1972 Highlander -The making of a daily driver

[BruthaMan]

Thank you, gentlemen! 8-track is tempting! Had an 8-track in my first truck back in the late 70s. Wore out "Boston" and "Hotel California!"

Started working on the passenger kick panel area this morning. Opened the vent and found what easily could have been a birds nest:





After cleaning out the bulk of it by hand, took the shop vac and cleaned out the rest.

This was one of the trouble areas for rust. When I pulled the old door seals out a few weeks ago, the lip for the door seal and the general area had a fair amount of rust and a good deal of the lip was shot.



I cleaned it out really good, used a steel brush on what was left, then POR15 Metal Prepped the area (kept it moist with a brush for about an hour). Then used POR15 Marine clean on it several times. Finally, dried everything out with the air hose.

From there, I used POR15 Epoxy Putty and rebuilt the lip area. The following day, once cured, I used an die grinder with heavy sand paper to smooth it all out. Then taped off the area you see, and applied POR15 Rust Preventative paint to the area to protect it. It came out pretty good and I really like the POR15 products. Again, this isn't a full restoration, just trying to do my best to fix trouble areas the best way I can and preserve the truck.

All this was done last week. Didn't snap any pics of the process, but thought I'd document it anyway.

For the door seal, I used air tool with a wire wheel and cleaned up the entire seal area, then used POR15 on it to protect it:



Installing the door seal:



Starting work on the sound system. I have a Retrosound deck from my 78 project that I ended up not using, so going to install it in this truck.

Ordered some kick panels for speakers. Didn't have the original dash speaker bracket, so ordered a cheap set of speakers that had it, and replacing those with Boston Acoustics.

Here's a shot of the bracket (has speakers but replacing them), kick panels, Boston Acoustics 3.5 (should have ordered 4 in, wasn't sure), and a new plate for the RetroSound deck:







Some slight modification to the dash speaker bracket, and the 3.5's are ready for mounting:





More to follow tomorrow.

[Low Elco]

Before you go further, a tip- Get some foam camper tape. 1/4" x 11/4W. Seal off the gaps around those speakers, then seal the mount to the dash with it. Lots more output. Hope it goes well, and take lotsa pics! I'm gonna do something similar to Boppa's Truck. Good Luck!