The Diamond That Chose to Stay Coal

My original build started as a 1984 Toyota Pickup. Front axle was built using original Bobby Long shafts, birfs, and hub gears. 5.29 spooled front, 5.29 EZ Locker Rear. Engine was a 22R converted to propane. Trail Worthy Fab 16.5" double beadlock rims with 37" Goodyear Military MTRs. Frame and powertrain had 26k original miles on it, the catch was it was rolled in 1985 and basically sat ever since then. Eventually I bought a cab to swap onto it from a local yard but the list of "little" things needed to make the truck enjoyable was slowly adding up and tracking parts down was going to take longer than actually doing the work. I was doing this build on a college student budget and then ended up moving to Florida and house expenses were adding up to justify spending money on a toy but finally in a position to make progress on it.

Enter the 1988 Toyota Pickup SR5. Original owner, 22RE with 270k miles with a freshly rebuilt head, top shift 4x4, A/C, heat, complete gray interior (wanted brown but beggers cant be choosers), freshly installed 33" BFG AT KO2 with a mild block/spacer lift. The bed, like every other one of that era is trashed but plans are to build a tube bed similar to the All-Pro Offroad kit they use to sell. Additonally the solid axle from the 84 will be swapped into the 88 along with rear 3rd member. (86+ had a wider rear axle) Also have an Addicted Offroad tube bumper to swap from the 84 to the 88. Recently received 23 spline 4.7 chromoly gears for the transfer case as well as a 23 spline chromoly input shaft for the rear case. Only waiting on the MC08 doubler adapter to come back in stock in order to build my transfer cases section to swap in. Cant wait to finally be making progress on this and share with all of you!
@Irongrave

 

Bed is gone and truck is back from the body shop. Deleted the chrome fender trim, rain gutter trim, rocker trim, and windshield trim. Ordering gray SR5 decals next then in January gettinga custom tube bed made to mimic the kit All-Pro use to sell. Then it will be ready for the SAS. Just completed building the rear transfer case with 23 spline chromoly input shaft and chromoly 4.7 gears. Also have a MC08 adapter plate coming do build a dual case. Once that is all complete all that will be left is the SAS and driveshafts and it will be the most capable rock crawler...in south Florida...because that makes sense.

 

The machining on this is almost too beautiful to hide between two transfer cases. Also have the SST to align my knuckles properly now. Truck is currently at a roll cage shop getting the bed built. Posting pictures soon!

 

Dual Ultimate case is finally built. Knuckle bearings are properly preloaded and aligned. Waiting to get the truck back from my roll cage guy. Then will be ready for its final buff after paint and to have reproduction decals applied. Then the SAS will be ready to begin!

 

Hello. Is that a custom made tool or something purchased to preload those bearings? I have the scale from the kit I bought, but the factory service manual uses a specialty tool. Any help would be appreciated.

 

$200 for the tool minus the spring scale and layout fluid at Trail Tailor!