My 86 4rnr and a hello

[Red Tintop]

Well, I have been lurking for a while and have enjoyed what I have been reading/seeing. Figured I should show off my newest toy a little too.

Here it is as it sits today.

Daily driver street tires:

Play tires:

This is what it looked like the day it came home to stay:

IFS, multicolor paint job, rust, bald tires and all I could see was POTENTIAL!

The dogs approved:

Although they said it was a heckuva jump over the tailgate.

 

[Red Tintop]

It had almost no brakes and the CV axles on the front were shot. I priced replacing/fixing all that and quickly realized SASing it made way more sense.

I had most of an 82 Toy pickup in the shop that I used for rock crawling but it did not have a title or tag so it was only for off road park driving.
It was a great truck, locked front and rear, doubled t-cases and a chevy 4.3 with an auto tranny. But, all those toys only getting used once or twice a year was depressing. Closest park to here is 4 hours away.

So I pulled the good stuff out:

And started in on the rnr!

Lots of rust and random wires. I always get the special wiring jobs

 

[Red Tintop]

Couldn't let that straight axle just sit there so out with the old:

 

[Hyde802]

Excellent! Welcome to the forum!

 

[Red Tintop]

And in the older?? Better anyway.

First the frame braces:

Then the shackle hangers:

Moved the steering forward, the biggest PITA of the whole SAS project:

Put in the front spring hanger:

 

[Red Tintop]

Slid the front axle under it:

Sitting on it's own:

I like that approach angle!

Check out my buddies '32 IH in the background, it is getting Toy axles, 38's and an SBC. But that is another build.

Of coursi I had to drive it around a little bit right away:

 

[Red Tintop]

Excellent! Welcome to the forum!

Thanks!

 

[RAD4Runner]

Good Job! and welcome to the forum!

 

[Red Tintop]

I drove it like that a little, but the engine was way weak and rattling badly. The # 4 cylinder was the problem and I could not adjust it out with the valves. I was hoping to get away with a head job and a new head gasket.

Not so much. At some point the # 4 cylinder ate a valve and trashed the head. The F'nPO put 2 standard AND a copper head gasket on it and kept driving it.

I ended up pulling the motor and tearing it down to take to the machine shop. Where I found out the crank was shot too.

Luckily, I had another head and the shop sold me a basically new crank for $50. So I was back in business:

My daughter helped build the whole motor:

 

[Red Tintop]

We also dropped the tranny in order to set up the t-case doubler:

Ready to go in:

I don't know who is prouder--me of her, or her of it!

Dropped right in:

 

[Red Tintop]

I did a battery/intake swap while I was putting it back together. The air intake always seemed silly to me, especially since almost all we have around here to ride in is water and mud.

This way the air intake is in the highest, driest place under the hood. Not snorkle high, but good enough.

The radiator from the 4.3 in the old truck worked perfectly:

You can also see I pulled all the smog BS off. No inspections here

 

[Red Tintop]

Cleaned up the paint job too. Not a thousand dollar full off restore. Nope, more like a $25 rattle can. Not great, but it looks good to me--and probably everybody else--from 20 feet!

Before

During

After:

I even washed it after that LOL

 

[Red Tintop]

I was never very happy with the suspension. Shackle angles were way too straight up and down for me. Made it ride really stiff.

I had 6" shackles up front and a modified RUF from the old truck. I pulled one leaf and shortened the shackle to 4.5". That worked really well and was easy.

The rear was a real PITA, I had swapped axles out with an axle from a mid 90's 4 runner that I had on the old truck. The spring pads were all wrong and the pinion angle was really bad. After trying several different sets of springs I finally settled on a set of 63's from a 1/2 ton Chevy pickup.
That let me set it up from scratch so that it would be right.

New perches, spring hangers and shackle mounts lined everything up exactly right.

One other advantage of swapping in the 63's was that I had been running 4 inch blocks and death fang shackles to get the lift I needed in the rear. I really did not like that setup at all.

The 63's did add some lift but not enough to offset removing the blocks, so I went with a Zuk mod too.

Adding the stock 17 inch tall jeep TJ front coils leveled it perfectly.

How it sits now:

Stuffed:

From the side:

And, of course with the obligatory passengers!

 

[Red Tintop]

My most recent project has been removing the Flintstone like holes from the drivers floor.

Here is a pic when I was about half way done. Not the best welds, but that is why they invented Herculiner

All buttoned up:

All covered up:

 

[Red Tintop]

Anyway, that is where I am at today. I have almost two years of work into this truck and a long to-do list left and an even longer (more expensive) wish list.

I just wanted to say hello, but didn't mean to be so long winded.

 

[grumpin]

Great job! Thanks. Always good to see what people do. How they do it. Neat to see you passing on knowledge and skills to your daughter. People can get inspiration and ideas from this.

 

[KidVermicious]

Diggin' it.