I picked this up almost two months ago from CL (actually using SearchTempest). The 1st gen trucks are as rare as unicorns around these parts, and when you find one it's ravaged with rust or has had 20lbs of welding wire packed into the frame rails to "fix" the rotted out sections.


I was becoming a bit discouraged because everything was either too nice and outside my budget or complete junk. I had found another '81 that seemed a lot nicer in the sheetmetal department then the one I purchased, but they were asking more than I was hoping to spend. I was still gonna do the deal, but the guy wanted too much extra to meet me in the middle of our locations. Oh, well it wasn't meant to happen.


I jumped on this, and will fully admit it was an impulse buy since my head was spinning from going through one CL ad after another only to find squat. The seller was really honest and disclosed everything about the truck so I paypaled him the $$ and had it shipped from TN to me in DE. Currently, I'm using it as my winter/bad weather ride, but I have plans to tear it down and restore it this spring. I'm in the "parts gathering stage" now.


The Toyota lights are only on temporarily for now. I wanted to see how they looked before I made a bumper for it. I think they look good. Will have more updates and possibly start a build thread in the near future.

 

I got you beat in the rust department hands down.

 

looks pretty solid, but looks can be deceiving, especially with older Toyotas. It being driven on salted roads will kill it quick though.

 

Oh yeah, it's rusty. I scored pretty much all the sheet metal so far and bought the epoxy and high build primer kits. Now it's time to save some coin the pay the media blaster.


Here's a couple pics of those lights.

 

Thats a good looking truck. It appears that it mostly stock SR5. Nice fine. how bad is the rust.

 

The rust is about a 6 on my 1-10 east coast rust belt scale. The frame and 95% of the cab is solid, BUT it needs all the removable sheet metal replaced including the bed and tailgate. The passenger side door is good, but I prefer the wing window type which I previously scored so it will go into storage in case I crack it up down the road.


It runs great. I'm gonna go through the brakes this weekend, and trace down the oil leaks. They appear to be up higher, but I'm sure I'll find some below as well.

 

I also own a yellow 1981 short bed. I was wondering if your wheels were gold, white, or grey? I have seen some variations of this over the years and yours is identical to mine. Were the factory stripes the gold ones or grey ones? Anyway love the truck. I also had to purchase a 2wd to steal parts off of. I also live in the rust belt but don't drive on salty roads.

 

Always liked the striping on the SR5 trucks and those are some of the best looking ones Toyota put out. Looking forward to seeing you get it going again.

 

The wheels are gold. I started a thread on whether they are stock from a 1st gen mini or swapped out from a second gen truck/4runner which I have seen in gold before. Never got a real answer.

I can't wait to start getting on this. I have been stock piling parts these last couple of months and I'm probably gonna tackle getting them getting painted and ready to put on before tearing it down. I am not going to do a frame off resto on it since time and space for such a project are not feasible at this time. I will media blast the frame from the rear of the cab back and coat it to protect it from out deadly East Coast rust.

As for the stripes I like this style the best as well. I am going to paint the stripes on instead of purchasing a stripe kit. It will be cheaper for me to do it this way, and my father has been an autobody painter for over 50 years and can do stripes like this with his eyes closed.

 

Hey man nice rig!I see you want to blast the rear of the frame and paint it,check this stuff out its called Master Series Coating.Its a moisture cured urethane and alot easier to work with and cheaper than POR15.The first step is a silver,a couple coats,then you can apply the AG111 black topcoat.The AG111 is another moisture cured urethane with a hardener and dries super hard.Not sure where you are located but theres a guy in Connecticut that sells the stuff and also uses the same product for his business in which he restores old VW Bugs.He's a great guy and fast shipping.Again good luck with your project.

 

Cool. Thanks for the info. I will look into them when I get to that point.