Greetings all. I'm new to the forum here, but in no way new to things mechanical. I have this little '83 Toyota that has been serving as farm truck for a while and he finally gets a fresh start on life. The build will be a bit slow, but here's where I am so far:

He's got a straight body other than some rust in the floor boards (not terrible, but bad enough) Anyway, after workimg hard around the farm I'm pulling his engine out and giving new life to the little guy. The crank was trashed so I bought a good crank from a friend, it'll be in soon.
The build is still young, but I'll start off with where I am now. There are a ton of goodies in store and I promise it's gonna be a good build so stay tuned...
OK, last day of work:

The poor little guy was loaded heavy enough that I could lift the front end a couple of inches off the ground by grabbing the front bumper and straining
So, out with the old:


Time to get dirty and start tearing apart some filth! I should have taken a pic of the main bearings, but I was covered in filth. Let me say that with 20 years of engine building experience I've NEVER seen mains this trashed:brickknock:
After a half a day of scrubbing, wire brushing, pressure blasting and chemicals known by the state of California to cause cancer, birth defect and slurred speech I finally had a clean block. I wanted to paint it something besides black just to show off all my hard work :meemee: I ran down to the farm supply and they did not have a nice dark red, but they did have a Massey Ferguson red that will work. (It's 70 miles round trip to the nearest real town so running to town for the paint I wanted was out of the question) Next week I'll be in town and then I'll grab a can of black paint for the brackets, pulleys, engine moutns, etc, but for now here is how it sits:

The engine already had a weber conversion and hooker header, but the list of things sitting on the shelf waiting are:
Edelbrock black finish 10" open air filter
Stage one RV camshaft
Taylor 8mm wires
K&N Valve Cover breater filter
2-1/2" exhaust with Dynomaxx muffler
That's about all for now. Stay tuned for more....
George

 

For those wanting to see more of Junior, here's a couple of body shots. There is no, none, ZERO filler on this body. There is very minimal rust and almost no dents. It's about the straightest original body I've seen yet on one of these old trucks. I contibute a lot of it to the heavy plastic bedliner that has kept the bed from getting banged up over the years.

 

ATTENTION: Let me apologize if I was wrong to post a 2WD truck on this forum. I've gained a lot of good tech info from lurking here and figure my build may be beneficial to someone despite it being a 2WD truck. If you don't want it here just let me know and I'm gone. Otherwise I look forward to sharing knowledge with you guys

 

Dude, I don't care that it's not a 4x4. First truck I ever drove, in fact the vehicle that dad taught me to drive in, was his '84 2WD Toyota pickup. We got almost 300k out of that little beasty before it rusted itself out once and for all.

 

ATTENTION: 2WD's are OK too

 

Welcome to the forum, cool truck man.

 

haha! welcome to YT, nice 2wd

 

Thanks guys. The 2WD additional comment was made after I did more looking around here than just browsing the tech articles like I've done in the past. It was one of those moments we'e all probably had at one time or another when you realize suddenly that you stand out like a sore thumb and wonder if you should be where you are!

Thanks again for the welcome, I look forward to sharing knowledge and experience with you guys.

George

 

pretty sure we have a 2wd subforum here as well. If so inclined pm a mod and see if you can move your thread there. My thread is there as far as i know and a few others as well. Nice truck by the way.

 

sub'd

looks like it's going to be a fun build!

 

Yeah it's mostly 4x4's and a LOT of the people on these sites are coming at all this from a off road modification standpoint, but 2wd's are definitely welcome. Even I feel a bit out of place, since my truck is basically stock and I don't do any hardcore offroading. But it's all welcome.

Nice truck. I'll be watching the build.

 

Thanks again for the interest. I just pulled the truck out of the shop and hosed it down good with industrial degreaser. I'll go back out in a new minutes and pressrue wash the engin compartment and see if it'll clean up without too much scrubbing I'm not going to get into much paint and body stuff this time around as I'll be pulling the body off the frame and going ground up after I move here in a few months. For now it'll be engine and fixing a few odds and ends inside the cab, mirrors, window track issue, etc.

I guess maybe I should give some background on myself here. I graduated from Wyotech back in the 90's when it was just the Laramie, WY campus. I took collision/refinishing/custom paint/trim & upholstery/street rod classes. I built my first car engine when I was 12yrs old (69 dodge 318) and worked for several years in the restoration buisiness while owning and operating a custom trim & upholstery shop on the side. I then went on to be an automotive electrician / design engineer for freightliner for about 6 years before moving on to be a machinest for 6 years. I'm now a Deputy Sheriff (don't hate, I'm one of the good guys) and family guy who still builds cars, engines, motorcycles, etc on the side. I've also recently started up a buisiness of building custom boats, although that buisiness is still in it's infancy and I've only turned out a few hulls so far.

So while I'm fairly new to Toyotas I do bring a lot to the table in terms of mechanical, machining and electrical knowledge as well as fiberglass, body work and wood work if you need help there too. I'll be asking a few questions along the way for Toyota specific stuff and have already gained a fair amount of Yota stuff from this site prior to joining.

Thanks and have a great day.

George

 

welcome aboard ..

l'll though 2WD's arnt the norm here , these "tech'ers" are still involved !! lots of really good people here .

i'm currently building a 2wd as well .. but of the 84 vintage https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f209...pertoy-114961/ .. not quite stock

look forward to your future posts ...


.

 

Slacker, I had seen your thread already, very very nice build. When I get moved back down to GA and no longer need a farm truck I have big plans for this one too, just for fun. I found an engine I may buy since I can get it cheap. It's a 32 valve V8 with 6spd (I think) auto trans in a wrecked lexus that weighs almost nothing and has good power output....thinking it would be fun to drop in here.

Anyway, the progress today was minimal on the truck although I spent all day out int he shop. Other jobs had to cut in and take priority as today was my last day off this week. Then I'm back to work for 4 days

So, the before picture is up top, here is the engine bay after a good bath:


More to come later, I'll get in an hour or so of work the next four days then by time I have my next set of days off from my primary job I'll have the rest of my parts in and assembly can begin

Thanks for looking,
George