Thread: The Resurection*86 Yota -vs- Richer Racing!!!

Here is some new meat for you guys to chew on. Have fun. There is a loooong story behind my truck. Its going to take several posts. Ill make it as short as possible. It has been a 7 year rebuild for me. It's required a lot of patience and $. It Started at one shop back in 2001 for waaaay too long and now its at Richer Racing getting redone and its gonna be insane! Okay, Grew up volunteering with Toyotas Factory Team at PPI supporting Ivan Stewart since I was 13 or so. Did this through college. I remember Falzone from Giant came around every once in a while to volunteer. He was just getting going with his black ranger back then. I dont think GIANT existed yet but his truck was nice. He ran "family" snowboards out of an apartment next to Taco Loco in Laguna I think. He was always a nice guy. Anyway, I Obviously fell in love with the industry. Bought my truck in college back in 96-97 for $4500. It was supposively an old short course truck. Drove the hell out of it for 3 years and then totalled it in Glamis. Stored the truck for about a year and a half in a storage unit until I came up with some cash to start over. Brought it to Glenn at G&R Fabrication in Chula Vista. Thought I could just cut the frame at the firewall and weld on a new front clip. Frame was bent all the way back through the truck. Sooo I had to start over with a new frame. This meant that all the old cage work had to be redone. Only saved the cab, 22R and Tranny. If I remember correctly I got a new 86 long bed extended cab frame instead of the standard cab short bed for the rebuild. To be continued... Gonna add some pics. I know you guys dont want to read a novel.



check out the bright ass bleached brain. That was me when THAT was cool. ??


The beginning



My avatar is the truck 1/2 through the rebuild. More to come

Here are some pics from when I had it at G&R from 2001-2003.



They designed a center mounted J-Arm. around the 22R. moved the engine back 11" and down like 2".







The truck ended up cycling like 26" up front. Great, but it Did not have much of a turning radius and ended up with 5 universal joints in the steering column. scary.

Here are some shots of the new bed cage and rear of the truck from G&R. They did a great job with the bed cage except for how they set up the rear shock mounts. I have to reverse the bi-pass and coilover. It will still work once the shocks are dialed.

After 2-3 years at Glenns shop it was time to pull it out of there for several reasons. Made some headway though. Here what it was like when I picked it up in '03.






RUST BUCKET!!

Once I got it home, It took like 3-4 months to get the rust off of all the chromolly. Even with hired help. Never want to deal with that again so I decided to trade my kegorator for a paint job!

Prepping for paint!




PAINTED!

Haha. Thats awesome Dave, at first glance I thought you were the Ironman in the first pic. That's cool you've been documenting the truck over there years, now for the better pics

Now Money got tight for a few years. I was happy though with where the truck was at. I figured I could finish putting it back together piece by piece. BUT after like 2 years and not making much progress and a new kid on the way. I realized I didnt have the time to finish the truck anytime soon. SO I did some homework on DR to find a turnkey shop with a great rep. Richer Racing has been nothing less than awesome with their customer service, pricing, and its a lot of fun working with the guys down there. Last year I dropped the truck off to have them put everything back together and wire, plumb, and get it race ready by last January. HA! You all know how the never ending project works. Actually, a lot of the stuff from G&R got ripped out and redone. The whole front end basically. Incomplete welds, some weaknesses in the design, and I upgraded the motor. Pics to come.

Loaded up to go to Jonny's


Ready to start tearing things out and redoing shit

With all the time and money Ive already put into this truck over the last 7 years I realized that going through all this and ending up with a 22R wasnt going to be enough. So I asked Jonny to stop what he was doing until I could get an LS1 to drop in the truck. With this came a whole new list of changes. But soooooooo worth it. Some of my pics are on my computer at work, but Ill post some of the progress pics for now.

Waiting for the LS1, but got a new light bar.


Corey & Buck designing the Aluminum Jack mount.


Rear of the truck painted


Measuring for the tool rack and cooler mount


New Rack and Mount


Tail light mounts


Old Dash configuration


New Powder Coated Ammo Can 1 of 2

Cool story man. I thought you sold that front end?

Thanks! Yes, I sold most of the parts off the old front end. But included new lowers with it. There were no problems with welds on the arms or any of the geometry. But, I wasnt able to have a bi-pass up front on the old design and I just wasnt 100% happy with the turning radius for counter steering. The way the spindle was originally designed, the lowers would bind up where they bolted to the spindle. I had new lowers made and Jonny designed them to help increase turning radius. But Once Jonny started fabbing the new lowers, I got excited and then suddenly I was making new spindles with larger snouts, and then new uppers, and so on and so on. Now a year later we have designed a completely new front end. You know how it goes. But its going to work so much better, be a lot stronger and look a lot better then the old J-Arm.

Picked up a used LS1 with 28000 miles on it. Still havent started it, but its "guaranteed" to run. Ya, we'll see. Im going to have turnkey go through it before the truck is completed, but want to spend my money paying jonny first.


LS1 arrives



"Senior Juan Richer" cutting out the floor and firewall to make room.



Like a well lubricated glove!

New tranny mount



Now that the LS was in place designing the new suspension started.









Started the new center console w/shifter

Jonny may be able to snap some cleaner shots of the new suspension. The last 4+ pics were taken on my cell phone. Not the best image quality.

Original door support design


New additions

Im really happy with the way this turned out. Much stronger and still easy to get in and out of.

New upper design


"The package"

Nice truck, looks good. I bet you can't wait too use it haha.

looks bitchen man. i always seen your avatar and had been interested in your build for a while.

very nice! can't wait to see it in action!

Like many of you who are in the middle of a build. I cannot waaaaaait until this is finished. Watching all the off-road videos over the years and pitting for friends in Mex, Barstow and Lucerne has been fun, but a tease. Kinda like watching a porno in prison. well maybe not like that. Anyway, I havent driven my truck in 8 years. Im going to have to learn how to drive the truck all over again. Im very excited with where the truck is now because I am so close and Jonnys work is so clean. This site has been awesome too. The veterans on the site have really been helpful. If I could only find that damn money tree.

money does grow on trees... marijuana!

i like how they incorporated both chevy and toyota logos into the tranny cross- member.......chevy and toyota........becomes one.

Very cool story, and i thought i had it bad having my truck down for about 4 months now. I cant imagine going 8 years w/o getting behind the wheel.

leave the ls1 stock.....trust me will work out better!!!!!!

Originally Posted by GFORacing1404DJF

leave the ls1 stock.....trust me will work out better!!!!!!

I dont plan to do any mods to the LS1. Just make sure everything runs well. I have to buy some missing parts and replace serpentine system and pulleys. It was used and Im not sure if it was in a roll over or not. The company I bought it from didnt have many details. just that it is guaranteed to run and only had 28,000 miles. But What have been your issues. Thanks for the advice!

god damn, i was wondering who's truck this was. I was just at Johnny's today checking it out. Lookin bitchin. God its been there forever

wow I'm in love with your truck!! Keep up the great work

Originally Posted by XJRunner

wow I'm in love with your truck!! Keep up the great work

Thanks alot!

nice very nice, i wish my truck was half as nice as yours. keep the pics comming.

Nice project!! should turn out awesome

Is that the same Yota that used to sit out in front of Fabtech when they were off of Palm & Imperial?

Originally Posted by jp55

Is that the same Yota that used to sit out in front of Fabtech when they were off of Palm & Imperial?

NOPE. Never was there.

I just found 2 pictures of your truck sitting in front of Fabtech from a little over 10 years ago,I'll scan them & post them as soon as I can.

Here's the pics I found:

Truck is looking good, like the documentary too.

Originally Posted by jp55

Here's the pics I found:

WOW! Thats really cool. That must have been with the previous owner before I picked it up. The guy lived in yorba linda. Crazy that you have those pics or even remembered that.

I have a sickness or geniousness (depending on how you look at it) for remembering random shit like that.

Originally Posted by warptonez

Like many of you who are in the middle of a build. I cannot waaaaaait until this is finished. Watching all the off-road videos over the years and pitting for friends in Mex, Barstow and Lucerne has been fun, but a tease. Kinda like watching a porno in prison. well maybe not like that. Anyway, I havent driven my truck in 8 years. Im going to have to learn how to drive the truck all over again. Im very excited with where the truck is now because I am so close and Jonnys work is so clean. This site has been awesome too. The veterans on the site have really been helpful. If I could only find that damn money tree.

Looks really good man. I can totally relate to how working in the industry and being teased can drive you insane. I have been pretty much obsessed with having a desert truck of my own since the late 90's when i was in high school. I worked as a fabricator for four years while pitting for the major races, all the while with a stock truck. Time and money is what it comes down to......

I remeber checking that thing out at G&R a long while back

I went down to the shop this week and took a few pics on my phone of the frontend. pic quality isnt the best but here ya go. Turned out pirtyeffinamazing!

Looking good!