Vintage Hilux 4x4 58028 restoration

[Nitomor]

Thanks for approving mods!

Hello everyone,

Having been following the listings of vintage Hilux 4x4 3 speeds and parts on ebay for about 2 years, after really getting to appreciate these metal three speeds following the build up of my Brusier Rere, I finally decided to venture into the vintage game and purchase a 35 year old RC. It's incredible how well designed and special these 3 speeds feel particularly for the era in which they were built, which happens to be my favourite decade anyway...the Magnificent 80's!!

After seeing a spate of these get snapped up on ebay and prices seemingly creeping north, I finally decided to buy this on ebay last week, very soon after it was listed. It was listed on Italian ebay and I stumbled on it by chance in the stupid early hours of the morning as my search hadn't picked it up when it was listed and I'd been scouring ebay for days before.

Needless to say it was a very tidy looking example. A few bits were immediately apparent. The transistor internals looked to be missing as did the third servo gubbins (I was planning to run an esc in the transistor box anyway), some link rods for the other 2 servos, the plate that runs between the tranny shift rod and the stabilising rod above it missing, motor wires cut, perished gearbox plugs and a small dink in the front bumper lower bar. None of this put me off it much neither did the lack of radio equipment or servos as I had my own plan in mind for that. The description said very little, basically that it was near to perfect condition, clear coated, no electrics and what you see is what you get.

I've been permanently excited about receiving this over the last few days with a touch of apprehension about whether it would actually be as good as the pics, whether it would arrive undamaged and in fact whether it would arrive at all!!

To keep my mind occupied, I cracked out some vintage wheels which I bought a long time ago (to experiment with something on the Bruiser) and decided to have a go at painting the Good Year logo's on. I did one wheel and the wife the other. Mine was on the left, hers looks better in the pic, mine looks a bit finer in the flesh

Another update soon!

Cheers

[Nitomor]

Well the big day was today, the box arrived about 10am but damaged on the outside so I thought to myself, here we go. Fortunately the seller put it into two boxes, unfortunately goodness knows how it was handled but it had travelled the best part of a thousand miles!

Here was the worst of the damage...

Followed by a broken hand and steering wheel falling off...

A chip in the bonnet where the bumper must have pushed back,

and then this one, a bit strange but I imagine it must have been a heck of a knock, the gearbox was pushed out of its mountings and separated from the rear propshaft...at first I thought it had been removed and just chucked in carelessly but the more I examined it the more it looked like it had just been shaken about a lot, probably not helped by the gbox rubber mountings being shot.

That's all the carnage of shipping done with. Time to move on to examining the truck itself. It's in good very good shape, a fair amount of TLC required here and there which I guess is expected for a 35 year old and of course I need to get it operational meaning an esc, two servos and receiver as a minimum, followed by some further hardware...

Some bits missing here;

And here;

Some cleanup to the gbox which will also need a strip down as the perished rubber grommets had been sealed in with silicone which had come away and fallen into the box...

Rear bumper also sporting damage, I've straightened this out quite a lot but I suspect I'll end up replacing...

Looking at the manual, this is installed incorrectly and it's bent, so I straightened it out and reinstalled but then the body didn't sit anything like as well so it would appear to have been installed this way for a reason, there are also some additional shims fitted to the cab mounting pin bracket to push it further forward. I ended up reinstalling as per the photo.

Motor boot has seen better days, but most of the rubber on this has perished badly, except the tyres...

And here she is, the bodywork is very nice with no damage to the shell, the decals appear to be repro and the whole thing has been clear coated. The rear bed rails are missing and there are some lacquer run marks but its a very respectable paint job by all accounts.

So that is the critical assessment out of the way, now I can get on with some tlc to hopefully get it back up to full glory.

Today I've ordered a new servo crank rod for the steering and some anodised metal bumper mounts to replace the broken plastic ones. I doubt I'll have much movement on this for a while because I need to recover a bit from the outlay before I can buy anymore!! I have a small shopping list building up and I'd like to get the bearing set in preparation for a gearbox rebuild. The gearbox itself looks nicely lubed inside and seems to operate nice and smoothly, I don't think I would have needed to open it up if it weren't for the sealant remnants from the siliconed up inspection plugs.

All said and done, I'm delighted with it despite the initial disappointment from the transit damage, I'm looking forward to getting started on it in earnest. Tonight I've messed about with it a bit, cleaned the electrical box up a bit, cut down a screw that had been catching the electrical box putting a groove in it, polisjed up the rear bumper, removed the front bull bar and gave it a polish, put some metal polish on the gearbox which now is all shiny and looks a little bling, don't know if that was a mistake or not lol but it is hard not to get carried away!!

All tucked up for bed!!

[Percymon]

Externally you have a great start point, I'd love to have had your mechanism box and the body sections but then that's the difference I suppose between what you and I paid. The gear shift rod on the transmission looks more like the one for the steering servo, or the transistor box link. There are plenty of alternative rods from other models that could be adapted to fit this application. www.victor101car.com still has some 58028/58029 metal parts at very reasonable prices.

I've seen build threads where people have managed to repair the plastic bumper uprights with epoxy, then sand then paint over to a 99% perfect result. Might be worth a try before searching for a new set.

Enjoy the restoration, my advice would be to take your time, plan 2-3 weeks to strip, clean and rebuild the chassis, and another 2 weeks to put the rest back together. Then the decision on what to do with the body, personally I'd keep it as is since on the photos its one of the better used examples I've seen.

[Nitomor]

Cheers Percymon,

I guess there's no escaping the expense, I think any way you cut it, if you pay less you have to source more of the rare parts, pay more you may not need as many. I paid a premium for the shell being as good a job as it was at the expense of quite a few silly parts missing, From a value point of view, the lack of radio gear, working transistor and not being a runner makes mine poor value to most. On the flip side, the electronics didn't really interest me anyway. It's amazing how much more you learn on buying one too. I was fortunate with the electrical box, I hadn't noticed the existence of the tabs or their importance until after I'd bought mine. I didn't notice mine was missing the dampers until after purchase and then on the manual download I realised these were option parts anyway so a bonus if you get them! I think yours had them?

I've so far bought for it;

- Pargus Alloy front bumper uprights

- Aluminium front bumper Bars (the two thick ones)

- Tranny tension rod (as you say that has the wrong rod on there. I'm hoping it's from the transmission servo to saver 45mm crank rod to save me buying one).

- Steering servo to saver 28mm crank rod

The rest will have to wait now because I'm broke!

[Percymon]

I didn't have the optional dampers on mine - I dare say I could put a set together from my SRB spares but with the slight lift they may be too short now. With my wheels back on I did give the suspension a little push n shove - i'm quite happy with the movement and tension of the leaf springs I've got on now. From an appearance point of view the shocks would make it look more realistic though

[Nitomor]

I'd like the shocks but without altering the leafs they'd be pointless from what I've seen so far, SRB rere ones would be my choice most probably.

[Nitomor]

I wanted to have a go at painting my own shell, it's not that easy finding parts for these always and they're not cheap. I decided to use the readily available Bruiser front cab and grille, which would also allow the use of the more realistic grille and side light arrangement. However this meant I had to find a vintage bulkhead and rear bed. Thankfully I managed to source these bits;

I have a plan for the rear bulkhead to save me tracking down the vintage rear screen and also to enable me to do this again if I need to, which meant using the damaged bulkhead I bought as a template and some 2mm thick high impact styrene and the Bruiser rear window which comes with the cabin windscreen.

I'll need to cut down the new template where the new window is going to go and make up some brackets likely rivetted to the bulkhead to take the 4 cab fixing points on the Bruiser front body, then fill all the remaining holes in and smooth the bulhead to the front cab maybunfortunately all the spot lights are pretty rotten, with broken plastic meaning they would never survive more than purely shelf duty, even with a bit of help to keep them upright so I think I'll need to look elsewhere. Both side spots were cracked in the same place.

Both side spots and the middle spot were also cracked at the rear...

The metal bar in the centre should be shrouded in plastic but this was so brittle it just crumbled away. I think I'll need to source the blackfoot bar which I believe is the same, the spots looks bigger on the Hilux I think, anyone know for definate?

I've spent quite a while trying to get more of the paint off, any tips for quick removal? Spent ages and the difference is barely perceptible!!

[Percymon]

The spotlights will repair with styrene solvent glue but you can't do much about future breaks due to age and brittleness.  The Blackfoot roll bar is the same, and pretty cheap (most sellers under £8 posted).  The Blackfoot spots are an alternative for running purposes, but the shape under the clamping screw is square rather than the rounded profile of the vintage Hilux items.

You may be able to reuse the existing bar though - some foam tape might give you enough padding to make up for the degraded  section.

 

Oven Pride Oven Cleaner (orange box) is the best I've found for paint removal on hard bodies, there's not many paints that wont work on over  afew days soaking in the provided seal bag.

[Nitomor]

Thanks Percymon, 

I was reading on the oven cleaner last night, a few days in a bag then? I think my Mrs has the paste or something. I'll have to have a root through the domestic cupboard!

I've used the plastiweld you recommended the other day on it. It would be fine for display but I don't think it would last long with running maybe. The seller has kindly agreed to take those back and refund me. 

I'm thinking use the money to get either the Blackfoot bar, or the Midnight pumpkin chrome bar. The Midnight Pumpkin spot lights actually look the same to me as the Hilux ones but in chrome. Does anyone know if they are the same size, I'm pretty sure the Blackfoot III ones are smaller but I'll double check those as I have a BFIII. I could either leave chrome or paint them black or have the rear black and bezel chrome.

Midnight Pumpkin,

Which looks different to BF...

 

 

[Percymon]

The Pumpkin lights utilise short (and smaller ?) screws to clamp the lights to the bar. I still have the roll bar and lights from my High Lift Hilux unused so I could have a look at those for you if you thought they might be another option ?

I've used a new Blackfoot roll bar and the black lights you posted above (in fact I have a spare set if you want them ? ) - I wasn't overly concerned about the different shape at the base, since its largely hidden once installed anyway.  I know Shodog went for a chrome bar and lights on his resto, he posted a couple of photos early on in my thread from recollection.

[Nitomor]

Thanks Percymon, 

The high lift is no good, they're all mounted on a shared bar, I have a set of those, thanks for the offer but I have those lights on my BFIII and they're smaller I'm sure, will double check though but I did a visual the other day and concluded they weren't similar enough. However it does appear that the Rere Monster Beetle spots look the same to me (which I guess would have featured on the original ORV Blackfoot/Super Blackfoot also);

[Nitomor]

Well, looks like that plastiweld worked a treat. Rather than risk posting these back to the seller only for them to get damaged in the post and me ending up without a refund or the spots, I've decided that the repair job has come out very well, it appears to be a tough repair. The blurb on the glue says repaired areas are as strong as the plastic around it and I don't really doubt that. So imstead I'll get these painted up and persevere with them.

I am kind of tempted with the chrome spots so that might remain on the agenda at a later stage.

Cheers

Nito

 

 

Ps. Also received some repro decals from the UK ebay, the quality is pretty grainy on some of the decals and the colour isn't great, so not all that impressed with them. I've an offer on some canadian ones at the moment, if the offer is accepted, I'll get them and do a comparison side by side to help others out hopefully.

 

 

[Nitomor]

These also arrived for the front bull bar

[/img] but the finish is totally different so they won't be going on.

[Percymon]

Disappointing result with the bars, will they be any better after some wet n dry to smooth them out / polish them up a little ?

 

Looks like a good shout on the MB spotlights 

[Nitomor]

The top bar is the new one. I tried polishing them up to no avail, they won't go mirror look like the original ones. I don't know why this aluminium is unpolishable for a shiny finish, perhaps it has too little content of the relevant ingredient because I've polished other aluminium up no problem!

These came off ebay from Japan, best to avoid.

In other news, the rear bed is in the orange oven pride bag since yesterday so hopefully that will be doing its stuff!

cheers

Nito

 

 

 

 

 

[Nitomor]

Ignore above post...once again Percymon you're correct and I'm immensely ignorant lol. Previously I've had aluminium come up shiny just using the metal polish. With this metal polish on its own did nothing, but using sandpaper as recommended above, it took some time but this is how it comes out when worked on. Might try with steel wool later.

 

 

Thanks Percymon for the tip.

[scoobybooster]

Awesome thread here I will need to copy quite some of the hints here, as i have a Hilux on the way,too. (Hope mine will arrive safer than yours, though.)  Very good job so far, Nitomor. Seems you can sort out all the shipping damage and bring this old girl to a perfect endresult

[Percymon]

2 hours ago, Nitomor said:

Ignore above post...once again Percymon you're correct and I'm immensely ignorant lol. Previously I've had aluminium come up shiny just using the metal polish. With this metal polish on its own did nothing, but using sandpaper as recommended above, it took some time but this is how it comes out when worked on. Might try with steel wool later.

 

 

Thanks Percymon for the tip.

I did wonder whether those bars had had some form of media blast finish, to dull them down to a comparable colour to the original items (or at least the colour most original items are these days) - they do appear to be coming along nicely now though

[Nitomor]

Good luck with it  Scoobybooster and welcome to the 3 speed club! I do hope you post up some pics/thread. Also check out Percymons thread too.

I think you're correct Percymon, looks like it has been blasted to get that effect. So were the vintage ones originally dull and people have polished them up, or were they originally polished up and become dull with age?! Hmm.

cheers

Nito

 

 

[Nitomor]

Spots look a bit happier with themselves now!

 

 

[Percymon]

On 4/29/2016 at 10:52 PM, Nitomor said:

Ps. Also received some repro decals from the UK ebay, the quality is pretty grainy on some of the decals and the colour isn't great, so not all that impressed with them. I've an offer on some canadian ones at the moment, if the offer is accepted, I'll get them and do a comparison side by side to help others out hopefully.

I can't comment on the UK items, but i do have the other ones - i'd say they are 90% useable in terms of print quality (have no originals to compare colour rendition though), although the dashboard and license plate decals are not the greatest (I think some of the finer detail has been lost in cleaning them up for print). I think they all have their quality issues, but then that's the compromise to buying the true article, there is a set listed yesterday on fleebay for just over £200 delivered .

[Nitomor]

Thanks, the UK ones the printed ones are too grainy for me, the stripes themselves are cut from coloured vinyl rather than printed onto clear, so while they might look ok, they are not together so would need to be masked over to retain the correct spacing etc. 

Cheers for the feedback, I have ordered them now.

[Dojo Dave]

Stick the bar lightly in a drill,, use varying grits and spin that sucker until it shines, then flip repeat and blend to desired shine, careful not to crimp the tube.  Thats how I polished the front bars on my Ranger Srb.  

[Nitomor]

Sounds like a good technique, thanks for that I'll give it a whirl!

[scoobybooster]

17 hours ago, Percymon said:

I can't comment on the UK items, but i do have the other ones - i'd say they are 90% useable in terms of print quality (have no originals to compare colour rendition though), although the dashboard and license plate decals are not the greatest (I think some of the finer detail has been lost in cleaning them up for print). I think they all have their quality issues, but then that's the compromise to buying the true article, there is a set listed yesterday on fleebay for just over £200 delivered .

If we're talking about the same canadian ones, i have them also here. Not so sure about the quality though. I have ordered other decals from there (non Tamiya's) which were much more convincing- a little dissapointed on the hilux ones. They're ok, but obviously lacking some printing quality. Especially the decal with the little hilux car is not convincing at all.