That paint is Montana/MTN brand made in Spain, you should be able to buy it at anystore that sells graffiti paint. The colourchart is enormous and you buy different size caps depending on what you are spraying. The whole car here was done with 'fat caps', which is basically the largest area spray nozzle. they spray circular not in the normal fan shape of spraycans

 

Now I remember why I started my project.
These little bastards are so gawdamn cute.

 

How many cans did you use on the whole truck???

 

Ive painted everything except the sides of the bed, 2 thick coats and used 9 cans so far.

I have 3 left which will be plenty for the sides of the bed. You can buy the cans each but my shop has a box price (6 cans in a box, I got 2 boxes).

MTN94 is specifically a flat paint. Montana has lots of different products which are gloss, not what I was looking for.

The inside of the bed will be painted in the same as the chassis, a black industrial enamel, then i will lay down wood slats.

Thanks guys

 

I'm going to do matte black with lime green lettering and lime green steal wheels, hope it turn out as clean as yours

 

I had BIG day on the Toyota today, I only had 5 hours to work on it but I got heaps done!!

First thing I got stuck into the engine. New stuff that went on today:
Top Radiator Hose (Bottom hose was the wrong part, curse word)
Heater Hoses
Thermostat, and polished the thermo housing
Fan belt
NGK Spark Plugs
Bosch Plug and Coil leads.

Whilst I was pulling the plugs out, it is a good indication as to how the car was running when it was put away. All the plugs look nice, one of them has a teeny bit of oil on it which would suggest either valve stem seal or rings. However, the ammount that is on the plug says to me that it isnt a problem, infact very good for a 34 year old car. The fact that all the plugs came out easily and spun freely was a nice bonus too.







Next on the agenda was to fet the airshocks fitted up to the rear. The airshocks that I have are not intended for this car, but their length and travel is pretty similar. 3 of the 4 shock bolts came undone easily, the 4th one snapped and I still need to get it out somehow. Vicegrips wont move it so I'll get some heat onto it tomorrow.

For the shocks to fit on I had to swap the bushings over from the original shocks. For this job all you need is a big vice and some sockets.

I orignally thought that I could just press out the bushing on the airshocks, as the bushes seemed to be a similar size. When I pushed the bushing out, their bore shrunk to the size of a ciggarette!!! So I scrapped the bushes from airshocks and started extracting them from the original shocks to re-use.

IDEALLY You should just go to a suspension shop and have new ones put in, but i'm poor and impatient







Airshocks bare ready for Toyota bushes to be pressed in.


Pressing them in, just squash em in the vice




And they fit!!!!



And what about all those airlines in that picture? Where did they come from!!

We start at the airtank....



The airline exiting the front goes along the chassis, under the cab, and through a existing hole that I found. I still need to put a grommet in it, but I wanted to get it together quickly for a trial.





Through the cab floor and into a paddlevalve that I fitted to the centreconsole



Down!!


Up!!




Off the other side of the paddle valve, line runs out the same hole in the bottom of the cab, along to this reducer and Y piece. The only for the reducer is because I couldn't find a Y that went from 1x 1/4" to 2x 1/8".



From the Y piece the lines run to each airshock.



I should point out that all these lines are too long and not finished. It is a test rig to see how it will all work.

And from the Right side of the airtank, line goes along the right chassis rail


Then up towards the Filler neck, which will be mounted within the filler when the bed goes back on! It's all coming together





Now for some random pics from the day....

The offending shock stuck, broken shock bolt..


This is the original bottom radiator hose that i'm having a curse word of a time replacing. It doesnt match the hose listed in the books for this model ???


Mounted one of the peep mirrors, I like em but not entirely sold. I found some chrome "West Coast" truck mirrors that I'd like to try out, completely different from one extreme to the other but i'll try em out using the original mirror holes that I never filled up. You can also see the bonnet is on again now





And since its Spring and its been raining a bit lately, My ghetto car cover!

 

my old vw

 

That thing is sick... im excited to get started on mine when ever I get back to kc.

I

 

Been a little bit since an update, I didnt really do much on it until this morning.

I was going through part numbers in the King Springs catalouge (an Australian spring manufacturer who make springs for all sorts of cars). They didnt list a lowered spring for the RN20 Hilux, So I emailed them and got a reply saying that the Stock height spring from an early Corona will fit and lower about 1.5". I then took that further, got the part number for the Lowered fitment of the Corona, and turned out to be the same as stock springs for a Holden Gemini. As luck would have it, There was a guy near me selling stock Gemini springs and I got them for 30 bucks. I quickly got them in the car to see how my plan had worked, and well as soon as I dropped the jack down the car just went straight to the bumpstops

Oh well, only wasted 30 bucks and Now i've got changing springs down to 30 minutes to do both sides. I decided to quit wasting my time and go for new springs on the suggestion of King's. I made a quick call to a suspension place down here, luckily they were open till midday, and they had the springs I wanted in stock. I doubt it's any use to you guys but the part number is KTFS-09.

I found the fastest and easiest way to change springs is to drop the controlarm from the inside. 4 bolts with the jack holding it up, then lower slowly to let the spring fall out.







Had to put it on a brick to get my jack out...



Me and my mate set off and returned a couple of hours later with these



All King springs are heavier spring rates, for example a stock height spring from them will give you the stiffness of a performance spring, without lowering, but they also do lowering springs.

Just to clarify, these are KTFS-09, which is standard height for 74-79 RT104-RT118 Corona. Kings also do a lowered spring for the same car which is KTFL-09, but I didnt want to go too low this time round, just a bit of a drop.

Fitting in nice, as they are supposed to be




New shocks, just a stock type replacement, only cost about $40 each.



The bodies on these shocks are a little bit fatter than the stock units so the control arm hole has to be massaged a little bit for them to pass through





Then they fit nice.

We got real busy after this and fitted up springs, shocks and swaybar on both sides, and went to town with some rattlecans inside the fenders. Everything now looks nice and clean black, but of course we forgot to take pictures of that...

Well I know some of you are going to be dissapointed, but this is new ride height. Bear in mind that this is straight of the jack, so it will lower a little bit once it's been moved around a bit. They are also brand new springs which usually settle 1/2-1" after some driving.

You can kinda see in the fenders in these pics, looks much neater and not all surface rusty and greasy (its still greasy, but under the paint ) Also painted the wheels gloss black, tyres too. All the tyres are dry rotted and need to be replaced before the car goes on the road, but for the time being it makes it alot nicer to look at.






After this we just did some cleaning. Since the front window is back in now with a new window seal, the car is now weather tight and we could clean the interior for the final time. Even cleaned the glass :O











Then fitted the ebay side indicators, really cheap and it shows in the quality, but they will do.



One last note, we are down to 2 leafs in the back now. I pulled the middle leaf and the overload leaf. The airshocks that I have are just too short, by about 1.5". I was hoping with the leafs pulled the rear would squat down a bit more and that the shocks would fit, but no deal. So for the time being I have the stock shocks back on, and I have some correct fitting airshocks on order from RockAuto.

We did manage to try out the air shock system with a rigged up top mount though, and it works good. I stuck some 1.5" square tube underneath the frame rails and bolted the airshocks to that, just to see if my plan was working. I can confirm that everything works as it is supposed to, but will be even better with a proper shock mount that isnt wobbling allover the place (why I didnt get much lift out of it). With the 9 litre air tank inflated to 120psi we could go up and down fully about 8 times before it started to go a bit limp, but still had some life.

 

Nice Build!

 

Thing looks sick!

 

No pics to update yet, but I got the truck started today.

All I did to the engine was fit new plugs and leads, drain the floatbowl, fresh fuel and a new battery.

After cranking it a bit to get the carb filled back up, it started up on the 2nd turn of the key and idled perfectly without any throttle. Ran it up to temperature and everything seemed great, didnt blow any smoke either. The person I bought it from had tried but never got it running. Huge relief to see it fire up. I've started it a few times since and its always started straight away.

Tested all the electrics out, my turn signals do not flash (Hazards are OK) so I will clean up my grounds and replace all the globes just to start a fresh. I also need to replace 1 of the sealed beam headlights, I will replace both outboard lights so they match.

 

Keep us updated!

 

Highly impressive work !! Hats off toy you !

22R88

 

Well guys been a long while since an update.

Ive been working away and got a few things done.

Mate and I got the bed back on finally, I still need to paint the sides which I will be doing tomorrow.


The main reason I got the truck was to haul motorcycles around in (old harleys..) so I added some extra tie down points
in the bed. So far we have 4 and the back and 2 up front but I have another 2 to mouunt up the front somwhere.
These are drilled through the bed floor and the crossmembers underneath. Heavy washer and nyloc nut they aint going anywhere.





I also fabbed up a new licence plate bracket, there wasnt really anything wrong with the original one, I just couldnt be bothered
cleaning all the rust off and repainting it. This one made out of flat aluminium bar and a generic plate light fromt the store.
All looks a bit neater and lights up the plate nicely.



On the topic of lights, I now have all the lights working in and out! The indicators wouldnt flash but I went round the earths and bulb socketes
and now they work properly. Even all the interior lights work, All i had to change was one stop/tail bulb.







Also came across a great bumper that I managed to score for $20, long story short it was pure luck that I came across it.
I painted it white to match the roof and tailgate







Got my massive sound system fitted up, my buddy and I made up this little speakerbox that nestles between the seats. It's not the most attractive thing
but I'd rather them be there and sound clear than stuffed behind the seat and sound bad. Little amp is in the glovebox, It works Okay but the sound quality is
average, It was extreeeeemely cheap. I might just stuff it and put a head unit in the dash....







Lastly, 3" Lowering blocks came in the post today.

I haven't seen these blocks anywhere online outside of Australia, everything seems to be cast. These blocks are made in Oz, avaliable to suit pretty much anything
up to 5" and are made from billet stock. Refitted the overload leaf and put some new grade 8 bolts in for the centrepin.

In my state lowering blocks are legal for street use if the u bolts dont extend past the lowest point of the rim. I'm sure their excuse is so if you have a flat
tyre ya don't damage our already ****ed roads by draggin ubolts around. Any more than a 3" block would be too much. We dont have inspections so the only
reason to worry is if you get pulled over by a dicky cop, then the car is defected and needs to go for an full inspection in roadworthy condition. Most older cars
never see the road again without alot of time and money....








Here's the money shot, of course the white sides ruin it a bit for now.





Next week the car is getting a new set of Mastercraft 185/75 skinny whitewalls, and I will be running the original full width hubcaps.

By the way I start the car every few days, It is still starting up quickly and easily but the engine klunks for a second or two after starting. I changed the thin oil that was in it
to 20/50w but It still does it, I will adjust the valves and get an oil pressure gauge on to it just to make sure.

 

Whoops something else I forgot to post before

I modified the gear stick to suit my long legs, before all forward gears were fine, but reverse was wayyyyy over to the right and back, against my leg and really impractical.


I cut the lever off and welded on a new one that goes straight up. 1st gear is still well within reach for me, but maybe harder for a smaller person.

Before

1st

Reverse

After

1st

Reverse

 

Very Nice! What are your plans for the licence plate bracket? Could I take it off your hands?

 

this thing is awesome... drooling over it literally. what harleys you got mate? saw the chop in the background...

 

I would to somehow convert my pickup to a rhd. I'm going for a JDM look. I'll post pics and start up a thread soon. Converted from auto to manual, gm 1 wire, and next month will be bagging it.

 

This is awesome. So glad I found hi res pics of a right hand drive dash. I have a spare, and its an easy conversion but glad to see the results. Totally dig it.