Hey all, so I just bought a 81 yota 4x4 with the 22r/5speed and unknown tc.
I bought it running and I even drove it once I got it home. The problem was a dead battery the next morning, so i bought a new one. I also installed a fuel regulator at the same time. I connected the battery and turned the key. As soon as I did some wires in the dash started smoking. The old battery was 500cc and the new battery is 750cc. Is that an issue? I'll be honest and say i hate electrical work minus changing battery cables. I should also note the PO de-smogged it and put a weber on it.


Thx J

 

Battery size should not be an issue. Verify that you have your new battery installed right (positive and negative).

Sounds like you probably have some bad grounds and corrosion. First thing to check are your battery cables. Take your battery out and clean up the cable connections with a wire brush. Follow the positive cable to your solenoid and make sure the connection is clean and tight. Follow the negative cable to where it grounds and do the same.

A good thing to do if you have a charger with overcharge protection is to charge your battery outside the car every single time you are working on your wiring. Then you know you've removed your battery and aren't going to shock yourself, and you will also always have a charged battery to test your fixes with.

Can you see any burned out wires? If the casing is bubbling, or you know it was smoking, you're going to need to replace that section of wire.

The good news is that those trucks have pretty simple electrical systems.

Here is a wiring diagram for your truck. A manual would really come in handy. Make paper printouts of the wiring diagrams so that you can draw on them and also not have to worry about getting your manual greasy.

I don't know if you own any tools, but you're going to want to buy a few things before you start tackling problems.

1. A multimeter, test light, and alligator clip jumpers. Doesn't have to be expensive stuff.
2. A wire stripper. I often use a lighter to strip wires, but I also burn my fingers a lot.
3. A good crimper. I have this one, which was fairly inexpensive and worth every penny. You can get away with just about any terminal ends as long as your crimper is decent.
4. A soldering iron or gun. I just bought a decent 3M brand iron at Walmart for 5 bucks. Any basic solder will do. Don't use plumbing stuff.
5. Good wire. Depending on the climate you live in, you can get away with cheap stuff. Take a chunk of your original wire into the shop and buy something the same size or larger. Never hurts to add more diameter.
6. A small LED flashlight. It should be small enough to hold in your mouth so you have your hands free. Use this every time you need to verify a wire color. Even if you are 95% sure that the wire is brown, scratch at it with your fingernail and shine a light on it. This helps a lot when you are trying to match up wires with your diagram.
7. A bunch of heat shrink tubing in the correct size is very useful for splicing. Some would say it's a requirement, but I've had good luck with taping as well.
8. A roll of friction tape is great for wrapping and protecting wires, especially in areas where they rub against the body. If you don't have heat shrink, you will need this.
9. An expensive roll of electrical tape. I like Scotch Super 33. Don't skimp the tape. Once I have a splice in, I wrap it in heat shrink, friction tape, then electrical tape over the friction tape. I haven't had one go bad yet.
10. A bunch of zip ties. Just get a big can of them with lots of different sizes. The crimp tool is the best thing to cut these with.

Once you have your kit assembled, things tend to be a lot easier in the electric world. It's worth investing in decent gear, because wiring on old cars is constantly going bad.

Once you get your battery cables cleaned up, if the car starts. You're in business. If not, you're going to be playing hide and seek with shorted wires. This is a pain, but that's why you bought the meter. Set it to measure DC voltage and start checking if you have power where it should be.

Hopefully this wasn't all stuff you already knew. If you have more specific questions I'll try and help, but wiring problems are hard to help with from a distance. The more information you can give, the better.

 

Slap me silly and call me sally, I'm an idiot. I put the neg batt cable on the positive post and pos cable on neg battery post. I can't believe I did that but the truck still runs.

The little grey emissions box underneath the dash on the bottom left by the drivers side door smells like it is completely burned up. The PO did de-smog the truck so none of that stuff was connected I think? Anyways the truck still turns over but doesn't run. I'm thinking a plugged fuel line.

Thanks for your reply and help! I'll try to post some pics of it sometime.
Sorry for the late response, I just got done with college finals.

J

 

From your initial description it sounded like a reverse installed battery. I've done the same thing and it sucks.

You said it turned over, which is great.
Verify that you are getting spark and that your coil and distributor are still working.
If that is all good, make sure you're getting fuel. You can try pouring some gas down the carb to see if it will run, and if it does, you probably do have a fuel delivery problem.

Pretty sure the 81 22r has a mechanical fuel pump, so I'm doubting that you harmed the fuel system with your battery install, but I'd double check everything. Do you still have the stock carb? Because you could have messed up the fuel cut solenoid. Sounds like it can sometimes get stuck and restrict fuel.

 

The motor fires up and idles with some gas down the carb, but that's it. I put some new gas in the tank, replaced the fuel filter and the fuel pump and I still have no gas in the lines. It wont even push the gas into the clear fuel filter.? Im now confused. Could me installing the battery wrong have killed something I don't know about?

I hooked up my compressor and blew air through the line back into the tank and I could hear the gas bubbling so I know that line isn't clogged. All other lines are clear as far as I can tell.

The carb is a weber that I know nothing about. It looks confusing, it has this aura of confusion around it and it probably needs a rebuild, although the motor still ran and idled even with the carb as is. The problem I had before the battery issue was that it was running rich.

 

You should try priming the pump. Siphon gas through the lines and fill everything all the way to the carb. Then see if your pump will work. You can disconnect the fuel line from the carb and run it into a jar, and run the car for a few seconds off of the fuel in the carb to see if the pump is working.

Don't think it is an electrical issue at this point, but I will say that Weber's do not work well with mechanical fuel pumps, the require a much lower and more constant fuel pressure than the mechanical pump puts out.

I'd get an electric pump and a pressure regulator.

 

I read that weber's have an issue with mech pump's, and I did buy a fuel reg for it but I haven't hooked it up yet.

I'll try to prime it tomarrow. I think I'm going to drop the tank and see what's in it. When I tried to start it today I ended up with some sand and crap in the fuel filter but no fuel. I think I got a bad line letting air in somewhere as well.

 

Primed the fuel system and it started and ran good. Sounds like a healthy 4 banger to me. I still need to figure out why its running rich though.

Would a holly fuel reg help at all with a stock mech fuel pump? The fuel pump is brand new. Would this setup work with the weber to lean it out or no?

 

Toss the pressure regulator on there to start with, and if you can't get it to lean out, I'd look at tuning your carb.

 

I installed a brand new battery yesterday, then drove around for awhile. This morning I go out to start it and it's completely dead. Even the wipers don't work.

Did my battery reverse install fry something that could drain a brand new battery? I'm not sure what I'm missing and the manuel doesn't help much.

 

Did you end up buying a multimeter and some tools to work with? Since your battery was going dead overnight before you burned everything out, I'm going to guess that the problem existed before you installed it backwards.

Check the voltage of the battery, and verify that you have a functional alternator. Check your grounds again, and start going through and verifying each circuit one by one.

 

After you get the electrical b.s. figured out, the weber is EASY to tune. Main problem area is the 2 piece adaptor plates that come with the kits. They almost always leak. Vac leak = poorly running carb. Here's a link to a good weber tuning guide. good luck
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f115...b-info-241818/