Greetings all again, I return after my escapade with my carburetor as a new issue recently dawned: the hydraulic clutch system. Today, after some quick downtown driving and many stopsigns, stop lights, speed bumps and stop-and-go scenarios, the clutch master cylinder decided to pop a seal and start leaking fluid inside onto my floor mat. Servicing is imminent, ontop of a diy alignment earlier this week (which SOMEHOW threw my toe off, although i swear I just added a 1/16 shim to each front bolt to adjust the caster slightly, gonna have to fix that too) and ontop of the already peviously leaking clutch slave? or return cylinder.

When I bought my truck, it came with a box of parts, one of them being a rebuilt cylinder from 1990! with an old toyota dealer invoice for it too. Hopefully the rubbers in it are still good, but only one way to find out. Will update when I get the chance too, likely tomorrow. Shouldn't be too hard of a job, like bleeding brakes eh? I'll see

 

Ordered an AISIN clutch slave cylinder/release cylinder off of RockAuto, should be here Wednesday of next week, in the mean time, I will replace the clutch master cylinder, and the fluid too since its dark green-ish, probably shouldn't be that color methinks...

 

**HORRIBLE UPDATE**

This clutch system service will be on hold since I was recently and very, very unfortunately involved in an accident with my beloved Pickup.

 

hope YOUR OK, & that your truck can be saved!

 

Daaang bro. Hope all is well, the truck can be replaced un like our health.

 

Yes, I'm fine. It was a low-speed (well, 45mph on the freeway since I was hauling a large load) accident; just couldn't stop in time and ran into my mom's SUV as she was infront of me, since two other cars infront of us also had an accident.

That is true, already found a complete headlight bezel and grille set for $125 online, but the body work, that could be another story. Thankfully, lap belt caught me

 

So, I went around to a few local and chain body shops, all of them said similar things with a few differences:
-We X Store don't service vehicles 20+ years or older (probably will need a specialty/classic shop for this)
-If X Store can take a look at it, estimates are either a few grand within the scope of 3-4k at the least and 6-7k at the most, depending on the damages. Usually, wait times are a MONTH or more just for an estimate, this year is really busy apparently for body shops from accidents I guess
-Out of the few I went too, one place said they could use parts I sourced for repairs, all of the other ones said they would need to be ordered through them (not really an option anymore) for safety and warranty and whatnot
-The damage, from a couple quotes from the one picture I took the night the accident happened, would be a possible difficult fix from the passenger's fender being pushed enough into the passenger's door, as well as the core support infront of the radiator supposedly, I'm not a body guy so I can't say much myself.
-The hood is done-for according to a few guys, guessing the same for the bumper and fascia (the part underneath the grille/bumper where the fenders mate to in the front)

Also, I took off the grille (or what was left of it) to access the hood latch and safety lock to release it, thankfully that was relatively easy since most of the mounting for the grille was snapped off/broken. Looking underneath, the upper rad hose was thoroughly pushed back into the thermostat housing, the cooling fan is buried solid into the radiator (interesting since I didn't overheat on the drive back, but today it refuses to idle without giving it some gas which leads me to believe the stuck fan is jamming up the serpentine belt of course)

I'll upload some photos of the damage if anyone might have any analyzing skills. I just hope she's savable...

 

Daaang, just be aware that a lot of shops inflate the quotes so that the customers don't get freaked out on up charges.. half the quote is for paint and body work.. the parts are the easy part it's labor that kills.

 

I'd imagine, since the techniques for it are complex with body lines, blending lines, restoring what can be restored, straightening, pulling, painting too

 

So, I had a quick chat with my neighbor who is also into Toyotas (He has a 4Runner he uses for offroading and his wife has a RAV4) and I got some uplifting news! He recommended me to take off the body panels that could be straightened such as the valence panel, hood, the core support if possible, and fenders for a restoration shop to look at, over a body shop, since they (depending on whether or not they REPLACE parts or REPAIR them) could help with my situation; worst case scenario some new body parts. However, I'm still wondering about the frond end "Apron" (see attached photo) and the core support for the radiator, as well as the passenger's side inner fender since it did get a mild crunch/fold from the collision. However, this is good news regardless as I'll be able to strip the parts off of the truck and ask around to see what various shops will say/can do about it! Maybe it isn't so bad now, but anywho, I'll keep you folks posted to see what I'll discover...



We'll be back!

 

That fact you have a later generation truck it should be easy to find parts from the junkyard. Will be better then new OE replacement parts that will take a lot of work to be perfect in most cases. That's if an restoration expert ends up with a high quote. Depending on how bad the damage is the apron could be pulled and look good. But if really bad and you still want to pull it they will just get stuff to line up right. Can easily be picked up from a junkyard if it's in bad shape. It's one of those panels that's a bit of a process to pull and replace.

The price of body work is up there. It's one of those things if the emotional attachment isn't to high moving over to a replacement shell or complete truck would be the better move if cost gets a bit high. You kind of got to ask yourself if this is the truck you want to get into a restoration with? Is it the best base for your money or do you just want to get back on the road with it. You can keep price way down if you keep it out of the paint booth. Depending on the quality it can make the body work price look like nothing even if the damage was extensive.

2 doors and a b piller for my old my old first gen is300 would of been a 11k job from the shop that quoted me. No air bags went off. The car did have a pearl paint. I'm sure if I would of saw the full quote the paint would of been over 5k. The car was worth 9k on a good day. Loved the car never was going to sell it untill it was wrecked. The dude that bought it pulled the b piller replaced it and the doors. Never painted it but he probably had 2k into the fix.

 

Speak of the devil, the Pull-N'-Save near me had a 1982 shortbox in the yard. All of the front panels were gone except... the hood!!!

As soon as I saw it I packed my tools and made a beeline straight for them. 60$ flat for it, took me 10 minutes since it was two bolts on each hinge and a bit of patience with stuffing it in the back of my SUV from my other vehicle fleet too. And conveniently in the SAME ROW they also had a 1988 Toyota Van LE!!! I grabbed some goodies off of it to use for my own van and to resell to some other owners of them on ToyotaVanTech too. Overall, good day, even if it was just a hood. As for the restoration shops, I've also gotten from the word of mouth that some guys at a Fast Towing company near me might still be doing body stuff but I'll have to ask him again on their exact details since searching them up doesn't bring any results...

 

I honestly would have pulled both left and right aprons if they were straight.. they are never straight.. so to find some OEM ones are gold! Aftermarket ones don't come with all the original stamping and routing these do

 

I did try to unbolt everything off of the aprons but they're still held together somehow. Only mounting I could feasibly undo were the body mounting bolts unless the apron is apart of the cab itself? Or welded together somehow?

 

It's all going to be spot welded.

 

Guessing the only way to undo it is to drill out the spot welds then right? And whatever might be holding it to the cab and/or frame (if it does connect to the frame besides two body mounts in the front)

 

It's all spot welded, you can drill the spot welds with broach drill bit.

 

Might be an option, this morning I had a body guy who works for a Toyota specialist stop by and examine the truck. No word back from him yet but hoping it's good news. We'll see once I get some info. That 1982 at the yard is the only one in the area as of late so I've got my eye on it.

 

Yea these things have been getting snatched up from salvage yards, auction houses and taken over seas..

 

Not surprised, they're well-known and usually well-loved!

In some good news, I've found a very nice and low-down shop that will work on my truck, quoted MUCH MUCH MUCH less than any chainstores I've gone too. They're very nice and trustworthy. So excited!!! They towed her this morning, should be done before the new year!