So..Im fairly new to this forum, but not new to the Toyota scene though. I have had many old skool toyotas in the past mainly 80-83 corollas, and 85-87 corolla GTS builds. Ive done 3TC, 4AGE, 4AGZE engine swaps, Turbo and Supercharger setups. I have been out of the game for a while with work and family. I decided it was time to finally get the toyota mini truck I always wanted. They were popular when I was growing up and in high school here in South Florida.

This is my build. I have had the truck since September and have done a lot to it since I purchased it. The truck was already lowered and had rims when I bought it. I basically went through it with a friend and redid EVERYTHING the previous owner rigged up. It was a clean truck with a freshly rebuilt stock 22RE when i bought it. It did have some questionable things done to it, but all of that has been addressed since then.

The long term plan is to do a 2j or 1j swap. It all depends on time and money.

This is how I bought her.

 

She had alot of play in the steering that needed to be addressed first. The first thing I did was replace the whole front end. Tie rod ends, Ball Joints, connecting sleeves, drag link, pitman arm, idler arm, stabilizer bushings and links, New power steering box rebuild. I got it aligned a couple of times. Nothing I did would make the over steering and sloppy steering go away and nobody could tell me why.

I posted a a thread on here and with help from White Trash and others I figured out that new holes had been drilled into the frame and the power steering box had been moved and rigged during a power steering swap by the previous owner.

The problem ended up being that when you do a power steering swap, you have to change the lower steering shaft from the column to the power steering gear box. It is about 2 inches shorter for the power steering setup. I guess the previous owner didn't know this or couldn't find the part so they decided it would be a good idea to move the power steering box forward 2 inches on the frame to make the manual steering shaft fit. This was the cause of all my original steering issues. After I located (pain in the ass to find) the shorter shaft it was an easy fix to move the power steering box to the stock location and swap in the new shaft. That fixed everything!







The old longer manual shaft and the new shorter power steering shaft.

 

So now it was time to change out the nasty painted front bumper, grill, valance and lights.

 

I also replaced all the door handles, locks, mirrors, wipers, and added the window vents and I installed a bed liner and bed cover.

 

Now it was time to change the rims (not my style). It came with 17x8's they weren't bad but I didn't like them and they would rub because the tires were too tall. I found a set of 16x8 0 offset XXR 002 in 5 lug brand new on Ebay. These rims are discontinued in 5 lug application and now are only made 4 lug and are called XXR 002.5. Unfortunatly I could only find 1 set in red, but for the price $399 I couldn't pass them up.

 

That thing look so nice. Simple and clean

 

Of course i did not install them until I painted them.

 

Now i wanted to to redo the suspension and do some maintenance. Ordered and installed Belltech 2 inch drop spindles, Custom 4 inch angled steel blocks from Beefed Taco, Doetsch Tech 3" drop shocks all around, Flipped Ball joints, New Calipers, Crossed drilled rotors, Brake lines, Ceramic pads, front bearings, new universal joints, Master clutch and Slave cylinders, shifter bushings. She drives like a new truck now!

 

Around the same time I started cleaning up the interior. I changed out most of the dash bezels to cleaner ones. It has 4 runner sr5 center console and dome lights, SR5 cluster swap, Double Din Pioneer bluetooth head unit with backup camera, Pioneer 4 inch in the front 6x9's in boxes in the back with a self amplified 6" bazooka tube. It sounds clean. I changed the Honda Prelude bucket seats that it came with (i did like them better) to cleaner Civic seats. I also installed a new carpet kit and changed the color from grey to black. I also installed a new Removable Grant security steering wheel.

 

Now I wanted to do something about the stock front valance. I wanted a lower lip. I ended up going with a Stillen front Valance off Amazon and I had it color matched to the truck.

 

I also changed out the rear window from a slider to a 1 piece.

 

This is how she is sitting currently

 

Im sure there are other things I forgot to mention or take pictures of. Like the exhaust straight pipe 2.25" with DynaFlow turbo muffler, LED rear tail lights and probably some other things. Im planning on going a little lower maybe 1 inch. I have custom 1" bolt on steel blocks (Beefed Taco) for the back to get it down to 5 inches total. Not sure if Im gonna install them yet or not because I don't want it to bottom out with my 4 wheeler in the back. I currently have no issues with rubbing or clearance. I want to thank Beefed Taco, SD Yota, and White Trash for their help with my project so far. Their information and help got me through a couple of trouble spots along the way.

I am currently focusing on the engine bay and cleaning it up.







More to come!

 

I installed a new cold air intake today. It is an Ebay cheap one, but it is doing its job. The old one that the previous owner had installed was in bad shape. Surprisingly the truck seems to idle better, have better acceleration and have better MPG with this newer intake. I also cleaned the air flow meter and throttle body thoroughly. My old intake mounting bracket was broken and it was being held in place by zip ties.

I am probably going to install the polished valve cover and a new starter later this week. I have a little oil leak from the rear half moon valve cover gasket, so I decided now was a good time to change out the valve cover and gaskets at the same time. I'm going to pressure clean and paint the engine bay also.

 

4x4 leaf springs with the 3rd leaf removed and use the 2 wheel drive overload spun around backwards. You'll have to shorten the shackles about 3/4" to match the drop provided by the front eye of the springs so the pinion angle is in check too. I have that springs setup with a 2" notch and 4" angled blocks and I rarely hit. I'm going to redo the notch a bit bigger one of these days... or mkIII irs we'll see.

 

I'm trying to avoid notching it. For now. Overall I'm really happy with the look and ride and don't want to mess that up if i need to carry a load in the back from time to time. I would like to go down another inch in the back though. Right now I have 3 inches of clearance (no load in the back) between the rear end and the frame. If I drop it 1 inch more then I only have 2 inches of clearance. I have 2 Honda Ruckus's I want to be able to load back there about 200 lbs each. I haven't tried it yet. I can carry my 4 wheeler no problem though.

 

If and when I eventually do a motor swap I will probably rethink that though.

 

Just notch it now and getting it over with.

 

Whats the black plastic piece called in front of the back wheel well on the bottom? Splash guard, mud guard. IDK. Where can I get those new? I have looked everywhere. I haven't been able to find them. Was thinking about taking them off or painting them.