1989 Daihatsu Rocky F70
This is the car I’ve had the most fun with out of everything I’ve driven. It was a rattly, noisy, uncomfortable death trap that loved to eat dirt. Everything I know about cars, I learned on this vehicle. From doing my first oil change to (very poorly) installing a head unit and aftermarket rally style fog lights. It’s the car I learned how to drive in and in which i taught my brother and cousins to drive. It was a rusty, worn out beater that would be ran until it could run no more.
Unfortunately, that day struck when the gearbox decided to grenade itself in the McDonald’s drive thru. After being left in one of the parking spots for about a week, we towed it to our local mechanic where it sat.
At the start of the summer of 2024 however, I decided I wanted to resurrect it. I towed it home to my garage and started looking for replacement gearboxes. While I was on the lookout for a gearbox, I noticed however that a lot more would need to be replaced to get it back on the road again.
Everything quickly spiralled into a close to complete restoration that’s still nowhere near done today.
All Daihatsu F70 projects
The big gearbox overhaul
This is the main issue that originally killed this car. After buying not one but two defective gearboxes, I was left with no choice but to rebuild them myself.
Rear drum brakes rebuild
Just like the front brakes, the rears were in very poor condition. Everything was rusted, seized and needed to be replaced.
Laser cut brake protection plates
While changing the wheel bearings and seals on the front axle, I noticed the factory dust shields on the front brakes were completely rusted away. One of my clients kindly allowed me to reproduce these in 3mm galvanized steel after a scheduled maintenance on their TruLaser machine.
Front axle rebuild
The front axle was leaking grease, the wheel bearings were on their last legs and the brakes were heavily grooved. Needless to say, a full front axle rebuild was necessary.
Roof mounted truck horns
The more I started to inspect the body, the more I realized it was very far gone. With a full restoration being incredibly hard, time and money consuming, I decided to lean into the roughed up look by mounting some vintage truck air horns on the roof!
Momo Montecarlo steering wheel
As I’m very tall and the Daihatsu Rocky is Japanese sized, I have quite a hard time comfortably fitting in the drivers seat. A smaller steering wheel ended up being just the upgrade I needed to more comfortably fit. As an added bonus, it’s a nice aesthetic upgrade from the utilitarian …
Cast PU shock mount bushings
Upon close inspection, the factory rubber bushings showed signs of cracking and deformation. I decided this was a great opportunity to get familiar with my new to me Revopoint 3D scanners.
TPU reproduction shifter parts
Rubber gets hard and brittle with age, and since there’s no new parts available I’ve resorted to printing them myself out of TPU!