Cnickgo 85 Yota Build

[Cnickgo]

A little background, I've had a handful of Jeeps, 95 YJ, 89 MJ, 88 MJ, 97 XJ, and most notably a 92 XJ. The 92 XJ transitioned from a DD to weekend warrior to trail rig, the rest of the Jeeps were DDs. Growing up on the East Coast I was mostly into crawling, but the DDs always took me camping and fishing. I am a decently experienced backpacker, and my camping tendencies always reverted to a backpack quantity of equipment. Lately I have been exploring with big groups and never straying far from the vehicle, so I realized my goals have changed. Now I'm on the West Coast away from the Jeep, and finally tool the plunge and sold the XJ. Traded a street bike that was going to get me killed for a Toyota.

More about the truck... 1985 regular cab long bed pickup, 22r 5 speed. The motor is on the mounts and we bolted the transmission up before I drug the project home, pretty much everything is there to get it up and running again. My goal is to build the truck to a self sufficient DD/weekend warrior.

I'll update with more pictures this weekend. So far I have spent a day getting familiar with Toyota, getting an idea of what I need to order first, and starting to strip and clean the interior.

Bleached mold off the vinyl headliner. Not sure how to replace it with the rollcage in the way just yet.

4" painters window scraper made quick work of DIY gone purple windowtint.

I'm planning on a few stages/goals. First is getting the motor buttoned back up and fired. Second is driving on the street, 2wd. Third is 4wd (needs a rear 3rd rebuilt to match 4.88s in the front and a front driveshaft). Fourth is to get a bed on it, get it ready for camping/exploring, and put an interior back into it. Not sure if I will go with a shell or soft top and sleeping platform, or rack and RTT. I have a 70lb lab so I'm leaning towards a shell instead of hauling the dog up into an RTT.

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[Cnickgo]

Long overdue updates. First thing was putting the motor back together. I had almost no fasteners, so a call to 22RE Performance landed me with comprehensive fastener kits to get everything snugged up. The exhaust manifold went on without complaint contrary to common manifold stud issues. The intake took a couple tries and I will probably rip it off once again to replace the now mangled gasket. Also stripped threads on the the fuel pump mount so in went a helicoil. I couldn't source a couple gaskets locally so I just hand traced and cut the few I needed. Along with a battery and marine terminals, one thing I have learned from Renix jeeps is to have a solid ground, so the ground cables were replaced.

 

[Cnickgo]

So after getting the motor bolted up, I started working backwards. I sourced driveshaft bolts from the junkyard, fought the carrier bearing, got the rear shaft in the truck. I'm currently missing a front driveshaft, and the front and rear diffs have different gears (how I bought it, the PO trashed the 4.88 rear and threw a 4.11 back in so the truck could move around), so 4wd is currently on hold. Temporarily. The flatbad didnt meet my desires, so it was replaced for a junkyard bed. Then came new 33x12.50x15 General AT2s. Then a $30 metal camper shell. Camper shell looked like it got hit with a large dead branch, so some aluminum sheeting, gutter sealant and some self-tappers fixed the hole. It's not pretty... but it's a $30 camper shell of a pretty rare size.

I'm preparing for a cross country drive in a little over a month, with all of my stuff in stow, and then the truck will go on a boat to Hawaii. Concerned about space traveling with my belongings, I picked up Yakima cargo carrier for cheap at REI garage sale. A new rack was a hard price to swallow considering the rest of the truck, so I built a Home Depot special. It is bolted through the camper shell frame instead of trying to spread the load across the flimsy skin.

I've spent a lot of time looking at everyone's platform/storage on this site, and considering what would work for me. With a cab height shell I am limited on headroom, so originally I wanted to choose either max covered storage or max headroom, however my plans to use climbing crash pads as bedding prohibited lowering all the way to the bed level. My eventual decision was to have two options, one at bed rail level and one at wheel well level. Another mandatory design was easily removable. I used a gate latch on the "headboard" to keep shape, and everything else is press fit with the main platform in place.

The top rails were causing quite the squeeze with the crash pads, and at the sacrifice of not being able to use some storage bins I already have, i decided to remove the top rails and limit myself to the lower platform only/remove the whole system. I did keep a short section in the front that holds the shelf at the front level with the crash pads. Oh... and I leveled the lower rails if that was bothering anyone... late night eyeballing turned out pretty off. The tops of the side bins pop in and out, no hinges, a simple paracord pull to get them out.

 

[Cnickgo]

The truck didn't come with a radio of any sorts, only a half organized mess of two different installs left of wiring. As I have become spoiled with my touchscreen do it all radio/gps/dvd/blah blah in the F350, i wasn't very motivated to go back to a $90 basic head-unit, however the name of the game with this truck is cheap! The solution was to mount a tablet (I already have collecting dust) to serve as the main unit. Luckily there was already an old amp underneath the passenger seat and some Kicker speakers in the doors, so a cable to go from the tablet to the RCA inputs of the amp, repower the amp, and a knockoff Ram mount and my audio/GPS needs are solved.

While saving to regear the rear axle back to 4.88 and purchasing a new front driveshaft, my next goal is to make some curtains. As it's only myself and a 75lb lab headed cross country, my needs are rather simple for this trip. I will only be bouncing from National Park to National Forest, my main goal is to pack everything so that at night we simply crawl into the back and sleep, no setting up and taking down camp, which adds to the amount of climbing time I can spend during my planned stops and time at home with friends and family before heading to the island.

 

[JCMatthews]

Cool build but sadly many of your pictures are not working.

 

[Cnickgo]

Cool build but sadly many of your pictures are not working.

Thanks, they should be fixed now.

 

[02rangeredge]

I just picked up an aluminium truck cap like yours that I'm going to throw a ladder rack on to haul kayaks I totally agree that it would be to difficult to reinforce that practically tin foil skin, so I was wondering what hardware you used to your rack on? nuts and bolts or sheet metal screws (something of that equivalent)? if nuts and bolts what size?

I plan on reinforcing my shell with 2x1 aluminium stock because of the force of 2 kayaks at freeway speeds as well as the footprint of the ladder rack I'm using. I've got everything planned out other than the hardware, I'm thinking stove bolts and lock nuts/ acorn nuts but it depends on the size of the head of a stove bolt

 

[Cnickgo]

I just picked up an aluminium truck cap like yours that I'm going to throw a ladder rack on to haul kayaks I totally agree that it would be to difficult to reinforce that practically tin foil skin, so I was wondering what hardware you used to your rack on? nuts and bolts or sheet metal screws (something of that equivalent)? if nuts and bolts what size?

I plan on reinforcing my shell with 2x1 aluminium stock because of the force of 2 kayaks at freeway speeds as well as the footprint of the ladder rack I'm using. I've got everything planned out other than the hardware, I'm thinking stove bolts and lock nuts/ acorn nuts but it depends on the size of the head of a stove bolt

m10x1.25 8.8 bolts straight through the frame of the cap. The hardware is definitely not the concern to me, I'm pretty sure the cap would come apart before the hardware would fail, which is considerably likely when you look at the cap. I will be checking on it frequently to see how it holds for the next month.

 

[02rangeredge]

bolts vs metal screws were my concern, thanks

 

[FJR Colorado]

Cool build. I applaud your resourcefulness!

 

[Cnickgo]

The cheap shell has been replaced with a cheap Wildernest. Known problems when purchasing were a missing rear glass and top hinges. Drove down to LA to pick it up. Bolted the shell down and got a couple hinges on in a Home Depot parking lot before hunger took over. When I first opened it up the tent looked pretty good, but I think after getting the fabric moving the urethane backing started falling.

After dinner we stopped by the Santa Monica pier, but the real treat was having an empty boardwalk to ourselves to longboard.

We had planned on stopping and spending the night in the tent, but the rains and winds that hit CA were just brutal, every state park we tried was closed or full, and ended up enduring the long drive back through the night.

First thing for the shell is a rear window, I don't know if I will have time to repair the frame and do a Plexiglas replacement, so it may have a temporary wood window.

The tent is getting a major scrub down and cleaning. I'm strongly debating scraping the rest of the urethane backing off and being done with it, since I will already need to devise a tarp/rainfall to go overtop.

 

[BajaSurfRig]

Rad looking rig! Where are you moving to in Hawaii?

 

[Cnickgo]

Rad looking rig! Where are you moving to in Hawaii?

Thanks, I'll be there mid March.

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[IVrunner]

Nice build so far. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on devising a tarp/rainfall. I too have a wildernest but wrestling with the rain fly idea.

 

[Cnickgo]

Replaced a couple buckles on the headliner and did a "belly tuck" inspired by another post. I've got a 12x18 tarp on the way for the rain fly, waterproofing spray, poles for the exterior "stabilizers" and some aluminum replacement tent poles to serve as the missing fiberglass wands.

The top buckles were still in place, but a good grip with a pair of pliers snapped them to pieces.

Belly tuck via 1" webbing and sliding buckles. Provides better vision out of the rear view mirror and hopefully enough clearance for the mountain bike in the back. I'm also hoping surfboards will slide in there nicely. The tie down straps are secured by the headliner screws.

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