Gear Head's 82 Pickup Build

Man this is really coming together great. Wish I had a dedicated trail rig. I just broke a leaf spring and have literally no cash to fix it so I am probably going to try my best at doing 4WD's OMD leaf pack building method. He said my leafs were completely fucked but I think it is worth a shot to try to build off of the main since I have nothing to lose and everything (2.5 in lift) to gain.

 

Oh man how I wish I had one of these. The 79 to 83 is my favorite pickup to date. Sucks living in the Northeast.

 

Is the VIN 82 and grill/lights 79-81? 82-83 were square headlights. Not that it really matters one bit. Still miss my 82 that I had until 2009. Still got a bunch of spare parts if interested, such as new 22R RV cam never installed with ss valve springs, 4X4 grill, 81 bumper and mounts with blinkers, door seals, etc etc etc...............someone needs to use this stuff and it isn't gonna be me, lol. Diggin the tan vs. the faded red.

 

Thanks man! I have some stock tacoma leaves but you would get raped for shipping.... a lot of people have good success with the OMD mod. I was actually going to go that route until I read about the 63's.

Ha yeah I've always wanted one. These old trucks will always be one of my favorites!

You got it! Truck is an 82 and it has a front end swap from a 79-81. As far as the parts go the only thing i'm looking for is a black plastic passenger mirror. The tan was def a good decision! I was going to go OD green but I wanted to do something different.

 

Got the passenger spring hung. Now I gotta wait for my neighbor to wake up so I can move the axle back in place, put the wheels and tires back on, and hope I got it all right so I can burn it in and drive the damn thing!

 

Can't wait for pics man! Hopefully I can get some tires soon and meet up with at URE or something

 

Yeah man, I'm hoping to go back when I get the truck done.



Got the pickup back on all 4's to check shackle angle and tire position in the wheel well. I'm pretty happy with it but I wanted to get some more opinions before I weld it solid.

 

Might be a tad too flat especially if you decide to add constant weight back there i.e. a bumper w/ spare tire. But if you don't plan too then it should be okay.

 

The spare tire is actually in the bed in this pic, I never take it out lol. I downloaded a bubble level app on my phone and it said 62* but there's no way that's right. I need to go buy one of those magnetic dial angle finders. I looked at harbor freight last time I was there but didn't see any.

 

Looks good to me . Did you run those tires before the swap? Might just be the pic but looks like you might need to trim alittle front fender to stuff them up .
I have Chevys on my runner and they flex very well .

 

Yeah same tires that were on it. I measured the wheelbase the best I could and it looks like the axle is a slight bit forward of where it was (less than 1") but the shackle angle is as flat as I'd like and the shackle hangers are as far back on the frame as they can go so if I move the front hangers back the axle will be more centered but my shackle angle will be wayyy too flat.

The only way I can think to move the front hangers back and keep a good shackle angle would be to make longer shackles and move the shackle hangers to the vertical portion of the rear bumper. But obviously I haven't made a rear bumper yet and I really don't want to make another set of shackles.

 

Looks fine to me. They should droop like crazy hopefully.

 

You have two other options when it comes to shackle location mounting.

1. Above the frame or "over"
2. Through the frame

It all depends on how much up travel or bump you're trying to achieve as well as ride height. You don't want to have the shackle a 0 degrees at droop, definitely 10-15 degrees at complete maxed out.

 

I'm hoping so!

Not wanting to go through the frame since I like the ride height I'm at and I also wouldn't be able to use my ballistic joints. Same thing with over the frame since there's not much room. I'm not really going for much uptravel, mainly droop.

The shackles will actually invert at full droop (as in come forward of 90*)

Like in this picture of the 63's on my Tacoma:

 

What stops it from flipping inward when it comes back towards right height?

 

The spring...

 

The shackle would have to go completely in line with the spring for it to have the potential to invert. This pic is at full droop and as you can see there's still a slight angle between the spring and the shackle and since the axle will move towards the rear on compression, it should never invert.

 

Took the pickup out for a spin last night! I'm really happy with with how it rides on the street. I may take it to my cousins farm today to dick around but we'll see. Had to bleed the clutch from where it was sitting so long, guess I have a small leak somewhere. Still have some things to do to finish up. Need to hook the e brake up since the lift blocks that were on it were blocking it from being able to be used, going to cut the bpv arm and zip tie it up to the bed, and need to make a hanger for the exhaust. I cut the muffler off because my only hanger had broken and the exhaust tubing bent over against the driver spring hanger and it actually sounds really good with just a catalytic converter. Not nearly as loud as I expected it to be and it has a ton more get up and go.

I'll get some pictures of everything in a little bit. Here are some welds though

 

Went to an atv/motorcycle dealer and used their loading ramp haha. These are pretty much full stuff in the rear but there's still a good bit of droop left according to the shackle angle. The shocks are only 12's and I'm not sure if they are maxing or not. I didn't have a tape measure with me to check











Ballistic joints

 

Washed her up today









Shot of the new 63's