1970 toyota hilux - yay or nay?

Edited: 3/19/2008 10:06:09 PM by standardbyker88

pretty straight up front

i put the doors in the cab, they were in the bed under all that shit

bed is about the same on the other side. junkyard in the bed not included.

looks good.

8R. nothing on the firewall. no radiator. water pump needs parts. assembly needed. yada.

bad front suspension shot

motor mount. looks similar to a 22r? or 7m?

looks really good inside though.

here too

dash and extra gate.

this, i totally dont understand. it was on the inside of the fender, on both sides. its fiberglass. not sure on the point of that. feels nice and smooth on the metal. no rot or bad mud jobs. this is from a family of body guys so im not worried about it being done shitty underneath. its on both sides. i just worked it loose and pulled it out. steel fenders. any clue? haha.

those were probably put in there to stop road debris/dirt/etc from getting into the door jamb

the holes in the B Pillars are the cab vents, they were small to start with up to 75 I think, the ones on my 77 were twice as big. the marker lights are on the sides of the bed and the fenders. I agree with Trevor^^^ mine had plastic liners but that would be my guess.

yay they are hard to find around here and i like oddball trucks

nice truck lots of potential. you can narrow a 84-93 front clip to fit. those motors are not good at all. get a 20r or a 22r. i would keep the truck. the door glass is flat so make a template and you can eliminate the vent windows in the process. i would ride the shit out of the truck. i have always wanted one but they are VERY hard to find especially on the wast coast.

cookie

I would imagine that a 20R or 22R would bolt in using the stock motor mounts from the newer truck. It looks very similar.

You were talking about building this to be your daily? Here's my 2 cents, since I daily drove my 70 Datsun 521 for a few years:
If you are used to the comfort and roominess of a 89-95 Toyota (which is already small!), this will feel a bit cramped. Not a deal breaker, but on long trips you can't even stretch your leg out straight...
The heaters (specifically the defroster) always suck on older cars, too, and of course AC probably isn't a viable option.

With that said, I would STILL ditch your newer Toy for this thing!! There's only a handful of them out there- even less than Datsun trucks these days- and you'll definitely get noticed in a customized 70 Yota!
ABSOLUTELY put a more modern drivetrain in there- a warmed-over 20R would feel great in there, or if you can swing it, a 22RE would feel like a rocket! I'm personally putting a complete mid-90s 240sx drivetrain in the Datto so I can start it right up in the morning and drive it anywhere I want with no worries...

Good luck with your build- be sure to keep us posted! I hope you stick with it!

Oh, and don't sweat the 4 wheel drums- if you rebuild them properly you'll actually be pretty happy with them.
Unless you do the 22RE, in which case you'll want to look into upgrades to be safe!

i actually thought about putting the body of that onto my 92. i know its a bit wider though. leave my drivetrain in it. its already lowered. just BD it til it sits even with my frame. but then im in a big project and lose my daily for a while.

i could probably even swap my heater and stuff into the other one. but i dunno. it is possible to graft the two trucks into one. i need a body, but have a drivetrain. the other has a crapish drivetrain but a body. he said the door glass is around somewhere. i dunno. id shave the side markers for sure though. and the cab vents. leave the handles. im still up in the air on this one.

Looks to be the same front suspension as my 74 HILUX in the pics which means you will be able to get some rebuild pieces for it still. The 4 wheel drums actually stop the little trucks quite nicely as Phil stated. The problem is finding the drums now, I have found lots of listings for them but I can't find anyone who actually has stock of them. If anyone in SSM land could help me out on that I would apreciate it.

The late 74 -78 trucks had disc brakes you could swap onto your spindles. 74 was the switchover year for some stuff on the HILUX if you're looking for parts. The late 74 trucks had a 20r and disc brakes where mine is an early 74 and it had an 18r and 4 wheel drums. My 74 has a bastardized 22r swap in it thanks to the previous owner but it gets the job done for now.

The bigest hickup you will find in swaping a 20/22r into the earlier truck is the oilpan. The HILUX has the steering linkage behind the front crossmember which causes a problem with the rear sump pans that most of the r series motors came with. The HILUXpan is a discontinued item form toyota as well. If you can find one at the wreckers be sure to grab it. The other option which is what I choose is to get a 82-85 toyota celica oil pan and pickup. It is a front sump pan as well because those celicas had a rear mounted rack and pinion steering setup. I got mine thru LC engineering as they had it in stock.I would have had to pay upfront and wait for overseas shipping via boat if I had ordered it thru toyota.

A later model 5 gear trans with a mechanical speedo will hookup to the earlier trucks speedometer cable which is a plus. My truck has had the crossmember modded(poorly, I might add) by the previous owner to accept the later model trans. I'm not sure if you could use the crossmember setup from a 20r HILUX or not as I can't find a truck like that to look at around here. I would imagine that you probably could, I'm not sure what the differances are between the 4 and 5 speed transmissions are physicaly.

The earlier trucks use a bellcrank throttle linkage whick is junk in my opinion. If you switch to a later model motor with a carb you can use a cable and pedal assy from an 84-88 truck with a little fabrication. LC still lists a header for the HILUX with a 20r and you can get all kinds of go fast goodies for those motors as well. I'm not sure how tough the rear axles are in these trucks. I'm gonna have to look into that one I guess. I was thinking a narrowed later model axle might be a good choice because you can get a locker for it and it would keep the bolt pattern as well.

It would be a bitch to lay the front of one of these things out with the stock crossmember, thats for sure. They need about a 1.5" z to get the front crossmember even with the bottom of the frame rails which is not really an issue. The real trouble is that the steering column is attached directly to the steering box. This means modifying the column with u joints and extra steering shaft to get it all hooked back up after. I found some exploded diagrams of the coloum and it looks possible, I'm just haven't done it myself yet tho.

They are simply wired little trucks with very spartan interiors from the factory. The little heater box in my 74 makes good heat and takes up little space as well. Mine has CRX buckets swapped into it from the previous owner, they seem to fit in pretty easy. There is still a steering wheel adapter listed through Grant if you want to swap out the stock school bus wheel. You can use the gaskets from a VW bus to seal in the windshield and backlite if your original gaskets are trashed.

Yours looks pretty good in the pics, for the money I say do it. Just poke away at it in your spare time and don't worry about making a daily out of it and you will be fine. I enjoy working on mine alot, its a real challenge finding out info on it but I kinda like it. Hope that you got some info out of my little novel anyways, hit me back if you need anymore questions and I'll see if I can help. Keep your eyes open for parts for me when you're roaming the wreckers as well, it would be apreciated.