the front and everything was a little tweaked. I've got to make a few marks and notations, pull it off, bore out a few holes and change a few things around, but it should be good to go after that. I got rid of ALL of the stupid plastic clips holding on the grille and installed some M6 flanged weld nuts with JB Weld and fiberglassed them in after that (the blue tape is holding the grille in place while it all dries) and those crazy looking side blinkers I got off ebay(from Thailand) for $17 for the pair and Look pretty sharp.....I think they're supposed to be for a hilux? Projection driving and Ralley lights are installed (still need to be wired up) and I still need to install the fog lights below the bumper, but really wanted to see how everything looked once it came together. Personally, I think it makes it look mean....and I like that.

 

That bumper turned out sharp! Nice work man.

 

Nice job!!! I love how you have the winch set up through the bumper, instead of on top like mine. Looks way better too!!

 

I'm guessing yours is the Smittybilt brand with the cutout for the winch and plastic end caps. Mine doesn't hug the front quite as tightly as yours, but Smittybilt used 14-16 gauge (.083-.065" thick) 3" tubing so it could be bent in their mandrel tubing bender. Although this bumper has the same '80's retro look, it's 3-4 gauge (1/4" thick wall) 2.75" oil well drill stem pipe. Thing weighs a good bit, but could probably stop a buffalo from denting the radiator. Here's a side by side comparison of the two thicknesses of the pipes below. The Winch plate that bolts to the frame is 1/2" plate steel while the body mounts are 1/4" plate.

 

Yep, you were spot on, it's an old Smittybilt. I've got the same type on the back. I've been rear ended a couple of times, once by a vacuum truck, and it's held strong. But wow, that beast you built is badass! I'd call your's about bulletproof. I had no idea about the thickness difference. It's cool!! I'm enjoying your build. My pic is probably 8 or 9 years old, the truck looks a little different these days.

 

I'm sure the weight won't help with gas mileage but the heft and design / multiple support points will definitely help in a collision. I still have to make a rear bumper and side rock sliders, but I picked up 64' (8 sticks of 8') of that pipe for $50 and should be able to make all of them out of that (really cheap considering the rest is just time and labor). I could have hunted down some original smittybilts, but would have ended up paying way more for them and didn't like how thin they were (mine were totally rusted out). However, I really like the old school look of those bumpers, and wanted to make something similar that tucked a winch away in the front along with blinkers and KC style lights as well as had reverse and brake lights in the rear. Some of the guys now are all about their LED light bars and such, but I dig the old school KC / Ralley lights (and have picked up a rough tote full of them off ebay for roughly $20 a pair versus the original $250-$300)

My bumper may be bulletproof, but I'm hoping I get another 8-9 years out of my truck without any major issues....that's the real goal. This rig is getting sold as soon as it's up and running and the bumpers are finished and I'll be back to focusing on my '89 (the bumper design for it is more a more modern plate style below)

 

You got some good deals, especially that pipe. How are you bending that thick stuff, or are you just cutting, and welding? I love the looks! The look of the new plate bumper for your '89 looks awesome as well. I've always liked the tubular frame bumpers, and the old school lights too.

With the way you're taking care of everything, your '89 will probably be fine for another 8-9 years. Mine is an 1987 SR-5, with almost 320,000 miles, and I haven't really had to do much to keep it running. I do maintain it well. It is about time to go through the front end though.

The one you'll be selling is going to look awesome!! Have a great one, and best of luck with the rest of your build

 

I think these same photos are back up the thread a little bit, but I cut out wedges and then used a come-a-long to bend the pipe .....welded up the seams and ground them down. Turned out pretty well, there were only one or two minor spots that it didn't look factory bent.

 

super long couple of weeks at work and add in costume making and other stuff.....haven't had a chance to get much done at all. Motor still needs to be pulled, other motor needs the rear main and oil pan put on, and the bumper for the '86 still needs some tweaking for fitment as well as some weldnuts to hold in the grille....all while it's poo grey and soggy outside.

We'll see what all can get accomplished this week if anything.