twistedsymphony

this is my 3rd Toyota pickup.
1st was a Black 1994 extended cab/long bed V6 4" lift on 33s... I owned it for about 2 years before it had engine problems and I needed money so I sold it.

2nd was a White 1999 Tacoma regular cab... bone stock. I took out a loan for it after selling my 94, I owned it for about 6 months before Toyota bought it back from me in the frame recall.

I couldn't find another one so I bought an Isuzu VehiCross and drove that for the last 2 years... finally decided I wanted another yota so I started looking and bought this gem last month:

taken a few days after I brought it home:







previous owner does body work for a living, stripped it down to the frame and build it back up, most of the body panels are brand new, the frame has been covered in POR15 and the tires, brakes and suspension all have less than 200 miles on them.







While this truck is in AMAZING shape there are a lot of little things that need to be taken care of.

Problems:

• electrical is total mess: it received an engine from a 1990 and this was originally a CA emissions vehicle so it throws codes due to some missing parts. The stereo wiring is hacked beyond belief with speakers hidden all over the cabin running under the carpet, under the head liner, and generally installed incorrectly. it has lose (and live!) wires lingering all over the place, and the tach is hooked up poorly
• no power steering: apparently it started leaking all over the alt so they pulled the belt off... not fun trying to maneuver this thing in a parking lot.
• factory gearing: it's on 35s and that 22RE is a champ but if it isn't a dog
• falls out of first gear: I haven't investigated it but I'd suspect it has to do with the body lift and the shifter trim/boot preventing it from fully engaging in 1st... this with the power steering makes it even more fun in parking lots.
• no AC: it was originally equipped but they never reinstalled it when they swapped the motor not a big deal but I'd like it back
• no Heat: blower motor works but no heat comes out... not really sure why
• lots of random missing or mis-matched interior trim pieces: some bits are blue, some are grey, some look like they don't fit quite right, others' have been drilled into/hacked up/"customized", other stuff is just plain gone.
• no radio antenna/CD stuck in the player/sounds like GARBAGE: previous owner decided to shave the antenna off the fender, even with all those speakers it still sounds like garbage, though the only thing I can listen to is the NuMetal cd stuck in the player

Stuff I'd like to "improve":

• get rid of the body lift: I've never been a fan of body lifts, nor am I a fan of blocks on the axle as opposed to shackles and larger springs. While I love how the truck looks, it's got too much tire and lift to be practical for what I'm using it for most of the time.
• more grab handles so I can get in the thing
• Bucket Seats/Center Console I'm not a fan of the bench seat
• A more Quiet exhaust right now it's a mostly straight pipe off of the header, no cat, no resonator, and tiny flowmaster muffler... The truck gets me a lot of compliments but the exhaust noise is embarrassing and the droning makes me want to shoot myself after 5 minutes.
• Better Rear Brakes: e-brake is brand new but still useless in this thing. there are a lot of hills near me, I'd like to put some discs on the rear if such a kit exists.
• Roll Bar: I've heard too many horror stories involving roll overs... I'm not a huge fan of the roll bar look but I am a fan of not dying/getting severely injured. pretty much everyone who's seen the truck so far has told me a story of someone who owned a similarly lifted yota and rolled it

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I've already started chipping away at the problem list... I'll be posting up details and pictures of stuff I've already done at a little later.

MaK92-4RnR

Good looking truck. that paint looks cherry. I'd throw out the dorky lookin' sun visor though if I were you

electrical - i'd just pull all the stereo related wiring/electrical equipment out of it and start from scratch... buy some new stock location speakers and a new deck, you'll be set. you could even put a shallow 8 or 10 inch sub behind the seats

body lift - good choice on removing the body lift, and i'd say the reason your truck falls out of 1st gear is because the shifter boot is old and worn out, and because its extended 3" it might be forcing it to pop out.

quiet exhaust - not sure what a straight piped 22re sounds like but my 3vz sounds awesome

better brakes - just tighten the cable, your rear drums should easily be able to hold a truck that size on a straight incline. my factory drums hold my 4runner on a pretty steep incline

roll bar - single cabs dont generally have roll over rates, its the 4runners that have the problems. i would pass on the roll bar as well, and just lower the truck 3" by removing the body lift... you should be fine at that point. do you still have sway bars? might help with the feel.

twistedsymphony

i do love a nice sounding exhaust... sadly this one sounds like an angry Honda and with as much lift as I'm running I don't need any additional attention from the police.

as for the anti-sway bar there is one installed on the front but I don't think there is one on the rear. Did they come with rear sways from the factory?

MaK92-4RnR

you could quiet it up... adding a resonator or catalytic converter will quiet it up quite a bit.

leafs never came with sway bars. if you're worried about tipping, keep the front on, and remove the 3" body lift. i have my front sway bar off on my 4runner ( for more ride comfort and flex ) but i have my rear one on still.

twistedsymphony

biggest issue with removing the lift is I've got 35s so it will require some trimming/hammering to make it fit.

I've already started looking at the body lifts offered by 4crawler, he makes a "back to OEM" lift... I'll either do that or just down-grade to a 1" body.

I'm also considering swapping down to 33s

the primary function of this truck will be for driving in the snow.

MaK92-4RnR

drop it to stock, and trade your brand new 35s for some new 33s... you'd be surprised on how many people take you up on the deal.

BackGateYota92

or you could keep the body lift and send the suspension lift my way lol just joking man. You gotta dang nice looking yota man!!!

twistedsymphony

what I've done so far...

first thing I did was tear apart the interior to get rid of all the visibly shoddy wiring...

this is what I removed

the speaker box buzzed and crackled and was just flopping around behind the seat, the speaker on the left in the stock dash location was an infinity and the one on the right was an alpine (both of them blown), they were wired into the cross over networks as woofers, the "Arite" tweeters (yes the brand name on them was actually "Arite") were super glued to the b-pillars at ear level... no two speakers used the same kind of wire.


luckily the previous-owner left the original stereo connector in-place and attached to the original speaker wires, he just cut out the power wires to hook up to his aftermarket unit, so I went about repairing the connector.


I bought a proper stereo harness and soldered everything together.


the stereo that was originally there wasn't even bolted in place he had made a custom bracket to hold the din pocket and and then literally just pinned the stereo between the top of the pocket and the HVAC controls. he also cut out around the stereo for some reason so now there's an ugly gap... I managed to get a stereo bracket from someone doing a part out so it's all wired and bolted up properly.

a brand new set of Boston Acoustics were installed in the factory dash locations.


I found a bunch of crap spliced into the ignition harness and wired into a relay with a bunch of live wires wrapped in masking tape and not going anywhere... I pulled all that out. there was a long blue live wire under the hood not attached to anything either (you can see it on the left side in the first pic).

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while pulling out all the wiring I found that the driver's door sensor switch was cut in half, which is probably why the dome light didn't work...


repaired and reinstalled... now I can see in the dark

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it took me a week to get the paperwork squared away before I could drive it... and the battery was dead, after jumping it and driving it for a while, the battery ended up dead a few more times.

come to find out the aftermarket tach was wired directly to the battery and drawing nearly 300mA... Getting rid of this would allow me to further clean up the wiring in the engine bay.


I got an SR5 cluster from a V6...



since I had an aftermarket tach it was simple as finding and adjusting the trim-pot until the SR5 tach matched... I also swapped the odometer so it's correct.

big difference in the view:



this also allowed me to get rid of the rest of the aftermarket wiring under the hood



I also found that the illumination for that aftermarket tach was routed to the driver's side corner light... so glad I got rid of that thing.

since I've installed the SR5 cluster I've had no problems with the battery.

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I don't know why by the connector for the oil pressure sensor was different than every other truck I've seen a picture of. it didn't have the notch to slid on from the side.


I found the correct connector on mouser, cut the old one off and crimped on the new one


another surprise when I installed the new cluster is the Check Engine Light came on apparently the bulb had been pulled.

it was throwing a rear O2 sensor code... not surprising because there's no rear O2 sensor ... they made a custom exhaust and just left out the cat and rear O2 bung.... the connector for it is just flopping around under there.

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the most recent thing I've done is install a new power steering pump and new lines.

the previous owner had taken the belt off because it was leaking all over the alternator.

that's the old high pressure line, the metal should be bright silver but it's completely soaked in fluid....

I burned about 2 cans of brake clean getting the seepage residue off of the block, bracket, and steering box, and I bought some electrical cleaner to hose off the alt.


hard to take a pic of the power steering pump but you can see the shiny new line with the purple anodized fitting coming out the side of the new pump.

I think it still needs to be bled properly as it doesn't really seem to help the steering at all ....

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my highest priorities now are:
-weld in another muffler or resonator and a 2nd O2 bung
-figure out why the heat doesn't work
-find some bucket seats

86 TOY

Great truck! You're really tightening it up, lotta shoddy work in there?

twistedsymphony

the body work is fantastic, it runs and drives great, but you could tell that a lot of the rest of it was just kind of thrown together...

case and point: I've taken apart the dash twice now (once for the stereo and once for the cluster) I don't thing there are more than 2 bolts that are alike holding that dash in place... since they just used whatever they had on hand. similar there are some dash pieces that are blue, some that are missing, etc. you could tell it was put together from a couple of different trucks.

similarly, I've counted 6 different style hose clamps in use in the engine bay, I'm pretty sure Toytoa didn't build it like that

at some point I'm probably just going to figure out the original size and threading and order the right style bolts for everything and just start replacing stuff so it all matches.

prerunning4x4

Wow man, im really stoked to see you got a really nice truck... The work done on it though seems to suck aside from what you can see, but good luck man! Best of luck to ya!



Scribeeeddd

twistedsymphony

it doesn't bother me... I have a pretty well equipped garage and can do just about anything short of body work (I don't have the experience or tools to do it properly) Wiring/engine/suspension/interior are no problem though.

my other car is a 240sx that I'm swapping a V8 into, doing all the work myself... fixing stuff on this truck is easy-peasy by comparison.

twistedsymphony

took the truck for it's first real highway trip today to deliver some home theater equipment to a friend.

when I got out the bars below the tail gate were peppered in gear oil... I guess it's pissing out though the input shaft seal on the rear end... probably pretty bad if it managed to shoot up like that, the underside of the diff is soaked as well.

upon closer inspection of the transfer case it looks like it's leaking pretty bad out of the output shaft for the front end as well...

anyone know how bad it is to replace the seals on these things?

twistedsymphony

This truck is going to kill me....

I found the problem with the rear-end oil leak... the vent on the top of the diff was painted shut and crammed with dirt... pulled it off, blasted out all the dirt and cleaned off the paint, it hasn't leaked a drop since.

A mechanic friend of mine helped me bleed the cooling system and now the heat works great.

Then a string of FUN events occurred...

Tuesday night I met my father and brother after work for diner. I had my work laptop with me and my brother gave me a guitar he wants me to fix for him. The locks in the Truck have always been flakey (never been able to turn the key in the passenger's door and the Driver's door turns hard and barely pops the lock, because of this I normally leave it unlocked all the time). due to the valuables I lock the driver's door, close it and test that I can open it with the key. It turns hard but works. I lock it again, go around to the passenger's side and lock that door too.

After diner neither door lock wants to turn... AT ALL I tired everything I can think to try to no avail. Finally I remember that the latch on the sliding rear window is broken, so I climb in the bed, slide it open, reach around and pop the lock from the inside.

next on the list: new door locks...

Wednesday night I need to drive to the city to meet a friend of mine who is doing some welding work on another one of my cars. I need gas so I stop. While pumping, I notice that there is some sheet rock residue from when I took a load to the dump over the weekend. So I grab a rag and some window cleaner to wash it off, I go to open the tailgate and it literally falls off the truck into my arms. It would appear that the hinge on the right hand side is plain missing. It latches back in place securely. The real confusing part is how i was able to OPEN and STAND on the damn thing when I was at the dump over the weeked...

next on the list: fix the tailgate hinge...

Last night (Thursday night) I stopped by the garage where a friend of mine works so he can help me bleed the power steering system. Since I replaced the pump and all the lines and it still didn't work. I stopped at Autozone to get fluid, I didn't know what it used so I asked and the register jockey assured me it took normal power steering fluid.

At my friends shop we sealed the suction hose fitting on the top of the pump with RTV since it was seeping out. The system was dry so maybe it didn't need to be bled, it just needed more fluid. it drank the PS fluid down and the wheels were turning with ease... sadly the pump was squealing the like pig in heat every time you touched the wheel. My mechanic friend looks at the reservoir and says "uh, it says to use ATF, not PS fluid" , we drain some fluid out and top it off with ATF and the squealing goes away.

Success, working power steering (first time since I've owned the truck!)

This morning (Friday) I drive into work, park it, shut off the headlights, wipers, turn off the truck etc. I reach over to unbuckle and it wont release the seat-belt, the button moves just like it should be the belt wont release. I squeeze the thing as hard as I can and it does nothing. I start seeing how much slack there is in the belt to see if I can slide out or something. Finally I decide to just pound on the buckle with the carabiner on my keychain and after a few good hits it released the buckle. It's never done this before, and I always wear my belt...

next on the list: new seatbelts...


At least the body and frame on this truck is flawless... but damn... I'm done with surprises.

Anyone know a good place where I can order NEW OEM parts? I'd like to order brand new stuff to fix the above.

twistedsymphony

I'm beginning to develop a love/hate relationship with this truck...

Seat Belt Fixed I bought a new, from toyota, driver's seat-belt receiver. so I could actually buckle up when I drove it. I thought about replacing all the belts but new ones are spendy and the driver's receiver was the only real "broken" part.

Door Locks replaced I also bought a complete new lock set that covered both doors, the gas lock and the ignition, I swapped in everything but the ignition (mostly out of lazyness since there was nothing wrong with the ignition)

Driver's Lock still needs to be fixed Sadly something is still up with the driver's side lock as I can turn it easily with the key but unlocking wont move the lock enough to actually unlock the door. I probably just need to pull the door apart and make sure all the metal rods are setup properly.

Diag and Fix Smokey ExhaustIt's always done this to some extent but it seems to be getting worse, I'm getting lots of white smoke and condensation out of the tailpipe, I think the truck is burning coolants, but it's not overheating at all, actually it runs a little on the cool side. I'm thinking it might have a minor head-gasket leak... I'm open to other (easier) avenues to diagnose this if anyone has any suggestions, I'd rather not swap the head-gasket only to find out that wasn't it.

Washer nozzle needs to be replaced The other day while brushing off snow I somehow managed to pull the driver's side washer nozzle clean off the truck, I didn't realize until I was on the road and went to use the washers only to watch the fluid shoot straight up out of the hood like a blow hole. Ordered a new nozzle from Toyota, still waiting on it

tail-gate Still needs to be fixed when I ordered the seatbelt receiver I bought a new "hinge" for the tail-gate, but the part they sent me wasn't the part I needed, so when I went to buy the washer nozzle I made sure to order the right part and argued with the parts guy who wanted to sell me the same wrong part they sold me last time... hopefully when it comes in it will be the right one this time.

Back glass lock to be fixed The plastic latch on the sliding back glass has been broken since I got the truck, Toyota wanted $45 for a new one so I said "no thanks" I'm not sure why but the windows wont slide closed all the way, there's a 2mm or so gap between them. (maybe this has something to do with why the latch is broken?) If anyone has any ideas, I'm open.

New Seats to install I got an awesome price on a set of Miata seats. They look great and really hold you in place, the sliders are completely wrong for the truck though, so I'm stuck with the bench seat until I can get some sliders that will fit the truck that I can modify for the miata seats... I've been having quite a lot of trouble finding some so if anyone knows of any bucket seat sliders for sale, please let me know

New Exhaust Installed The exhaust that was on the truck was all patch work, no cat, loud as hell (as in drove me insane while driving) and I've had an O2 sensor CEL since I bought the truck... I bought a new sensor and determined that I couldn't install it because the old sensor was WELDED to the exhaust <_< So I bought a new OEM Y-pipe, a new bolt-on cat, and a PaceSetter cat-bac as well as all new gaskets and hardware... I painted up the y-pipe and cat in high-temp paint to keep it from rusting. Went to install yesterday and nothing fit right... the mid-pipe bolted up to the manifold fine bue wouldn't bolt to transmission flange hanger, and was angled way down. The Pace-Setter catback was the worst fitting exhaust I'd ever tried to install (and I've installed DOZENS) I'm not sure if they sent me some wrong parts or if it's just that poorly designed. I rigged up something temporary until I get to a shop that can cut and weld it to fit better. Even worse was that the O2 connector was jacked up and I'm still getting a code...

Rear O2 Sensor question So the O2 sensor code is ambiguous but it's possible that it's a code for the REAR sensor, which my truck doesn't have. The truck was originally a California vehicle (which had an O2 sensor) but the motor is from a non-cali vehicle and the harness is missing the O2 connector. Anyone know how to tell if my ECU is for a federal or cali vehicle? I'm thinking if I've still got a cali ECU that could be why I'm getting that code.

Axle needs to be replaced When installing the exhaust I noticed one of the front axle boots was blown open and filled with dirt... I just went and bought a new axle as I don't want to dick around with trying to just replace the boot and having the axle die on me anyway, it was surprisingly cheap ($60 after core)... it hasn't made any noises so hopefully it will hold up until I have time to install the new one.

Throttle ProblemsTruck has a high cold idle (around 2.5K RPM) I've done everything in the book to try to fix it to no avail. I'm open to suggestions.

Once the vehicle has warmed up the throttle still STICKS, when this happens the butterfly is actually cocked open slightly (with the hood open you can close it by hand), a quick blip of the throttle corrects this but it's annoying as hell. I've read someone with a similar issue who claimed it was the throttle cable itself, he sheathing had split and the cable was rusted slightly causing it to stick when lightly releasing the throttle... I haven't been able to find a replacement cable and Toyota wants $120+ for a new one.

Worthless e-Brake The e-brake has never seemed to work well, over the summer it would hold... sometimes... now in the winter if I use it the thing wont release and burns up my brakes if I drive while they're sticking... it's all new e-brake equipment so I don't know, I'm half considering just swapping to rear discs.. in the mean time I've just stopped using it and throw the truck in gear when I park it.

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I think that's about it, if anyone has any recommendations for all the ish that is falling apart let me know, I'd love to hear some suggestions.

elguerrerodejalisco

Wow great truck but I personaly like the lift but we all have our opinions

twistedsymphony

got my custom rear brake setup running. This uses Rear Calipers and rotors from a 2001 Mitsubishi Montero Sport 4x4.






I custom designed the brackets myself and had them made by a local machine shop out of hardened steel.

The calipers are completely unmodified, the rotors needed the bolt holes drilled out very very slightly to 14mm. they didn't seat quite flush with the tapered base of the studs (maybe they would have snugged up when torqued, I'm not sure)

The soft brake lines are from the front of a dodge neon, though any 10mm soft line would work. hardlines are just generic pre-flared lines from the local parts store.



I had originally bought the Sky Off-road kit that uses monte carlo calipers but they didn't clear my wheels so I decided to build custom.

my setup ...
-uses less expensive brake parts
-uses easier to source brake parts
-doesn't require any modification to the caliper
-has better wheel clearance
-is appropriately sized for the truck (no bias adjustment needed)
-has much easier rotor modification (sky kit rotors require a lathe, mine only requires a drill)
-dare I say, even looks better too.

TN Five-0

wow....this thread just died when It was getting good