Box Rocket 1980 1st Gen Hilux

[Box Rocket]

I will say right up front that this will likely be a much slower build than any of my previous ones. Mainly because this truck is for my son and he's playing a major role in the work including the money side of the mods. All that said, I'm excited for it. I've always loved the 1st gen Hilux and I have a soft spot for them since my first car was a '79 2WD Hilux. We've got some good plans for this one but it needs a lot of work.
Plans include:
Suspension Overhaul (probably coming down an inch or two)
Steering Overhaul (powersteering with High steer)
Full rebuild of both axles
Replace hubs with Aisin units
New tires (315/75R16 on FZJ80 factory wheels)
Repaint body
Build bumpers
Build Bedrack
Build sliders
Crawler gears.
.

 

[onemanarmy]

will be following....

 

[Adventurous]

OOO. I love those old Hiluxes. Looking forward to following along.

 

[mouse007]

NICE..!!! Killer 1st car, can't wait to see what you do with it.

 

[ripperj]

Sweet! My first was a '74 2wd

 

[Patrollife]

Subscribed

 

[cruiserdude80]

I had a 79 long bed and an 82 short bed. I still miss my 82, it was one I regret getting rid of. Good find on your part.

 

[paranoid56]

those are some sweet wheels

 

[89s rule]

Awesome look forward to seeing where this goes.


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[Box Rocket]

well, didn't get much time on it this weekend but we removed the lower valence and trimmed the front fenders to be even with the bottom of the grill for a little better clearance up front and less chance of rubbing tires since the axle will get moved forward a couple inches.
Also started cleaning up the front axle a bit. Cut off the trackbar bracket to make room for an axle truss. Began stripping the outside of the axle and cleaning up a bunch of gunk. Gonna try to get the axle pulled out from under the truck this week to undergo a full rebuild. Should be ditching the MM locking hubs for some Aisin ones. I think the birfs are bad and I suspect the knuckles are empty with no grease but I won't know for sure until we pull it apart. We'll change all the bearings and seals and probably end up replacing the birfs. Might be able to keep the old birfs as spares if they're not too bad.
Then we'll add the truss and probably some diff armor before repainting it and getting it back under the truck. I'm looking for a high-pinion 80 series diff for it, but might have to run the stock low pinion for a bit.

Front driveshaft ujoints are trashed so we'll be swapping those too. The high pinion diff will help a lot with joint angles.

 

[Box Rocket]

Picked up a set of Chevy 63" rear springs yesterday. These are a more common swap for rockcrawlers because of the excellent flex, but they are also supposed to ride pretty well so I decided to give them a try. The nice thing is that they are cheap, and it's not that difficult to switch back to a new leaf pack later on if we don't like these. Now trying to decide what to do up front. Thinking some 3" spings to keep things lower but still run some 35-37" tires.