rustED

iTrader: (2)

Hey Mark, I hope the assessment of Ruby goes well today, I can't wait to see her start stage II. I agree with you and dropzone, a new chapter deserves a new build thread!

I was Just wondering if you have considered going with a soft top this time around? I know they're expensive (soft toppers are around $799, Can Backs are twice as much unless you find a good condition used one) I was just thinking if you were thinking of doing an exo-cage it might simplify top removal. You could either build the cage around the top, but still be able to roll up the sides and back or build the cage to where the soft top mounts over it for a cleaner look. I know living in Cali that security might be a concern, though... just thought I'd throw that out there, lol. I really want to build my own soft top, got all the materials priced out at about $380, its just a time/money thing holding me back! Hope everything goes good for ya today!

ToyoTech559

Sorry to hear about the roll over. Def look into relocating that spare tire. Help with not being top heavy

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

Really appreciate the help you've given on the phone and in fact throughout the time I've known ya!

Soft top is a no go unless I just putting it on for a trip.

Thanks buddy!

Thanks man. Far as the weight, it was not really a factor in this one, but in all reality, it actually prevented much more damage.

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

Body guy had to wait again til tomorrow. .. Bout to have an ulcer....

He doesn't go into the shop tomorrow so it should be for sure. He was apologetic and a short staffed at the moment so...

What can I do?

CamTom12

Hey Chef, since we keep talking about exo cages and the ability to remove a top... If that's something you ever do or want to do in the future, there's a few pictures of 4Runners with an exo on the cab area and the bottom half integrated to an interior cage under the fiberglass topper area.

And you should totally grill a steak to help ease the anxiety of waiting on the body guy.

And post pictures of it. And a recipe for any awesome sides you come up with. So I can use them for my dinner tomorrow. :-D

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

I started a parts needed thread... PLEASE, if you're anywhere near me or think you can get some of this stuff to me, please repost what you've already mentioned(Or post new) by "quoting" this post and putting your information as to what you have or know of, below it? PLEASE? This site seems a lil slow.... but the classifieds seem to be humpin..... so maybe I'll luck out? Thanks..... here's the link................

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f12/.../#post52168133

Pasting the post text here.............

""""" Preferably(Meaning, I would prefer the items listed below, with preference to first portions mentioned)....Also; Obviously, it would also be preferrable that they were within a reasonable distance of 90274... I would go as far as I need to, say within 150 miles?:


A. BOTH doors w/electric & wing windows- 85-87.... (But would take ANY CLEAN wing window doors from 84-89)....



B. BOTH 4WD FENDERS(preferable to both have corner lights).... 4WD Pickup and 4Runner fenders are the same, right?



C. CLEAN Hood... paint is not as important as STRAIGHT as possible.






I don't expect a handout, but i honestly I am really needing to keep the cost down for this stuff as much as possible. I have pretty much giving up the luxury of just grabbing whatever I want whenever I want, taking on caregiving for my mom full time on top of work. Again, that's nobody's problem, so please, regardless of what you are asking, please let me know what you have? I really would like to get my beauty back on the road as soon as possible!


I will call "Toyotas Only" & "Toyota Minis", starting tomorrow... But wanted to check with my brothers and sisters on here, first.

PS: I WILL consider an entire rig, depending on how clean, motor less and such is fine. But I'd rather stick to the bare minimum. I need a clean roof, and bed-sides, as well,.....But someone WILL GIVE me that as soon as Monday or Tuesday. .. Jonnyboy on here would be bringing it down or I'd go to him and help remove the roof and sides. However, if someone had a clean rust free or surface rust only rig for cheap that they need gone, within a reasonable amount of distance to me... It would save Johnny and myself the task of getting that donor down here, Free or not...



* Thanks to everyone for the concern and well wishes, regarding my accident... I'm very grateful, both to be unhurt and to have good friends from this site & otherwise!

Hope to soon be saying, ----->>>

"""""

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

Dang......

Well, I'm heading to check out bone stock what appears to be very clean 87 4 runner with 167,000 miles on a sloppy timing chain.... Tomorrow at noon. I am NOT going to discuss price on here just yet, but trust me, it would be cheaper than just buying the shell, doors, fenders, maybe hood.... And it is complete with valance and running boards. Totally bone stock factory. I may very well have bunch of parts to go out. One thing is for sure, it's a little bummer that it's an automatic, but it has wing window doors and a perfect condition shell and good interior and working air conditioning and heating and I think, as long as it's as clean as I can see, I might have found my solution. Good Lord am i praying for the best! Lol. Oh yeah, and clean non salvage title!

habanero

Crossing fingers for the best outcome on the deal for you, Chef.

Red Wagon

Chef Im heading to the wrecker next week to get a new door for myself. Ill keep my eyes peeled.

I can ship light stuff if I find anything.

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

I passed on the donor rig, at least for now. I know most of the East Coast guys probably think it's ridiculous, but it just had a bit too much rust on the bottom side of the panel in the back on the passenger side. And a lot of it otherwise would have been unable to self because the chain skipped a tooth and the motor is half apart, its an automatic, and even if I got the shell doors hood and fenders, maybe the roof and 1 rear panel being usable... He was just asking too much and then I'm stuck having to tell the rest of it down and sell it and so forth. I just don't have the energy or time for that right now. But, when I got home, I got a call from a guy with both wing window doors with no dents whatsoever, both fenders, one of them perfect and one of them with a little dent in the middle, a hood, & a grill that he would throw in for 200 bucks or best offer. I'm waiting for the body guy right now, again. He's somewhat flaky from what I can tell... But seeing the work he does I respect him and not to mention the fact that he is willing to come to my house... I just have to be patient.

As soon as he comes and gives me an assessment, I could go get the doors fenders and hood.

JonnyBoy is already able to grab the panels and roof off of the donor vehicle... Which is free aside from paying him for his time and effort and gas....

I don't know the body guy personally, but I very much trust the guy who does... And I've seen the work he did on his truck... So if I have to be patient, then so be it.

I really wish it was a different type of repair that wasn't so critical... I would make a lot more attempt at it myself, but at least the roof I think I should trust to someone so that I can get the doors and everything lined up right and the show goes on straight, etcetera. What good is any work I do on my own for free if it doesn't seal and if it's impossible to some degree to get my door shut right?? ? Haha.

diableri

The news about finding the parts seems to bode well bud!

As someone who's worked on a couple dozen beat up, rusted or chopped cars over the years; I couldn't agree more. There's nothing more frustrating than putting a ton of blood, sweat and tears (not to mention money) into a vehicle and not getting the damned doors to close properly or the a leaking/crack prone windshield due to poor body work.

The guys that are truly good at it are artists. While these trucks don't really need the kind of care and meticulous nutty stuff that goes into street rods, the same principles of tight doors and well fitting glass etc goes for any vehicle. They are worth their price and hassle if they do good work.

Good luck with the body guy!

Just FYI I will be in Santa Barbara next Saturday, Bishop the weekend of the 1rst and 2nd and Washington DC from the 22nd-31rst as far as being around to help ya lift, tug or just be an extra pair of hands. Work is a bit hairy this time of year.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

I have seen some great aftermarket fenders and some poor ones. The guy I worked for did all of the ordering of parts and now I wish I knew which brand was the good ones. Seems like I always come across a part truck fender when I need one so I have been lucky there. Soon as I find a good aftermarket brand, I am making note of it.

Harbor Freight sells a spot weld cutter for about $6. They work great if you start cutting spot welds. Do not drill them out with a standard drill bit. It will take you all day. HF spot weld cutter does great. I punch in the center of the spot weld will help keep it centered a little easier.

Hope the body guy has some good news for you.

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

Hey buddy....I'm having a hard time getting with the body guy... He's really busy, and after talking with him a couple times it's apparent that he worked through the whole weekend... Unfortunately I ended up waiting for him here 3 times for a total of around 18 hours... No calls and no show. I will likely just take it down to him but I can't get ahold of him at all now. Maybe he has me blocked? Hahaha. To be honest, I'm not really laughing about it, but as RBX said on the phone... I can't take it personally, probably does it to everyone. Anyhow, its just a bummer because I could have just taken it down to him with my free AAA tow. I can go up to 200 miles free... Being a new year I'm pretty sure I have all of those miles. I'm going to look around a little bit elsewhere, but I really like the fact that this guy knows exactly what is involved with the roof swaps on these trucks, and from what my body was telling me, he really loves these trucks anyway... So would stand to reason that he would do it right.

I am not totally opposed to doing it would help right here... The problem is, I'm not experienced enough to know that I got the door jamb with the door hinges mount pulled back out properly and not too far and so forth. Secondly, while Johnny will likely be taking more than I need off of the other roof, and more than I need of the panels... Find would rather have someone like you or Albert do the cuts . Cutting off more than I need on something else is not a problem... Cutting in the wrong spot on mine is. Lol.

As far as the panels, I think while it might be more tedious, as long as I have more than what I need , I could simply remove all the pinch welds with the panel already off, then carefully work on mine, removing them from there inner support points, and then just get help putting in place and then removing it and moving the other support in a little bit at a time until everything lines up.

As I told you before, and I know you're fully aware from the pictures, the body molding below the windshield just behind the firewall is tweaked... This is likely due to the first sight heading harder on the upper door hinge mounting point. That and the fact that the A pillar was pushing down at the same time I believe caused it to bow at the base of the windshield. Johnny would be grabbing the entire body portion all the way up to the firewall most likely. He may even be able to remove the pinch well there I'm just pop the whole thing free, I don't know. Obviously the a-arm at the base would have to be cut, but otherwise I'm saying , you know what I mean?

I'm sure a large portion of my weirding out at this point is just waiting and not knowing or having any answers... I mean I would call Albert over here with his portable plasma cutter and just get on it... I just thought it's probably water cool to have a guy that does this all day long at least telling me where. If I could get him to do the cab portion and have it lined up for doors and fenders, I think the rear is a bit more manageable as a DIY project then the roof. If that is off by even an eighth of an inch on either side, it will be very difficult to get the shell to line up with the mounting holes, and then mount up along the bed side top rails. But the show seems to be mounting OK at this point, so my hope would be that the body man would rather cut the roof at the top of the b-pillars and bottom of the a-pillars, rather than the bottom of both pillars.

I will do a video today showing everything in detail and all of my concerns and Things that are less concerning. To be honest, I would not B totally opposed to simply dealing with the front for now and leaving the bed alone. Unfortunately, there are a couple spots along the bed rail that would have to be pushed down and welded up, and my concern would be that they are very close to the support beam that runs vertically near the back, and the wraparound pinch weld portions along the very back basically inside. I'm sorry for going on like this I will just do a video.

The reason that I am going on at all, is well, I am beginning to think the body swap might be a better idea. It would have far less compromised areas and everything would line up better, obviously, and I could just do my motor swap now. The dash of the donor would already be out unless they were too remove everything from the motor and leave all of that attached within the cab... I really want people honest opinion on this. While I would love to keep my van, I think the cost would be less or equal to having this fixed. It's just the amount of work would be much greater for me. If I had done a sloppy job at my electronic modifications or upgrades and lights and onboard air and on and on... Including the sound system... Well, then I might be less has a tent and figure I could do it all over a lot better. But I did a cleaning job and everything is soldered or Quick Connect. I would also have to redo all the sound deadening, and yet I could keep all of the thermoshield, which is already pre cut for my bed. I'm just throwing it out there at this point. I highly doubt I would ever find anything near as clean as my truck, but rust free would be fine, as long as there were no dings or minimal ones. Oh, & I also have thought about this because of all the bondo in the upper rear portion of the rear panel on the driver side, above the tail light housing... If you remember, that's why I couldn't even mount my antenna on that side. Lol... That would all be fixed if I replaced the bed sides with new and manipulated the inner portion back into shape wherever they decided not to.

Thanks for the tips buddy! Do you think you could find out from that guy what brand they were? I think I was told by the body guy I knew and RBX, Whirl makes a great spot weld cutting bit? I'm sure I spelled the name wrong but it shouldn't be too hard to find. Anyway, I think I really need to have a chat with you on the phone if that's possible? I'll send you a text and you can tell me when is a good time. Appreciated as always!

I also want to thank RBX , immensely, for sharing so much time and his expertise on I'm sure what was a day off for him! I really appreciate that kind of stuff man... Not to mention it really helped me to abstain from randomly beating someone down in a parking lot, due to overwhelming frustration. Hahaha.

RBX

Anytime chef. Usually I'm working on the rig , but my eye had kept me from the fun.
Good luck

diableri

Sorry to read that you didn't get hooked up with the body guy again. That gets frustrating but that he's busy may be a good recommendation. That's really frustrating but usually the really good ones are worth the wait.

Just some unsolicited thoughts here.

I agree on the cutting on your truck part. I honesty wouldn't do that. I'd pay someone that you've seen their work to do that for a couple reasons (see below). For example, I have some terrible rust in my windshield frame. I'm not going to mess with it myself, I'm taking it to one of a couple different guys here that will use metal to fix it right. My truck will take hits at speed, bounce and vibrate. I'm not messing around with that area. After it's fixed though, I'll never worry about it again.

I don't know how much of that is a factor for the crawling that you do but the doors and windshields would seem to be areas of concerns for that stuff.

Reasons:
1. You care, a lot. This thread is a testament to your work and effort. This is one of those things that is awfully tough to learn as you go because undoing something that goes awry makes things even more complicated.
2. From reading your posts, you don't like to leave questions or concerns on the table. You might worry later if you got everything right.

When we've chopped stuff or repaired bad rust in the past, these older cars (as you know) are far more simple and have a lot more beef in them so there's a more leeway (especially in things like pillars). I'll take a look at my pillars and body a bit more tonight.

Body swap + whatever rust repair the new body may need makes for a more confident final repair in my mind but more hassle in paper work etc. Probably less money just on my impression from your descriptions on photos but maybe not, especially if you can get a good deal on the labor and panels.

Panel replacement I'm clueless on other than following along on someone's guides but it can't be that hard with the right tools. I assume it's similar to welding in a new panel on any old rod but have nothing to base that on. Getting it to look nice of course is the hard part.

I'd say if you get a good body guy to do the top for you, you should at least ask him about your panels and any other incidentals as well. If he's got it in the shop and already working on it, it might not be that much more and save you a massive headache and worry. As proud as you were (deservedly so) as how good she looked, it might be worth it in the long run.

toyospearo

OH MAN CHEF!! I haven't been on for a while and I haven't read your thread lately. Sorry to hear about the roll over. Let me know if I can help in any way.
D

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

Well guys, I've come to an impasse...

I clearly have two very different choices to make here...

1. Repair this body...



2. Body swap...

The problem with repairing what I have is that the damage to the a-pillars is fairly expensive and goes into other things such as behind the front passenger side quarter panel, where the upper door hinge was pushed in, causing the windshield to bow out. I was never able to release get The Body guy to look at it, but I sent over a hundred pictures to someone that I know in Arizona, a friend. He said if I towed it there, that he could do anything it needed, but considering the rear and cab and front end damage, even at a fair rate the cost would get into at least the bare minimum of 2500 the more likely 3000... That's not including paint which I would not be doing some crap Earl Scheib. He also said that while a body swap is daunting, at least I would know that everything will always lineup and the solid. Exo or not, very often, these types of fixes wind up with a bit more rattle and sometimes leaks and things of the sort.

A body swap would SUCK, no doubt.... But I am more than halfway there to the point of being able to pull my own body. As long as I said my harness into another, it really wouldn't matter what options it had and so forth. The problem with this is finding a clean enough truck... And, to find someone within a 100 mile radius of Los Angeles, whom isn't doing hard drugs, or at least that's what I'm left to think considering what some of them are asking for a stock and barely maintained and mildly straight v6 automatic 4 runner... And other ones as well, you know what I'm saying.

3. (?) I do have one other options, which is even more daunting... As I've mentioned, JonnyBoy has access to a fully straight cab/shell up to the front and in back to the quarter panels.

******************************

I would really appreciate a discussion on this and I have the opportunity to enlist Terry's help, in regards to A body swap, where I could fly him down here and have him for 5 days. I'm sure Johnny boy would be willing to help as well and there are a couple others including Diableri and very cool dude who is local to me named Albert, who is also on here but I forget his username.... ( he's the one in Pismo with the sick white 2nd gen pick up with fiberglass fenders getting air in the pictures).....

Obviously, my external modifications that are attached, such as on board air and other auxiliary electronics stuffs, would simply be done over onto a donor.

If anyone can find me a clean preferably 86 to 87 4 runner( this would prevent me if it is a loaded model from having to swap the entire harness. However, it is in no way a deal breaker and I basically want to clean shell, 84-89) , even less a motor and trans, within a reasonable distance to me, I would be very grateful and gladly pay a finders fee. I don't want to sit on my hands on this I want it in progress immediately... So please, if you know of anything, let me know?

The other option would be if someone with experience has no worries on swapping a roof and repairing the windshield cowl damage behind the firewall, to the point that I could get a roof and panels and fenders and hood back on and lined up, let me know!

I am NOT going to let this put me in a dark place... I'm very lucky to be totally unscathed, and to be able to drive home.

RBX

Patience grasshopper....
I hate to say this but you are better off with a clean shell. I say this because you are very capable in that department. I'm confident that you could swap everything over you need from ruby 1 to ruby 2. In this case it's your time and effort and could take more or less time then taking it to a body guy.
More time, you swap bits as you find time.
Less time, if you work like crazy to get it finished. It's when you can do it.
More time, if you wait for a body guy, and wait for him to have time.
More time, when body guy finishes you are still swapping everything back in that had to be removed.

Lots about the process broham, you know this, enjoy it.

Side story I have a Ducati monster 2006 three years ago a friend crashed it. Not bad, simple low side. I was a little upset, but I relished the opportunity to break it down to the frame for a change. I had been modding it since new, and always refi the looks/performance. I'd still do it again.

RAD4Runner

Mark,

I concur with simple body swap with SR5.

BTW, I removed all my chrome windshield trim, in case you could use them, I'll save them for when I go to L.A. again. All pieces in good condition, except for the horizontal top piece which I wrinkled/bent while removing. I will not re-install windshield trim; I'll fill gap with silicone.

If you need help with rewiring/harness, we can set up a weekend day to do that (altho I'll be out of country Mid-March to mid -April).

Regards to the Yota Bros!
Ray

Outsane

mARK... oh my goodness..

If it helps I have chopped the top of my 4runner after a tumble in the rocks. It was easy and straight forward. If you want to go over details just let me know.