Willsides12's 83 Toyota build

I bought this truck in April 2014. I did not keep a build thread as i built it so I'm going to attempt to make one now that I'm nearing completion. Ill do my best to try and remember everything but I'm sure I'll forget a bunch. Here is the progress I've made so far.
The day I brought it home

How it sits now
One of the first things I did was bob the bed 15"

 

Then I found some pretty decent bucket seats for 30 bucks. I think they came from a Hyundai Tiburon.
After that I came across a SAS 1994 toyota truck for $800. I bought it planning to take the 5.29s and lockers from it and do a 22re swap into my 83. Turns out the truck had too many electrical probs so I took the 529s and rear axle since it was 3" wider and put my 4.10s and axle back in it and sold the truck for $900.

 

Then I pulled he front axle to clean it upI decided to go ahead and beef it up a little while I had it out with diff armour, a truss, and knuckle gussets.then I rebuild and painted the knuckles. I pulled off the old solid rotors and swapped on some vented fj40 rotors and bigger v6 ifs calipers. and put on high steerpicked up some 36" TSL SX's off craigslist. Somewhere around this time I got bored and did some body work and primed the truck while I was waiting on money.
Welded on a front spring hanger and did a RUF lift with the rear leaf packs. It moved the front axle forwards about 2.5 inches. Had to take he rear axle out too since I needed the rear leafs to make the front and swapped in the ifs width rear axle.
Did ubolt flips on front and rear and welded on shock hoopscut the rear shackle hangers off because I had to move them back for trailgear 4" lift springs.i plated the end of the hangers to strengthen them up a little.

 

Then I ordered some rock sliders from BashFab. I decided not to weld then on until I painted the truck.Then I attempted to paintI was not satisfied with the way the paint turned out. It was my first time painting and I used a single stage acrylic enamel and did not use hardener or reducer or anything and it just did not do right and stayed gummy.

Then the fun began....the 3rz swap. Someone that goes to church with Dwill817 offered him a free totaled Tacoma with a 3rz. At the time he was not ready for it so he offered it to me. So a huge thanks to drew for basically giving me this truck. Thanks man!!!!
It took me forever to get it running because it had been sitting for about 8 years and a lot of the wiring got chewed up. I wanted to get the motor running before I started the swap that way I knew that it was okay and not something I did during the swap. I found this sucker living in the dash. I guess he is to blame for all the wiring!I pulled my 22r and primed and painted my engine baypulled he old wiring harnessput in the Tacoma harnessswapped the Tacoma dash into my 83pulled the 3rz from the Tacoma and cleaned it up.

 

Then I decided to do dual casescleaned up the trannythen gave it a flat belly.
Stock heightafterhad to cut out the trans tunnel.made a crossmember made a trans tunnelinstalled triple sticksmade a custom short throw shifter because it was hitting the triple sticks. I machined a 1" spacer to go between the the shifter and tranny then lengthened the shaft 1" to reach into the tranny. This changed the pivot point, cutting the throw of the shifter in half.

 

Then I frenched the rear spring hangers into the frame to give a smoother transition so rocks won't get caught up and it also helped my pinion angle some.then made a square front drive shaftthen I picked up a Toyota elocker off Craigslist for later use.then I decided to pull the trigger and get the truck painted. While it was at the paint shop I found a good deal on some 38" tsls on trail ready bead locks. I got my truck back from the paint shop and welded on my sliders after that I used some scrap aluminum diamond plate and made some door panels.

 

Mad Skills!

 

Cleaned my headliner and sun visors. They had 32 years worth of dirt and mildew on them and were very nasty! This is the only pic I got.
Before

After

The whole headliner was this way. It's not perfect but way better than before.

 

Thanks man!

 

Love this build, I wish I had your metal working/fab/mechanical skills.

 

Took the truck to the power lines for a test run and since my front is locked it worked the power steering pump pretty hard. The fluid overheated and started burping out the ps reservoir so I went and bought a transmission cooler and plumbed it in on the return line of the steering box.

Then started on a template to make the reservoir bigger

 

Got my reservoir done.

 

Well you pretty much summed the entire thing up in 5 posts lol..

 

Holy hell what some skills man. It looks good

 

Took a leaf out of my rear springs. Dropped it about an inch and a half. You can't really tell much but...

Before


After

 

I got a wild hair and started on a tube bumper and exo cage

 

Wow, subbed. Awesome truck

 

Mounted my winch. Bought it broken for $60 from a friend. Took the motor apart and it was all rusted up so I cleaned it and fixed that part and it would only work when I jumped it. Replaced the old solenoid pack with a super winch contactor and made new power cables. Works perfect.

Old


New



If you look close you can see I relocated the remote plugin in the grill.
Also put a switch in the cab.

 

Did little body work on my tailgate. Sanded it all down to bare metal and replaced a rusted out spot and fixed a bunch of dents. I forget how much I hate bodywork!