The other day it was raining hard but wanted to get a picture of what it looks like with the ZUK mod.


Before.

 

Tomorrow it goes to a friend to get the Timing Chain done. He has a lift and can get access to it a lot easier then I can. Working on the bottom side with a lift makes things so nice. Working with the motor in the engine bay can get to my back which is one reason I will pull a motor especially when doing a head gasket on a 22re. This is just a Timing Chain. My friend will spend one day tearing it down, one day cleaning and one day putting it back together is the plan. Then I will get it back, finish putting the center console in, some final checks and then take it on a good shake down run. It has ran great and dont suspect any problems. I did put in two transmissions and clean the Intake but still want to make sure there are not any issues with it.

 

The Runner is at my friends house. No 5th gear whine which can be difficult to find a transmission without the whine. It ran out good for the 5 miles that I put on it. I will drive it more when I get it back at the first part of next week. While I got the shop empty, I decided to do some more organizing. I had over 7 partial gasket kits from various builds. Also the orange writing on the wall is what I use for a quick reference without having to look in the book all the time for specifications. Eventually I will add some more on the wall like torque numbers.

 

With the runner getting a Timing Chain installed. I decided to do some organizing as I do have a busy winter planned. This summer was to hot and I am starting to like winter when I am in the shop. I can get it warm in there with the stove and it has to be in the single digits for it to get to cold to work in there. I had 3 tote bins for the tear down of the runner and just have 1 left to get all of the final pieces on. Nothing major, probably a days worth of detail work.

I plan on flipping a 2 wheel drive 86 standard cab when this runner is out of here. It has some front end damage on it and if it doesnt have any frame damage, I will fix it. Still have not gotten my 76 Super Cab home just yet. Hope to get it next week. I want to pull the motor, transmission, and fuel tanks and start going thru them. The 88 Runner is getting carbed just as soon as she gets around to getting a Webber for it. Once those things are done, I plan on pulling the red 87 runner in and start tearing it down and getting it cleaned up and back together. Spending time in the shop is starting to make my pants fit again. They were either shrinking or I was putting on the weight. I am looking forward to some cold days and I can spend a week in the shop for one of my vacations this year.

All of the pieces on the front end is made up of junk parts. I need one more bracket for the valance and will get one eventually. I got the valance in a little better shape and painted it, got a passenger marker light and the end caps. Eventually I will take the assembly down and install a bench light and might try and make the head lights work with the flip of a switch.

 

Tom's 4runner is looking great, the zuk mod really leveled it out nicely!

Sounds like you have a busy winter planned out Terry! I wish I had that much ambition, I have a hard time getting motivated lately. I really wish I had a shop like yours with a wood stove. It's hard to stay warm working in the carport!

Your wall art front end looks in way better shape then my 87 4runner frontend, lol!

I look forward to seeing some of your progress on the ford supercab once you get it home!

 

Thanks Ed...It took me 10 long years to get a shop and it too iIs a project. My 88 runner runner build was done all outside with out a shop. Any shop pictures you see of it was me working on it on my lunch break at work and when I painted it, it was done in my brother in laws barn. I still remember putting the gas tank in on a cold winter day. Had to go in the house and warm up 3 times. I was laying on a piece of card board and there was a water puddle under it and I slid off the cardboard and got my shoulder wet. It was cold!!! Still makes me shiver thinking of that.

I will write a long post in the next few days for others looking at building a shop on things I wish I had known of. This is the first one I have built and would of changed a few things had I known. I will cover several areas that I think will help others if they build one. Wish I had known. Some has turned out great though with some fore thought.

I am so ready to get my 76 home and maybe??? this later this week it might happen. Jury is still out on that just yet. Depending on how things work out. I got a thread http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/14...b-restore.html on it and here https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f188...estore-296600/ and here. I will be picking your brain if you have some information on motors. The 429 will be thirsty and it will work to keep the truck from being a yard ornament but I am looking at some motor swapping. One is going to be the 300/6 inline motor at a later time and a few years down the road, a diesel is a very good possibility. I know small block Fords and never really been a fan of the big block just for fuel economy reasons.

On your front end damage, it may be a little worrisome if you have not done it before, but swapping out a core support is not a big job. I can go thru my 86 thread and pull some information on it if you need me too. If you run into questions about it feel free to ask ma about what is involved. Using a drill bit can take 10 minutes to get thru a spot weld, a Spot Weld cutter will have it done in about a minute. If getting a fender turns out to be difficult to find, I got a fender made from Taiwan, and it is CAPA certified and I feel is better built then Toyota. Surprised me too. It was on my 85 when I had to replace it. I will see if I can find the brand name of it if needed.

 

Not often I have the shop empty and that will be changing with in a month as I will have it stuffed with a few different projects going on. Been spending some time getting it more organized. Like I mentioned to Ed, I will post some information that I wished I had known of when building a shop besides that they are never big enough.

While the runner is getting a Timing Chain in it, I had to swap out some tires on the boat. For trailer tires, I like to get a set that are half tread. Not to be cheap, which is part of a reason but the biggest reason is so that they don't sling rocks like a new tire will with lots of tread. Even with fenders on a trailer, they can still sling one pretty good at times. Hope that might give some thing to consider when buying trailer tires.

Getting the boat in the shop and being able to use a jack on concrete is so much nicer then trying to get a jack to move around on the grass or gravel. Anytime the brats get a chance to run an air tool, they are on it quick. Which was fine with me as changing a tire was not at the top of my excitement list. It does get them involved with using air tools. I am slowly getting more air wrenches built up and want to start getting them involved in other things.

Hunter doing one tire.


Justin doing the spare and other tire.

 

I am going to make this my shop experience post and will be adding a lot more information as I get some pictures. Things I wish I had known of.

My brother was in construction and saved me on this little bit of information. When having a shop delivered as I did. You have to get the concrete poured in advanced. Getting concrete poured in my area does not happen over night if you are hiring it to be poured and layed out professionally. I would suggest having someone doing concrete to do it as it has to be spread and they can figure out how much to order. I was not going to get mine poured for another month but the guy called me late one night and said he could be out the next morning. I jumped on it so as not to have to wait another month.

They were just going to pour it and it would of set up in about 4 hours and been done. My brother said to put plastic down so that the concrete would sry slower and be less brittle. That slowed the cure time down to about 12 hours. I did not have enough time to get rebar or any wire mesh down with such little notice. Wish I would of known of that ahead of time. Put down plastic and rebar if you have the chance.

I got my shop from Carolina Carports. They wait until they have several orders in your area and then ship them all at once on the same truck. I am very happy with my shop but if I was doing it again, I might would of had a shop built from my local hardware store. It was about $200 more but I thought a metal building would be better. Looking back, I would of not made that the only reason. Carolina Carports uses odd ball distance from their metal supports, which in my opinion is so that you have to buy their products to finish the interior. When having a shop built, I would suggest having an extra 3 feet on one end or the side to allow for work bench, air tank, tool chest... as they all eat up floor space real quick. My shop is a two car shop. I wish I had went with a 2 1/2 size shop to allow for the space needed for work bench, tool chest and things like that. Another consideration I had not thought of. After working in the yard, I was just happy with concrete to work on.

Here I was thinking working with 4 walls and a roof was going to make working in a shop nice. I did give me a few extra days in the year to work, but the metal walls and roof made the hot, hotter and the cold, colder. It just magnifies the temperature. Invest in insulation. I will write more about the insulation later when I find some pictures. You cant tell in the pictures, but the silver supports that run from top to bottom along the left and right side of the shop are not evenly spaced. I think Carolina Carport did that just to make you purchase their products. It is like 48 inches, 52 inches, and 54 inches. They could of made them all even if they wanted too I think but something I learned a little to late. Some more information I wish I had known of.



Do NOT get the roll up door. I thought I would not want the rails for the standard garage door hanging over my head. WRONG!!! The over head rails would not be a problem. A standard garage door seals all the way around and is insulated. A roll up door is not insulated and has a bid gap at the top to allow for the door to be one big roll. I will get some pictures later on and you will see why the roll up door is a bad design in my opinion. Something I wish I had known of. I would never get a roll up door again. You will see why at a later post.


Here is about a 6 inch gap between the door being down and the wall. It is a big draft area. I have a piece of plywood that lays on top and cuts the drafts down but wish I would of went with the standard garage door.


Here is the door rolled up. No way of insulating it. I do have a piece of rubber mat that will help when I put the door down but it does not cover it all.





Here you can see on the back the supports are not evenly spaced. Same thing for the side supports. I cant use the over head for any lifting. Had I went with a wood building, it would of been easier to add some over head support for lifting engines and bodys.


Great heat source. Wood heat will have my shop warm in about 1/2 hour. I start a fire and go back in and have a cup of coffee and by then it is usually warm enough for me. Dollar General provides plenty of card board for me to start my fires. I just buy a rick of wood from some one locally and a rick will usually last me the winter. I got my Barrel Stove kit from Orschliens. Instead of running the stove pipe straight up for better draft flow, I run a long section up high enough for the smoke to get momentum and then curve to the side. This prevents any roof leaks.


I have used a kerosene Torpedo heater in the past. Kerosene is expensive and wont last long. I used red diesel in it instead and it was cheaper and did not put out any fumes. Red diesel is tax free or about 30 cents cheaper but worked just as good as kerosene.

Here is a propane Torpedo heater. It worked all right but since getting the stove, I have never used it.


220 Volt heater. Works but is too expensive to use. I will be removing it in the future.


I left a 2 inch gap between the floor and the wall so as I can wash the shop out and have plenty of water on the floor when painting.


I can only get about 2 channels for my radio inside. Here I am temporarily using a Toyota antenna. Will work on this at a later time. Metal buildings dont do well for reception.

 

I found a better lens for the drivers side and got it installed. I always put nuts, bolts, and screws back in their places when tearing one down. I also keep a HF case for the odd ball pieces. I went and could not get the lens to go in. After looking into why it would not screw in. I seen I had left the screws in their place. I also have a bad habit of grabbing one of my cases that I know that has the pieces in it and taking the hardware out of them.

Screws installed, Doh!!!


Lens installed and cases I use. Harbor Freight cases I use and in different pictures of my shop, you can see I have bins mounted on the walls for nuts and bolts. Each time I am at the yards, I always grab extra nuts and bolts. I have a 5 gallon bucket that still need sorted but they would not fit into the bins. One time Jason was out here and I gave him a 1 or 2 gallon container of nuts and bolts and he did not realize how handy they are until he had them. If you are doing a major tear down, it is really worth the extra time to grab them when you can.


It was cold this morning. Some reason I really like working in the shop when it is cold as I can warm it up to where I want it to be. I do not like winter except for when I am in the shop and those are actually some of the best memories I have of being in the shop. One thing I like about having a wood stove in the shop is you generate a lot of trash when working on projects. Instead of dealing with a trash can, I throw it in the stove. Today being cold I finally lit a fire and got rid of all of the trash. I had that stove packed.

Another reason I like having a stove is my cook stove in the house is electric. A few years back we lost power and we have gas for the heating in the house and was fine but no way of cooking. I wanted to play with the welder and made a bar rack for a pot or pan for cooking. After that winter issue and hurricane Matthew hitting the east coast, I thought I might get off of my rear and not get into that situation again. The Barrel Stove kit that you can get at Orshelins is a great kit for the shop. I think they have other attachments for their barrel stove and next time I am at one of their stores I am going to check into them.

 

Been tied up on things. Have not gotten much done in the way of Toyotas. I think as soon as I can, I am going to put in for a vacation just to get this build done, get Mistys runner converted to carb and get my 76 Super Cab home. I have plenty to do and could use some time off from work, I am ready for a break. Takes forever to get back into the swing of things when taking time off from work, usually a good month for me. I got a friend supposed to be getting an FJ45 today and will post pics of it when I get to see it. I am not sure if I have ever seen one here in the states. I have seen them over seas but not here.

I got another friend that has built some Volkswagon Trikes in the past. I have been wanting to get back into the motorcycle world again. I was into them several years ago. The big name brand motorcycles are out of my budget range but he says they can be built from a VW drive train for a lot less. Not sure when we are going to build one for me and one for him but add that to the list of projects that I want to work on. Toms is about done. Mistys will just take a few days and the 76 I am in no big hurry to get it done so really not to much to do when spread out over time.

For a couple of reasons Misty has always wanted a trike and I did like taking a bike out on the roads. Another reason is a few months back our 1st Sargent was unable to cope with the losses we took over seas and basically drank himself to death. He was still a great guy just to bad to see it end that way. Several of the guys I was over there with have joined different clubs. The Christian Motor Cycle Association and the Combat Veteran Motor Cycle Association has several of our guys riding in them. They support the Patriot Guard Riders. Some of the CVMA have some rough looking characters but are some of the first guys to put their neck on the line for you. The ones I went with I am very fortunate to have been with. Another way of staying connected with them.

 

There are two styles of wind shield washer nozzles. The one on the left is the one that I prefer. It just has a squeeze tab. They are interchangeable. The one on the right uses a skirt to hold it in and I have never gotten them to stay in when I have removed them. When in the bone yards, I try to get the ones on the left when possible.


A quick reminder for me how to remove them. The tab faces toward the front of the truck.

 

I knew about the two different styles of wiper arms but actually forgot until I went to put on the covers for the bolts. Some use a flat cover and most are missing. The other style is the ones I like better as the covers can not blow off. I will see if I can find some flat covers or get the other style wiper arm.

 

Been doing the finer things to get this truck wrapped up as it going home on the 19th. Several things fixed on it and see if I can recall what all was done. Timing Chain, dent in floor board,transmissions (2), paint and body work, repaired some butchered wiring, tachometer, fixed wing glass, inclineometer, cloth door panels, better rear bumper, cleaned intake system out,dome lights, zuk mod, cleaned ventilation system out,sound deadening, and sure there are some other things that I have missed out on.

I have worked on many of these trucks and this is just some of the things that most of these trucks need. Steering, suspension, ac, motor work, exhaust, brake work, windshield, door sills is still needed on most trucks. When I see someone says they find a truck for x amount of dollars and wonder what all is needed, hope this build will show just some of the work that is needed.

Dull Badges.


Here I took and cleaned the badges and. Put a light coating of black trim paint on.


I took a sanding pad, wrapped it with a shop cloth and while the paint was still tacky, I scrubbed the paint off of the chrome.

 

This build is about wrapped up. Still need to get the badges installed. Next I will be converting Misty's runner to a 22r. I have tried to get the cherry manifold issue fixed. It has been to Toyota twice for them to fix it. Not looking forward to converting it and can do it in my sleep but will get to it soon so as can enjoy it more often. Currently she only drives it a mile to work just to keep things functional on it.

I have seen where people try and convert a efi motor to 22r and it is a butchered up job. I have gotten a 22r harness out of an 86 2 wheel drive pick up. I will run a new harness for the back glass and will have no 4WD indicator light. I am the only one that uses the 4 wheel in it and know when it is in 4 wheel. She likes just to push the button on the 3rd gen runner to engage 4 wheel. To do a 22r conversion right is a big job. I will try and show what all is involved in a conversion on her build. It is about 40 hours needed to do it right. I have already pulled it out of a salvage yard truck so that will knock of an hour or two. A 22r with a Webber is so much easier to work on and no check engine lights with no sensors to set off a Check Engine light.

I am supposed to get my 76 Ford home tomorrow. That is going to be another project that I am working on. I was in it the other day getting ready to have it towed home and was sitting in it and thinking what a big job I have coming up on it. I could easily get it running and have it on the road but want it looking like new and in dependable condition. Several of the things that apply to Toyota trucks will apply to it as well. To take an old truck of any kind takes a ton of work and depending on how far you want to go with it. For a moment I was a little over whelmed with how far I want to take it but will just break it into smaller pieces. One step at a time.

 

This runner was a basic runner. It now has more options then some of the true SR5 trucks out there. Got the badges on along with the SR5 badge that it did not have before. Still need to finish cleaning it and some other odds and ends. Getting closer to being done. Should have it completed in a day or two.

 

Amazing build. Cant wait to see this thing done! Love your threads, always such good information

 

Thanks nadakai...Tom will be picking this runner up soon and he does have a set of SR5 Rims that he is going to install with new tires and already has a set of SR5 stripes that he is going to have put on the sides and I think that will make it look great with the stripes. I have to do some work on my 88 here in the near future and then I want to roll in my red 87 into the shop and start getting it cleaned up and start putting it back together. I got plenty to keep me busy. When he gets the stripes and wheels on it I will post some pictures of it.

 

[QUOTE=Terrys87;52342085] I want to roll in my red 87 into the shop and start getting it cleaned up and start putting it back together. QUOTE]

That truck is beautiful. is the red 4Runner going to be your oldest son's? I think you've shown him working on it. Isn't he about 13? Not too young to get his transportation lined up. I really like the red 1st gens. One with a new paint job will be stunning.

 

Hello Nervo19...Justin is wanting the 86 my blue one. The 87 which is twin to Chefyotas is a fully loaded top of the line runner. I have about 90% of the options that it is missing. I like the red runners best with the all of the SR5 options on them. We are going to trade trucks. I pulled the motor out of the 86 to do some trouble shooting on the 88's cherry manifold and never put it back in. I have a rebuilt motor that I am going to have Justin to finish putting back together for the 86 which is something he can do with some guidance.

The 87 looks like it is in bad shape but actually is real solid plus all the things I have for it, it just needs a good cleaning and rebuild. It is going to be over his head to do it and I think these runners will be worth something in the future and I want it to be like it was when it was new. Being a runner and a top of the line truck, I think I will have something really rare in a few years so I am going to make it mine. I really dont plan on making it a daily driver, just something that I can own and hopefully take to some car shows in the future.

I got to convert the 88 to carb just because I cant get the cherry manifold figured out. I have taken it to Toyota twice and a few other mechanics and they cant figure it out. Once I get the 88 converted, some parts off of my Ford I will start on the red 87. I have all the parts and really it wont cost much to get it restored. Mostly time and elbow grease. I like how some of my other trucks have turned out but the 87 I will do it up as much as original as I possibly can. Look for that build to start in a couple of months yet.

I could actually have it running and together in a short amount of time but since it is rare, I really want it to be as new as possible and cleaning and disassembly is going to take some time to get everything right.

 

Tom came and got his truck yesterday. He has a set of SR5 wheels and stripes and will be putting them on. When he gets the stripes and wheels, he is going to send me a picture of it and I will post what it looks like when done. I will eventually go to the first page and add links to what and where in this thread that I did to this runner. Two things I can think of is cleaning the EGR and the Ventilation system.

This truck was in great shape when I got it, but like I have seen many times in the past that most have issues from age and previous owners. I got them corrected back to the way Toyota produced it. Not sure why so many trucks get butchered up wiring and got that corrected. Most of the fixes on these trucks are not hard to do, just takes a little time to get them back into shape. It was a very base model and is a more loaded SR5 truck then most. I have seen factory SR5 with just a few options that made them SR5. This one now has Inclineometer, Map lights, cloth door panels, SR5 Gauge, and soon wheels and stripes.

Later today I am going to go buy a 86 two wheel drive pick up 22r. It will just be a fix and sell. Not sure when I will get it home as I want to get Mistys runner out of the shop before I bring it home.

What it currently looks like now.