I advanced my timing a bit, tweaked on the pos Weber, and put a new air filter on. She's a little peppier and got rid of the hesitation when I stomp on the gas. Also put a sweet trd sticker on the back window.

 

I wiped the week-old bird****s off my fender.

 

fired her up, drove it up the street with some outdated tags (for the visual appeal of looking somewhat "legal" just incase lol) and took a few pics off a side street. torsion bolts catch the very top of my driveway and bump steer is real... lol. i got myself motivated about finishing it again (atleast this phase of it) for the meet next month. wont be complete but it will be legally able to cruise.

 

screwed up my ball joints trying to remove the spindles(first time doing it) so now I'm waiting on a package from RockAuto..... Balls.

 

Replaced the steering damper, found the link arm is gone about five minutes after randomly ordering a new one. Decided I am either going to have to paint this Vegas body soon or Florida is just going to eat it.

 

Finished replacing the ball joints today and installed my stock Mighty Max spring that I cut half a coil off of, brought it down 3 1/4 inches in the front. Now when it stops raining I need to do the back.

Before:


After:

 

Does everyone else's truck sit lop sided? Stock measurements were 27-1/4" on the driver side front and rear and 28" even passenger side front and rear.

 

It could just be spring sag.

 

It is still equally lop sided with the Mighty Max springs.

I also noticed that the front of my truck is sitting on the bump stops even after I cut a good inch off of them! Am I supposed to remove the metal bump stop pad completely and just leave the rubber top part?

 

Hmm, just found out that I wasn't supposed to cut the rubber portion of my bump stops, but just remove the metal brick portion... Anyone have any stock bump stops they don't need any more.

 

Pulled the 20r motor. Just have to pull the 22RE off the donor.

 

I finished cleaning up and spraying the bed of Hilux low gloss white(spray cans but it looks good). I sprayed the tail light surrounds and pillar vents black and re-did the lettering red, the previous owner had it painted over... All in all it looks good with the freshly ArmaCoated bed.







Thinking about doing the wheels white as well and doing the hub caps black.

 

Looks really good. I've found the lighter colors come out better with spay cans. I did an S10 way back in the day primer grey. I turned out a lot better than my current streaking rusty brown job.

You painting the hubcaps to get rid of all the chrome?

I'd like to see the white wheels with the chrome caps.

 

looking good, red lettering kicks ass!!

 

The chrome on the hub caps isn't the greatest and I'm not a big fan of chrome. If it wasn't so expensive to have the chrome redone I would just do that. I will probably just Plasti Dip them black so it is reversible.

Thanks! I looked up color schemes for the year and color and all the white ones I saw had red letters on the tailgate, so that's what I went for.

 

Does anyone know if the tailgate latches/handles off of a newer truck, say 1975-1983, will fit my truck? Mine are pretty beat up.

 

Finally got my beefed taco blocks installed. Been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait. These things are built awesome. I opted for the grade 8, 9/16" race bolts. I always get the best if it's not an excessively pricey option. This did have it's issues though on my 85.

The holes in the spring plates were close, but not big enough for the 9/16" bolts. Some filing on the inner edges to clean them up worked great to fit the bolts.

Next was the hole space from one set of ubolts to the other didn't accommodate the top and bottom plates on the block. They were wider than the leaf spring and hole pattern on the plate. I grinded some small notches in the sides to allow the bolts to fit snugger. In the end they look great, and I'm sure I'll never have any issues.

Also, if I would have just gone with the grade 5 bolts I'm sure none of these issues would have come up.

 

Off to another show today,leaving in 30 mins.

 

Lucky. I ordered mine 6 weeks ago. How long did it take you to get yours?bthey look nice painted

Nice. Have fun

 

Took a good 8+ weeks. He was really good keeping me posted. He got severely backed up with some large jobs. They are worth the wait. The blocks and bolts look indestructible. I'm sure they are light years ahead of any universal kit out there. You prob cant see them in the pictures, but I also got the weld in cnotch and 2 crossmember notches.