I recently purchased out of birmingham, al, one 1978 4speed, de-campered chinook the guy beat the back off with a sledge, leaving just the aluminum frame/flat bed. so its like a 4runner but a lot less cab and you cant put the back back on. judging from how strong and healthy the engine is, im guessing its got 16x,xxx miles on it due to its camper status, vs the typical 2 or 3 sometimes 4 hundred thousand miles for a regular truck of this vintage. the oil filter had a 1996 date on it! i put an old rack and pinion header on it(which fit pretty well) off my 83 celica gt and my new truck lays down rubber no problem even though it only has 96hp. has i guess 300-550 lb/in helper coils in the back im tryin to get ahold of someone who has a wrecked in the front truck so i can cut the roof, back of the cab and floor(mines supa rusty) out of. lay new plywood on the aluminum bed frame, and build some rails. weld the differential, because blowing off one tire even though youre jerking the wheel back and forth is no fun. rebuild the front: calipers, and steering components because it has all too big of a dead spot at center, possibly tighten down the box a bit i'll get pics up soon of this nifty, wierd little truck
ya def in progress, my "exhaust" fell off today on the way to the tire shop of course that only consisted of one 18" section of 2 1/4" pipe and a turbo muffler, blasted ubolts, gotta get it welded sure is obnoxious with straight headers and i ended up getting 235/75/15 out back, mostly because thats what my guy had, sadly theyre not even light truck tires, but they are for mud and snow... got some infinity q45 15x7's on my **** w/ 215/65 up front and i run a 38mm spacer out back because the non-dually campers look a bit funny with their grossley positive offset wheels to my tastes
ha! bet yall never thought you'd hear from me again update on the project replaced inner and outer steering rods, and balljoints, idler arm seems fine. am in possesion of a new pitman, but a buds borryin me 3/4 breaker bar/socket combo knocked down the dead spot from before nine and past 3 oclock to round 1130-1230ish much more docile got my spider gears welded to my carrier gousing today! been painting all sorts of stuff with hammer tough rustoleum including my new rear baja-esque roll bar narrowed the bed, shortened it as well took off way over 100++ lbs from this rigged 2.5ft section of cast c-channel stuck into the frame rails combined with some 1/2" steel plates and loads of angle iron that made up this really unsafe looking "tow package" and not to bash current chinook owners out there(doubtful there are too many currently registered) but they seem to have pretty shoddy craftsmanship i also took off the gooft box that was on top of my cab and wrapped the raw cut in the roof with fuel line split anyway, since the internet suck with out pics: and am purchasing some 235.75.15's saturday for a trip deep into the chatahoochie natl forest
mud brute tires that is(and i need a new wheelwell cause the back tires slings stuff, mud, rain whatever into the cab, air, everywhere since the old one broke probably the opposite direction most of you are taking since the defenition of mini means 2wd and i stuck rubber wedge in my coil spring to raise my front end. looking to do longer lower control arms and a rod end top spindle mount for some jumpy-loo. but we shall see this thing competes with two 2jz projects of mine and winter is coming up...
