My first 'Yota build

Hi all, relatively new to Toyotas but I have some experience in restoring cars. I just picked up a 1987 SR5, 22R-E, 5-speed, 4x4 with no rust and only 140k on the clock. Got her on the low as technically she was a no-crank/no-start (my buddy has since diagnosed it as the starter). But the engine turned over easily by hand so I forked over some cash and she was mine.

The basic idea here is to restore her as meticulously as my friend and I can, enjoy her for a few months and then sell on BaT to someone who will really appreciate her. I'll be documenting that whole process here and we'll be putting together a youtube video so what we've done is as transparent as possible. Along the way I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and get others' input on any matters big or small!

Before diving in I do have a question. I briefly had a gen3 4runner and recall some matter of it being extremely important to get genuine Toyota upper ball joints (or something to that effect). For this restoration I was intending to use brand name, high quality parts but not necessarily genuine Toyota. Is there anything you guys see below where it is either imperative or highly advisable for me to use Toyota parts for some reason? Conversely, should I consider scaling back how many wear items I intend to replace so I can afford to use strictly genuine Toyota parts?

That said, here's what I'm intending to do. Very excited to hear your thoughts! If there's anything you think it would be prudent to add or anything that seems a little pointless I'm all ears.

Things that are broken
Starter motor
Driver mirror
Temp gauge sensor

Replace all fluids
Motor oil - Mobil One 10W30 and Wix filter
Manual trans fluid - Red Line MT90
Diff fluid - Red Line 57904 75W90
T-Case - Red Line 57904 75W90
Coolant - Toyota Red
Brake fluid - DOT3

Exterior
Media blast undercarriage and apply POR15
New windshield moulding
Paint windshield wiper arms
Get minor surface rust off chrome bumpers
Realign front bumper
Detail engine bay
OEM wheels
Better tires

Preemptively replace wear items
Ball joints
Bushings
Bilstein shocks
Fuel filter
Plugs and wires
O2 sensor
Belts and hoses
Distributor cap and rotor
Tie rod ends
Radiator clutch fan

Interior
Driver's seat (get gen1 and have reskinned)
Headliner
Fix crack in dashboard
Replace driver's door grab handle
SEM Color Coat all plastic and vinyl
Dynamat
Touchscreen head unit
Extraction treatment on all cloth
Replace carpet
Ozone/Biocide


In all her glory:

 

Great project wagon! Looking forward to the pics of your progress

 

I'm super amped to get started. I was about to head out to our local Toyota boneyard and it occurred to me I should check on prices for my bits and bobs new from ebay and elsewhere. So saving that trip for tomorrow now. After tearing myself away from the screen today my first order of business is replacing that starter so I can actually drive and move her around.

 

Good luck on the restoration, look like a good project!!

 

On the mileage, couple of things. It was a single family car and PO told me the history from when it was new. The Carfax is also *chef's kiss* immaculate.

The deal with the front seat is the driver's window got busted in and I guess the original got soaked one too many times to be brought back. So PO just kind of found the first thing available that would fit which was this ratty second gen seat.

The seat is one of my first orders of business. Visiting a 'yota JY tomorrow to pick one up. Then I'm going to have my upholstery guy reskin either just the driver (passenger seems in good condition) or if he can't get the right fabric reskin both the front seats.

Also visiting my favorite paint supply store to get some SEM mixed up. I can't stand how the interior bits have faded at different rates. I'm planning on taking the entire interior apart and spraying EVERYTHING so it all looks nice and fresh.

 

Great project! The 22-RE is barely broke in with that kind of mileage.

 

That was my thought. It's really surprising looking at these past auction sales. Trucks with over 300k on the clock can command over $10k if they're in good condition and have the right options.

 

So, after looking at copious numbers of completed sales and thinking on it a good bit I've decided to change course a little bit on my strategy here. One thing all the hefty sale prices seem to have in common is they have a large amount of documented work within the past year or two. While I really like the idea of just preemptively replacing a bunch of wear items, I'm starting to feel like that was going down the wrong track. I think the way I'm going to approach this instead is to have a trusted mechanic do a post purchase inspection on the truck and give me their professional opinion about what could stand to be replaced and then do those items specifically.

Now the one question on this is should I be taking it to my trusted mechanic or should I be taking it to some shop that has a reputation for working on Toyotas? Because my guy down the street is absolutely great but he might carry less weight when it comes to me explaining this process at the time of sale.

 

New starter did not fix the no-crank/no-start. To get her into the garage we wound up pushing her with my Suburban and popping the clutch. Found out there's a good chunk of the exhaust missing so she's making some fun sounds. But have to say, damn I like driving this truck! I'll post some pics of the exhaust if I can remember to get underneath and take some pictures. Could definitely use some opinions on how to approach it.

After getting her into a well lit working environment we made some good headway. Driver window was busted but PO included a replacement with the truck so we put that in. Left off the door card so my paint guy can use it to color match and mix up some SEM Color Coat.

Bumper appeared to be off kilter and I suspected a minor impact that bent the D/S bumper bracket. One of those things where you kind of have to look for it to be apparent but at the same time detracts from the appearance I'm going for. So I took off the bumper to inspect it more closely. While there was no discernable difference between the two bumper brackets, it appears there's actually one modest and one minor dent in the bumper. So, it looks like a new bumper is getting penciled into the budget.

We also found out there's actually no audio system in the truck whatsoever. Speakers are gone along with the head unit. So I'll have to rectify that as well.

Overall still happy with the buy though and very excited to see where it ultimately lands.

 

I noticed a wire hanging out sort of coming off the starter going to nowhere. Looked like it plugged into the side of the block. So I connected that and now I've got a little more action. The starter relay now clicks, but the starter still doesn't engage.

 

My friend removed the security system and fixed the exhaust so a couple steps closer to the truck starting on her own. When I returned the faulty starter I decided that if O'Reilly's supplier's standards are shoddy enough to give me a starter that doesn't work at all, who's to say how long the next one will last. I don't want to saddle the next owner with that. So I just got a refund and ordered a good brand name starter off RockAuto. Would have gone OEM but that doesn't appear to exist so AC-Delco seemed like a good stand in. The downside is I have to wait for it to arrive. But fingers crossed truck should be up and running early next week when the part arrives. At that point she's going in for upholstery.

That said, the fun began in earnest tonight. Initial prep for paint and removal of the interior. My friend who has been my paint sherpa on a prior project and again on this one was over and rehashed the finer points of what we'll be doing. We removed the windshield trim and cowl and I dug into sanding the hood while he and our other friend started taking the interior apart.

Started with 220 grit on my air sander but wasn't making enough headway where the clear was peeling up. Went down to 180. That got some results. Will take some extra time as that induces more rounds of sanding but we're going for the best results possible here.



No ridges to be found here!



My sister and her family are visiting for a few days and I anticipate the truck going into upholstery early to mid next week so it was imperative to go ahead and get all the plastic pieces out of the interior. My paint guy is color matching the interior with SEM Color Coat and everything in the interior is going to get dyed. I want to be able to take my time with it while the seats and headliner are getting done. I've done SEM the right way and I've done it the quick way and there is a gaping difference between the results. This project is getting done the right way. Everything has to be thoroughly cleaned, washed and lightly scuffed before the adhesion promoter is applied. It's time consuming but very worth it. If you step into my W126 restoration the whole thing just feels new. It's largely because there's not a single faded or mismatched piece to be found in the entire car. It's the sort of thing you don't notice unless someone tells you but contributes to much higher quality results.

We'll get the rear seat out along with the rear carpet here shortly so we can treat them and do a full extraction treatment while the truck is in for upholstery as well.





A quick request from the forum. Paint is the point at which I can see some strong opinions coming out. We've done this before and got great results, but I'd still love to hear if there's something you think I can be doing better (particularly if it's something I can incorporate into future rounds of prep). I'd just ask that the responses are constructive in some way. If you generally think I'm a jacka** and this whole thing is stupid, that's fine but I made the mistake of engaging with one of those on another thread and won't be doing it here.

 

The no-crank/no-start turned out to be a combination of security system AND a bad starter. After having my buddy rip that damn security system out AND us installing a quality AC-Delco starter she fires right up! Such warm fuzzy feelings right now.

Tomorrow she goes in for upholstery.

 

My upholstery guy wasn't quite ready so I've taken the time to do a bit more paint prep. Continuing on with sanding. I made my way around to the only rust bubble on the car. Be gone!

Just about done with the 180 grit pass and will be doing guide coat shortly.





In other 87 4Runner news I was looking at a beautiful undercarriage on a closed auction and noodling on how I can get as close to that as possible without painting it. I acquired some tools that are going to up my game to that end. Picked up a 3800psi/4gpm gas pressure washer off marketplace for $250 that was apparently $1200 new, got a surface cleaner attachment to go with it and pulled the trigger on a steamer capable of 293* on Amazon. The steamer should be helpful in cleaning interiors as well.

 

A little bit too cold for anything paint related so I decided to dig into one of my favorite parts of all this... unnecessary mundane details.

Rather than spray the interior with SEM with everything in place we took out the vast majority of the interior so everything could be individually cleaned and dyed. I went a little harder on the steamer purchase than probably necessary but in conjunction with simple green it's getting all the plastic bits and bobs seriously spot free. So the process for each piece is simple green, scrub, blast with 293* steam, wipe, scuff, isopropyl alcohol, Bulldog adhesion promoter, SEM 3x.



The dash is moderately cracked and I had been thinking of doing a dash cap the whole time. It may yet come to it but in the spirit of going further than probably necessary and doing things the "right" way we're now attempting to fix the dash. I bought some putty to get the texture of the dash. I started by knocking down the edges of the cracks with a Dremel and when the filler arrives tomorrow will slather that in there. While the filler is still malleable I'll press the hardened putty into it so that it has the right texture rather than being flat. Then after hardening obviously the whole thing gets Bulldog and SEM.

TBH, there are some cracks that I don't think I can do anything with so I may have my upholstery guy cover the whole thing in vinyl. We'll see how it turns out.

 

Electrician is coming tomorrow to discuss putting an extra couple of 240s in the garage that will accommodate both the new 60 gallon air compressor and badass heater so I can paint in any weather. In the interim we made due with a couple of space heaters and allowed longer flash times to do the topper. I think it came out really great! I used SEM 39143. I also did the windshield wiper arms while I was at it. I went light on sanding the fiberglass to retain the factory texture. That led to some imperfections on the top of the truck which I'm debating how to rectify, but as is you need a ladder to see it. I hate putting bedliner on a vehicle because it's such a permanent choice but it looks like these toppers really get beat up by the elements. A patch of rhino liner just on the top would be a permanent solution for the next owner.



Note the light texture is still there





Shot of my first batch of SEM Color Coat sprayed interior pieces. It was too chilly for the space heater in the garage to compensate so I was relegated to my office for these. I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture but once sprayed these pieces looks new. I'm amped to see how they look when they're back in the car and have a little bit of Aerospace 303 on them.

 

So close to done with 180 grit I can taste it. Still a couple of small rock chips though. I think my next session will be the last before blocking.

I think my HF air compressor is holding me back. Very excited for the new DeWalt 60 gallon to get set up. Currently, each rock chip takes about 15 minutes to sand down. If my air sander was spinning even 25% faster I feel like it would cut down on that time significantly.

 

been watching this thread, lots of work - cool project, keep it up

 

Well, dash repair could have gone better. I genuinely wasn't expecting much but the process I envisioned went comically awry.

General concept was to use epoxy putty to get the grain of the dash, sand down the edges then use 3M 05887 as filler and once it was in a workable state then press the putty into it. Patience is a virtue I've been working on. Not there yet. Putty was definitely not dry by the time the 3M was in a workable state and the whole thing was ... pretty silly, if you all will accept my pass at a pun.

Should look better once I hit it with SEM but I'm thinking dash cap FTW.