Maslin's 1:1 Trail Finder

[maslin]

I figure I should document this misadventure somewhere, this seems like a logical spot

This all started with a hacked up 80 on 40s I found on Craigslist. Hacked up, rough and not nearly built enough to be on 40s. That was literally the only first gen within a couple hundred miles. And he wanted $6500



But that planted the seed. We had a trip planned a week out to Portland. Spring break get away to the big city, and my daughters first time at a zoo. Back to Craigslist we go, searching every city from here to there for a good deal. Found an ok 80 short bed with 125k miles, kind of pricey, but maybe worth it? Texted him on the way in to town, already gone.

Second on the list, 1983 long bed, 149999 miles, looks halfway clean. Oddly, there's 10 picture of the outside, not one inside He says the interior is "utilitarian" whatever that means.

So we meet up, horse track parking lot on race day... "Utilitarian" means the radio, speakers and wiring are gone, and no heat/ac at all. Most of the parts are there, some things seem absent, like the blower switch

4" Old Man Emu lift, yellow shocks and all. Steering feels tight, although the wheel itself is loose and upside down. Seems to run well, engine is a rebuild from 03/2016 with a 3 year warranty, at a shop 800 miles from my house. Paperwork says you have to retorque the head bolts and adjust valves after 1500 miles, his "buddy" adjusted the valves last weekend. No word on the head bolts. Shifter is sloppy but hits all the gears, the knob is held on only by gravity. Transfer case shifts, no way to really try it out in a parking lot. Tires are good, fresh 29s in a very not hilux highway pattern.

Then there's the topper. It's massive. As in massive. No handle, blown shocks, pvc pipe you have to trust with your life while sitting under a 60lb piece of glass. I thought about ditching it immediately, but the lack of real tools, help or a house convinced me to roll with it.

So I bought it. Probably paid too much, but I don't care, I just felt like it needed my help Drove it back to our airbnb and parked it for 5 days while we moved on to other airbnbs many miles away. I did make sure to lock the doors and install The Club he provided, "because people love to steal these things"



Wednesday morning we drove back, found the truck and hopped in. Fuel gauge is on E. Oregon's awesome gas pump laws, coupled with a tired locking gas cap and manual windows made for super fun times. Rolling down the highway, cell phone blasting Spotify, window down, I realize the 1/10 miles are rolling by, but that 149999 never moves. I wonder how long it's had 149999 miles Too late now, on we go.

I made sure to flip off White Trash on my way through Tri-Cities

Then it started to get cold, and I had no heat. No big deal, throw on an extra sweater. The drivers seat is tired, saggy with a few bare springs. It leans to the left and absolutely kills my back. Folded up a blanket from the Jeep, sits much higher and slightly flatter. All is good until it gets dark. Flip the headlights on, pointed at the ground 10' out and 4' to the right. Useless. High beams are better, like low beams from a 1990s pickup. High beams it is, for the rest of the ride.

Finally got to the passes between WA/ID/MT. She'll pull 65-70 on the flat, basically wide open all the time in 5th. Slows to 55 on a hill, grab 4th and wide open again. Held 60 at 3200 pretty comfortably. Lookout pass was a different story. Grabbed 4th, kept losing speed. Shit. Grab 3rd. Wide open, 3500rpm at 45 the whole way up. Did I mention it's 30*, snow/raining, windows down an inch or two trying to keep fog off the windshield, and there's no heat.

After the pass it's all a blur, 2 hours of driving on autopilot, pulled in at 2am.

[maslin]

Spent Thursday pulling the topper off, tossed in the yard and listed on craigslist for $20. Not one call

Started to poke at the heater, lots of zip ties, butt connectors and construction screws. Can't wrap my head around it, seems like there's too many parts here and not enough there. Still couldnt find the blower switch.

So I started looking around. 83 sr5 with all the options, they got an updated dash. Heater panel has 3 short lever and a knob. I have 3 long levers and a blank hole where a blower lever should be, weird. But I have seomething that looks remarkably like the 83 blower/ac knob screwed in to where there should be a cigarette lighter. Some more time on google... I have a pre 83, but still wood grain, dash panel hacked up to fit my newer levers. But the cables all go to the wrong places, and there's an extra one

83 dash


80 dash


My hack job. Blower/ac switch on the left.


Swapped the cables to the correct levers, but they're all backwards Found the fsm online, piecing together 80 and 83 wiring diagrams to get something working. If all else fails I'll wire the fan 12v and only have one speed



Pulled the cluster out as well. What a pain to take apart, like they don't want you messing with the odometer or something. The number wheels have teeth on the inside, driven by a tiny gear on a fixed plate in between each place. Every time the right most gear hits 0 it trips the little gear and kicks the next one over. 7 number places, 13 gears, all plastic. The little gears are 6 teeth, every other raised. That every other raised portion kicks the next wheel over.

So I took the whole thing apart, swapped all the parts left to right. Now the worn out gears are at 10k and 100k, who knows if I'll ever even need them. Added 20 miles for the drive home from the court house yesterday

As she sits now. Heat will get messed with tomorrow. Maybe someday I'll get crazy and make the AC work. Maybe.

[calcagno45]

Following this. I miss my 94

[maslin]

Got a few hours in today. It's amazing how small new radios are without a CD player, it's less than half the old depth. Hacked up the center panel. Purists have heart attacks over this, but mine was cut, cracked, and the wrong one to begin with.




Ran new speaker wire to the doors, 6" Orion's I robbed from a Passat in the old home junk yard, and JVC 4" that came with the truck. The door panels are rough, I have some hardboard to start over fresh, but that's a whole lot of effort at this point, the rough panels will get thrown back on with some self tappers.



The stock rear view mirror attached to the roof. The pivot was loose and the whole thing flopped and vibrated going down the road. Grabbed a complete replacement for $13 at Napa, much better.



Started messing with the heater, I found a schematic but half seems right and half seems changed No clue what the blue wires going to the switch do, it's hacked in to the relay zip tied to the resistor wiring Speaking of the resistor, its smoked. Parts were falling off when I pulled it out If that's all I need I'll be ecstatic.




One thing I've noticed... This has variable AC output, the wiring is stupid and there's a knob behind the blower knob that's adjustable. A few resistors and temp sensors thrown in for fun as well. They went crazy on this thing, just regulate the heat to control output If I decide to convert the R12 and make it work, I'll eliminate all that junk and wire the compressor to a switch and a pressure sensor.

Back at it again tomorrow. 3 more speakers to install and wire. FM works, I tried it uninstalled with 1 speaker to be sure

[maslin]

I don't think the adjustment knob is even in the scematic, unless that's the Thermistor? Not worried about AC for now, gotta get the blower motor going first.

[WHITE-TRASH]

Instead of flipping me off as you went by (I was in Klamath falls anyway ) you should have stopped by for the complete and unmolested 1983 cab harness I have sitting in a tub. It had a/c too.

[maslin]

I think the harness will be ok, I can fix wiring. The mix up of dash panel and heater control is what's fawked. Between the 80 (?) and 83 panel the upper and lower levers are switched. The lever for defrost and vent control is compound, it moves two cables. Recirc is just a long single throw, hot cold is in the middle.

The guy before me (or before him?) switched the cables around to match the new dash panel. But that jacked up the compound stuff. The compound lever is also worn and bind up badly, sometimes it jumps off the pins and just bounces around.

So I left the heat lever alone. Moved the middle flap to the top lever, I can easily turn the air from center vent to defrost. I put recirc where it's labeled, but is backward. I don't ever use recirc. The second half of the lower lever goes to the floor flap, not sure what that even does. If it's crap I'll find a cable assembly and start over, there's. NOS dash panel on eBay too, but it's crazy expensive.

[WHITE-TRASH]

Sounds like you have a handle on it. If there is anything you need for it I'm a long time toyota whore. I've owned, wheeled and parted out more than I can remember and I kept the good parts when they went to the scrapper.

[maslin]

Thanks, I appreciate that

Is the far right dash vent supposed to be straight outside air from the cowl? The pipe goes in to a neat little boot, looks like it should be that way? Other than the heater crap this thing is stupid simple.

[WHITE-TRASH]

Yes the right simply goes to the cowl, i think the drivers side does too, I know it did on my 76 and 78 but that was the previous generation. It's been a few years since I tore down a first gen dash.

Do you have all the a/c ducting under the dash? Some of that stuff is crazy hard to find especially the flex tube between the a/c core and heater core. I should still have one.




Edit: the unknown knob could very go to the idle up solenoid. On later generations there is a box with a knob on top of the heater box under the dash that controls the idle speed via a controlled vacuum leak. That early carb setup might be a vacuum leak too.


Fun fact, on efi toyota that huge mess of vacuum lines and solenoids is for cold startup. Eliminate all of it but the cold start injector solenoid and run manifold vacuum to the charcoal canister and fuel pressure regulator and it will idle up when cold like a carbureted engine. That's a lot of shit to control the idle speed.

[maslin]

I've got a combination of tubes. The left dash vent comes off the center vent housing, it just dumps to the right. I have one of the molded defrost tibes, the other is just a round one sitting in place. Basically all the plastic trim is busted, center vent louvres, door handle surrounds, all that cosmetic crap that doesn't matter anyway


Edit: I've read through the de-smog stuff, there's a lot going on that's just crap. Fairly certain mine is a cali truck too. I popped the hood somewhere around tri-cities to check the oil and coolant, haven't opened it since. I'll strip all that crap out some day, I think it high idles all the time 1000-1100 ish. Probably a not on purpose vacuum leak.

[WHITE-TRASH]

I'll look through my interior stash and see what I have.


If you want to convert it to efi I have everything to do it minus the early round port 22r lower intake that was on celias 80-84.

[maslin]

I would love to go efi, that's down the road though. It actually runs pretty well, except for a nasty clunk on/off throttle sometimes. U joints look ok, hopefully it's just motor mounts.

Got the door panels and speakers together. Mismatched and rough, but they're there. Only one of the window cranks has a knob, I swapped it to the drivers side.





Finished the wiring at the radio, found the antenna wire pushed up in the dash. Ran the mic too, this is the only car I have with Bluetooth Also added a harness for my new 12v socket.



Dove in to the heater stuff. Step 1 - hot wire the motor and see if it even runs. It runs!



Pulled all the zip ties and electrical tape to figure it all out. The chrome switch goes to the relay and disappears in to the harness. The 2 yellow wires (see schematic above) from thermo sw(itch) were cut from the blower switch. I pulled everything apart, scratched my head a bit, put it all back together, and now it works The chrome switch turns the fan on and off. The blower switch runs through all the speed correctly, but off is just another low. I can't believe that crusty resistor works, I'll pick a spare up for its enivitable failure.



There's 2 gaping holes in the dash panel, had to figure something out. Robbed a cubby/12v socket from a dodge neon, hacked up and epoxied in place.



Reassembled. The hole next to the radio will get filled with something. Not that worried about it. Radio works, Bluetooth works, blower works, haven't driven it to check for heat. There may not even be a thermostat installed, it runs super cool. Even verified 12v at the socket





Threw a $250 Ferragamo aligator key chain on there. Something I inherited from an S55 AMG trade in



That's it for today. Picking up a 60/40 split bench seat with an arm rest tomorrow. Get that situated, then fab up a pair of cup holders on the tunnel. Why are there no cup holders

Then under the hood. Comfort above reliability obviously.

[maslin]

Pretty sure there's no thermostat. Temp gauge barely comes off the cold bar. Warm-ish enough to defrost the window, but my hands are freezing. I'll start with a thermostat and hope for the best. Might as well back flush the core while I'm in there too.

Picking up the bench seat today, should be a huge improvement.

[calcagno45]

Nice job reassembling so far. Are you going toward the first pic of the truck on 40's? Or sticking stock/mild suspension?


What did you end up giving for this one if you don't mind?

[maslin]

Probably run these 29s till they wear out, then maybe bump up to 31s or 32s. This is going to be my weekend truck, I have a company car for work during the week. It'll stay open diffs, push pull steering and all. I do want the clean up the smog stuff under the hood, there's just so much going everywhere. Also checked around and OME only makes a 2.5" lift, not 4". Doesn't bother me, I'm told it will clear 33s easy, 35s maybe with the 2.5". I just want a simple truck I can take up in the hills and have some fun, looking forward to a more comfortable bench seat.

I paid $3500. Like I said, I paid too much, but around here that's what they seem to cost. There was another truck for $2500, but it was 3 hours south of Portland, had no lift and tires that barely cleared the fenders. This is the other direction, it's perfect for what I want.

[maslin]

Picked up the bench seat today. The mounts are way off, should have kept looking for a 60/40 Tacoma seat I'll weld up some mounts and they'll work fine, just one more thing to deal with. Even sitting crooked they're considerably more comfortable than the old Toyota seats



Found my other window crank knob, missing the rear piece though, it won't stay on. Ordered new side mirrors and a normal gas cap, I don't generally park places where my gas will get stolen. Picking up a thermostat tomorrow, heat would be nice in the morning. Then desmog/fix the exhaust leak/bumpers/drive the hell out of it.

[calcagno45]

Ran 33's on my 94 with cranked torsion bars, rear shackles and a weak motor. It was fun in the mud and around town for sure but that 22re left a lot to be desired. Then again I wish everything came with a LSx.

$3500 seems about right. I've been watching for a good deal but none are to be had locally or they sell instantly. And solid axle trucks are rare down here.

[maslin]

Measured the 235/75r15s, just over 27" Rolled some 235/85r16s over, much much better. I'll be keeping an eye out for something in that 31" range, 15" tires a damn hard to find.

The wife has decided Sunday will be truck day. Our daughter goes to grandmas to ride horses, my wife studies for grad classes and her CPA exams, and I get to play in the shop Thermostat and rip out vacuum lines tomorrow. Maybe get started on the seats, they're surprisingly solid not bolted down to anything

[calcagno45]

235 is too skinny IMO, find some 31x10.5x15's or if you're going 16's look for some 265/75/16's. I started with Remington Mud Brutes in 265's before going 33's. Great tires and cheap.