I found this truck a few years back really cheap and forlorn on a used car lot and picked it up as a little project for my son and I. She's got it where it counts, with 4wd, 5 speed, and a 22re.

It has virtually NO rust on it, being a resident of the deep south it's whole existence. The frame is beautiful and the rockers, fenders, and bed look great. Only two spots of rust on the whole thing. One on the passenger side inner fender from a leaking battery and two bubbles of rust on the front upper corners of the bed. Unfortunately, this thing has had a power steering leak since the Clinton administration. There was a thick coating of grime on EVERYTHING in the engine bay. Still sorting that out actually, but more on that later.

Anyway, I'm a good ways into my rebuild at this point and figured I'd finally make a post so I could ask questions and get input. Also the encouragement would be nice. lol. This project has definitely dragged on longer than anticipated.

Current goal is a reliable DD with some off-road capability. Replacing the entire front suspension, having the trans rebuilt (bad input shaft bearing), and going through the motor to decide where to go with it. It has good compression for a 165,000 motor. Might just do a top-end rebuild and let her go.

So here we go.

Here's how she looked on the day we got it. Bad u-joint at the diff so it sounded TERRIBLE on the way home and drove like crap. (One of the reasons I got it so cheap!)






Okay, let's get started on the teardown.
EVERY NUT AND BOLT was put in a sandwich bag with the name of the part it came from and a description of orientation (e.g. Front axle to diff mounting flange, nuts to rear). This has proven to be a life-saver during the buildup process.

Got a start on pulling off the accessories on the 22RE. Note the grime and grease in the engine bay from that stupid power steering gear.




Yeah, that's a problem. We'll address this later when I get more access.



Pretty sure there's a drain plug there somewhere...



"Hey guys, name's Cotter. I'll just be hanging out down here if you need me."


So I'm doing a complete rebuild of the whole IFS. Let's dig in.

 

I need to do a complete front end rebuild on my runner at some point, so I'll definitely be watching this! Good luck with the build.

 

Nice score, looks like a perfect project. Love the 22RE trucks, better than the 3.0 for sure!

Now on the power steering, if you want, for like $15, you can get a rebuild kit for the pump. Easy to do on your workbench with no special tools, if needed I think I have a link to the kit I used somewhere in my thread, if not I can dig it up, just let me know.

Anyways best of luck on it, looks like a good project!

 

Got pretty busy with work around this time and the truck sat for a while waiting on me to get back to it. Yes, the windshield says "Fix Me!" scribbled in the dust, compliments of my kids. Anyway, I started taking the front fascia apart. Everything is coming out of that engine bay for cleaning and paint. Started with the easy to get to parts first.



Bumper and everything attached to the core support were next.



Got a great tip on here about pulling the wiring harness with the motor. Pulled it out through the firewall after disconnecting two big plugs in the passenger footwell.



More grime coating everything. Check out that split boot on the CV axle. More on that later. lol.



Check this out! My front diff was like an everlasting gobbstopper of oil, ps fluid, and cv axle grease!



Pretty sure that diff breather was doing nothing.



The gunk was over 1/4" thick in places.









You guys think I can get away with some quick boots? lol.



Getting there.





Some nice shiny hubs.



The seals actually weren't that bad. I see evidence that someone may have been in here at one point. The grease used wasn't the best, but it was clean and the bearings look brand new. Going to bag them up and reuse them. New seals going in obviously.





Every ball-joint had a split boot. All are being replaced.



This was the biggest pain to get out. This is the swaybar endlink on my driver's side. The sleeve was fused to the stud. Had to cut it off with a grinder. Same story on the passenger side.




This guy! Leaking from every seal on it and tons of slop in it. I opted to get a rebuilt unit off Rockauto.



Got to get all the steering gear cleaned up. I'm replacing both tie rod ends and the steering stabilizer. Inner tie rods and the idler arm seem to be okay. Also note my high-tech method for identifying which hub goes on which side.

 

All right, the suspension is apart, so now let's get the drive train out for rebuilding. First, my tools to go into battle: An engine hoist that's older than dirt, a borrowed transmission jack, and new Harbor Freight engine stand. I had to put a new cylinder on the hoist since it had been left outside for years by my uncle. Picked up a Harbor Freight cylinder for about $50 after coupon and it worked great, so I highly recommend if you end up in the same boat I was in.



Obviously skipping a lot of steps here. I yanked my driveshafts out and dropped the trans and transfer case as a unit. This worked pretty good. I separated them on the ground and brought the transmission to my cousin. He informed me that the synchros looked brand new but I needed some new bearings on the intermediate shaft. CobraTransmission had the bearings I needed at a good price and they shipped quick. Highly recommend.

I freaking' love using a transmission jack. This was my first time having one available to me to pull a transmission out of a vehicle and it was an absolute breeze. I actually pulled the unit out by myself in about an hour.



Quite some time had passed before I could get back to the truck again, but about a month ago, I got serious. Pulled the motor and put it on the stand.





Also figured out why the truck sounded like a small aircraft when it ran last.

 

So now that the motor is out, I can get to this mess to clean it the best I can:

That grime is seriously a half inch thick in places.


Good access to the firewall now. Still plenty of items to remove.


This looks like mildew, but was hard and rough. Took a lot of scrubbing with a red scotchbrite pad to get this off. Same on both sides.


This is the other side after some time with the Scotch pad. Starting to get somewhere. By the way, please disregard how much of an absolute MESS my shed is. We usually do a yearly fall cleaning, and we're due NOW.
You can also see in this picture that I've started cleaning that frame rail. I think some of the grime was old enough to vote.

 

Okay, last update for now.

Remember this?


Man, I was *this* close to just slathering some POR15 on it and calling it a day, but I knew I'd kick myself later, because this is cancer, and it's not going to get better. So out came my drill and a Dremel with a cutting disk.


Yeah, good decision pulling this out. This was going to be a much bigger problem very soon.


A little time with a drill and a flap disk.


This was as far as I took it at the time. I had to order some POR15 off Amazon since no one in my town apparently keeps in stock. I'm painting the engine bay and radiator support in semi-gloss black. I hit everything with a red scotchbrite pad with simple green, then washed it all down with water and Dawn to degrease it. It was squeaky clean when I was done. Scotch pad again with water and wipe down with some shop towels. Good enough for the girls I go out with (don't let my wife read this).




Once the POR15 came in, I spent a bit more time with the flap disk and then coated it with two thin coats of POR15. As per the instructions, I waited a few hours to be just hard past tacky and hit it with my topcoat of semi-gloss black paint to match the rest of the engine bay.


A this point, the inner fenders and the radiator support (front and back) are all semi-gloss black. I pulled my brake lines away from the firewall and just need to find time to mask them off, and then I'll repaint the firewall. The humidity is crazy high right now and it takes this paint forever to cure, so it's been slow-going. This is where I am right now. More updates soon.

 

Thanks!

I looked into doing a rebuild of the steering gear, but with everything else going on, it's one of the few places I splurged to save some time. I just got the part from UPS a couple days ago. Haven't even opened the box yet. Hopefully it works for me.

 

Message deleted by Terrys87.

 

Made some real progress today!

Masked off all my lines and everything else I could and finished painting my engine bay. Three coats of Rustoleum Semi-Gloss Black. I've used this before on other projects, and it works great. Once it cures, it'll be very durable, as long as I keep brake fluid off of it.

I'm extremely pleased with how this came out, and I'm glad I took the time to take everything apart first.


I realized I never updated the previous post to show the treated area after applying the semi-gloss black over the POR-15. Very pleased with how well this came out, even despite a few runs in the POR. It's very thin and runs and sags are a real probability.



Another close-up of the engine bay.


Got the front diff cleaned as good as I'm going to get it.


Painted my lower control arms with gloss black and put them in place. noticed how nasty my spindle is looking now. That got cleaned up as well before I put in the new seals front and rear.






Front diff back in it's home.


Shocks in. This is starting to look like a truck again!




How it sits right now. I'm going to let the paint cure over the week and start putting things back in the engine bay next weekend.

 

Nice truck you have here. And Nice Build so far. My dream Toyota is your setup! Ex cab 3rd gen 22re!! Someday.

 

Engine bay looks so clean!