Well, I bought this 81 2wd the other day in "non-running" condition and ended up driving it home! But I've been running into some problems. The throttle was sticking after I pressed it down and I had to pull it back out every time I accelerated. So, soon as I got home I grabbed the WildDog40 and went to town on the linkages and butterflies and viola, I got rid of most of the stickeis, the rest was in the pedal from a bunch of stank nasty causin rust around the bottom of the pedal. Billy Mayes, RIP, helped me wipe the rest of that nasty right up.

My next area to attack is fuel supply. The linkages had the stickies because of bad gas gumming shiz up. I poured gas into the carb and ran the "out" line from the fuel pump into a jar and got a nasty liquid of death. I'm not in the process of dropping the tank so I canz clean it out and up, clean out the fuel lines and replace a couple of them, clean out the fuel filter and apply another "see thru" fuel filter inline for a little extra insurance. I will probably take the carb apart and make sure nothing is gummed up in it, but after I get the tank and lines clean/replaced and back on...

My plans are to just get the truck running good, crank the torsions, reindex them(do I even have to do this to maintain even tire wear?) and get 3" to 3.5" blocks for the rear. I'll be running stock rims and caps. I'll probably paint the rims white or something and either leave the caps the rusty color or chrome them... Don't worry pictures are coming...

Thanks peoples for future support!

 

Welcome!!
I did not re index my torsions, but i only went down about 3-4 inches.
Gota get smaller tires.....

And yep.....we are the pic nazis, so get to posting!

 

Woot, Pics!

Before drop:




After 3" blocks and 3" from torsion bars:

 

sweet

 

that definitely made a difference

 

Congratulations! That "non-running" truck was a score! Looks good lowered! Is it possible to do a ball joint flip on this era of trucks? You might look into that for a free .75" or so of drop that doesn't mess with the ride.

 

Thanks! I haven't heard of a ball joint flip and really haven't thought about it! I will look and take pics next time I'm under there! I've been thinking about taking out the helper/load leaf out of the rear leaf pack. It looks like it's about .5" thick. So that would be a little bonus drop for the rear. Anyone just running one leaf? I'm curious about just running one. I still would like to haul around 500 lbs in the back without too much bump stop riding... May just leave it alone, can't really decide at the moment. I'm working on cleaning out the gas tank right now, costs $100 to get the radiator shop to do it, or I can buy a POR-15 kit and DIY for around $60. Probably gonna diy, good to experience I guess... I have to make a decision soon, I'm ready to start driving this thing!!!

 

Wait, does your truck have only 1 leaf besides the overload spring? My truck('89) had the main leaf, a shorter leaf, and the overload leaf. I removed the middle leaf. I haven't heard of anyone removing the overload leaf and the middle leaf. I don't think there would be enough spring rate left to ride well at all. Even with the middle leaf removed and the overload leaf still intact it is a little soft.

 

ball joint flips are dangerous.


the hole that the balljoint post goes through is tapered, so when you flip them the taper is backwards. and also ALL the wheight of the truck is now held up by the balljoint, where before the whieght of the truck pushed the balljoint together.


some have gotten lucky with the swap, but the way i drive id never ever do it.

 

I don't see how that could be... You are the only person I have ever heard describe it this way. You don't actually "flip" the ball joint at all. You just unbolt it from the bottom of the lower control arm and bolt it on the top. I don't see how this could be dangerous or make much difference at all to the ball joint. In fact it keeps your suspension functioning normally which is one of the beautiful things about this free mod.

The ball joint flip is my favorite mod for lowered Toyotas due to the fact that it's free, easy, and will not mess up your suspensions functionality at all.

 

Sorry to mislead, it does have three.



Here's another pic of it after the drop:


Man, I feel like an idiot. Sorry mods, any way I can get this moved to the Build-up thread? If not I will create one and just copy this stuff over!

 

In that case it wouldn't be a bad idea to pull the middle leaf. Test it out and if you don't like the ride you can always put it back together. It will lower your truck about 2 inches. It will soften up the rear end quite a bit though. It would be a good idea to run stiffer lowering shocks. You would also probably want to trim your bumpstops in the rear so they don't bottom out so easily.

 

i ran with the middle leaf out before. eh, kinda soft, but at the same time, i was getting drop blocks, so i would have like, no space for travel. if you can get the fender line to hide the treads, it'll look pretty good. thats where im at

 

Is it a bad idea to remove the bump stops? I was thinking I could bolt in a 3/4"-1" piece of comparable rubber and call it a day? Maybe countersink the bolts and use a large washer.. Or I could just trim the current bumpstops

 

Yes. Either way would work fine. Your idea is good.

 

keep the bumpstops on and cut it in half.

at least thats how i did it... drop blocks, i had 1" of travel... that was horrible. til i trimmed

 

my truck is a 78 but i have some blocks i basically modified to work from 2 broken 4" sets. theyre about 4-1/2" and i pulled my center leaf. i have about 1" travel til the frame hits the axle. without bumpstops. my frame is a little different than yours though. but it tucks a good 1" or so of tire. maybe a bit more.

and are all of your hub caps that nasty looking? but in an even sort of way? i dig that look. lol. i want them.

 

looks like a great project

 

seriously. i heart those hub caps. it almost looks like its supposed to be like that with the wheel color.

 

Lol, they are just turd brown! It's pretty neat, I've been thinking about it and I may leave them that color... Can't decide... I will definitely have whitewalls though!