(Pictures not mine)
After we got our Land Rover Discovery (because our Ford van was too big for our shrinking family), I traded the van for a pickup. I was looking for an economical four-wheel-drive ride that would be dependable and cheap. I found a good one on Craigslist, but my van was not selling. So I called the guy and asked if he wanted a diesel van. To my surprise he said yes!
The truck was a 1984 regular cab, short bed. 1980-1985 is important to some of us: solid front axle! It had the older 20R engine (which is a little more sturdy than the 22R in my opinion) with a Weber carb, header, axle brace, front and rear limited slip differentials (geared low), four speed transmission, mild lift, new mud terrain tires, and various performance doodads, plus a canopy. The thing about it was, the guy who owned it didn’t have a clue what any of this meant. It was running pretty poorly as well because he had tried to “tune it up”, but lacked mechanical aptitude. The paint was a nice older respray in dark green. From a distance it looked good, but up close one could see myriad rust bubbles under the finish.
I showed him the van, which I had removed the wheelchair lift from. We drove around in it and he loved it. I took the truck for a spin and was able to determine that it just needed adjusting. So we swapped titles and called it good. The drive home was about sixty miles and the truck was struggling. I could tell that the timing was all wrong and that the carburetor was setup up wrong as well. I wanted to jump out and fix it right there, but I had not brought any tools. I pulled the choke out about a quarter of the way and that enriched the fuel mixture enough to make it drivable.
When I got home, the first thing I did was to put on some grubby clothes and go grubbing around under the hood. What I found was alot of mistakes. Hoses on the wrong connections, missing hoses, disconnected wires, and to top it all off, a broken carburetor base-plate stud. When I checked the timing, it was way off and would not get even close to right. Hmm, I took the valve cover off and confirmed TDC on number one cylinder using the rockers. When I checked the plug wires against the manual, I found that the distributor was 180 degrees off! But the previous owner had turned it far enough to run. I fixed all that and adjusted the valves as well.
Next came the carburetor; I got it off and got the Weber base-plate adapter off as well; the broken stud was in an aluminum manifold. I have never had any luck with EZ-Outs, but I do have a method now. This truck is the last one I ever tried an EZ-Out on and I’ll tell you why.
So my old method went like this: file flat and center punch the broken stud, drill it out with the proper sized drill, break off EZ-out or drill in the hole, find a way to live without the bolt being there. But this time when I got to the step where I had broken the drill in the hole, I realized there was no way to live without that bolt. And then it dawned on me, carbide; carbide is my friend!
I went out and bought a small carbide burr for my Dremel tool. Now I just bored out the old drill bit and the old bolt with ease. After that I drilled it out one size larger and tapped it for a new stud. The method I use today is a little better. Now I start with the carbide bit, get it bored out, use a reverse drill bit just smaller than the stud ( it usually comes out with that), then if it wont come out, just drill it out all the way, and extract the shell of the old bolt, then clean up the threads.
Once I got the carburetor rebuilt and the base-plate all worked out, I put her back together, timed it right, set the fuel mixture, and it drove much better. But it was still not right; it ran too lean. When the previous owners had retrofitted it with the Weber carburetor, they had blocked off the mechanical fuel pump and put in a cheap electric unit. Well, my experiences had shown that those cheap electric ones have wildly varying pressures, pulsating flow rates, and cause all sorts of problems for Webers. Luckily I had a nice Carter rotary vane pump on another project. So with the better pump and a pressure regulator it purred like a kitten.
The first thing I did of course was to head over to a friend’s rural property and get muddy. With the limited slip differentials and low gearing, it was amazing. This is the same piece of land I used to test my CJ2a, and the Toyota was right behind it in performance. But that was the only time I really got to get it off-road while I had it.
Mainly it was a commuter car for me and it served well in that purpose, except when I wanted to take a few kids or friends along. The interior of a regular cab mini-truck of that era is indeed mini. It had a bench seat from a latter truck but two adults and a small child were really pushing the confines of it. Being that it had a manual gearbox, shifting with someone sitting in the middle could be viewed as either an awkward social situation, or an added bonus, depending on who it was. And being a short bed meant that one of my size could not sleep in the back when camping.
But all of that aside, it was a good rig, living up to Toyota’s reputation for dependability and trouble free operation. That’s why this Sunday’s post is so short! It was geared a bit low for the highway, but I could have put a five speed transmission in it. I was planning on doing just that when my friend Reginald came over and told me about a rig that I would really want……
The Toyota trucks of this era were really awesome.
A friend of mine used to have an ’88 4Runner with the 3.0 liter V6 engine. He was lucky enough to avoid having the head gasket issues that hit some of the early V6 Toyota trucks. That little six was way too smooth and silky for a truck; it felt like it belonged in a passenger car.
Several of us took that thing to a Dave Matthews Band concert in the summer of 2001 at the Gorge in Washington State, and the 4Runner saved us from having to wait for a long time to exit the grass parking lot by driving over an earth berm and through a ditch to an access road. Ground clearance even in stock form was very good.
The 22R struck me as being much more appropriate for the Toyota trucks even if it was way down on power compared to the V6; I didn’t know about its 20R predecessor until know.
That 3.0 belonged in a passenger car,ever heard of a Camry?
No, I live under a rock, never heard of a Camry.
The 3VZ-E as used in the 4Runner and trucks only shared bearings with the Camry 3VZ-FE. It also predated the 3.0 liter Camry engine by 4 model years.
You said 88, Camry V6 was here in 1990 with 3L engine you shouldnr believe Wiki all the time Japan and New Zealand had those cars long before Australia and US
My buddy had one of these and did like it save the rust. He traded straight up with a friend of his for a Land Cruiser that was a few years newer. The pictures you’ve found are the most rust free early Toyota pickups I’ve ever seen.
Rust isn’t an issue in the Pac Northwest (save coastal ares with sea salt). This is a mecca for old Japanese iron that is still in one piece. I’ve had an 82 pickup, 85 Faux Runner, and 89 Four Runner and none had any significant rust.
One of my first things to do when I get my shit together is find another 80s Toyota 4×4.
I had a. ’92 x-cab 4×4 3.0L V-6 Toyota; 5-sod. Would go just about ANYWHERE. This was in Kodiak, Alaska. Sold it within 24 hours of posting it. Didn’t do anything to it when I had it, save replaced the exhaust, and new studded winter tires. One of the best vehicles ever made.
Another one on my unattainable wish-list. You’re right about the solid axle; as pre-Daimler Jeep showed us, a solid axle in the front can provide excellent handling with durability in a utility vehicle. All it needs is a commitment to the design and the patience to fine-tune…
Yep
I always liked these rugged little beasts, even as a kid. I wanted one for a while- before I got older, grew up, and realized that the nominal cab was way too tight for my 6’4″, 200 lb. frame.
My daily driver is an 82. 6’3″ and 250. You can do it. Just get a cruise control for highway trips.
When I was 18, I worked in the parts dept of the local Oldsmobile-Toyota-GMC dealer. I bought a new 1983 DX 4×4 long bed of one of these. Here in Florida it was immensely popular to have one of these and put a lift kit and big tires on it. Being 18 and living at home with the parents, I had plenty of money to put a suspension lift, body lift and big 33″ tires on mine. The mechanic at the dealership where we worked did the work and basically taught me how to drive it off road. He had a big GMC 4×4 and he could not believe the Toyotas ability. I truly showed that truck no mercy.
My buddies formed a bit of a club and took these off roading. You just could not stop these things. I do remember the 100’s of new beds Toyota replaced under the rust though warranty, mine included. The transmission was rebuilt under warranty as well. No doubt it was not designed to handle the increased suspension modifications.
As much as I admired that truck I now look back and wonder how I fit in the thing. It was my only Toyota. Times change, our waist lines expand and as I have mentioned before, I prefer the full sized comfort of my Silverado.
Was that in the days when they would put a bed on the truck upon importation to avoid the chicken tax?
These are still popular with the hard-core off-roaders, although they ran the solid front axle here until the early ’00’s from memory. You often see them set up as you have described, and sometimes with a V8.
I had a 1985 long bed Toyota 4X4 with 22RE and four speed automatic, bought in 1990 when I was teaching school in the Rocky Mountains. I figured it would be good for moving our stuff and getting around in the snow. It was certainly good at that.
It as lightly used when I got it, all of 67,000 km. What I liked about it was its off-road ability. The thing climbed like a billy-goat. Nothing I have ever off-roaded with was as good. The automatic made it even better because you could concentrate on driving instead of shifting. The bed was able to swallow loads of stuff. With the FI system, there were never any starting or altitude problems.
Problems? It road like an ox cart. The seat was terribly uncomfortable; you really could not really spend more than a couple of hours in it without stopping to rest.
The real problem, however, was me. When we moved there, my gf, against my wishes, wanted to take everything and the kitchen sink. I got a U-Haul trailer for it, and loaded it to the gills, the bed also. I was way over the GVCWR.
The Coquihalla Highway is a beautiful piece of engineering, built over some really rough, high elevation terrain. I had never driven it up that that point. So my best buddy and I jumped into the heavily over loaded Toyota and set up the mountain. Coming out of Hope, we started to climb. The steepest section is at Great Bear Snow Shed. The truck could not get out of first gear. I had it floored all the way up, like 50 km, and managed all of 40 km/h. Toyota legendary toughness was going to get me through. How naive youth is. The road to the top was littered with Saabs, Audis and Volvos. We made to the top without apparent incident.
Except that as soon as I arrived at a gas station, it was down a quart of oil. From that point, it sucked oil at a shocking rate. It did not push blue and there were no leaks. Eventually the compression waned and it needed a rebuild. That is another story, however.
Moral of the story: you cannot use a 100 hp four banger to haul a trailer up a mountain. My first plan was to buy a GMC 3/4 ton and convert it to LPG. Looking back, that is would have been a better, and in the long run, cheaper, alternative.
That is one of the few problems with smaller engined Hiluxes they dont tow well better to get a 2.8/3.0 Turbo diesel if you really want to work one hard They are NOT a Landcruiser
That would be a problem in the US!
Canucklehead – my take-away from that story is that 75min at WOT should be left for manufacturer’s durability testing, not real world driving of a vehicle you own! You would have had lots of things under the hood glowing red after that. Drive up the mountain at 20 or 30km/h and it might have survived a bit better.
The 25 year import threshold will let you bring in an ’87 by now, which could be had with a 2.5 liter turbodiesel (still with only 93 hp/159 pounds-ft). Guessing they’ve all been worked extremely hard though.
2L engines are a far better bet than turbocharged 2LT as far as dependability is concerned. They have far more torque and rev at lower range, which is particularly desirable for towing. I have a 2.4 diesel ’96 N50 LN110 extra-cab that really takes anything you throw at him, pity it has IFS rather than a solid axle and leaf springs like LN105s double-cabs. As much as I love my truck, I’m dieing to find a good pre-1988 N40, slimmer and squarer, but they are pretty rare in Italy.
That would depend on the design. I’ve run tractors wide-open for an hour-plus…wide open, not just against the governor. The ones I’ve done it on, did just fine.
I would have thought the Toyota would have taken it well. Apparently not…many have noted, right from the start, that the pickup was not made of the same stuff as the Land Cruiser. Pity, that.
Or, it’s possible the truck was abused before you bought it.
Never had the opportunity to own one of these trucks but remember them, along with the Datsun/Nissan hardbody trucks of the day though.
Good mutual friend I think bought his first new car and it was the 1994 version of these trucks, in blue and it was the base model if I recall and had I think only a radio for audio, if that and later saved up and bought either a CD head unit or a cassette head unit, I forget which for it.
I can definitely see why your post today was so short, it’s a Toyota for crying out loud. LOL.
Canucklehead’s comment sure brings back the memories. I had a job at the top of the Coquihala Connector that required hauling my snowmobile up there every day with one of these. The 20R was well taxed by this task but never went wrong. It just took a lot of patience.
I think these were the best Japanese vehicle ever until they took out the solid axle and brought in the stupid plastic timing chain guides on the 22RE. I personally killed off 3 22REs and a 2LTE diesel before I gave up on Toyota trucks.
One day I’ll find a good 1980 and give it a good home.
The running gear on these can easily cope with more power Holden 253 V8s were a popular swap also Toyota 4M/5M Crown/Supra engines bolt in using the right bell housing or just get a JDM 3.0 turbo diesel.
A Chevy 350 conversion is very common.
Our daughter wanted one of these before she got her Civic hatchback. She had one picked out, a used one that had been detailed until it gleamed. A few added accessories, chrome wheels…this rig looked like it was prepared for show. The insurance agent put an end to her dreams though – the insurance cost was so high she’d effectively be paying for it twice by the time she insured it.
Probably best that she didn’t get it. It would be a poor first car.
I can vouch for how small the cab is, it gets really tight with 3 adults in the cab. So tight I had to hang my arm out the window and have the middle passenger work the shifter.
Interesting fact is the cab is actually wider then a Ranger by a few inches. I only have 3 complaints with these trucks, small cab, lack of power, and the timing chain that stretches.
It was my first truck, my 82 Toyota. loved it to death and only sold it because I moved overseas. It had 245,004 miles on it and sold for half of what I paid for it 14 years earlier. Wish I still had it. Worst thing about it was all the people who wanted to buy it when it was 10 years old.