Hoods 1994 x/c Hilux "RDGR8R"

[hood]

So here goes, probably safe to say this is my life time build that I've owned to close to 20 years. Please bare with me as I formulate this build thread and write up. Safe to say I guarentee you'll enjoy it, even if minitrucks aren't your thing.

There's some pretty special engineering and fab work from the creative genius Matt Keesing of Tin Tricks Ltd@RX FORD

It may come to a surprise to most but I invisioned it would get to the state it is in and with the modifications that it prides itself with way back when I sat my license in my old mans 4x4 Hilux many moons ago.

The truck itself is a 1994 Toyota Hilux 2wd X/C which was my first car. 

I purchased it from a fellow in Warkworth back in 2004. It was originally sold new to Higgins contractors in Wellington as a road workers hack and spent its early life on the highways between there and Auckland. The plate that this truck wears "RDGR8R" is rather fitting and a play on words you could say. When I acquired it was a bit rough, black tar stains on the carpet and kick panels, a noisey timing chain, burnt out clutch and close to 400k on the clock. But as a young, keen minitrucker with a low budget and with low intentions this didn't faze me at the slightest!

Here's what I started with, and a relatively fresh photo in its current state welded to a chassis table.

 

Please feel free to comment in this thread, or follow my antics on the gram for more photos etc @hemihood 

 

Thanks, James

 

[hood]

First round of budget mods came into effect, with aftermarket rubbish Taiwanese front quarters, a 4x4 bumper and one piece glass doors off a single cab.

I later found an old boy who was a panel man in a passed life and got him to convert the stock tail lights for a set of 89-93 Cadillac Deville lights with another wellside I came across. Fast forward today I think I am on my 4th wellside, but more on that later

It was cool at the time, but in retrospect you soon learn that good things aren't cheap, and cheap things aren't good. The tail light conversion was a mess, the buckets/filler panels were gas welded in, and bondo'd up to the wazoo which eventually cracked out and could never be painted.

By then I purchased my first set of personalized plates when they were cheap new $500, but then that was a fair amount of coin to lay down. They were dubbed RDGR8A. This at the time appealed because when you say the word Road Grater it kind sounds like "Road grata" but later I regretted this and then tracked down RDGR8R approximately 15 years later second hand for the price of $650.

Also I brought my first set of wheels, a brand new x5 set of BA XR8 Falcons which were a perfect offset to eventually lay rail in and they were pretty cool from the factory. I've still got them and intend to use them as skid rims if needed.

[hood]

[hood]

.......A quick back story on the above wellside. But if any of you from the BOP region recall a local commercial wrecker got stung for stealing Hiluxs to part off and sell back in the early 2000s. Well this came from him, I purchased it direct from his property at the time and he met me wearing one of those fancy ankle bracelet's. I later regretted this decision and it cost me financially in the end, but karma perhaps? 

I later cut my losses and scrapped it, I kept one side for a bit of shed art and Matt kept the other side for his shop art 

 

 

You may laugh at the ride height, but believe it or not I never "lowered" the truck before the next phase of the build which was the air ride conversion.

More on that on a further update.

[kp60nick]

Cool to see a build thread for your truck! I've been a big fan of it for years. I had a look at the work matt is doing for the body drop and it all looks so good. 

I've had this photo saved to my phone for a while now. I believe it was one of yours. I really liked it. I felt it was a bit of a time capsule. I have a poster on my garage wall of the green courier dragging. 

Just a big minitruck fan. 

[hood]

^ Thanks brother, I appreciate the love

Wow, love the nostalgia. I vividly recall that day. In particular I used to roll the length of the southern motorway with the front in the air and the rear on the bumps. The dropshop did a nice job on that clip which I intend to keep in place.

 

Orginally in two minds to load this thread on here on Oldschool, but like I said theres been some clever work done to it in recent times thats certainly worth sharing, and since the old MTNZ forums are long gone I still miss the golden years of minitrucks in this country circa 2007 in my opinion.

Yeah its unfortunately collecting dust as we speak, but I'll get there with it.

FYI our friendly local certification expert used to be a minitruck enuthisist @cletusas we used to be in the same club too haha

[cletus]

Cool pic, left to right=the navara was mine,green courier was Mat from the drop shop, next hilux was hoods one,last one was owned by Seb, he was a gc ,he passed away a few years back. His hilux always had a rattly timing chain,my dog could recognize the sound of it when it turned up in the driveway haha 

 

 

[kp60nick]

21 hours ago, hood said:

^ Thanks brother, I appreciate the love

Wow, love the nostalgia. I vividly recall that day. In particular I used to roll the length of the southern motorway with the front in the air and the rear on the bumps. The dropshop did a nice job on that clip which I intend to keep in place.

 

Orginally in two minds to load this thread on here on Oldschool, but like I said theres been some clever work done to it in recent times thats certainly worth sharing, and since the old MTNZ forums are long gone I still miss the golden years of minitrucks in this country circa 2007 in my opinion.

Yeah its unfortunately collecting dust as we speak, but I'll get there with it.

FYI our friendly local certification expert used to be a minitruck enuthisist @cletusas we used to be in the same club too haha

Unfortunately I wasn't able to be involved at the peak of minitruckin in NZ. I just got the tail end. 

Load up the thread man, the more the better. I reckon everyone loves a good minitruck, just no one is wanting to out lay the cost to build one. 

I've always been keen to do a "where are they now" minitruck edition. 

 

[RXFORD]

On 18/02/2023 at 20:14, kp60nick said:

 

I've always been keen to do a "where are they now" minitruck edition. 

 

Theres been a couple big ones done on the Mtnz FB page. I did one years ago which was good, but I think with how shit the scene is these days it would be lame/depressing to do another. Half the trucks have been parted out, scrapped or traded so many times with no up-keep that they just look like shit now. 

I can count the die-hard 'traditional' minitruck enthusiasts and the amount of somewhat active builds on 2 hands. 

[hood]

Continuing on with updating this thread,

Back in 2007 I sent it to Matt Addis at the drop shop in Auckland for a full airride set up.

It was laid out using Slam bags, fabricated rear clip, notch. Open wheel tubs, pie cut upper control arms, and shaved gear box cross member and a chrome wish bone link set up

Toyota's dont lay a full rail, so this sat as low as it could and laid engine cross member up front.

It was certified by Mark Stokes, and I put many kms from here on. It brought so many happy memories and Ive made many friends because of the truck and the small scene here in NZ

 

 

[hood]

[hood]

In later years followed, a 4runner front clip, full shave and suicide doors. And I had an imported Grant Kustoms rear cal combo skin fitted 

I have a love/hate relationship with these doors. They have swung open whilst driving due to faulty latches in the past. It was a bit of a disaster with cab damage that required some panel work. I'm still going to retain the door position but going back to stock latches and some added safety measures.

 

[hood]

[hood]

Over the years the truck received a few accolades, it received a feature in the local Rotorua Daily Post newspaper, a full page under construction feature in the US minitruckin magazine, and then a local NZ coffee table style publication "The Kiwi Ute Drivers Guide To Life"

 

[hood]

[hood]

With many years of cruising, several upgrades followed, and I developed a friendship with Matt K @RXFORD when he started branching out on his own.

Matt converted an old Sanden Aircon pump to power the air supply, he also fabbed up some aluminum gauge holders, and a lazy Susan spare wheel mount haha.

I also had a pretty decent stereo set up installed by Madsoundz in Tauranga.

 

 

 

[hood]

And to cap of this evenings updates, here's some more recent shots of the truck before it came off the road.

I had a pretty good run over the years with the Five O, I lost count of the many times I was pulled over, but my attitude always got me across the line. I did have a run it with one cop who issued me with a warning and then the inevitability struck me when I made the decision to pull it off the road for major surgery, call it the road to what I envisioned many years ago. But with a far better outcome thanks to the wizardry from Matt K at his shop Tin Tricks.

 

Prior to Matt taking the truck on, it failed its last wof. Turns out the old boy who I used to take it too sold up his shop and retired, but he let me get away for many years with not having the suicide doors certified. The new owner of said garage knocked me back on this and requested an updated cert. 

I was at the point of getting Matt to restore my 40 series left hook pick up, or carry on with further mods on #RDGR8R. The latter was decided.

Stay tuned for the next round of updates which involves the body drop, and motor swap

[hood]

Billets!

Every die hard minitrucker needs some polished aluminum jewelry to roll on, and these were a cool buy!

Virtually new 18x8 Boyd Coddington Blasters, I believe the offset is +38 same specs as the BA Falcons that I rolled for many years.

@RXFORD persuaded me in getting a set, so I obliged and found these in Australia.

I had a mate in our worldwide club Severedties from the Australia chapter pick them up for me. Orginally found on ebay.

Any how one year myself, Matt and two fellow club members flew over to Australia to attend one of the premier minitruck shows, and together we brought the wheels home with us.

They were still in their original boxes and only weigh 12kgs each, so ideal for checked luggage for the flight. We had a bag and a wheel each! I wish I caught a photo of them going through the xray machine at Sydney airport!

Any how, later that year I trial fitted them to the truck.

Not bad!

 

[hood]

Here's the start of the tear down, and commencing the body drop.

The WOF eventually ran out so Matt kindly headed my way to collect the truck, this was back in January of 2017.

The body drop was started when Matt contracted out to Custom Metalshapers in Auckland, he got off to a pretty good start and the bulk of the labor was carried out within. If you've ever managed to step foot in this shop there's a large array of impressive tooling for sheet metal fabrication.

More on the body drop on another installment of this build thread 

[hood]

The motor swap!

I've always intended to swap the orginal 4 cylinder 22r out for a v8, and particularly with a manual behind it.

The orginal engine was pulled and sold off, I had a pretty good run with it, I think it got up to 370 thousand ks, at least 20,000 with a timing chain rattle that eventually wore a hole through the timing cover and mixed oil and coolant together Haha 

Simon from Maxfab in Tauranga orginally welded it up and and the old man fitted a new timing chain, tensioner kit that got me rolling for a number of years.

The old 22r fetched a pretty decent price of $700 that was sold on trademe, and the old g52 5 speed got me $250 trade in towards a brand new r154 5 speed.

Matt found a Soarer that was getting wrecked at Zebra, he tried buying the whole car and was declined, and also he wasn't allowed to hook up a battery to check the mileage out, so I believe I paid $800 for the complete motor/trans etc. A bit of a gamble at the time.

A bell housing was sourced and the motor mocked up.

A couple of years or so down the track a complete 2001 Toyota Celsior equipped with the 4.3l 3uz came up on marketplace for a steal so the whole vehicle was purchased for the motor.

Best way to carry out a conversion by far, Matt took a bunch of parts he wanted and the rest was parted out, and I made my money back plus more in the kitty, sweet!

The Celsior came with a crazy amount of receipts and service history, these were well over $100k new back then

This meant my old 1uz became redundant, and was sold on. I ended up making some coin on that too and sold it to a guy down the line who was going to fit it to a plane out of all things, crazy right! Any how I've attached a clip below from one of his previous 1uz driven planes.