Project daily: '86 pickup mini truck

Going to slap this up in hopes of actually keeping up with it vs my 3rd gen build.

Picked up a 1986 toyota pickup today from a guy in the valley.

2wd
22r
5 speed
Regular cab
317k miles

She's leaking pretty bad. Definitely power steering, possible water pump or valve cover gasket, and rear diff. Need to hit the engine bay with a heavy duty degreaser to get the grime off so I can hopefully pinpoint what's leaking.

Plans as of now are to get it roadworthy and use it as a commuter. That will escalate into messing with everything because I'm a hopeless gear head.

 

Had an hour or two after work today to start messing around with stuff.



Step one was to ditch this massive bumper.




I grew up in NE Ohio, aka: the rust belt. Between FEET of precipitation and the salt/sodium chloride they spread every winter rust happens. If you daily anything rust is just going to happen even with undercoating and consistent washes. HOURS of my buddies and my lives were spent trying to break loose hardware on our shit boxes. Soaking in wd-40 and pb blaster, progressively larger and more powerful impact drivers, and eventually heat, grinders, sawzalls and even cutting torches every time a project got started.
I'm absolutely stunned every time I crawl under a vehicle that's spent it's whole life in the southwest.



Eye sore of a bumper is off and will either be sold or thrown in a dumpster. Can't believe I took that off with hand tools...



Moved on to pulling the bench since it only has 4 bolts and there was 40 years of filth caked on underneath. I dig bench seats, and I'm leaning towards keeping this color scheme. I'm torn between trying to rescue the bench and throwing some more modern buckets in with some bolstering.



The interior is definitely showing its age and milage. It's going to take a lot of patience and finesse to try and keep what is still in decent condition whole.

Got the registration and insurance taken care of and have a temp tag on it for now. Hopefully the historic plates don't take forever to show up.

Ordered a bunch of stuff, still need to order a bunch more. Later this week I'll likely start tackling the engine bay with degreaser. And I need to decide if I want to throw some cheap tires on or wait to make some more progress.

 

Badass truck! - Following the build

 

A bit more progress. Have a bumper/grille/valence along with marker/turn signal/headlights on the way.



If anyone wants any of this let me know but I think it'll end up in a dumpster.

@Milota95 @prise @XPOTRPR @Yacob_D @KingOfTheNorth this is your gold plated invitation to talk shit and peer pressure me into more dumb shit

 

Some pretty solid progress today. Had the day off due to Thanksgiving. Got to work pretty early. Initially just wanted to scrub the engine bay down thoroughly to make it easier to diagnose problems and more pleasent to work on. She is one filthy girl. I quickly ran out of the one can of degreaser I bought so I pivoted to other things.



Hit the headlight retainer/bezel/thingys with some matte black because fuck chrome.



Pulled these pretty horrifying spark plugs out. Kind of impressed that the truck consistently started on the first try for me.



Installed new spark plugs, wires, distributor cap, and rotor.

The results of spending some time cleaning and scrubbing paid off later. I was finally able to track down the source of the power steering leak. It was the high pressure side hose. Ran out and got a new hose and replaced it. First time bleeding a powersteering system, stupid easy got all worried for nothing. Tightened everything up and took it for a spin around the neighborhood. The leak has stopped as of right now!

 

Dont toss that front bumper yet! I may try and straighten it some for the 4runner.

also.. Congrats again on the truck and welcome to the Mini gang!