Whats up! I just recently picked up my first toyota truck, a '76 longbed with a stock 20r except for the Weber 32/36. Picked it up for $800 and it needs a little work, a bit more than I had originally thought but I suppose it could be worse! This will be my first "build" as well, I've been driving a '94 Corolla for about 3 years and never had any intentions to modify that car so the most I've done is replaced the radiator after the stock one developed a crack. My dad always taught me about cars and stuff growing up but he hated doing maintenance on his own vehicles so I never got that hands on learning as I wish I would've now haha. Either way, I've got an itch to build/fix cars, specifically old toyotas, so I figure this will be a good platform for me to learn on. I dont have a working camera at the moment but I'm working on it, need to get a charger for my video camera so I can get some footage of how it runs, things that need to be done etc..

So far its gonna need either an alternator or voltage regulator, or both.. The charge light is on and when I remove the negative off the battery, it doesnt die. So I would assume its alright or its possibly overcharging and causing the light to come on, which probably isnt good for my battery either. I'm going to take it off and get it tested here pretty soon to see whats up.

The turn signal is a bit wonky. When you first click it on, the light comes on and blinks once, then doesnt start continuously blinking until I've already got the wheel cranked a bit.

Needs weatherstripping in both doors and the passenger door window wont roll up all the way so there was a gap that allowed rain inside (good ol' pacific northwest ) and got some rust on the floorboard because of it. I took out the mat and pulled up the carpet on that side to help dry it out a bit, got the window taped up for now haha

There's quite a bit of play in the steering so I'll probably have to do tie-rods, bushings etc etc..

The seats are not that comfortable, I have no clue what car they came out of but I dont like how forward it sits me. I'm 6'3" so I need all the room I can get. Any common seats that are nice in these trucks?

hope to get some pics up and see some progression! Take care

 

Welcome to TM. Have fun and you will learn a lot.

 

Thanks! Hopefully I'll be able to swap in a new alternator and get that charging problem fixed, went to start it yesterday to move it out of the driveway but the battery had nothin left. I also noticed the doors, or at least the driver side, dont lock! The lock just pushes back up when you close the door haha

 

Slight progress today. Decided to take my battery in and have it tested, apparently it was a battery from a VW and it had a dead cell so I grabbed a new one. Cranked it and it started up after a little while yet the charge light was still on. Had my roommate fiddle with the green wire on the alternator connector since its real loose but it didnt effect it. I'm thinking I'll just splice on a new connector before going out and buying a voltage regulator, I should really just pull the alternator and have that tested too.

Also, after it had warmed up and was idling nice and smooth, had to adjust it up a little actually, when I shut it off it shook pretty hard and had a puff of smoke come up through the carb, any idea whats causing that? I dont think I ever noticed it the first few times I started/drove the truck.

 

Got some pics of the rust bucket today


Let me know if anything looks out of place in the engine bay, I'm not super familiar with these engines yet


Some of the rust on the passenger side floorboard, I have a buddy who can help with the welding and if not, I found a shop that restores classic cars and they'd be able to help me out with it.



There's a couple spots on the bed thats rusted through too, this is the seam where the side of the bed and the floor meets, you can see my pant leg there lol


And its obviously had a, not so well done, rattlecan job with some overspray in a few places. The rear window is no problem, a razor blade should take care of that but what about the Toyota emblem on the side? What could I use to get the overspray off without scratching it up? I was thinking soapy water and a scouring pad but I dont know if thats too coarse and would scratch it up.



Thanks for lookin, have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

 

Windows hit em with steel wool or a blade, the emblem is sadly made of plastic. So mostly anything with damage it

 

Damn, I kinda figured that would be the case..

 

Hold up the outside door handle to keep the lock on when you shut the door, its made not to lock you out,or use the key to lock it.Check here for parts.http://www.yodajims.com/

 

haha that's funny to have to explain this about older vehicles. even funnier is that I never really locked my keys in the vehicle ever in the last 20 years, but then in the last year of owning my Hilux, I've had to bust out the coathanger slimjim TWICE!!!

 

Haha yeah I realized that after some more reading

 

Spent about 2 months in California visiting family/friends, was able to bring back one of my multimeters from my moms house. Checked out the alternator and it was charging at over 17v so I guess the regulator is probably shot. Ordered a new one hoping that will take care of the charge light.

Got the ghetto-rigged stereo to work, cleaned up the wiring a bit. As I figured, that little speaker in the dash is blown. Does anyone know what size it is? looks pretty small and unusual so I'll probably have a hard time finding a good quality speaker to fit in there. Either way, I plan to build a little center console/speaker box. I also grabbed some smaller boat speakers and a 6.5" sub I've had for years and they still sound pretty good, loud as hell too.

I could assume these wires hanging down are from the old stock radio right? I couldnt actually tell where their coming from.


Also theres a spot on my valve cover that should have a breather on it but its just been left open. When I shut the truck off, a small puff of smoke comes out of it. Is that normal or do I need valve stem seals or something of that nature?

 

Got my voltage regulator installed today and it seems like it fixed the problem! The charge light went off and now its charging at 13.7-13.9v which I feel is still not super great but at least it isnt over-charging anymore. Next up is a change of all the fluids, get my two leaking tires fixed and its on the road! I feel like I should drop the gas tank and inspect it, or at the very least siphon out that old gas.

 

The two spots on your valve cover are a way to route blow by gas to the intake. The one with the breather went to a port on the base of the stock carburetor into the intake. The other one had the PCV on it to the clean side of the stock air filter, you can block this one off or put another filter on it but you must keep dirt out of the motor, some smoke coming out here is normal. If you had an air pump it was hooked to the stock air filter too.I will try to get some pictures when its day light and not 20*. You were right about the regulator,your red charge light should have came on from idle up to about 3000rpm maybe then went out.The stock carburetor w/AC has four idle screws on it.Do you have a shop manual, you will need one.Look below this post, my signature it tells everyone what year,model and acc. I have.Everyone needs to do this so when you ask for help its right there.

 

Thanks for the input man. Im not sure about any air pump, this truck came with a Weber 32/36 so I'm unfamiliar with the stock carb and air cleaner. The truck also has no A/C also. I have a Chilton manual and its pretty in depth.

 

Nothing exciting happening, just been cleaning up some hack job wiring and such.

Found that the hole in the air cleaner that was meant for the pcv hose was just left open, bypassing the air cleaner, so i threw a bolt over it and got a new filter element as well.


The plug on the alternator was practically falling apart so i cleaned that up. Wasnt able to get new terminals into the plug easily so i just threw some shrink wrap over them and plugged them in individually. Also the charging wire was frayed open around the post with the nut tightened down on it so i threw a ring terminal on it. Theres a lot of hackjob wiring i didnt get a picture of too lol



Removed the rest of the emissions crap that was disconnected and cleaned up some wiring on the battery. Need to clean up the engine bay some more.

Changed fluids in the diff, trans, engine and did a full flush of the cooling system. This chunk of silicone came spitting out of my funnel during one of the last flushes with water lmao