Toyota Trucks:

Mark

Adrian, Your truck looks great.

I see a How-to article in the making.

adrian

And I am kicking myself in the butt for not taking photos along the way. But, I think I can reenact the experience in a made-for-television manner.

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Mark

I've done the same thing. Got done installing my injectors in my Dodge and realized, I never took a single photo.

I wrote it all out as detailed as I could remember, but it wasn't the same. I considered pulling them and doing it again, but NO, too much work for a few pix.

adrian

You know, the body lift was a lot easier than the instructions led me to believe it was going to be. A lot of the welding and cutting and whatnot that I recall reading about were actually not required.

Things that I had to make sure I did though:

• Loosen the brackets attached to the frame, so things like brake lines wouldn't snap
• Disconnect the radiator bolts from the truck and let the radiator lay on the fan. Otherwise it will rip the fan off when you start jacking the entire cab up into the air.
• The clutch line didn't need to be disconnected. It just needed the bracket to be released from the transmission so that the line could lengthen. I disconnected mine and then realized I didn't have to, which meant I had to refill and bleed the clutch.
• Have beer and good music playing. It brings out the neighbors and then suddenly you have a good game of washers going along with extra hands.
• If you don't own a grinder, go get one. My truck is about 14 years old... bolts don't always come off with penetration spray.

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Mark

Sounds like lessons learned the hard way. I helped a bud of mine lift his Jeep. The instructions were nothing like what we ended up doing.

Cutting torch is a mans best friend... Beer didn't hurt either.

adrian

Luckily I was able to just look at the radiator and brakes and tell that I needed to loosen them first. The clutch hose I learned after the fact, but bleeding the clutch was a lot easier than bleeding motorcycle brakes, so it only took about 10 minutes to have pressure back on the clutch pedal.

The instructions were saying that the AC lines were going to have to be cut and welded but that wasn't true. The AC line comes out of the firewall and heads straight through the motor compartment and up to the front of the radiator. Because of the long run, the whole line was able to flex three inches without any awkward bends or pinching. The AC still works fine.

And I agree about the torch. Anything having to do with fire is pretty cool...

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Mark

As I recall the toughest part of the whole job was the pitman arm removal and installation of the new drop arm. I think that piece alone took us several hours and many beer's.

Yeah, fire's cool...

adrian

I bet. Mine just used a shaft extension, and it was a pain in the butt to put in.

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SRiley

Close but not quite, true rednecks don't drive Toyota's and you wouldn't have bought a kit. Treated 4x4's work well if your going for that authenic look.

On a serious note grinding and torching on trucks can be a dangerous business. I set my neighbors truck on fire cutting holes in his bed for those big diesel stacks. He told me there was no leaks in the fuel tank....he was wrong. It was diesel, not gas but diesel can be just as explosive given the right circumstances. We were lucky enough to get it put out and only burnt some of the undercoating off, could have been a lot worse.

Probably nothing you guys don't already know but thought I'd throw it out there.

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It's mostly about paying 100% attention to everything in your environment when you are riding. Every single thing. Some people just don't have that capacity and probably shouldn't ride. It's not about speed, it's about observational skills and processing that information.

adrian

Every time I go work on the truck, my wife makes a point to remind me where the fire extinguisher is. Why is everyone so afraid I will burn the garage down?

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