Picked up a Toyota-based Uhaul box truck last year and have finally gotten around to working on it the last month.
I’ve mentioned it before in truck threads here, but figured I’d start posting some pics of what I’m doing to it.
It’s a 1989 Toyota 1 ton dually chassis with a V6 3.0L. Most of the one’s I’d seen have between 210K and 260K milage – this one has 158K miles on it. I bought it from Uhaul direct for $1450.00
It’s got a 7′ wide x 7′ high x 10’deep box with a 2′ front overhang on it. Very low loading height at the overhead door.
Here’s what I’ve done thus far:
– Complete new front brakes
– Re-packed front wheel bearings
– removed all front sheet metal, bought new doors, fenders, hood, bumper, grille and valence.
– Sanded, primed, painted and clearcoated all the wheels.
– Stripped entire interior out to assess rust damage.
-Cut out rusted out drvs. floorboard and welded in new floorboard patch.
– Pass floorboard area had some rust, a couple small holes, but overall good and intact.
– rust-treated and primed all known rusty areas.
– removed exhaust, welded new flange onto exhaust pipe
-Welded new flange reinforcement on catalytic convertor.
Here’s what still needs to be done:
– fiberglass patch and bondo on front drvs cab corner
– ” ” ” ” Rear ” ” “
-Seam seal all new replacement body panel pinch seams.
-spray rust proofing in inside of replacement doors and fenders.
– Load replacement doors with all existing door hardware, fasteners, seals and interior panels.
– install new stereo and speakers.
-Remove windsheild
-custom fit/tweak all new body panels to cab.
Plate rear bumper surfaces with alum. diamond plate.
Plate lower 7″ of box sides with alum diam plate
powder coat rear door locking hardware
Remove rusted box flush “rivets” with new hardware
Buff, shine up all alum box corners and channels
Paint entire front end a clean mid-gray color.
and probably a bit more…
Figure this’ll get 15-16mpg; my Dodge truck gets about 8-9mpg. That’ll save me about $2K a year on Gas. I’ll rack this out and sell my 5×10 enclosed trailer.
I’ll add more pics as I get stuff done – after screwing around most of my free time over the summer, now I’m fighting the weather to get this done before winter hits. Figure I maybe have another month to get it to the painters.
Next spring, I’ll wrap the box with a great looking full color wrap logo/remodeling pics.
Thanks,
JT
Edited 10/29/2009 9:08 pm ET by JulianTracy
Replies
Here's some more pics...
Here's the work to the exhaust I was doing today...I should add, I've owned my welded for about 9 years and had only used it a few times - never welded sheetmetal before this - I'm still learning...JT
Cool! Truck remodeling!!View Image my website
around these parts, some are buying up old rescue squad trucks. One guy even has one to pull his trailer holding his "race car". Just athought." Although I have the right to remain stupid, I try not to abuse that right"
this is coming from a bodyman,if you can do floors,with a wirefeed,you can patch anything on that truck.
floors are a pain in the backside.
what are you using for seam sealer? looks like it flowed in pretty good.the older i get ,
the more people tick me off
Wish I had know about welding spoons when I was doing it...Was in Harbor Freight and saw one and looked up what they were used for. Would've had come in handy when I had some burn-through holes.Also figured out I would have been better using a heavier guage for my patch. I used a section cut out from my old hood, probably 18 ga. With the ribs, it'll be strong enough, but I bet I'd have had an easier time welding it in had I used a 16ga patch. Welding different guage sheet metal is tricky cause by the time you get the weld to stick to the heavier ga, you're burning through the thinner one.Used the sheet metal screw trick though; that came in handy on the right side of my patch, where I was meeting the ribbed mid-section of the floor. Screwed it in tight, and then spot-welded around the perimeter and then removed the screws and filled in the holes with some weld.I used a 10z caulk-sized tube of pro auto seam sealer I got from my auto-body supply house. Went on good and smoothed out well. Seems to have almost self leveled a bit, but that might be cause I had it on there pretty thick. Today I went ahead and sprayed it with some spray rubber undercoating - figured that'd help to seal it up as well as keep the road noise down. Sealed up the underneath of the repair as well with seam sealer, primer and undercoating. Should last a few years anyways.Here's my next challenge: the drvs. front cab corner. was looking for a donor truck to cut the entire corner and body mount out of, but all of them at my local yard were as rusted as this one. So I've got it rust-treated in and out and now I'm thinking I'll just put a few layers of fiberglass and resin on it. Though I have a couple spare fenders that might just match the rounded profile and maybe I can weld a patch in....JT
Edited 10/30/2009 10:28 pm ET by JulianTracy
couple ways to fix that. 1st you might see if someone makes a patch panel for it. if they do it will fit,probably cost 20.
next is take your old hood cut you out a piece and just start hammering on it,maybe using a pc of pipe or something to bend it over a little. do you have a oxy/acetylene torch?if so you can tack up the upper edge and heat and form it as it goes down under the body.
next on the list is to use fiberglass matt and rebuild the corner. this isn't going to last as long as metal,but it will do pretty good.
last one,grab something,stick in the hole and fill with body filler. will last usually 4-12 months. not good for something your keeping.
i had a buddy that had a shop,he guaranteed his rust repair for as long as you owned the car. charged about 2.5 times what i would charge to fix with metal. but no way am i standing behind rust repair,for years.
i'm talking to him one day as he repairs a car,all he does is throw filler in the hole and finish it. his theory was if he had to do it 6-8 times he still got paid well,and most people trade off before then. what a deal.he had others scams also.lolthe older i get ,
the more people tick me off
welding spoons a large pice of copper tubing flatting, works great
Yea, actually, when I was welding the exhaust pipe together, I had some burn-through holes develop and used some 1/2 copper pipe to back them to help fill them in.Things you don't know when you teach yourself this stuff.Youtube and Google are your friends and teachers.This site and JLC helps too.JT
Yikes- lotsa rust.
I would try finding a donor body from the western part of the US before dumping a bunch of time into the one you have.
Otherwise, have fun. :)
Heckuva lot easier to fix what I have than to do a cab change-over.Plus - I'd have to take the box off and actually find and ship a new cab.I'd like this to last me 3-5 years if possible, not 10 years...JT
I saw the picture of the cab corner. That thing is shot- long term view.
No way you are going to make any kind of long term repair without cutting back to clean metal. Being a Toyota, all kidding aside, you may not find any clean metal.
The frame may be particular to that style of truck... but a cab and front clip in good shape may not be too difficult to find.
Less time, effort and money will be spent swapping over a good body than fixing what you have.
Then, if you rustproof everything as you assemble it, you *might* get a solid 10 years out of it in MI... well, the body. Don't know what shape the frame or things like brake and fuel lines are in.
Still think it's easier to fix it as is now, and if (or when) it get's worse in 2-3 years, I can find a donor cab and cut out the whole lower side panel with mounts and insert it in it's place.Don't need 10 years out of this, just a few.Frame is in good shape. It's got a lot of extra gusseting when compared to a regular truck frame.I have more time than money right now, and even though time = money, I still have more time than money...Rest of cab is pretty solid.JT
Was doing some testing on what to do for the aluminum box corner channels. They're in
good shape but very oxidized and have rust stains from the cap bolts.Cleaned up very well in my test areas - I used a 5" RO sander with 80 grit, 120, 180 and then 240 sandpaper.
Then used a foam pad with metal polish then cleaned all the black off,
then polished with some rubbing compound
then finished up with some buffing with a terry cloth pad.All done with the RO sander.With a little bit of effort, I'll be able to get every channel almost mirror-shine.I'll buy all new stainless bolts as well. Will be worth the work when it's done.Julian
one thing you need to know about the 3.0. toyota had a bad head gasket problem with that motor, it more likely the uhaul mechanic swap the gasket, they are good mechanic when it come to PM. they usually go out early less than 30k miles. Dont remember what year it was they had a problem, but it was a recall
Looks great! Nice job on floor pan.
Been working on this truck every chance I get... getting dark by 5 these days!
Fighting the cold weather - was a COLD fall, but we've had a good few weeks of pretty warm dry weather - was up in the 60's the last two weekends - a godsend.
Here's some pics showing the rear deck refurbish.
Had a spare bumper, but it's top plate of diamond plate steel was rusted out as well. it was stitch-welded to the bumper frame every 6-7". had to use the plasma cutter, grinder and a sledge hammer to remove the top steel surface - was close to just getting some steel channel and making a new frame, but I persevered, got the top plate off and got the frame tweaked to a good state.
Had some thin Alum diamond plate and used that for the new bumper deck. Thought maybe it would be too thin, but it's not too bad and as it turns out - in use, you only step on the edge, which is supported by the bumper frame, so no issues.
Pictures show the rest of the work involved, the amber oval lights will actually be clear backup lights, I didn't have room for two sets of ovals as I had planned.
Julian
Got all the body panels replaced and installed. Applied rustproofing spray to interior of both doors and the fenders.Here's what it looked like when I bought it and here's where it is now.Have a few slight dents on the cab roof, gonna install some cab roof amber lights to help hide it.Will be painting the entire cab a medium/dark shade of gray I think...JT
Have the entire interior put back together and have installed new stereo, new speakers and seat cover.Have put new drvs floorboard in (new panel welded in), applied 2 layers of fiberglass and cloth to the pass floorboard to seal and stiffen, and applied 2-3 layers on each side of some rust areas on each of the two rear cab corners.Here's the drvs front cab corner repair before and after. Cleaned, sanded, and applied Rust-Mort (rust convertor) inside and outside on the entire area and applied 5-6 layers of fiberglass resin and cloth to the damaged area.Used a large coarse thread Stainless screw with some SS trim washers to attach fender bottom to damaged/repaired lower cab corner.JT
Had to do some exhaust work as well. Had a doner exhaust with no flange, so I cut the flange off of my existing rusty exhaust and welded it onto the replacement pipe.Also had a damaged catalytic convertor flange and so I built it up with some weld and ground it down to make a decent surface for the donut gasket.JT
I intend to logo the sides with a full-color graphic in spring, but for now, I will replace every rusty bolt on the box sides and sand/polish/buff the aluminum top and side channels so the box will look pretty new looking.Here are some tests I did to see how well it'll clean up:JT
Looking good! One thing...I'll bet that vertical section of diamond plate on the rear will really annoy anyone following you too closely with their headlights on. :)
When you start replacing the rivets on the box be sure to drill out and replace them individually.
The skins are part of structural strength, and if you take out too many, things can shift, to the point you will have the devil of a time putting them back.
Getting close to being ready for the paint shop. Got the entire box sanded and polished, interior put back together, new stereo, seat covers; even built speaker boxes for some 6.5" speakers behind the seat.
Here's some overview pics of where I'm at at this point. Gonna run out of time - within a week, we'll have snow on the ground... (in SE mich area) Have been blessed with good weather most of November and late October after a most unusually cold and wet start of fall.
JT
julian
You do nice work.
Looks like you will have alot of room for tools. Now you can carry more stuff.
Mixed blessing. :)
Rich