Anyone have pictures of well built 4x4 toyotas? I really want to do a 84-88 build later on but would be cool to know what axles and all to shoot for. I know pirate has a huge and super nice yota section. Please post any 84-88 4x4 pics you have that aren't just redneck kids that threw tires and a lift on there truck. What are some typical axle combos people run? I would be running a 350 with a 700r4 auto i believe. I want to say they can be mated. Or is there a stronger auto tranny?
This truck belongs to a friend...he owns/runs his own collision repair shop & he built this truck from the ground up. I dont know all the details on it, but Im sure I can get it. I do know that its a 86 4x4 that orginally came with the 22re turbo motor, he swaped it out & installed a fully built LC Engineering 4cyl engine. It can really move for its size lol.
thats a nice little rig, but too "monster truck" for me. not saying anything bad about it at all....it's super super clean and well proportioned. I just love the look of a tube chassis based on the from 1/2 of the frame and then a pinched front and rear. I don't know if anyone has ever built a crawler out of our body style or not but if so I would love to see one like i described. im really liking how he plated the inside of the bed and all that.
Aight, now this stuff I know a bit about. For starters, I would suggest you find a 4x4 from before 1984 and a half. The ones with the solid front axle. Granted, if you want to run a SB 350 in there you will want to upgrade your running gear anyway, but it will just mean less IFS crap to cut out of the way if you start with a solid front axle vehicle. I personally really like the look of the 79-84 round fender type trucks based on the looks and plus they are becoming classics slowly but surely and getting less common. Your choice for the 84-88 body style does have some advantages however (assuming you go with a solid axle truck) in that the front axle of these trucks got stronger every year. The 1979 (like my truck) had very little gusseting on the front axle and in comparison to the 84, the housing is weak. As far as the Chevy stuff is concerned, my first suggestion would be to keep the 20r or 22r that comes in it. If you really insist on 4-wheel-locker-burnout on the pavement capability than maybe the 350 is the best choice however. I would not put a 700r4 in anything. They are junk in my opinion and do not belong on a 4x4. I have owned two of them. One of which I bought new from a Chevy dealership. One particular reason I don't care for them is that they are computer controlled and will not function correctly without the appropriate computer and wiring harness. It will work, but it will not fully lock up and it will cause catastrophic failure within a 1000 miles or so. A good choice of transmission would be the TH400. They are super tough transmissions with no computer control crap to worry about. You could also go with TH350. They are not as heavy duty, but under the weight of a Toyota I think it would hold up fine, plus if you have to replace it they are pretty cheap and easy to come by. Look for a TH350 or TH400 with an NP205 transfer case. It is the best as far as strength is concerned, although it leaves a bit to be desired in the gearing department. It is burly though. Gear drive, with about an anvils worth of steel in the cast housing. As far as axles go on a Chevota, the tough part is going to be narrowing some full size running gear to fit under there. Maybe you live in an area where the cops are cool with wheeling rigs like where I live, but otherwise you might have some issues with LEO if your entire tire is exposed out the side of the fender... That is kind of the problem I would say in the Chevota build. The Toy running gear wont hold up to the Chevy powerplant and the full size running gear isn't easy to fit. I would seriously go with a Toyota motor. Gas isn't getting any cheaper too. I am a Chevy guy. There are 350 parts all over my house. The 2xR motors are just such proven, efficient motors. The yota running gear is great too. Especially the stuff from under an 84. It is way overbuilt. You say you aren't going for a monster truck, than you shouldn't need full size running gear, except to handle the power from the 350. By the way, here are pics of my round fender ('79) in case you haven't seen them. Those tires are 34". Not huge by any means, but plenty big under that truck, and the Yota axles will hold up fine, even with a welded dif... I couldn't resist running some proven Chevy stuff under the hood. That huge distributor is a Davis Unified Ignition based off of the Chevy HEI style ignition. It has a built in 50,000 volt coil and has a one wire hookup and grounds through the housing. I highly recommend it for a wheeler. I am also running a Chevy one wire alternator. So my charging system and my ignition system are Chevy and basically a two wire set up. Anyway, just my 2 cents. I fully understand if you are dead set on the SB 350. I was too for a long time. Lately I have had a change of heart though. I think the fact GM went bankrupt is kind of a sign of the times. The gas ain't gettin any cheaper... I look forward to seeing the build, however you decide to power it.
here was my rig a few years ago..... 85 toyota p/u x-cab front: 4" all-pro front leafs 2" shackles fully trussed axle, diff armor, cryo axles and arb locker, 5150 bilstiens. rear: 4" lift 63" marlin crawler leafs with 5 leafs, 2" shackle, diff armor, detroit fulltime locker, 5150 bilsteins. 35" bfg A/T's wrapped on 15x10 AR wheels... Shot at 2009-07-09 Shot with X400,D580Z,C460Z at 2009-07-09 Shot with X400,D580Z,C460Z at 2009-07-09 i miss that truck
That's a sweet truck! Long flexy leaf springs make a huge difference for wheeling. I bet the thing performed well. See how even with Toyota running gear an uppity LEO could frown upon the tire stick out? Narrowing the axles is pretty essential for full size gear in all but the most lenient places. See how big 35"s look on that truck too? No need to go any bigger. If you stick with 35"s and smaller you can make up for power lost with gearing and do fine with Toyota gear.
yea....... 35's are as big as i would ever go. 5:29's were outfitted in this truck and the power was back. 5th gear was an option once more on the highway keeping it narrow was also a concern.... my tires stuck out quite a bit but not enough to catch the eye's of the local po-po
heres over 100 pages of pics of all types of yota wheelers. http://pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144215 and mine remember if you get a buggy or a truggy, your also gonna need a trailer and a towrig. so just to go wheeling your looking at somewhere around 40 gallons of gas. if you take a solid axl yota with a 15gal tank you can drive it out and back on one tank. the extra power of a 350 is totally unnecessary off road. it just makes stuff break faster. then your buddy with a stock toyota will have to tow you home. gears and lockers will get you much farther then a 350. and also if your going to run 35's upgrade the birf's, they pop like candy with over a 33. now i have to save up for longfields to go wheelin again cuz i didnt for the record, towing home a K5 blazer (raw vid, mediocre quality)
i know nothing about 4 wheel drive stuff but I do know that when I build one, i'm building it as best I can the first go round and the exact style im going after. I want to do a tri 4 front and rear if possible, if not i'll do a parallel with panhard up front. hydro steering, coilovers obviously, and then whatever axles will suit best for strength and width wise. by the time i start the build (2 or 3 years) i want to have a parts list waiting and a frame table built.
no offence intended here or nothing but.... thats plain stupid. obviously you've never been wheelin, have no idea what kind of trouble you can get into with a stock rig. if you go straight for the hardcore, are you going to know... when to use the lockers? what spare parts you should bring? how to drive your rig so you dont break? what the bare min is needed for your local trails? how to drive out of a roll? whinch/recovery saftey? your talking about (if home built) 10-20k for all the bells n whistles. besides no matter how tough you build it, its still gonna break. then if its a high dollar rig its expensive to fix, plus more fab time to fix fab'd stuff. in my opinion just get a solid axl yota, slap some 33's on. buy a high lift jack and a come-a-long (hand whinch) and a tow strap. then find a buddy with a 4x4 and go wheeling. ive seen a few wheelin newbs, go out with their built trucks following me in my stock truck and break themselves and their rig. because they thought they could go anywhere if they gassed it. nothing worse then being in the emergency room while your rig is still up on the trail. take some time to learn what your doing and what you need. get on a local wheelin board to find locals, that know the area and where to go. then religously read pirate4x4.
Also I'm not trying to gang up on you here but that is not a Toyota. That is a tube framed buggy. You could just as easily put some Jeep sheet metal on it and it wouldn't be a Jeep either. It would be more Chevy than anything if you built it as you describe it... I agree with everything the experienced wheelers said in this thread. Especially the parts about a tube buggy having to be hauled everywhere on a trailer. Suit yourself, but I think you should test out the capability of a stock solid axle Toyota 4x4. I think you would be seriously impressed to see what a stock Toyota drivetrain with some modifications can actually do.
I'm sure i'm wrong on a lot of things, but I hate the look of a plain lifted truck with big tires. I don't want anything older than 84, and nothing newer than 88. Only body style yota I really really dig is the one I own. I also realize thats just a bad ass tube frame with a **** ton of money in it. But that right there (or similar in ways) would be ideal. Yall are right, im not afraid to say that you are, I don't wheel and never have on a real trail. I may seem like a tool when I say this, but I honestly just love the fab work and look on these trucks. I found this toyota (below) and it's a full "stock" chassis with a cage built off that. That would save a ton of money and hassle. And I also know I don't know a lot about cars and all, but theres only one way to learn....and it's not looking at pictures. Until I try it and fail, I won't know what works and what doesn't....but I can do that with a stock framed rig as I work my way up as well. How tough is the toyota axles internally? I can brace them and all externally, but do they make heavy duty axles and gears and such?
They make a ton of aftermarket stuff for Toyota 4x4s. You can run 35"s on Yota axles if you upgrade your birfields as ShoNuff said. You can get by on stock axles if you are easy on it. I personally think 35"s are the max for Toyota axles. You could probably run 37"s without problems with the setup SD YOTA had, as long as the gears were low enough. Another point that was not mentioned earlier is that if you do run full size axles under a Toyota your brakes aren't going to work right. You will need a full size Chevy master cylinder. So at that point you would be running Chevy running gear, drivetrain, engine, brakes... You might as well buy a 1 ton Chevy. That second pic you posted seems a little more practical, but you should seriously keep it streetable. Lifted trucks are fun to drive around in. Granted their road manners suck, but it is really nice to be abgle to drive it to the wheeling spot. Put some tube doors on it and enjoy the summer while driving it to wheel... One more thing I have to point out is that leaf springs work great under these trucks. Especially really long ones like SD YOTA has. They flex like crazy and stick to the ground in crazy terrain. Leaf springs are proven technology. I mean like a hundred years+ proven. They work great. There are some simple dynamics of leverage involved that just make a leaf spring suspension perform well. If you buy a 84 it will already have a functional suspension system that you can upgrade to longer leafs pretty easily. http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/reviews/marlinsprings/front.jpg I googled up this pic of Marlin Crawler springs flexing. If that doesn't satisfy your flex needs you could run revolver shackles or some similar setup in the rear and achieve massive droop. You don't need a four link. I dunno... Just my opinions.
you can build the snot out of the axles on a yota, add in gears, and HP becomes a useless number. you can only use maybe 200hp off road in low gear, and thats still spinning your tires whenever you want. www.marlincrawler.com and http://www.longfieldsuperaxles.com/ for about 2k build the toughest axls you'll ever need. ive wheeled straight for 5yrs, and finally started breaking stuff when i went to 35's and drove the same way i did with smaller tires, cannot really explain how tough in text. go here www.youtube.com/nuffbilt and watch some vids, that will explain it. one of my fav's from non youtube in the whole time ive owned the truck, ive only broke: since 35's (3/05/09) 2 rear drivelines 2x driverside birf's in under 24hrs before 35's from 29's to 33's 3 cab's 2 bed's umpteen sets of craigslist tires in all shapes n sizes and 4 bhg, but i swapped motors until my current one, and ive done 2 HG on it since feb, but thats another story involving a washer on the #3 piston. 2 driverside eng mounts, equal parts bent tranny x-mem and too much pedal. the top gear vid, only shows what it can survive, not what you can put it through.
Here, check these sites out. Stuff you may want to know http://wildyoats.com/toyota_4x4_building_101.htm As linked on the bottom, plenty of parts here, INCLUDING a flatbed kit and trail armor that will go very well for your "tube frame" look you want to achieve. allprooffroad.com
