i dig the color. although the fender rot is a turn off, check out toyotafiberglass.com. Slacker owns; hes a vendor here and an all around great guy. replace that rust with fiberglass and never have to worry about the fenders rotting out again.

looks like a great base. what are the plans? just to put it back to the way you remember it?

 

Thank you and I'll check his stuff out---I did find some used OE fenders just a couple hours away from me that I'm going to look at as well this week. For now, plans are to get new fenders, little paint work, rims and a decent stereo---and enjoy it!

 

When I got the truck it had been setting for a year, was very dirty and running rough. Took it to the car wash and blasted off years of filth, cleaned the engine bay, door jambs and blasted away some rotting leaves that had been in the bed. Simple Green mixed 50/50 is a great engine degreaser!

Before power washing
After!
Once the engine bay was cleaned up, new plugs, wires, cap rotor and a valve cover gasket was the next step. Most of these parts were easily found at NAPA auto parts but the valve cover gasket I made several trips across town and never did find one that exactly matched the original. The end cap seals and gromets seemed to be the main source of leaks, so only those were replaced and the factory gasket was checked out, cleaned and re-installed. Used a few dabs of Ultra Grey RTV on the end cap gaskets to ensure they would stay in place and help against any small seepage. (Note-what a terrible design by the way! I'm used to a single valve cover gasket-not a 7 piece setup!)

New valve cover gasket, cap and rotor, wires and some more cleaning.

 

The muffler was really in bad shape, basically split at the seam. A new one piece mufller and tailpipe was installed.




Next up was the coolant which looked just like Pepsi floating around in there! Drained all of the old crud out, flushed with several gallons of fresh water, followed by distilled water, and then filled with new Toyota red coolant.




Then the interior was cleaned up again using 50/50 mix of Simple green on everything! Carpet, seats, dash, headliner. I sprayed everything-In fact, I need to go over it again, but since we still have some cold temps lurking, I'll wait until spring. My friend's dad was a heavy smoker and the smell inside was overwhelming. I found the culprit to be the ashtray which had about 1/8" thick layer of tar buildup on the roof of the ashtray. I used brake clean, carb cleaner and a screwdriver to chisel it out. Most of it came out but some is still in there. Needless to say, if your a smoker, this might make you think twice!

ewww

Much better!
Cleaning tar out of ashtray

 

Last night i found a guy with a '95 parts truck south of me about 2 hours, so Friday I'll be heading over to pickup both fenders (original Toyota parts) that are reportedly rust free and a front seat since ours is tore up badly. $150 for everything. I may also try and get the inner fenders and front mud flaps. I noticed he had chrome exterior mirrors so I may change these faded out black ones for those. Hopefully these fenders are in good shape-it just so happens that his truck is the same color!

Once I have them I'll install both fenders and then look towards cutting out the bad passenger side rocker and get going on some sanding and filling. The hood is in decent shape but has some heavy sun fading on the paint and a couple nicks.

 

Solid start. Begin soaking those lower fender bolts in PB blaster so they don't just shear off when you back them out.

That's the best package out there. 22re with a 5 speed D/R.

I always appreciate a build/work on a budget. I'm in the same boat on my 95 4runner. Looking forward to the progress

 

Good call-I'll definitely start spraying them tonight. I'm impressed with how well it runs, seems to keep getting better. I parked my other truck ('05 Silverado) and this is now my DD....Hoping to get 100k miles out of it!

 

Made the trip today to pickup fenders from a donor truck. Was hoping to get a seat as well, since my seat has a fairly good tear but it was in better shape than the other one.

So I scored two OE fenders and an ashtray for $80. Drivers side has a small nickel sized ding in it and had surface rust as the donor truck had a engine fire. Passenger side has a ding about half the size of a playing card, should be an easy fix. Started sanding drivers fender and hope to have them both ready for minor repair in next couple days. Will also need to pull the hood and sand / prep it as well but I don't want to stop driving the truck long enough to take it off!

 

Nice score on the fenders. I'm terrified of body work. But I'll get there eventually.

btw, is that a C5 I spot in the garage?

 

Ive never attempted body work either but I wanted to learn with this truck. I've picked up a book and been reading, asking friends who have experience and so far it's going good. Years ago I was afraid to tear into engines but now it's my passion.

Yep the car in the background is a '04 Z06 Commemorative. I picked it up last year after selling my '70 Chevelle that I had worked on for 7 years. Told myself I was tired of always working on it, just wanted something I could get in and drive.

Then I go out and buy the Toyota 🙃

 

Very nice! I always liked that stripe package on those.

and, when you're a car guy, you can't NOT work on cars. It's like a disease that you don't really want to have cured.

 

Spent some time on the fenders today and found a little more rust on lower passenger side fender than I wanted. Talked with my paint guy and he recommended PPC Phix to spray on rust areas. It's supposed to clean the area up and leave a coat of zinc. So far it's working very well. Now I just have to decide to cut out the very small rust area and use the fender or just buy a new one. In sticking with the low buck idea I'm leaning more towards cutout and rust prevention in the future. Reason is this is a Toyota factory fender and not the stuff we get anymore from aftermarket - which usually has issues with fitment. The cab corners behind the lower fender and rusty and will be spraying them down with Phix also.

Passenger rocker is fairly bad so it's going to need cut and replaced.

 

toyotafiberglass. never worry about rusty fenders again.

 

thanks I will check them out - how is fitment with them? I know some fiberglass I've worked with (cowl induction hoods/doors etc) some have been spot on and others needed work. A lot of work. Lol

 

Slacker is a member here. check out his build threads he has in the vendor build up section. he makes quality stuff.

 

Well after more sanding I've found the rust is too extensive on the passenger side fender with holes forming the more I sand. So these are going on craigslist locally in case someone will want to take the time to repair them. For me I'll be looking into the fiberglass fenders that space-junk referred me to. I just want something that will fit like factory and not have extensive modifications to make it fit right.




So for now, the fender project will be put on hold and I'm going to focus on getting the drivers side seat repaired as it's starting to lose small pieces of foam. I stopped at a local upholstery shop in Des Moines and they quoted me around $250 to put new foam down on seat portion then recover, just for drivers side. Going to do some more shopping on that. If anyone knows where I can find the matching factory seat material please let me know. Passenger side is perfect and I want them to match as close as possible.

 

Well for an update I have not been doing much of anything to the truck. I have spent a little bit of money this summer as I had to replace the clutch and also the slave cylinder. The truck unfortunately had to go back to the shop four times before they finally got parts that were good enough and would actually last more than three days. Had I known this would have been an issue I would’ve just ordered factory Toyota parts and supply them to the mechanic. The clutch repair was $1100. So that brings my total for the truck now up to $3100.

Ive got a small rust hole in the bed Now that will need attention soon. . Also the front fenders are rusting pretty good now. I’ve had the truck looked at by two different body shops and they are both recommending cab corners on both sides plus both rockers. So far I’ve had estimates of $3000 to replace both rockers cab corners paint the used fenders that I would supply and also paint the hood, doors and roof. However that is with me taking the bed off taking the fenders off and also doing some other minor work and delivering it to them in pieces. So I basically will have about $400 in parts but the rest would be all labor.

So right now I’ve decided that I’m going to drive the truck for about another month and then it will go inside my shop for the winter and I will start working on taking the fenders off the hood both doors and replacing rocker panels and cab corners myself. I’ve never done bodywork before but it is one of the things that I’m anxious to learn as engines, suspension etc. has always been something I’ve worked on but never really gotten into bodywork. I hope to finish the bodywork For around $1000 and that would put my total just over $4000 for the truck. At that price point knowing that I should be able to go 100,000 more miles on it I think I’ll be sitting pretty good. Not to mention I just love driving this truck and it means a lot to me so I’m going to restore it and put some time into it and make a right.

 

Yesterday was a nice warm day so I sprayed the truck down and started looking the rust over again. This little truck has been my daily driver over the last year and it's never let me down. Couple weeks ago we had a stretch of sub zero weather, coldest it went was -15 degs with close to -30 with windchill. Truck never gave me a problem, always started and performed flawless! But the rust has taken a turn for the worse-I'm afraid if I don't get to work on it I'll lose a great truck.




Pulled it in the garage and took the seats out. The driver seat I've taped up since it had a fairly bad rip in the fabric. I've found a local shop that will rebuild it with new foam and cloth for $200. So since it's out, I'll get it repaired while I'm working on the rest.




My friend who owned the truck before me was a heavy smoker. The carpet when it gets wet has a nasty smell to it, so I'm tearing it all out and replacing. Took all the seat belts out, pulled the carpet and found 2 rust holes in the drivers floor pan. Not really what I wanted to see but really wasn't too surprised, with the condition of the rockers and such. Going to look for a floor pan and if not, go to a local steel shop and get a sheet so I can make my own floor piece. All the other pants look perfect. Once repaired, the whole floor inside and underside will get rust treatment.




Drivers side fender and rockers need replaced along with cab corner. Passenger fender, rocker and cab corner as well. Next thing I'll do this weekend is start taking the fenders off and getting the bed ready to come off. I'm diving deep into this project and not having done bodywork before, I'll need to take my time and do a lot of reading on how to get it all done right the first time.

If anyone has suggestions please comment! Thanks!!

 

Today took the box off and rear bumper. Frame in very good shape and minimal surface rust.