My 1985 Toyota Hilux Xtra Cab

The Project Begins PICTURES
Ever since I watched the Back to the Future series of movies I have always wanted a "pickup truck". So oneday I decided to make that dream become a reality and went hilux shopping. After only looking at 3 I decided on a 1985 Hilux Xtra Cab SR5 model which I picked up for $6000 in the tradingpost. It was in fairly good condition and had a rollbar which was a bonus. The car was covered in checkerplate bits and pieces and some dodgy interior items like broken seats and ricey red detailing on everything you could take off!

Under the bonnet lay the original 3Y 2.0L petrol donk and what a donk it is! It has to be the slowest car I have ever driven but with everything these aspects can be improved. There was a recently reconditioned gearbox and transfer case and the car had near new 31 inch tyres.

The Body PICTURES
I ran around in the hilux for a week and decided it had to be painted so first up off came the tray. This was fairly easy requiring only the help of my little brother to lift it off. The chassis and under the body was fairly dirty and had surface rust so I had it steam cleaned and then I did a final clean myself before spraying everything under the car with black rustproof eurobody paint. This immediately made the car look more respectable and will protect it against the elements for the next few years.

Next I had my mate pull all the windscreens and windows out and then I removed all panels so I was left with a shell. After fixing all cracks and paint imperfections I found that the right side had lots of bog and stuff in it so it had probably been in a rollover at some stage but It still seems ok. I didnt fix any dents as I didnt want any more bog on the car as it will probably crack off as the body twists when four wheeling. After all the boring prep work the car was masked up and ready for primer. Three coats of 2 pack Hi fill primer were applied and then sanded followed by 3 coats of Toyota Bishop Blue and then 2 coats of clear. The colour is from the 2000 model Rav4 and you may notice that it has a purple pearl in it too. After that was done all the parts of the car were painted too this took about 3 weeks all up from when I took the tray off to when it was back together again.

I never replaced the chrome side trims and wheel arch trims and welded up the existing holes from them. The only major rust was behind the black stone guard in front of the rear wheel and I welded in a new panel on one side. All the way along the seem of the tray was rust and this is common in this model. The way I removed it was to wire brush the existing rust and paint along the seem followed by rust converter and then I ran a bead of automotive flexible gap sealant which I smoothed over with my finger. This method looks awesome and is still holding up to this day.

Interior PICTURES
The seats that came with it were very ordinary so The first thing I did was went to a jap importer and bought some seats. I came accross some 1997 celica GT4 seats that had a small rip in them and were reduced to $195 for the pair, the drivers seat even had a heater! I snapped them up and they bolted straight in with just a bit of bending on the font and some spacers to hold the back a bit higher.





Contact Me for any information regarding this car.