Spuds' 81 pickup

[spuds015]

Just sold my 98 Tacoma and bought a 1981 Pickup Longbed. plain as a truck can get and i love it. all stock, 106k miles on the original motor, pretty much one onwner, even still had the owners manual, sale agreement and paper license plates from the dealer. 22r, L50 trans with 10kmiles on it, new clutch, new fuel pump. does need a front crank seal and tires.

Building stuff starts here http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?topic=83541.0

so the plan is:
35-12.5-15's
5.29's
Welded rear DONE
ARB front
V6 rear axle
IFS hubs w/ FROR Tacoma brake adapters
duals HAVE 2ND CASE
f-150's DONE
RUF's IN PROGRESS
Hysteer IN PROGRESS
Power Steering DONE
Front Bumper
Sliders DONE
Rear Bumper DONE
GM 1 Wire - DONE
probly more to be determined



My old tacoma, 237k miles, OME 881's with 1/2" top plate, and re arched +2" leafs and rough country shocks.
Cant see all the scratches as well in the shade


The 81



The interior is fantastic for a 30 year old truck, the seat slumps to the middle so i will be installing some kind of buckets. Hopefully Neon SRT-4 seats


So comments and tips are welcome. Thanks for lookin.

[Zs Confederate Toy]

Sweet truck and good find. Ill be watchin this one

[Yota87Truck]

SUBSCRIBED!

[spuds015]

idk if i payed to much $3000 sounded good to me and this will take a while to get parts

[4x4yota]

great find... please dont trash it just restore it... if you want a wheeler Ill trade you my bult 81

[spuds015]

great find... please dont trash it just restore it... if you want a wheeler Ill trade you my bult 81

like i said not gonna be a cumpled can with MT's

first mod, took off huge step bumper off
second, chopped front fenders and took valace fache' thingy off


31's on the way then alignment

[spuds015]

effing lame. failed smog today as a gross polluter. shop says carb needs work and they dont touch carbs anymore. looking into a rebuild

[Zs Confederate Toy]

I did a rebuild on my 22r carb and it wasnt too hard. It only took a few hours of scrubbing and re-assebly

[spuds015]

so  rechecked the shops work. spark plugs are missing part of the center electrode on all 4 cylinders... im pretty sure my cat is working and compression is 170psi across the board. i think all i need is a tune up but ill borrow my buddys cat to be sure the next time i test it his passed on the 27th. got my dunlop nud rover 31's as well today will be on tomorow

[spuds015]

went over truck with boss who is ex auto smog mechanic (i do motorcycles). cat is bad, engine is overcooling at 15-156* so will need a thermostat and a cat and recheck. i got my 31" dunlop mudrovers on truck looks pretty lifted without a lift haha. looking to try and find some 4.10's or 4.56's would like to trade diffs if someone is already regearing theirs. will get pics today. Also going camping wheeling this weekend so there will be pics of that. it will be mine my buddies 81 shortbed and his friends monster truck, older chevy with bigblock v8 and 40's

[spuds015]

Went to Bear Reservoir and hit Pardoe Trail. First trip with this truck and i must say I am SOO happy i sold my tacoma for it. i have dunslop mudrovers now and i think they worked great but they are my first set of MT's ever. The truck started every time even on top of the mountain and just kept asking for more even when i picked crappy lines to see what happens. Now for pics

Some poser shots



Upper Rock Garden



My buddies 81 shortbed



This is where we couldn't go any farther





And on the way back I got impatient and did this by accident lol kinda shocked me a little bit

[thetasmaniandevil]

Thats really neat! I'm constantly surprised by what mine can do stock, especially when I go wheeling with guys in late model IFS stuff, or big, heavy rigs like Nissan Patrols. It walks over stuff IFS trucks can't and floats things the 2000lb+ heavier cars really have to dig deep to get through.

[spuds015]

small update. replaced tstat, front crank seal, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, gas cap and cat. retested and still failed as gross polluter. so back to the drawing board. at least the seller is paying for this. oh also found i had no back brakes bled the master cylinder and cracked the bleeder loose 4 times to get any fluid to come out 

[fordh8r]

What kinda numbers are you seeing? Is there something that isn't working? EGR, Air injection, timing correct? 

[santa cruz crawler]

I thought seller has to smog!!

[fordh8r]

I thought seller has to smog!!

I suppose as long as the seller is paying for the smog it shouldn't really matter who is physically there to get it done. It might be faster this way if the seller can't make the time to do this.

[spuds015]

seller is paying for parts, im doing labor to be nice since he is a family friend and i dont mind it. only failing numbers is idle: 363hc max is 250 @850 rpm max is 1000rpm and 2.67%CO at 2500rpm max is 2.0%. i completely forgot to replace the air filter so i did that today, and tuesday i will turn the idle up a bit to see if i can drop the hc's. any other ideas? all i can think of now is carb rebuild and O2 sensor, my job is motorcycles so all these numbers are all greek to me, except i know what hydrocarbons are lol

[patches]

You shouldn't have o2 sensors if I'm not mistaken

[spuds015]

i do, unless the little probe sticking out of my exhaust manifold is something else? i will triple check though

[fordh8r]

It is an 02 sensor. It just tells the computer to modulate the air diverter valve so that it will modulate air being injected to the exhaust manifold. That's all it does since the carb doesn't do any adjustments other than manual screw adjustments. If the o2 isn't working the air injection may run all the time and causse your NOX to read high and fail. But if your o2 sensor is good then be sure that the electric diverter valve is good and working too.

[spuds015]

It is an 02 sensor. It just tells the computer to modulate the air diverter valve so that it will modulate air being injected to the exhaust manifold. That's all it does since the carb doesn't do any adjustments other than manual screw adjustments. If the o2 isn't working the air injection may run all the time and causse your NOX to read high and fail. But if your o2 sensor is good then be sure that the electric diverter valve is good and working too.

thank god u could explain this. everyone one else always said generally on cars/trucks with these they have some electronic metering in the carb. but with the numers im getting i do not think its bad. and i dont even see a NOx measurement on my test sheet

[fordh8r]

I took me a long time to figure out WTF that o2 did when in knew/know for fact that the carbs on these engines are not Feedback type electronic carbs.

[patches]

Thank you for the explanation I'll remember that one for next time

[spuds015]

about the f150's, would it be better to run the long or short side foward since im running 33's? im pretty sure i might have to rotate the perches for the pinion angle if i run the long side foward or would i have to decide on draging the front hangers or shackles? also do i need to remove any of the overload leafs from the ruf pack before i add the extra leaves?

[spuds015]

small update. got my bucket seats in. I have no idea what they came out of but the were $40 and are WAY better than the bench. Also found my exhaust manifold is cracked. Anyone got a good one laying around???

[spuds015]

got some 4.56's today. exhaust manifold to be delivered tomorrow. gotta love the 30yr old parts that have never been replaced

[874runnertoys]

Sweet clean rig
should be fun removing 30 year parts

[spuds015]

yeap it sucked getting the manifold off. turns out it was a missing exhaust stud on #4 cylinder and no gaskets on the heat sheild so merry xmas to my buddy who needs the manifold. got new gaskets and stud and now its so nice and quiet haha. taking it to a shop to diag hopefully for the last time and get a passing test. thank god i only have to do this once, gotta love amador couty smog

[spuds015]

ditching the f150 leak spring idea. seems like everything i found on them is 35's minimum and i only want 33's. I'm still going to do a Ruf pack to keep the stock hanger but will use trail gear 3" leafs instead.

[4x4yota]

fyi trail gear rear leafs end up totaling 4.5-5" of lift when installed.

most aftermarket options will net 1.5-2" higher than the spring size due to relocating the hangers and using loner shackles

a way to go would be to french the hangers to lower the height and run a shorter shackle

here is my 81 with 2" of lift and 33s and you can see it doesnt sit very tall so going with a 4"total lift wouldnt hurt but I do agree lower is better