SPARKS89

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So I've decided it's time to start my own build thread. This is my first Toyota and I've had the truck almost a year now. I'm the third owner of this 1989 Toyota Pickup Deluxe 4x4. It has a 22re, W56-C 5-speed manual.



I've run into a few issues with the truck, replaced/upgraded a few things and the list of things I want to do keeps growing and growing. I've definitely got the bug! So here goes.....

SPARKS89

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My first project was a good 'ol tune-up. At the time I didn't know how picky these trucks are about aftermarket brands. I ended up with NGK spark plugs and Autolite wires, cap and rotor. They've done fine so I can't complain about them. I checked all my fluids and did an oil change just to make sure, since I had no idea when the last one was done.

westjohns yota

our trucks can be very picky about brands, stay away from e3 diamond fire plugs, i did that to mine and it just ran horriable, it sounds like you have a good base, try post pics ia photobucket so you get a better sized image

SPARKS89

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I had problems originally with MASSIVE vacuum leaks (thank you previous owner). the engine would die when I let off the throttle and the idle was anywhere but where it should be. That was solved with a set of silicone vacuum lines from hiperformance.com. They sell a kit just for the 22re pickup. I have since found similar kits for less money (I paid around $70 including shipping) so if anybody is thinking about doing this themselves make sure you shop around before you settle on anything. The kit is good quality, but you can get the same thing for less. Shortly after that I got bored and decided after a little reasearch to do a battery/airbox swap. It sounded like a fun weekend project and was fairly cheap. I was also looking to improve performance where I could and while I may not notice in increase in MPGs or HP the truck is a little more peppy. I had just gone from a 2001 Dodge 1500 4x4 Quad Cab with a 318 V8 down to this little fella. I gotta say tho, I like the Yota a lot better.

In process. Already had the battery removed here...


And the finished product...


I got all the parts I needed for the swap from Advance Auto. No special kits or anything, I just pieced it together. The new intake parts are from Spectre and the mounting bracket between the new filter and AFM is home-made and welded up by a friend. A new battery tray for the driver's side too. I also replaced the battery wires and upped the size to #4 rather than just splicing into the existing wires. The juice has farther to travel now so running a bigger gauge wire to avoid voltage drop is a good thing. Plus it just looks better too. You can see the new battery wires along the top of the firewall.

VANCE164

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looks like a fun project look forward to seeing where you go with it. but i disagree westjohn I run e3 plugs and I love them 2 trucks now with no problems.

SPARKS89

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I've learned how picky this truck can be with non-Toyota parts since then. I'll get to that part of the story later.

The truck is a very good base to work from. The only real rust it has is the passenger side rocker panel. Frame is solid and it doesn't appear to have been ragged out.

How are the pictures now? I know I kinda went the other way on the size....

SPARKS89

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After that I didn't do much for a while other than regular maintenance. I did a lot of research after I found Yotatech and did a lot of research on things I would like to do.

The next big project came the week of 4th of July when we observed a moment of silence and remembered all of our nation's fallen heros.....and my 4th gear.





I can't even begin to tell you how much I don't know about rebuilding a transmission, but if you give me enough time I can figure out how to replace one.


This one comes from High Gear Transmissions (highgeartransmission.com) not too far from Memphis, TN. They only do manual transmissions and are VERY good. Full cost of this including shipping the new unit to me and cost of shipping my old one back to them for the core was an even $1000. And yes, it comes with a VERY good warranty. Ask for Cody. He'll set you up with whatever you need.

I don't have a shop or garage at my home so I have to do major things at a friends house. I started this project around 6:30 in the morning on July 5th. I replaced the transmission, clutch kit (including the damn pilot bearing), flywheel and rear main seal. I finished around 9 that night. I did the entire project completely by myself. The ONLY time I had help was after my friend got home from work. He helped me wiggle the new transmission into place and line it up. The last thing I wanted was to find out the rear main seal went bad and have to take it all back out again. Turns out the old seal had a little leak anyway so it worked out good.

Here's the new stuff I was stock-piling

$1700 worth of stuff sitting there. Shout-out to VISA


Out with the old....
If you look real close you can see the rust on the rocker panel there.


In with the new.

I cleaned up the bell-housing before swapping it over to the new transmission. I wish I had thought about getting a can of aluminum paint to make it look good, but oh well. The old unit is in the background.

SPARKS89

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The next thing was very simple which I was thankful for after the transmission. I replace the dash lights with blue LEDs. I also did the bulbs behind the climate controls too. Now they all match my stereo (which has since died )

SPARKS89

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https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...switch-256641/

This is the link to my next project. I still haven't figured it out and I'm still driving around with my TPS unplugged.

SPARKS89

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I forgot to mention in a previous post that when I installed the new transmission that it and the transfer case both got Redline GL-4 gear oil and not GL-5. I think that may have been the problem with the old transmission.

Anyway.....

Things puttered along nicely and in August I began making sure everything was ready for my state inspection at the end of the month. I replaced the rear brakes (with some of what you see in the above picture) and checked the front. I'll be upgrading to the V6 calipers up front when it comes time to replace those brakes, but for now they're fine. The last week of the month I took the truck in for inspection. A little while after lunch I get a call telling me that the truck failed inspection because of bad rear brakes and because my sway bar was hanging (I broke one of the frame straps when I was replacing the transmission). I told they guy that my brakes were brand new and they were DEFINITELY not bad. He told me the rear axle seal was leaking fluid all over the brakes on the passenger side and they wouldn't pass because of that.

So I ordered new axle seals and bearings and made sure I got Toyota parts for that. I recommend going ahead and doing both sides because if you're in there you might as well do it all. I also ordered parts to replace the rear brakes AGAIN because by that time the shoes were already saturated with gear oil and were no good anymore.

I went to my friends house one weekend to replace all the parts once they came in. This is what the passenger side looked like when I opened it up.



It took quite a while to get the retaining collars for the axle bearings to come loose. I have read that some people have taken old axle housings and cut the end off so they can bolt the retainer to that and put the whole thing in the press, thereby pressing the axle shaft out squarely. I did not have this option available to me on such short notice. I ended up taking a couple pieces of angle iron along with some threaded rod and made a 'tool' that attached to the press and also bolted to the 4 studs on the axle retainer (I don't know if that's what it's really called, but that's my name for it). The tool held up nicely, but the retaining ring still wouldn't move with as much from a 12 ton press as I dared to put on it. It worked pretty well once you put some heat to the bearing retainer tho. That daggone thing popped loose so loud it sounded like a shotgun! Pressing the new parts on was easy, just make sure you don't hurt your new seals and lube the lips of them prior to installation. By the way, I'm becoming a big fan of the Redline products so the rear axle got that too.

After I got the axles done I set to work on the rear brakes again. I had ordered Raybestos shoes and drums from Amazon.com to replace the now bad Wearever parts. I wasn't satisfied with the Wearever brakes so I wasn't going to reuse that brand and I couldn't take them back once they were ruined with gear oil so I had to just cut my losses. I get to putting parts back together and realize that the brake shoes are wrong. They are for a 2-wheel drive Toyota. Lucky for me, I still had the old first set of brake shoes sitting in the floor of the truck (I was waiting to toss out all the old parts together) and I couldn't seem to get the oiled up drums clean to save my life....no matter what I did there always felt like there was a little grease film left on them. I decided to use my old shoes with the new drums and thus begins the story of how my truck learned to dance.

Has anybody ever heard about the phenomenon known as 'brakes grabbing'? Well let me go ahead and tell you, old shoes and new drums do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT work well together. It's like rubbing 2 pieces of 50-grit sandpaper against each other and wondering why it's not smooth. The back of my truck was dancing around something terrible every time I even thought about touching the brakes. I got a lot of practice with down-shifting to almost a full stop for the next couple of days and luckily (for them) no one cut me off. The next day I got online, returned the wrong Raybestos shoes to Amazon and ordered Toyota parts (best price I could find once you factor in shipping was at toyotapartsdiscounters.com). Got them installed, took the sway bar off and headed back for a reinspection. We're good to go now!!!

SPARKS89

iTrader: (1)

This past weekend I did a water injection/Seafoam injection treatment on my engine. Here's the link about it if anybody is interested in trying it themselves:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/s...y-work-243376/

It worked pretty good. You could see on the ground where the exhaust was hitting it looked like a giant greasy spot. I imagine that's due to some of the crap that came out of the engine and not just the water or seafoam burning off. I didn't use any Marvel Mystery Oil (nobody around here sells it so I'll have to order some), but the Seafoam was AMAZING! It works wonders for pissing off the neighbors!!!



That's a picture of the smoke from my exhaust after it drifted about 75 yards. Imagine what it was like right there at the truck!!! I was standing by the engine and couldn't even see the rear wheel.

And for the sake of not having to search thru the whole Seafoam thread if you don't want to I'll add some of the info here as well.

I took pictures of my spark plugs before and after and also did compression checks before and after as well to see if there was any change. Keep in mind my spark plugs are close to a year old to begin with and are shown 1,2,3,4 from left to right. Here's what I came up with:

Before:


Compression Test: #1: 166 PSI
#2: 170 PSI
#3: 170 PSI
#4: 165 PSI

And after:



Compression Test: #1: 175 PSI
#2: 174 PSI
#3: 170 PSI
#4: 165 PSI

Not bad compression results even before the test for a 23 year old engine. As you can see I ended up with better compression in cylinders 1 & 2, but not in 3 & 4. I believe this is because I used a vacuum line on the intake manifold that provided a better flow to 1 & 2 than to 3 & 4. I'll be doing this treatment again because I'm sure it's going to take more than just once to really start getting a lot of the gunk out. I'm also going to make sure I use the Marvel Mystery Oil next time too because I've heard nothing but good things about it. It's almost time for new spark plugs and wires again anyway so maybe that will help things a little too.

SPARKS89

iTrader: (1)

Well after the water and Seafoam and smoke and steam and carbon buildup it was time to move on to something else.

How many of you have looked down and seen this?



Let me go ahead and say, if you've only been awake (or at least out of bed) for about 20 minutes and it's cold outside and you're still not fully aware of your surroundings and you look down and see this you WILL obtain a blank stare and be mildly confused for a minute or two while it sinks in. This is the first speedometer needle I have ever seen break without being hit, smashed or subdued into submission in any way. It just plain broke. So I did what anybody would do.....I used it as an excuse to upgrade to the SR5 cluster. I was running out of patience trying to find a new reason every time the old reason got boring anyway. I finally had a way to justify it!!!

The new one came in over the weekend. Here's the link if anybody's interested. I've had a couple of questions about this thing, but nothing super major.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...w-what-262327/

I've already adjusted the odometer to pretty close. I want to set it for the actual mileage of the truck. Here's a link to superbleeder's thread if anybody wants to read up on it.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116/sr5-gauge-cluster-swap-how-pics-179106/

It'll go in in the next week or so. Meanwhile, I also ordered new coolant hoses for the engine....9 in all! Those got put on yesterday. I broke one of the clamps for the lower radiator hose so that will get replaced after work today which means one more good system flush before I fill it for good. It certainly won't hurt it. I also still have to do the thermostat too since the new one didn't come with the required o-ring. It sounds like it should have from what other people have told me, but it's a $2 part so I'm not going to make a big stink about it. The new thermostat has been boiled with the water temperature measured to make sure it's working properly. It's a good idea to do that before having to find out the hard way that it's not working. Not to mention I think it's cool to watch it happen (I'm easily amused ). I'm also curious to find out if my truck even has a thermostat in it. From what I've read most people that don't have the temperature needle move more than 1/8 inch or so end up finding out they don't even have a thermostat installed so it's got me wondering a little. I'll find out this afternoon and let you know.

I also ordered a new valve cover gasket and exhaust manifold gasket last week (also got the new oil pressure sending unit to go along with the SR5 cluster swap, but that's not part of my little story here) because I quickly found both of them were leaking when I did the Seafoam treatment. Little tip: if you want a quick and easy way to check for leaks Seafoam works for that too!!! You'll have smoke coming out of more than just the tail pipe. I swear that stuff is like Liquid Miracle. It cleans, conditions AND checks for leaks for you!!! What more could you want from a little white bottle???

SPARKS89

iTrader: (1)

New thermostat and coolant went in the other day along with the new clamps for the lower hose. All is well with the cooling system now. My valve cover gasket, exhaust manifold gasket and oil pressure sending unit for the SR5 gauge cluster upgrade came in today. Looking back at all the stuff I've done to this truck in the past year makes me feel like I'm finally starting to make some headway towards where I want to be with it. It's a good feeling. I LOVE THIS TRUCK!

SPARKS89

iTrader: (1)

Oh, I almost forgot. I got an alignment and tires balanced and rotated last Friday too. I'm not fighting it down the road anymore! Easily worth the $120! Did I mention that I LOVE THIS TRUCK?

Snortin Nortin

Thats awsome I've been really sceptical about the seafoam !!! heard peeps cars dying shortly after doing it!! but heard good too and now you kool! these trucks are kinda ..Imean a little like fords as they always need tinkering with but will never leave u stranded ! but the build quality is 3 times that of ford so thats out there!!! I like that little truck I need runners for hauling peeps though! I have the same tranny though now I really want to change gear oils!! why is gl4 better than gl5 though I don;t understand?? doesen't gl5 supersede gl4?

SPARKS89

iTrader: (1)

GL-5 has something extra in it (i don't know exactly what) that isn't good for the synchronizers in the transmission. They are a softer metal (i think brass, but I'm really not sure) and the GL-5 either eats away at it or doesn't lubricate that particular metal the way it needs to be and so they get worn out. GL-5 can be used in the axles because they don't have that metal in them anywhere. GL-5 is also more readily available than GL-4 so I'd be wiling to bet there are a LOT of trucks out there that are past due on transmission service. Do yourself a favor...if it says use GL-4 don't use something that says it can replace either. Spend the time to find the right stuff. Your transmission will thank you.

Toyota~Boy

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Did you pour the seafoam into the intake or did you pour it into the crankcase too? I'm just curious. That stuff can be used several different ways.

SPARKS89

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If I remember correctly I used half a can in the crank case and the other half in the gas tank when it was about 1/3 full. I also used 1/3 can thru one of the 6mm vacuum hoses on the intake and let it sit for a few hours. Then I started it up and let it burn off until no more smoke. Then I did another 1/3 can in the vacuum hose again and let it sit overnight.

SPARKS89

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Today I installed my SR5 cluster!! I'm very excited about this. I was nervous at first when I got my new-to-me cluster in the mail because I had heard that the mid 90s clusters had 4-plug connections where the late 80s models had a 3-plug connection. Well it turns out that's not completely accurate. My 89 Pickup has a 4-plug connection.



The plug and play was easy. And luckily, my truck already had the tach wire in the harness so I didn't have to mess with that! Now, obviously if you're upgrading to the SR5 cluster the vehicle you're putting it in isn't going to have all the bells and whistles an SR5 would have. You're going to have extra indicator lights on your new dash that you don't need. I recommend taking the bulbs out and just leaving the empty sockets in the back of the cluster. And since you will have a few spare bulbs/sockets laying around you'll be able to quickly take care of little things like this:



When I got my cluster it was missing one of the small backlight bulbs/sockets. Just take one of the indicator bulbs you don't need and slap it in there. DONE. While you have the cluster out you have two options for the odometer. You can either take the one out of your old cluster and put it in your new cluster or you can take my approach and remove the odometer from the new cluster and adjust it to match the current mileage of the vehicle.



All you have to do is remove it from the speedometer and spin the gear you see here on the right until the numbers match (I had to adjust mine over 21,000 miles. It took a couple hours or so). This, of course, can only work if the new cluster has less mileage on it than your old one. If it has more........good luck to you. I don't know how to do that. And since you'll have the speedometer out from adjusting the odometer, I'll show you a little trick I figured out tonight. But first...GO UNPLUG YOUR OIL PRESSURE SENDING UNIT!!! If you don't you'll fry the gauge. You have to replace it with the sending unit for the SR5 because it has a variable resistor that allows the needle on the gauge to move. The regular sending unit is basically an on/off switch for the indicator light on the deluxe cluster. Now moving on.....I've read a lot about adjusting the tach when you do this swap. There's a little dashpot on the speedometer side of the tach you'll have to turn to get it set. What I did was set up my timing light (which shows RPMs too) and wedge it in the door like this:



You can also see in this picture the next part of my little magic trick. Just leave the speedometer out while you adjust the tach! It's WAY easier to get to the dashpot with a regular ol' screwdriver (use a #1 head).



Now I don't know if this will work the same for clusters that have the electronic speedo or not, but the cable-driven speedometers aren't hooked up to anything at this point so it's nothing to just leave it out for now. This is also a good time to check to make sure all you're bulbs are working right. You'll need to pull your switches out of your dash panel and plug them in (make sure you get the flasher switch. I forgot that one at first and wondered for a minute why my turn signals weren't working when I tried to check them the first time).



I found the bulb for my CEL was burned out and I didn't have to go thru the process of unscrewing everything to change it.

Once you have your tach set and bulbs checked you'll have to reinstall the speedometer. Once you have that done it's just a simple matter of reinstalling all your dash parts with the new cluster. YOU'RE DONE!

Yamiryder

sweet build up. lots of good info and in depth explanations!