Post by Sponge Bob Square Fenders on Jan 19, 2005 13:04:14 GMT -5
The most recent phase of the 1989 4Runner customization began two winters ago when I realized I was losing the battle with the rust monster. I foolishly believed that I could keep the slight rust that was on the truck when I bought it under control with religious washing and waxing. Fat chance
! One of the rear quarter panels was all the way through, the lower trim of the rear windows was almost all gone, and both front fenders were about to start flaking.I found a body shop nearby with a good rep, and started the rebuilding process in October of 2002. The first order of business was the body work, and we decided on replacement front fenders from Toyota. If you ever consider replacing the front fenders, I strongly suggest paying the extra to get the factory version, not the knock-offs you see advertised all over. The fit is guaranteed. For the rear quarter panels, we turned to what was left of the '86 "Black Beauty" stored down in the barn. Over a weekend, my father-in-law and I took a saws-all to it and cut everything from the B-pillar back to the tailgate and delivered two pristine rear quarter panels to the body shop. They did an outstanding job of mating the pieces, and finished up the rest of the body work in a couple of weeks. We also used the sliding rear windows, frames, and trim from the '86 to replace the very rusted ones on the '89. Let me tell you, if you have never tried to remove those windows, DON'T! That was one of the biggest pains of the whole process. It would have been easier for me to just swap tops and repaint/reupholster the tan interior from the '86 top to match the grey interior of the '89. Go figure
It was then time to think about paint, and I was really torn between going back to the stock black, or coming up with a unique color. The wife pushed for "back to black", but she didn't have to wash and wax the beast, either! Of note, Zymol is the only wax I will ever use on a decent paint job. Their "Japon" is specifically made for Japanese painted vehicles, and made the black as deep as I have ever seen it. Don't pay the steep price for Zymol if you have fading or other blemishes - Mother's is much cheaper and will cover up just as well. As usual, I didn't go with the "friendly" advice from the better half, and decided to go a different color route. But which one? I have always been a fan of bright colored cars, and I figured yellow would be about the brightest and most unique color I could find for the 4Runner. I looked at a bunch of paint chips, including the stock Toyota yellow (too pale), and some others that were way too orange in tint for me. I finally found the right one in the Ford chip book - Zinc Yellow. I had seen it on a Mustang GT around here, and the link to the Ford family I lived in wasn't lost on me, either. Steve, my body and paint guy, suggested a little twist to the paint that would add just a little more flash. Something called "prismtique" that would be added to the clearcoat to put a little sparkle in the truck. We decided to add it to both the yellow and the gloss black that the top was going to be painted.
I also decided on a fairly simple graphic I drew up one day. It would be a stripe running from the bottom back of the front fender, across the door and widening out until it reached the back of the top, rear of the back window. I angled the stripe to take advantage of the natural forward slant of the very back of the top, and decided to paint it the same gloss black as the top. (I considered a bright blue to offset the yellow, but my drawings looked too much like a can of WD-40!). My wife said I was stuck in the 70s with this "Starsky and Hutch" type of stripe, but I was determined to push forward.
Over the next couple of months, Steve did a meticulous job on the body work and paint - doors, fenders, hood, tailgate, and top were all off and painted individually. The stripe was made to wrap up and over the body so that it looked nice when the top was off. The rollbar was painted to match the exterior, and the rear license plate light cover had the "TOYOTA" handpainted in the same yellow with the rest of the housing in gloss black. The rock shields, rearmost quarter panel plastic pieces, side mirrors, and front and rear wiper arms were also repainted gloss black.
It was finally done in late January 2003, and I was completely amazed at how it turned out. The paint looked awesome on the 4Runner's lines, the stripe fit in well, and the prismtique really made it flash in the sun with various blue, green, and red sparkles. I couldn't have asked for it to turn out any better!
It was very much a "show truck" now, and that year I won two best-of-class trophies at 4X4 shows in the state. In fact, the transformation of the truck has completely changed my perception of it. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that it is now very much a semi-fair weather driver, and will never see salted winter roads again. I avoid rainy days, only because of the time it takes to detail it again after all the road spray. On the other hand, I'm now free to concentrate on the creation of the next generation 4Runner racer by mating the best parts of the wrecked '86 and the dead '88. The main type of 4X4 racing the club does is not street stock, anyway (and I want to play too!)
Since the paint and body work has been completed on the truck I now call "Sponge Bob Square Fenders", I've done relatively few changes. The original 15X8 ARE Outlaw Is are over on the Tundra, and have been replaced with 15X10 ARE Outlaw IIs and 32X11.50R15 BFG All-Terrains. That slight increase in tire size made me realize that the 5.29 gears still sitting in the axles of "Black Beauty" would need to come over to this truck. One of many projects still to come... I also took off the Ranchos and sanded and repainted them white and changed the original red shock boots to blue ones - looks better with the yellow. I also repained the rear drums and front hubs with a matching blue. Finally, I ditched the stock exhaust and original cat when I failed emissions last year, and got a new high-flow cat and custom Raven cat-back system. It sounds as good as it looks now
I also put on a bug deflector on the hood, and ordered some NWOR fender flares as I was finding out that the bigger meats really flung the road junk up on to the paint, and yellow shows the tar much worse than the old black did! At the same time, I ordered a 4WPW Explorer ProComp 4" lift, with replacement leaf springs instead of the blocks, and an extra set of shocks to finally do the dual rear setup like I had on the '86.
Unfortunately, all my 4X4 build-up plans came to a screeching halt last Spring when my other Toyota "baby" - a 1992 Supra Turbo - was rearended by a semi (low speed, thank God!). I've been working on its restoration since, so the fender flares are still in the box, the lift is stored in a corner of the garage, and the axles of the '86 still haven't been swapped.... and the project '88 still stands guard out at the barn. I even missed most of the races this past year!
The Supra is at the mechanic (my "crew chief", of course) as I write this, after all of the body work and paint were completed recently. No change in color this time, though. I went back to the stock Super Red, but had everything taken off again like they did to the 4Runner. I pulled the engine before the body shop got ahold of it, and it has been undergoing a rebuild and modification since. With the engine out, the engine compartment was also redone - a real nice touch. For the first time in several months, the engine and body are in the same building, and will soon be mated up together again with several intake and exhaust mods added. This has been an excruciatingly slow rebuild process, but it will be done soon, thank goodness, and I can go back to other matters...
What makes the wait worthwhile is that we ran out of room for all the projects, so a 36X45 Morton building is going up next to the garage to hold the SeaDoos and all of our projects. If the building gets done in time, I hope to have something put together to race this season. The tough part is having the 4-point roll cage custom built for the truck's dimentions. I'll have to finish cutting mangled metal away from the front of the '86 to see if the 22RE is worth using, or whether a rebuild of the '88's very bad 3.0 is necessary. Hey, how about taking the very good 3.0 from Sponge Bob over to the racer and replacing it with a Mustang 5.0? I know NWOR has the the kits for the swap, and it will certainly score points with my Ford crazy in-laws!
If you've made it all the way to the end of my Toyota 4X4 story, you should either be congratulated or committed ;D. Feel free to contact me if you want to shoot the bull about Toys, and watch the various boards for announcements of upcoming events. I'm still going to run Sponge Bob at flat drags around the area, and welcome any competition.
Finally, I'll put this out again.... If anyone knows the whereabouts of my original 1979 HiLux 4WD shortbed - junked or not - please let me know. When I last saw it, it was silver over black, slight add-a-leaf lift. I may have more money than sense for wanting it back to restore, but "it's a Toyota thing - you might not understand"!
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. He said he used to jump the thing, and all kinds of drinking 4bying stories. He eventually sold it when I was about 3, and if I remember right (hey, you never know), it was red, and I think he said he had 31's on it. Good luck finding your original...
