My 'failed PA inspection' build

Well here we are! I purchased this truck from a friend of the family. It is a TRD extra cab with 167k and its been in DE for most of its life. If you don't know DE does not require annual inspections, PA requires inspections every year. I dropped it off at a 'new to me' shop for PA inspections and it failed big time.

I expected some of it but not all of it:

Tires for minimal dry rot
Bumpers for rust and foil tape
Struts for rust and age
Frame for rust holes

So being a guy that does most of his own work I decided to take a look for myself. I promptly got it home and took the bed off. It didn't look too good but after hammering the whole frame and then wire wheeling it down. It started to look repairable. I had a friend over who is a diesel mechanic for a truck company come over and verify that it could be repaired and become solid. I should be able to prep everything here in my garage/driveway. The frame under the cab was solid all around.

My plan:
Buy the autorust.com plates and passenger upper strut mount for the appropriate areas TAC-161 & TAC-156
Cut out the rust
Rust Kutter the whole frame
Paint frame with some kind of spray paint
Hire mobile welder to weld on plates
Replace bumpers, struts, rear lower spring mounts & U bolts
Ride into the sunset

What do you guys think about this plan?

I need help finding replacement cross members and truck bed bolts. The spare tire member looks salvageable but the front one looks rough.

 

How does the frame look on the inside around where the front of the leaf spring mounts?

 

I was just under there hammering all around, not just tapping but trying to dent the metal, thankfully it seems solid

 

Well that’s good, I’d say your plan is looking good. Make sure you really poke around and try to find all the rusty areas so they can be welded all at once/ so you know what your getting into. Prep looks good my man

 

I found some crossmembers in a junkyard 10 years ago that I never used. I think that yard was near Wellsville. Pretty sure my parents scrapped them by now. Couldn't find anyone needing them at the time. You might be better off just building your own.

 

Well I sourced my bed bolts today from a local dealer and got all 6 for about $30. Ordered my auto rust caps last night! Now have to make time to start wrenching!

 

Made some progress over the past couple days. Did another hammer and wire wheeling round on the frame. I cut out the worst rust (without weakening the frame) while I prepped the safety caps.

then I sprayed the rust kutter over everything and let me tell you in a 50 degree garage it took almost 3 days for the stuff to work/dry. I ended up wiping some of it with a wet rag. I’ll do another round of this stuff before I paint everything.

The caps from autorust.com are designed to welded onto the frame without taking the bed off, meaning they are meant to welded from underneath while on a lift as the upper flange is longer than the frame and the lower flange is shorter than the frame.

I cut 1/4” off the top flange so we could weld down from the top. I also painted the inside with weldable primer from SEM so rusting from the inside out would be slower.

 

Looking great so far! Nice to see another 1st Gen getting saved

 

Thanks, I really like the truck and it seemed wrong to part it out. Hopefully it’ll be solid for years to come.

 

Wanted to give everyone some closure on this project. I came back here looking for the paint I used to cover the frame after the rust kutter dried. I can remember if I used brush on or spray paint. Anyways I did a full application of Fluid Film over the entire frame before I put the bed back on. Its passed two years of PA inspection no problem since then!!! Right now the front and rear suspension are getting very clunky so I'll likely tackle each end one at a time. I've done the stuts with OEM Bilstein and the LFBJs with OEM Toyota.

Plan for the front:
pull both control arms, wire wheel, paint, press on new bushings.
Replace UFBJ

Plan for rear:
remove bed
replace rear springs (mine are beyond flat)
replace rear backing plates and wheel bearings
replace rear shackles and bushings
possibly replace spare tire cross member