Toyotas of the 1970s and 1980s were quite reliable for the era, if you're just talking about running gear. If you lived in a rust-prone area, though (say, a block from the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco), Toyotas were eaten by the Iron Oxide Monster in a hurry. Here in Denver, where the snow usually doesn't stick around long enough to warrant the application of road salt and the single-digit humidity dries out pockets of moisture trapped behind body panels before they can cause much harm, you don't see too many rust horror-shows in junkyards. However, being conveniently located to both the western edge of the Rust Belt and the salty-road mountains means that I do see some interesting approaches to the Rotting Toyota Problem. Here's a camper-shell-equipped Missouri Hilux (sold as, simply, the "Toyota Truck" in the United States) with some fiberglass-and-body-filler bodywork that may have bought it another year or two on the road.
Actually, the shell came from Missouri; there's no telling where the truck came from (though the shell appears to have been on the truck since it was new-ish).
Not even 200,000 miles on the clock.
Bondo over rust solves the problem in about the same way that painting over termite damage fixes your house.
I keep hearing that 20R heads are worth plenty to the guys who want to swap them onto their 22R off-road trucks and get higher compression, but I never see them removed at junkyards. Urban legend?
Mechanically speaking, this truck probably had a lot of life left in it, but watching shards of your vehicle tumbling behind you in the rear-view mirror while listening to the howl of wind through all the rust holes… well, it gets old.
There are parts of the world, however, where Hilux owners don't worry about how rusty their trucks might be.
The Australians have always had better Hilux ads than North Americans.
See what I mean?
The post Junkyard Find: 1983 Toyota Pickup, Adobe Rust Repair Edition appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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