- Have you ever pondered to yourself, "What's the most reliable, dependable, "indestructible truck ever built?" It's not your Chevy, Bruce, it's not your Ford, Dale, sorry, Bill, it's not your Dodge either. It's a 1980's Toyota Pickup truck. (hip-hop music) And I don't want to say that they're the cockroach of trucks, because that has a
negative connotation, but they're the cockroach of trucks. You can step on them, spray them, light them on fire,
drown them in the ocean, blow them up in a concrete building, and they still won't quit. So the only question I have is, "How?" How is a seemingly basic, no-frills truck from the late 80's one of the
toughest vehicles ever built? Well, it boils down to
one word, and that word? Simplicity. So, today, we're gonna talk
about the simple elements that make the Toyota pickup the most indestructible truck ever made. We're gonna look at,
specifically, two things, its frame and its engine. Let's do it. I drove mine without engine
oil for two months straight. (imitating car engine) I was an idiot. (hip-hop music) Thanks for Keeps for
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the link in the description to receive 50% off your first order. That's K-E-E-P-S dot com slash B-2-B. Thank you for supporting the companies that support us here at Donut. We love you. (beeping) (funky music) If you live in the states, Toyota didn't give their
trusty truck the Hilux badging. From 1976 to 1994, Toyota
didn't even give the truck any sort of proper name. They literally called
it the Toyota Pickup. That's it. Which is actually the perfect name. They didn't need some fancy naming device because what made the Toyota truck great was the fact that it was simple. They didn't give a truck! (beeping) There's no airbags, no
windows, no power locks, no power seats, no AC, some models didn't even
have full door panels. They used bench cloth seats,
manual locking hubs, no tack. It was a bare-bones,
mighty little pickup truck built in a time when trucks
were utilitarian work horses. No frills, just function. And when you make stuff simple, less stuff breaks, and the backbone that
made this truck so hardy was its frame. Specifically that it
had a fully boxed frame. Now during that time, its competition in the
light weight truck division, we're talking about the Ford
Ranger and the Chevy S10, they were built using a C-channel frame. So what's the difference between the two and why is one better than the other? Now the frame is the
backbone of the automobile, and for body on frame
vehicles, like a truck, the frame is made up of rails, or beams, welded or bolted together
in a specific way that gives the frame its structure. Now these rails, or channels
as we can call them, are usually made of steel,
and they have a specific shape that give the frame its
structural rigidity, and there are two types of
designs for these channels. If you take a piece of steel, for example, and you fold it at two points, it creates an open-ended channel, and if you were to look
at a cross section of it, it would look like a C, hence the name C-channel. The C-channel is one of the
most common types of frames used in vehicles. The other design is what's
called the box frame. The box frame is when you take that open part of the C-channel and you add a fourth side to it, making it a box. The channel is fully enclosed
along the length of the frame in what's called a fully-boxed frame. So what are the advantages
and disadvantages of each of these and why did Toyota go with the box frame
style with their pickup? (funky music) Starting with the C-channel, it's cheaper. Welcome to economics 101, you're on your way to making money. If you can make a mass-produced item using a fundamental part that is cheaper, you save more money and
therefore you make more money. The cost is driven down
because it takes less time to manufacture a C-channel. You're essentially just
making two bends in the metal, and that's it. That is a oversimplification, of course, but you get my point. The process is cheaper. And the second benefit
is that they're easier to bolt stuff onto the frame. For all intents and purposes, it's just a thick plate of steel, so you can drill holes,
you can bolt brackets, you can do whatever you want, just start adding parts
to it, it's much easier. Another so-called "benefit" of C-channels is that the frame flexes to allow for some of the road bumps to be absorbed by the frame itself so that the suspension has less work to do. The frame is part of
the suspension design. And sure, okay, I'll entertain this. This is what C-channel fanboys
are wanting you to believe, but I would be in the camp that your suspension
design should be focused on the suspension, but maybe I'm wrong,
okay, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe so is every race
car builder out there. The reason race car builders
build frames that don't flex is because they don't want it flexing. When that happens, it turns your frame into another spring
that you can't control. You want all of those motions to be controlled by the dampers in the springs of your suspension. You can change your shocks out and change settings all you want, but you can't change your frame out. Go ahead, debate it. C-channel versus box frame,
people, go nuts in the comments. I'll be in the comments in the first hour. Convince me C-channel's better. (beeping) So that is the benefits of a C-channel. What about the box frame, like the one used in this Toyota pickup? (hip-hop music) Well the box frame is more rigid. Think about one of the strongest types of structural members, and that's a tube. Again, there's a reason
race cars and race trucks are built with tubes and
not open C-Channel members. When you close up that channel
and you form it into a box, it improves the structural
rigidity of the frame. Specifically, they have a
higher torsional rigidity. That means they don't twist as much. Also, compared to a C-channel, you don't need as much material. C-channels have to be thicker to make up for that open side, which means for the same
torsional rigidity specs, a box frame can actually be lighter. Food for thought. Now if you need any convincing that a box frame is
better than a C-channel, with the exception of
three trucks built in 2020, every manufacturer offers
a fully boxed frame on their trucks. The three trucks that don't have it, the Ford F550, and the Toyota Tundra, and Tacoma.
(musical sting) Hold on, what? Toyota switched? Went to something worse? Yeah, that's right. More on that reason in a bit, so stick around, it's a juicy explanation. (slurping) So back in the late 80's and early 90's, when Ford and Chevy were advertising their light weight trucks with their C-channel frames as being designed to flex for your comfort and your improved ride quality, Toyota, with their pickup, went with the structurally
superior box frame, and this is what makes these trucks off road, rock crawling beasts. When you're climbing up a rock face, you don't want your frame twisting around, and a box frame prevents that. It also has a stronger
payload in towing capacity. Their four by two models
were capable of carrying 1640 pounds and pulling 3500 pounds. The Chevy S10 of a similar year was only rated at 1300 pounds and could pull only 2000 pounds. The Toyota pickup was actually
considered a half-ton truck due to its frame and suspension setup, it's pretty cool. They even built a one ton version that could handle 2655 pounds of payload and could pull 5000 pounds. This is a tiny truck! You know how much 5000 pounds is? I don't know, like, two of your mama. (yelling)
(beeping) 5000 pounds, that's a lot of weight. That's about the weight
of a small elephant. And most importantly, the
stronger frame also lends itself to being better when you smack it with a wrecking ball
(cartoon smacking sound) or you blow it up in a building when the truck's on top of it. So again, there's a reason trucks today use a box frame, it's just better. But like I teased before, why did Toyota do away
with their box frame in their current lineup
of Tacos and Tundras? Well, it came down to rust. You see, the box frame pickups were great, but they had a design flaw. They weren't built to keep out water or let water drain if
any got inside the frame, and water absolutely hates steel. It's like the bully at school. He's steel, okay? And you? You're water. You're just a little nerd boy that chips away at him mentally each day, slowly but surely. You're breaking down that buff bully who used to beat you up with small jabs of subtle insults that weaken his confidence
through subconscious verbage. You're in it for the long game. He's tough now, but get it
10 years and he'll rust away. You'll be hosting a show at Donut while he's living with
his parents in Boca Raton, bartending at Rico's
Sweatshop with his bald head, and he doesn't even know about Keeps. Sup, Walker? Hope you're doing well, buddy. So one reason Toyota might have gone with an open-channel frame design in their current lineup of trucks is because they had to
spend billions of dollars replacing the rusted frames from older generation pickups. So they thought, "Hey, "we've been down this road, "maybe let's limit our risk, here." When you lose billions of dollars, someone's getting in trouble, and the guy designing the
frame, he screwed up big time, so the next dude in line
was like, "Hey, man, "let's go tried and true. "I don't want any of these
rust problems on my hands. "I don't want to be at fault for it." Actually, they do have what's called a semi-box design, so the front part of the frame
where the engine sits, that's boxed, but towards the rear, where the trunk bed is and the cap, that's a C-channel. So they kind of gave a compromise, so maybe that's why. You know, who knows? I don't work for Toyota, okay? I'm only speculating, here. We're in the speculation zone. - The speculation zone.
(beeping) - So how can a truck
with a frame that rusts be considered one of the
most reliable trucks? Well, it takes a long
time for that to happen and deem the truck
inoperable, and in fact, in the case of the Top Gear truck, it was actually the rusted
frame that crumpled in a way that kept the entire truck together, so its weakness turned into strength. And speaking of strengths, let's talk about the other thing that makes this truck so
reliable, indestructible, and dependable, and that is its engine. (funky music) We get that this Japanese pickup truck can take a lick and keep on ticking, but what's under the hood of this truck that allows it to just drive away from situations that most car would end up being sent to the junkyard? It's time to give a little love
to the four cylinder engine. Now there are a bunch of engine varieties that Toyota put in the
pickup, gas and diesel both. The Hilux in Top Gear has
the little 2.4 liter diesel, which put out a whopping 83 horsepower. It was a trooper. But I want to focus on
another engine in particular, one that was most common in the pickup, and that's the 2.4
liter, 22 RE gas engine. They put this engine in a bunch of cars, the Celica, the Corona, the 4Runner. Toyota used the 22 RE until
1997, that's 15 years. And again, with good reason. The motor was built to last. It was durable and easy to work on. - Somebody did it right. (chorus singing)
(beeping) - 2.4 liter single
overhead cam four banger is known to reach well over 500,000 miles, and the reason it's so good is because Toyota had a lot of
time to perfect this engine. The 22 RE comes from a family of extremely well designed engines, the R-series motors. Toyota first built the R-series all the way back in the 50's, and this engine was overbuilt with a high nickel content block and a forged crankshaft. The presence of nickel adds
strength to the iron block. An alloy of only 5.5% weight of nickel has a strength that is 125% greater than estimates for a pure iron block. And the forged crankshaft
is stronger as well. We talked about forged
parts in our super-episode, go back and watch it
after this, but basically, it means it's stronger. The long stroke, (moans) and domes pistons coupled
with fuel injection help provide good, low
to mid range torque. Now a longer stroke engine means it does this more. You guys get it. It won't rev as hot, but it
will produce more torque, and the domed pistons added a small amount of volume increase, which also increases the compression ratio, and, in turn, makes a bit more power. Toyota even used the
22 RE as a power plant in the Celica GTS during its outing in the 1985 Macau Grand Prix, finishing third behind
two six-cylinder BMWs. They needed two more cylinders. Typical BMW. Always trying to compensate. It was the highest finish for
any 22 RE powered Toyota ever, and Toyota even made a
turbo version, the 22 RTE. Heck yeah, hashtag bushcreeks! Where my turb fans at? So like I said earlier, I
actually had a Toyota pickup. It was my first truck, a
1990, four by four five speed with the 22 RE. And before I knew how to work on cars, or knew anything about engines, I drained what I thought
was the engine oil, so I added my engine oil, no filter change because
I was a freaking animal, and I drove the truck around like normal. Fast forward a month, it turns out I drained the transmission oil. So, if you're wondering, "Well,
dude, you added engine oil, "didn't you, like, overfill it?" Well, no, because one, I
never checked the engine oil because I was an animal, and two, it was so low to begin with, that when I added oil during the "change," it brought it back up to the normal level. Meaning I ran a 22RE without engine oil for who knows how long, and it ran fine. And I ran it without gear
oil for that whole month. Also, my sister sold that truck, which I still get upset about, so if you happen to own a
maroon red 1990 Yota pickup with camo interior, five speed, you live in the Florida area, sorry that you have my abused truck. But actually, hit me up. This is a Toyota pickup
truck we're talking about, so I bet that thing's fine,
bet it's running great. I love Toyota pickup
trucks, I've owned two, and if you want to know
more information about them, why don't you watch this
episode of Up To Speed? It's got maybe one of the best
intros we've ever written. Comedy gold. I'll make a deal with you. If you don't chuckle just a little bit, just a tiny little chuckle, and I'm talking about even
if it's inside your heart, your mind, you don't
even have to vocalize it, I'll give you one of my dirt bikes. (groans) I don't know, that was a bad deal. (laughs)
(beeping)
Lol. I ran my ‘78 for a year with no gear oil. 80,000 miles later it still shifts just like my newly rebuilt ‘75. Those W-series trannys are fricken tanks! (crunchy and noisy)
I literally just tried posting this lol.
So, the frame drainage issue - are there any modifications I can do to help correct that?