Resurrecting "Red Green" a tough Toyota.

Update.

GNBN - Both the electrical shop and the import auto mechanic came back negatory on any work on this rig.

The electrical specialist says it is a $142/hr shop rate. I could hear him saying without saying on the phone he really did not want this work.
"I have the skill's but not the will" to do the wiring work is now, "Well, crap. I guess I'm back under this thing on the concrete floor." I'm getting too old for this.

I will focus on getting the clutch slave cylinder replaced and the tail light wiring next.

I have an evil plan to pull some buckets out of another Toyota in the back of the garage. That is another story and another project. I found two Toyota AWD wagons for sale nearby for less than the price of OEM or aftermarket bucket seats. And I get two core engines and transmissions for the other project car. Win/Win. MRS45 shakes her head.

The import mechanic laughed and said I have come out of remission on "Toyota Collecting Disease." He says he wants me to bring it by the shop when I get it "Washington legal". He was little nervous that I might bring him out of remission as well. He has had a number of these rigs. He has so much experience with these that he says he can diagnose any pending engine failures by ear. The shop doesn't work on them because they are a product service shop not a project shop. It is not financially viable for him to work on anything older than 20 years old.

His kid tipped over his Taco last weekend. No one hurt. The wheel of life in a Toyota off-road family.

All this is pointing toward a four post lift in the new shop. I keep telling MRS that I am preparing for my car flipping gig post retirement.
 
I have a final vision in my head for what "finished" looks like. The color scheme and trim and such. The last touch I want is a pop-up GFC topper like Randy is running on his Ford.
The Toyota bed is just too small for me to stretch out to sleep. The cab-over design on the GoFast will work great I think. I don't want the whole overlander look or a lot of additional weight, especially up high. That version would be a custom build for this size bed. That is the better part of $10k tricked out. That 20% PROMO code would be pretty sweet right now, @Big Fin
 
I've been taking time away from HT for the off season bullshit. I know some of you are following this thread, so here is an update.

Street legal! The electrical shop told me I could not afford them fixing my rear bed lighting.

It hit almost 60°F here today. So I had to put on my electrician/ computer tech hat and fixed it myself. I was missing a connector on the driver's side for the side marker light. I figured I was going to have to go get an aftermarket set. I pull up the seat back for something else and there was the connector, right where I had thrown it at least 20 years ago. I backed the rig up onto my jack ramps and pulled up a chair. It felt good to work with the sun on my back.

I can still solder with the best of them. We now have blinkers, brake lights, side markers, and tail lights. It also means I fixed the current drain and can connect the rear bed connector in the back of the cab. That gives me a fuel gauge again.

Next Steps:
The headlights still randomly die and I've diagnosed the combo switch on the steering column. I have the part and will start on that replacement. I will dremel out the shrinkage cracks in the steering wheel and epoxy them while I have it off.

I see in this picture that the passenger side license plate light is out. I think that is just a bulb.

I really need to re-hang the elk spike on the shed. That is from my first elk in 1986. It was an old bull in decline. The pedicles are about 4" in diameter. He was still velveted in late October when I killed him. His hide was white and covered in scars. He ate as good as any cow I've ever shot.

IMG_5187.JPG
 
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44hunter45 said:
Went out to play today.

No cup holder, no navigation, no hands free. Tunes on iPhone music and Walker Bluetooth muffs.

You need all four hands to drop shift the corners and power out while keeping it between a drift and tip over. Makes you feel 40 again...

Got some pretty weird looks from the SxS clubbers out for the day. Pretty sure they thought anyone driving a rig like this would have a mullet.

Had my GMC up this road in September and felt every scratch. Today, not so much.

View attachment 354714View attachment 354715
Click to expand...
I’ve never seen such a fine truck and rifle pairing as the old Toyota with a Mini 14. Love it.
 
MTLabrador said:
I love my dad’s old M1 carbine. My .30-30 lives in the Tundra now. Pretty tough to beat for an all around big game/self defense/everything else rifle.

View attachment 368137
Click to expand...
Crappy audio on this vid.

My 1916 Winchester 1894. My dad got it for doing a tile job when he was in his 20's. The original owner had been a working cowboy for decades. This was his scabbard gun.
Shout out to @p_ham for bringing her back to full function. The feed rails had gotten sloppy. Still shoots 2 MOA of sandbags.
I shot the video on BLM off US93 in Nevada. If only I had known Nevada does not require a hunting license for coyotes.

 
Got the flakey headlights fixed.

I never liked the new design of the accelerator pedal from Toyota. I sat down on the workbench and repaired the rusted out original. My re-engineered fix is stronger than the OEM design. My foot likes that old pedal.

I experimented with the bucket seats out of the Tercel which is in the background of some of these pics. No Joy. They put my head against the head liner. One pothole and you're off to the chiropractor.

I saw some pics of NRG Defender seats on a 79-83 Toyota 4x4 group. I like them a lot. Owner of that rig is about my height and says he is right where he wants to be. No slider, no recline. Just get in and go. Their website has a disclaimer that they are "off-road only" Anyone running non-approved seats?
 
Just wow. Cheap Chinese headlight relay failed already. Put an iffy old one back in there for now. New OEM on the way.
I'll pay a little more to not be suddenly in the dark at 60MPH.

I needed to pull the exhaust manifold and drill out some old stripped holes for repair. It has been leaking at the pipe flange and at the air injection tube ports. Time to get it all sealed up.
30+ years ago I stripped out the three bolt holes in the manifold where the heated air shroud bolts on. I tried to repair them at the time, but I was too poor to own a drill press and I just made them worse.

No heli-coils here. I had to take the holes out to 31/64th to clean them up. So now they will get tapped to 9/16x12 and I will screw in 9/16 bolts and then dress them off flush.
Then I can drill and tap the proper m8 - 1.25 holes for the OEM bolts, which I have coming from my secret NOS OEM parts supplier.

The final step is to re-engineer the air tube to manifold junction. The air tube is pretty flimsy, especially at temperature. The original design had a donut gasket on top of the manifold, but the air tube would distort when you torqued it down. Then it would leak.

I will be MIG welding a washer over the hole in the air tube so that it will firmly interface with the manifold and crush the gasket. A little red RTV may be applied if it doesn't behave. Didn't have good access to a MIG 30+ years ago either.

I picked out the color scheme for the interior. The body will remain green with a few required touch-ups. I have to weld in a replacement floor, so the interior will be gutted for a re-paint at that time.

All the brown interior will go to black with red accents. Eventually the bench seat gets replaced with a set of Corbeau buckets. MRS45 says their black and red seat is over the top for her and too much of a good thing. So all black seats it is.

This paint work is not finished yet, but here is a sample. I got a black leather wrap with red stitching for the steering wheel and matching gear shift knob.

The 9/16 taps I need are on the way, but I won't have the rig back on the road before the first week of June.

IMG_5361[1].JPGIMG_5362[1].JPG
 
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Today I worked on the exhaust manifold and cleaned up all the manifold studs on the exhaust side of the cylinder head. I must have used a crap-ton of Never-Seize on all that stuff 30 years ago. Everything came apart nicely.

I flat filed off the old gasket gunk and resurfaced it. I replaced the three stud on the flange end of the manifold. I got the bunged-up shroud holes drilled out to 9/16 and tapped. I have some 9/16-12 grade 2 bolts coming. I miss the days when you went to the farm store and every sized bolt you could imagine was in a big spinning bin.

MRS45 was joking that she will not know when I am coming home without an exhaust leak announcing me. I found the OEM air tube gaskets in Canada, but they won't ship them to the USA. Unobtanium here.

Got the instrument cluster rebuilt and back in the dash. Now I have real flashing lights when I use my blinkers. All the backlight illumination bulbs are working. Also replaced the cheap Chinese headlamp relay with an OEM.

I have stealth LED headlamps coming. They look like OEM H6054 lights, but are LED bright and 6000k white. They draw 1/2 amp versus 1 1/2 for the OEM old school lamps. No more squinting at the road at night.
 
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