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Hilux 58028 Restoration 2021

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I did remake the rear bumpers some years ago in solid alu - not doing them any more though

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6 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

I did remake the rear bumpers some years ago in solid alu - not doing them any more though

hilux new bumper close up rear shot.jpg

Very nice mate, looks great

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I like your work with the original Toyota there! Great to come see gorgeous vehicles like these in here and all the love you put into your work. A pleasure indeed Thumbsup

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Hey thanks Mongoose. Its not hard to get lost on this car what with all the detail. I am just doing the axles and hubs, again they are in great condition just need a whole lot of care to bring back to how they where. When I opened the rear axel, inside it was just so shiny, reminded me of a sea shell, dark and matt on the outside and gorgeous and shiny inside. Anyway lots of detail to uncover and lost of nooks and crevices to clean up.

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In other news, these arrived today. I did not want to make a decision on what I would do with the body until I saw them. Currently the body is in a nice condition and has a few decals in place. I don’t know if the decals on the body are original or not so was waiting for these substitutes to arrive before deciding if I would re-do the body or not.

To me these look great so I will be re painting the body once I have finished the chassis.

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Back to cleaning the axles…

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Has anyone ever figured out why these came with Direct Connection decals? Did the 1:1 Toyota race trucks run Mopar engines?

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15 hours ago, kwkride said:

Has anyone ever figured out why these came with Direct Connection decals? Did the 1:1 Toyota race trucks run Mopar engines?

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This sent me down a rabbit hole yesterday :-)

I knew that the Blazing Blazer is built around a rather famous series of Chevys that raced back in the late 70s early 80s such as the one shown here https://www.pinterest.com/pin/174584923027248819/ . However I had never thought of the Tamiya Hilux as a race machine until your post. So after a ton of googling and link following it seems the main man back in the day was Ivan “Ironman” Stewart. He raced the Hilux in the same races as the Blazer, Baja and Mexico 250, 500 and 1000. However I was unable to find any photos or literature to support that “Direct Connection” Mopar ever displayed any sponsorship on a Toyota. I did however find a timeline of Mopar and in the 70s they opened a division for “performance parts” https://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/2017/01/fiat_chryslers_mopar_celebrate.html and perhaps there where some performance parts that fitted or where used by Toyota?

Some old media - White Tamiya Toyota Hilux anyone?

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28 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

Don't forget the pre-runner too , more the 'racing truck' than the MR truck

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On 6/2/2021 at 2:07 PM, hedge said:

I don’t know if the decals on the body are original or not so was waiting for these substitutes to arrive before deciding if I would re-do the body or not.

 

They are original :) 

The first owner had the car from new, used it couple of times and stored it for years. Once in my possession the car was tested and shelfed, so even the mud off the tyres was from the 80s :lol: 

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The Axles...

Been working on these for a few days now. They are quite intricate and have lots of places for dirt to hide. The wear on the drive cups and drive shaft ends is non existent, I tried to photo it but not sure if it gets the point across. There are signs of use where the bearings ride the drive shaft, but this is pretty much just the black paint of the driveshaft being worn away. Going to do small post just on screws in general, but for now suffice to say all screws have been checked against the instructions and all are period correct. The front hubs have the ability to switch between fixed and free-wheel, they are called locking hubs. This mechanism is in perfect working order. The drive hub caps that came with the truck where all badly scuffed, worn and had cracked around the screws. Back in my Blazer days I'd sourced 4 new ones but as the Blazer was a runner I never fitted them, so I dug them out for this refurb. Ive rebuilt it with Silicon spray oil and silicon metal grease, I've not over done the application but its enough should I want to run it.

I was very happy to see the condition of the steering rods and ball joints. Both are very prone to rust. They have cleaned up perfectly and the polish I use has an anti rust component so should help protect them for years to come.  Again all in all the whole lot looks like a new build.

 

 

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Just got to finish prepping the screws and then the re-build can begin... I am off out now so tomorrow/next week we will begin on page 3 of the manual.

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Screws…

Don’t get me wrong I am no resto expert. I did my first about 10-15 years ago - a thoroughly beaten up Sand Scorcher - since then I’ve probably done around 5 or 6 others. During the first resto I spent a lot of time here researching and learning tips and tricks and during that time I came across a view that frankly never crossed my mind. Some restorers chased screws. They wanted each screw to be exactly as it was/should be. This perfection came in two shades, NIP screw bag chasers and good used screws. I certainly thought it would be cool but was not in a financial position to go chase NIP screws for my Scorcher so just bought a new hex set off eBay and never looked back.

Fast forward to this resto and what immediately caught my eye was the great condition of the screws so I hoped I would be able to build it with each screw 100% accurate to a NIB/New Build. When I bought it I knew that there where 2 x 8mm self tapers missing from the Radio box, screws A4 in manual. A quick search and a couple of posts made me realise these are not readily available! Thankfully a bit of lateral thinking and I found a friendly eBay breaker willing to send me a pair. Further more I found that there where 4 washers missing B3, easy replacements available. Finally the steering rods are supposed to be made up of three 2mm x 8mm round head screws D2 but these where all 2mm x 5mm, which is strange as the model does not use these screws at all? Perhaps they where just supplied wrong. Anyway I had some of these in my spares and they are all now correct.

As I near the end of the chassis build each screw has been checked, cleaned and carefully replaced where required. Hopefully the body is in equally good shape. I’ve not built the model dry, but I have not used any threadlock and indeed was lucky that the model had very little threadlock and where it had been used, it was not very strong.


 

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I like to build with accurate screws etc for shelfers,  but for runners I'll use all sorts . I was lucky to have bought a lot of vintage bags many years ago which helped with my builds.

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3 hours ago, KEV THE REV said:

I like to build with accurate screws etc for shelfers,  but for runners I'll use all sorts . I was lucky to have bought a lot of vintage bags many years ago which helped with my builds.

Lucky, you don’t see them for the early models very often any more. 

 

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Pleased to say the chassis is now done. It took a week for the rear shock screws to arrive hence the delay in posting, however very (very) pleased with how it has turned out. I am now looking forward to starting the body, just few decisions to make over the next couple of days but for now very happy with the base. You will notice that there is no rear bumper. The truck has two/three anomalies , the rear bumper is crumpled and bent and broken and the rear bumper screws are worn and damaged and look like a set of screws that have been threadlocked and removed with the wrong sized screw driver multiple times, certainly not in fitting with the rest of the truck. The hubs, these where scratched and damaged and split, again not really aligned with  the rest of the truck. Lastly and very debatable, the front bumper was a bit worse for wear. Now having run these in the past there are two things that you know... 1) They handle very poorly. 2) The high speed 2WD gear is a bit quick. Add to that that the truck is heavy and even a single crash could cause the front bumper damage that I've repaired. Anyway who cares the rest is in A+ condition can't stop smiling and looking at it :-) ... Anyway a few of the pictures I took today (note I was going to wait for the clear Tamiya vintage Ariel tube to arrive but just couldnt)

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After thinking on it over the weekend I’ve decided to strip it. Let the madness begin… this was my initial 4hour test, seems all the paint other than the drivers overalls is reacting nicely with the Mr Muscle oven cleaner. Going to leave it overnight now and hope that within a few days I should have a nicely stripped truck body to work on.

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The rattle cans arrived today, going to go pretty much box art.

As always will try the best I can. I’ve tended to rush painting in the past either over applying and getting runs or not allowing a coat to fully cure and marking it. 

The plan is prime the whole lot, then white underneath - as if new plastic. Leave the top prime as is and apply the red coats over this. The aim is that the darker primer undercoat works well with the red to make it deeper and richer than standard. I want to first paint the seat white, then apply the linoleum deck brown with the hope that it will lighten the seat colour to a dark tan. Finally the dashboard will be black.

The rest will be painted with Tamiya brush paints.

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5 hours ago, hedge said:

The rattle cans arrived today, going to go pretty much box art.

As always will try the best I can. I’ve tended to rush painting in the past either over applying and getting runs or not allowing a coat to fully cure and marking it. 

The plan is prime the whole lot, then white underneath - as if new plastic. Leave the top prime as is and apply the red coats over this. The aim is that the darker primer undercoat works well with the red to make it deeper and richer than standard. I want to first paint the seat white, then apply the linoleum deck brown with the hope that it will lighten the seat colour to a dark tan. Finally the dashboard will be black.

The rest will be painted with Tamiya brush paints.

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Game on !!

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 Cheers both still a week or so away from seeing this in all its glory but getting there :-)

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I got myself in a bit of a spin over this body. Its only one colour but its made up of 8 different parts (9 if you include the driver). Initially I was going for the underside in white, representing clean un-painted plastic. However due to the design where the inside of the cab - back panel, roof and doors - is a large part of the trucks looks I've decided its red all over, underside and topside. But even this presents its own issues of how to hold the items while painting so as not to mark them... The last body I did was a Mardave Marauder and this had three colours, requiring masking and some level of design, but it seemed easy compared to this. As with most things though the best way to start is to just start :)

Anyway I have realised that I need more primer, its only just going to be more than one can but it is definitely more than one. Primer is important as the model is made of at least two types of plastic which are slightly different colours and when I stripped the original red, some parts are stained (redish/orange) so the primer acts as a neutraliser of all parts before painting. 

Now while the body is one colour there are a few bits of detail that will be hand painted one of which is the Toyota Hilux logo on the wings/fenders. Ive masked these off for the primer as they will ideally require 2 colours, black base representing the rubber of the logo and then silver/chrome on top representing the chrome portion of the logo. For this reason I wanted to maintain as much detail as possible and so ive masked it off for the primer.  

The model did not come with a rear TOYOTA badge, Ive looked around and ask but nothing suitable is available so Ive made one using a 3D Printer. The hardest thing with this badge was going to be the font. Amazingly I use TinkerCad and the default font is the one you see here which to my eyes - I am no font expert - is the correct or at least as near as can be, the correct font. Being printed it will require a bit of fettling to make good but I am hoping from a distance it won't notice. I will however keep my eye out for an original.  

I have replaced the head of the original driver. It came with the Blazing Blazer driver helmet and I wanted the the more normal driver with hair. The driver was hard to strip the paint from.  It should not be an issue as he will be hand painted and this paint is rather thick so should cover the remnants of the old stuff fairly easily.  I had to remove his left arm as it was poorly glued on about half way down his torso. Just a bit of model filler required to bridge the seams and it will go back on.

I expect this to take at least another 2 weeks from here to be fully panted and decaled but of course once its done its done and will be on show for the remainder of its time with me so in reality no rush.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

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