Java Peddler

Hey y'all. First post on the forum, been lurking ever since I've been in the market for a Yota. I found one in South Carolina near my dad's house. He's a lifetime career mechanic and I had him go look at it for me. I flew up there and drove it back to Florida all in one weekend.

This will be a boring build compared to a lot I've seen. I'm on a budget, and I'm mostly building up a reliable driver. With that said, I love tinkering and I love stuff being right and tight, so I'll be trying to refurbish as much as possible.

Within an hour after I picked it up, it stopped running on the way to my dad's house from seller. Very disheartening. Luckily we had the sense to bring a tow rope, and I got towed off the interstate to a gas station, where we had to leave it overnight because we didn't have tools. We got back to it at about 6:30 the next morning. We found that the EFI fuse was blown, and just as we were about to start pulling parts to gain access to wires, I had the smarts to check the forums and saw that the O2 sensor wires are known for resting on the exhaust and burning/rubbing through. Sure enough, they were raw as hell. Wrapped the whole bundle with electrical tape, still wouldn't start. Damn. Removed my tape cocoon, cut away the cover, and peeled apart each wire. They all looked pretty bad. I wrapped each of them in tape (a maddening task with gas station electrical tape), then repeated my cocoon, and sure as hell it started right up. Zip tied the cocoon away from the pipe, and away I went.

I'll break down the good and the bad with the truck in a second. The biggest flaw with the truck is a rough idle and intermittent lack of power when hot. The guy swore up and down that it was the mass airflow sensor, so we had one ordered from eBay well in advance to get there by the time I looked at the truck. The part never showed up, so I thought I'd try to make the drive anyway. I had work the next morning at 7:00. I really hated how it was driving and I wanted to avoid doing damage, so I bit the bullet and tracked one down at O'Reilly's. $260, oof. Slapped it on and it seemed to do great. However, 20 minutes into my 7 hour drive down to Florida, it started acting up again. It's manageable once it's up to speed on flat ground, but any incline or acceleration and it would struggle. I had to switch it to N (automatic) and rev it to keep it from stalling at stop lights once I got off the interstate. Overdrive was only usable downhill, so I kept my speed maxed out between 60 and 65. To make matters worse, when I tried to fill up the spare I realized it had a massive hole in it. Took a huge risk, but it paid off. I was in bed by 11:00PM Sunday night, proud of my truck's long voyage.

Let's do the bad first

• This was a woods truck. When we asked the guy about the tail lights not working, he said, "Honestly, I'm sorry, but I hadn't even thought of that." Just to give you an idea of how it's been used. We popped new bulbs in and they worked fine.
• As stated above, it still runs rich.
• Body is full of dents. Drivers door is pretty smashed in, but still seals and operates fine. Somehow the window still works great. Lots of cracked/broken light covers. Paint is faded. Fenders and exterior accessories (grille, back bumper, valence panel, etc. all in rough shape)
• Lots of cosmetic wear and tear. Broken cup holder, aftermarket stereo but neither of the speakers work, missing rear window latch, no tag lights, dirty carpet and seat, dome light doesn't come on for driver's door.
• Seller attempted a DIY straight-pipe exhaust. Not even sure what to call it. Looks like he took a 2.5" or 3" pipe, made a few longitudinal cuts, and tried to taper it down and weld it on the stock pipe right after the cat. It leaked like hell and sounded terrible.
• Oil and dirt all over the engine and bay.
• Lots of mud on the underside.
• CV joints need to be replaced
• Rear tires are damn near completely bald
• Check engine light is on
• A/C does not work. Has a condenser and compressor. According to seller, a belt broke and he never bothered to get it replaced.
• Dash panel right above steering console is cracked

Now for the good

• First off, it runs. It made the 8 hour trip to Florida with negligible loss of any fluids (except fuel).
• No coolant in oil or vice versa.
• New-ish radiator. Coolant seems to get good pressure.
• Very, very little rust throughout.
• Relatively new (rebuilt by Jasper) engine in the truck, purportedly with ~20,000 on it.
• 4wd works
• bed has Rhino liner, which is sort of good, sort of bad. Looks like a good install, but it's visibly very old. It's peeling in some places and very faded, but it's probably what saved the bed from getting rusted out.
• Seller claims it was well maintained, despite cosmetic damage. Fluids and filters changed regularly. No reason to not believe him, everything looked OK.
• Most accessory components work. Intermittent wipers, lights, radio (though speakers are bad), dome light (though drivers door switch didn't activate), dash lights, horn, etc.
• Interior overall is in surprisingly good condition. Seller kept a seat cover on it and there are no tears in the seats or carpet. Just dirty.
• nearly brand new tires up front

What I've done so far

• Replaced mass airflow sensor
• Replaced exhaust. Upon my dad's suggestion, I took it in rather than doing it myself, and I'm glad I did. It's a fully welded kit and it looks awesome. I don't care about noise, just want it to breathe like it should. New cat, new downpipe, turbo muffler. Sounds worlds better. However, muffler guys found a very small leak at the manifold, and apparently there are two missing bolts. They could be broken off in there, and they advised I don't do anything with it until I have my hands on a potential replacement manifold.
• Found that seller had just unplugged the driver's door dome light switch, and I see why. Gotta love that Toyota buzzer. I plugged it in because I like having the light.

Like I said, it seems to run rich when it's hot. Driving it home from the muffler shop today, it ran super smooth the whole way home. I was even able to switch on overdrive. Granted, it's only about four miles, but it was fairly heavy traffic. It almost made me wonder if the old cat/straight pipe was making it run rough and/or triggering a bad reading from the O2 sensor.

THE PLAN

Already purchased, to do in the next 3 days

• NGK spark plugs. I'm still holding out a little hope that the seller was right about the mass airflow sensor. What I'm hoping (long shot) is that it burned up the plugs running rich for so long, so even though the problem has been fixed it's still rough. It's a good thought, right?
• carpet and seat cleaner
• engine bay foaming cleaner and brushes. Gotta start tracking down leaks if there are any
• throttle body cleaner

On order

• New 4" Kicker speakers for the dash
• a/c belt
• LED lights for tag and dome
• radiator cap (current one is a little loose)
• O2 sensor (gotta do the wires, figured why not just do the whole thing)
• latch for rear window
• cup holder (eBay)

Within a month

• get check engine diagnostic
• track down what's making it run rough. I've searched around here enough to have plenty of things to look for. TPS, cold start valve, distributor
• thoroughly clean engine and bay to start tracking down potential leaks
• clean frame and underside

Early 2017

• new tires in the back, move the lesser bad one to the spare
• replace cracked dash panel
• replace all light covers and tailgate handle (broken)
• find a cheap-but-dry bed topper
• replace or at least clean up inner fender and mudflaps

By the end of 2017

• CV joints
• Install Reese hitch
• replace valence panel and grill
• I want to move to synthetic engine oil, but this is obviously pending my potential oil leak diagnostic
• Install add'l speakers behind seat, possibly 6"
• new door panels

Long term

• w56 tranny swap
• New carpet and sound deadening insulation
• new drivers door or skin
• paint
• remove Rhino liner and have LineX installed
• replace back bumper with steel pipe
• all LED lights
• new shocks

One thing I have working for me is that although it's my only vehicle, I don't depend on it. I live a mile from work and usually walk or ride my bike. My goal is to have something that will serve me for a long time, and I can wait until I can afford each piece of the puzzle. My fiance and I are planning to move out west, so we need a reliable 4x4 (she has a Honda Fit). I also plan on taking it out for hunting and mountain biking. Thanks for reading, hoping to keep this updated as I go along.

Java Peddler

New cat
Muffler back
There she blows




Family photo




better pictures to follow, most of these were at night. Thanks for looking

atlastrekker

Welcome to the forum. It looks like a good start on the truck, nice work!

Java Peddler

Lookin rough. NGK platinums went in
Pro vacuum to clear debris around plugs
Before
After



Thanks! Did the check engine diagnostic today. Code 21, which is o2 sensor. This gives me even more hope that it'll clear up when I replace it. In the meantime, I changed out the plugs, did a rough clean of the throttle body, and did a redneck repair of the wobbly radio antenna. I should have waited to install the plugs until after the throttle body clean... oops. I didn't get any pics of the antenna repair because it's hidden behind the quarter panel. The plastic support piece was broken so I used a bicycle tube presta valve as a splint and wrapped it in duct tape. If (when) that fails, I'll repair with rubber hose and clamps. I'll get some proper pics of the truck soon.

space-junk

iTrader: (1)

This will hopefully be a very fun journey for you. As Atlas said, Welcome! I look forward to seeing updates.

Java Peddler

unexciting update:

- Picked up o2 sensor from O'Reilly's, went home and attempted to change. The nuts and studs on current sensor looked like little pillars of rust, so I PB blasted it, scrubbed it with a small wire brush, and repeated a few times. It still looked really bad, couldn't even see threads on the stud. Couldn't get any tool on the nut, 12mm was way too big and 11mm was a bit small. I was able to hammer on whatever standard size is in that range (don't remember what size), and to my surprise I got it to start turning. Felt rough, made it about 1.5 rotations, and the stud sheared off. Luckily the SOB is rusted to hell on there, so it's still driveable. The silver lining on this situation is that while researching my problem, I learned that the Bosch sensor I got is problematic for Toyotas, so I returned it and ordered a Denso. It was about $10 more, but I came out about $6 on top because I turned in my old MAF sensor for the core price. New sensor gets here on Thursday, gonna consult the muffler shop on Monday to see what they think. Probably just gonna have them replace that section of pipe including a new bung since that's the only part they didn't touch on the exhaust replacement.

- I attempted to order an a/c belt, but since I have Amazon Prime, I tried to use RockAuto for the part# and get it from Amazon. My half-drunk self looked at the wrong part# and ordered a power steering belt. I went ahead and changed it out, old one looked fairly worn... or maybe I'm just trying to excuse my mistake.

- Got LED tag lights hooked up, OEM hardware is all in tact and working. I was worried it would look too over-the-top, but it looks great.

- The LED dome light bulb that I correctly referenced from RockAuto does not fit. Not sure what the deal is but it's way too big. Oh well, current bulb works, just wanted to make it brighter.

- New speakers installed, both work. Sounds good enough for me.

Will post some daytime pics tomorrow after I clean up the interior.

not fun

Kicker speakers


tag lights = officially street legal

atlastrekker

O2 sensors are always a pain, I've always had to get the muffler shop to replace the whole section of pipe when I did it.

Java Peddler

o2 sensor and bung from sleeoffroad.com finally came in. Got them installed at the muffler shop, drove it off, and everything seemed great. No check engine light and it drove awesome. After about 30 minutes of driving, it threw up the CEL and immediately started driving like trash. Pretty disappointed.

When I ran the diagnostic at home, I got the o2 sensor code again as well as a new code: 52, which is knock sensor. I poked around under the hood while I had some daylight left, and I did see a crispy section of wire from the knock sensor where it was resting on part of the intake.

I'm ordering a knock sensor wire, and in the meantime I've got a short list of other stuff to try:

- Pull the throttle body so I can do a proper clean on it as well as the IAC valve, and also check the TPS.
- Clean the EGR valve

On the bright side, the interior cleaned up pretty nicely.

The adventure continues.

Java Peddler

Here's some shots of the truck:


She's got... character!




some "before" pics of the interior





vacuumed and scrubbed the carpet and seat, replaced the back window clasp

I sourced the clasp from Amazon
I used a carpet cleaner called "Tough Stuff" from the parts store. It worked OK, the scrubber that comes with the can is useless after about 15 minutes of scrubbing carpet this bad. I ended up cashing out the can and switching to Windex and a brush.
Still rocking the bald-ass mud tires in the back. I'm not a huge tire guy, but the more I look at this truck, the more I think I would like bigger tires. Unfortunately I'm just gonna get new ones to match the current fronts since they're in good shape. I'll save up for something more badass next go around.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Truck is cleaning up very well. These trucks do get abused and neglected but are easily fixed. Looks like you are making some progress. Welcome to Yotatech.

Java Peddler

Thank you kindly.


Well I think I've done more damage than good today. When I was fiddling around looking at wires under the plenum, a wire caught on my sleeve and tore out of the oil pressure sending unit. I might be able to repair it at the plug.. we'll see. Not five minutes later, I was trying to remove the knock sensor plug and managed to rip the core out of it. The top plastic was brittle so it just sheared off. Good stuff... got one on order from O'Reilly. Another $100 down the drain, but I guess another part replaced is a little more peace of mind on a 20+ year old truck.

I still need to replace or repair the knock sensor wire, and I realized yesterday that it runs straight from the sensor to the ECM, no pigtail.

What I'm probably going to end up doing is going to a junk yard and cutting out a section of k/s wire from a less volatile part of the truck, splice it in place of my bad section, and call it a day. BUT, if I were to replace the whole thing, I'm having a hard time finding a solid answer on what sort of shielded wire would do the job. Some say coax, others say definitely not.

The journey continues. I'm gonna clean my garage while I change the oil.

space-junk

iTrader: (1)

Knock sensor should have a pigtail. it actually fits inside the sensor. I think you may have just broken the pigtail. if so, easy replacement.

Co_94_PU

iTrader: (-1)

Oh I read that a third time and finally it sunk in "CORE". "If it breaks it needed replacing anyway", Someone's LAW

Well it is coax but it's not your CAT 3-5 what ever it is your cable tv comes in. It needs to be twisted sensor wire not solid core. Mic or a LAN cable seems to be the goto.

Java Peddler

thanks. still reading about the possibilities of repair/replacement on the wire.

Put in the new knock sensor today.. sprayed the old plug out with electrical cleaner, and found the torque spec of 52in/lb. Coming from bicycles, I had to convert this to newton/meter for it to mean anything. 6NM, actually a very common torque spec for bike components, so I think I got it about right. Probably should have found a torque wrench to borrow, but I was anxious and felt comfortable handling 6NM. Reset the ECM, no CEL so far. Time will tell.

Changed the oil, stuck to ol' Penzoil 10W-30 with a K&M filter. Started wiping down the engine. This thing is disgusting... it's got a leak somewhere, but no way to tell because it's covered in oil and Chattahoochee clay.

Threw on an a/c belt, and miraculously it seems like it works. It needs servicing, but it seems to blow somewhat cold. Score!

Mystery of the day: With my oil pressure sending unit being broken, yesterday the oil temp warning light was on. After I reset it, it's gone. I figured it would throw the light as a default with no signal from the unit, but I guess not.

No warning lights at all so far. Can't wait to drive it tomorrow.

Co_94_PU

iTrader: (-1)

The oil sensor idiot light will ground it's lead at low pressure. So your broken lead was against the engine or frame as a guess.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/shieldbraid.php
You could use this stuff and some bulk ignition wire. Total over kill but under 2$ / ft

Java Peddler

Thanks! I'm still unsure of what I'm going to do. Might just run an oil pressure gauge.

I'm feeling pumped... made the hour drive down to my mom's house to haul a water tank and an old grill to the scrap yard. NO check engine light, NO sputtering, had great power the whole drive, even in overdrive. It still has a very rough idle when hot, but based on the condition of the throttle body, I'm almost positive I just need to clean the idle air control valve. Finally feeling stoked on this truck! I guess it really was the knock sensor that was bad.

I'm anxiously waiting for the following parts in the mail:
- blue vacuum hose kit from LCE Performance
- idle air control valve gasket from ^^^
- throttle body gasket
- blue NGK spark plug wires
- OEM distributor cap and rotor

Taking it in for tires this week while I'm waiting.

Once I get all that replaced, then it's time to get serious about cleaning and preserving the frame and body. I also want to get the AC serviced before summer, then on to slowly buttoning up cosmetic stuff.

Java Peddler

Sorry in advance -- not so much of an update as an "I'm bored, at home sick with a cold while the wife is out celebrating new years, and waiting on parts before I can do a tune-up" post. So bear with me.

Got two new Cooper tires installed. They match the Mastercrafts (made by Cooper) up front very well. It's official -- I definitely want bigger tires, but with the amount that I drive, it'll probably be 10 years before these wear out.

OEM distributor cap came in the mail. When I went to install, the cap o-ring crumbled into two pieces in my hands. I could put it back together with some liquid gasket, but one side is very obviously crushed and there was a little bit of oil and sediment inside the distributor, so I decided to just park it until the new o-ring comes in from the dealer ($5.30, btw). They should give you one of these with the cap, especially the OEM! It's Toyota part #19127-15021, in case you need one.

I broke down and ordered a used OEM cup holder from eBay. Best $21 I've ever spent.

Can't wait to get the new valve gasket on there so I can really start tracking down this oil leak. Lots of oil around half-moon gaskets, and the top retention "donut" grommets are totally crushed, so I'm thinking I'll do a lot of good with this valve gasket. Valves are also pretty noisy, so I might be able to hear the radio at speed once I get them adjusted. I also bought a new PCV valve and gasket from O'Reilly to put on when I have the cover off.

Speaking of noise, I think my next project will be fixing the exhaust leak at the manifold. A couple of bolts are broken off, which I'm thinking might have been in-part caused by bad motor mounts. Still need to evaluate further. I'll probably splurge on a LCE header if I feel like I can afford it when it comes time.




can't believe I put almost 500 miles on these... with no spare (this is now my current spare)


the current state of affairs


etc.

probably gonna splurge on a new 22RE decal while I'm sitting at home bored. I thought about painting the valve cover while I have it off, but I can't decide on a color... and plus I kinda like it grey!

truckmike26

So a real "Deliverance"-style truck becoming back to normal. It's starting to look not too shabby. I just got my '94 back from the body shop (I've owned it almost 21 years) and I'm putting it back together right now. Two things you've got going for you is that it's warm where you are and you don't have (major) rust-related problems like I've had. Ironically, I was bed-ridden too over the holidays and didn't get a damn thing done that I wanted to. Oh well. I also need to pass an emission inspection soon and my truck is no where near road-worthy. I'll be sure follow how you're progressing on here.

Gizler00

iTrader: (1)

Welcome to YT!

It is in greast shape for being a woods truck. I have owned quite a few that I wished were as nice as this one.

Glad to see that you are bringing it back to life.

Java Peddler

Thanks y'all!

Replaced the distributor cap and rotor, spark plug wires, one vacuum hose (gonna do them all, this one was pretty rough), PCV valve, valve gasket and valve adjustment.


before


after


the business


not sure how this happened, but I blamed it on the dog


out with the old...

0 tools dropped in the engine bay

This was my first time doing a valve adjustment. Set it to factory spec (.008", .012"). Started right up afterward, but it seems to be making a tapping noise now. Sounds like one rocker. I can't decide if it was there the whole time and it's less noisy now so I can hear it, or if the engine was too cool prior to the adjustment to get a good gap (ran it for about 15 minutes right before). With that said, I'm really happy with how it turned out visually. I wanted to clean it up more, but life didn't allow for a full strip and paint. It's leaps and bounds better looking than it was. One of the old half-moon gaskets that I pulled out was installed incorrectly, with one of the corners folded in. No wonder it was spewing oil. Cleaned up a lot of oil on the lower block and joints with the bash guard off. Noticed a bit of surface rust on the frame toward the front... next weekend!

edit: the more I think about it, the more I think the engine was probably not hot enough. It hasn't had a thermostat, and it takes like 30+ minutes to fully warm up. I was just too excited to do the job. I guess I'll be busting in there again soon. At least I know how to do it now.