1991 Toyota Pickup getting a 3.4 from a 1997 4Runner
 

Ok so I bought my pickup a few years ago for the huge sum of $1200. It was basically a steal from a local guy who had bought it NEW in 1991. The guy was the perfect person to buy a car from, he was the original owner, an engineer by training, he had a shop (with machining equipment) at his house, and he was completely anal about his vehicles. I bought it with 247k miles, a blown exhaust valve on the #6 cylinder and brand new shocks on it.

Right away I pulled the heads, bought new valves, lapped them in and put it back together with new gaskets. The truck served me VERY well for years since, including hauling tons and tons of *stuff* and doing it without even a tiny complaint.

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Until the summer of 2012 when I went out to do some light wheeling with a few friends (this is a completely stock sized truck mind you). It had been a really dry summer so we were going through a mostly dry creekbed and hit a low spot, being a daring (aka dumb) person I figured “what could happen!”. To make a long story short I sucked some water up and snapped a connecting rod on the #1 cylinder. After getting it all apart I figured out that they wanted $120 for, not six, but ONE connecting rod. I didn’t love the 3.0 THAT much so I threw a single connecting rod into it (not something I’m proud of... don’t follow my lead ladies and gents, that’s the wrong way to fix it), put it all back together and it’s run great for another 10 months and 5,000 miles so far but I know I’m working on borrowed time so I’ve been prepping for a 3.4 swap since then.

I found a guy parting out a 1997 4Runner on Craigslist a couple months ago, he’d already sold the front body parts but the truck ran and drove so it fight my requirements! I went out there, told him EVERYTHING I thought I’d need and picked it up, I chewed over picking up the entire thing but it just wasn’t feasible so I grabbed a whole bunch o’ junk off it and I’m hoping for the best. It was a great deal, I think I spent $440 for nearly everything under the hood, the exhaust, and the stock rims I’d been wanting to put on my truck.

I’m about to get started on this 3.4 swap and I’ve read nearly every thread on it a few times in the last 6 months so it is just time for me to DO, instead of just reading.

Right now I’m up against a bit of a timeline, we have a guys trip planned to drive (from KS) out to Colorado and hit some old mining trails, we’re leaving on May 29th and I’d REALLY like to take my truck on the trip.

My goal is to get this back to stock-style condition, I can be VERY particular but also very lazy on the same day so those two issues will be fighting with each other as I make choices. Usually the particularity (sometimes called being anal) wins out in the end. That means I’ll eventually want Cruise Control and A/C to function properly, especially since they both work now!

So, without further ado, here are some pics from when I purchased it!

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So the former owner put a Tilt bed on it. Basically he modified the stock bed and rear bumper to tilt up. It isn’t strong enough to hold anything so it is nearly useless for anything other than looking cool :(

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So, to recap, here are the bits:
1991 Toyota Pickup 3.0 Manual 4x4
1997 3.4 from a 4Runner with Automatic transmission
1998 ECU from a manual 3.4 4Runner.


Thanks YTT, you guys are awesome!

I hope you all like pics, this post will have PLENTY.

So I've definitely made some progress in the last week or so, including getting the 3.0 out:
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I got the 3.0 out and my parts removed. I got the 3.0 listed on Craigslist locally, I'm surprised at the amount of interest, hopefully I'll have it sold this weekend and I'll start cutting down my costs! (Parts not removed in the pic):
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The engine bay is cleaned up with Purple Power Degreaser, that stuff is AWESOME!! I didn't expect much because it is an environmentally friendly degreaser and the super chemically stuff is usually more effective (but burns like hell when you touch it). I borrowed my father in-law's pressure washer and washed it afterwards.
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You can see some rust in that last pic, I sanded it down with just steel wool, rinsed and dried it then painted it with White Rustoleum, it doesn't need to be pretty, it just needs to prevent future rust:
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Besides the wiring, the thing I'm most worried about is the exhaust cross-over. I was able to follow instructions from Jason4x4's awesome crossover build thread (for the most part) https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f160...r-pipe-138902/

First, I took some pics of what the crossover looks like on the engine, I tried to get an idea of the gaps so I was able to replicate it to some extent:
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http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...psb6d993ed.jpg
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I had a cutoff wheel but my compressor was running constantly to keep up with it so I ended up grinding the extra welds down with my welder then cutting the gap out with my sawzall. I had to be veeery careful but I still cut through it in a few places:
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Except on the pipe where the two come together, I got fed up and cut clean through it! I honestly don't know how anyone does it otherwise on that:
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Then I did some of the cutting up of the pipes and started mocking it up:
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I ended up getting a 2" piece of exhaust pipe from Advance Auto near my house, it is about 4" long and was something like $4 for it (waaay too expensive but I was too lazy to try anywhere else) - sorry no pic of that guy.

I had a buddy coming over with a welder but I don't have 220 out in the garage and it wasn't going to support it so I pulled the window cover off to my basement and re-wired my dryer outlet:
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Fortunately he had a LONG 220v extension cord for just this purpose. I was able to wheel the motor down the driver to closer to the house and tack the pieces in place:
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Unfortunately I'm not great at welding:
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But Fortunately, I only had to tack it into place. I sent the motor with my buddy and he is going to have his dad do the full welding with his nice MIG at the house. I'll have more pics when it is done!

The other nice thing that happened today was that my tires came in!! I ordered them from TireBuyer, the price was great, the shipping took literally a day and a half, and I really liked that the site had so many user reviews.

I do about 99% on-road driving and about 1% off-road driving so I picked tires accordingly, add in the fact that I'm cheap and I ended up with the Kelly Safari ATR's in 265/75R16 - I have 16" rims from the donor 4Runner so I was able to use the 16s, besides I like the look of these rims a LOT better than my old ones, now I just have to decide how to paint them...

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I re-read through the rules and didn't see any reason I couldn't post the link to these tires so here it is: http://www.tirebuyer.com/tires/kelly.../p/tv142000522

Moderators: If I'm wrong just let me know and I'll fix it pronto!

Next came the oil dipstick tube swap, I don't have any pics of the removal of the plug but I put a pair of vise grips on it, lubed it with some PB Blaster (best bolt/nut removal liquid EVER) and put a short prybar in there and smacked at it with a mini sledge hammer. I did some wiggling back and forth with the vise grips and that seemed to help.

The parts I bought are:
Dipstick #15301-62060
Dipstick Guide #11452-62060
Dipstick Union #90405-10033
Dipstick O-Ring #96721-19010

I put the Dipstick Union in the freezer for a few hours first and it dropped in place with just a little bit of hammering:
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Then I wanted to make sure the new dipstick read like it should so I plopped the old one back in place and did some measuring. From what I can see the low-fill line is 2 and 1/8" down from the bottom of the block. The upper-fill line is 1 and 3/8" down from the block
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With the new tube and dipstick in place it put the low-fill line at 1 and 15/16" down and the upper-fill at 1 and 3/16" down. There is clearly some discrepancy here which explains why a few have mentioned trimming the dipstick tube (at the top I presume). I'll be doing that shortly, trimming off 3/16" to get the readings right.
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Okay, so one step forward and a few steps back. I pulled off the valve covers and found there was a TON of carbon built up under them. I'm really worried about the engine's condition because I bought it based on the claim that it had run but nothing else. Fortunately it was dirt cheap.

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I figure I had a couple options, 1) Pull the whole thing apart and have it cleaned up and put it back together or 2) Clean it as much as possible and hope for the best. With my time crunch I went with option #2. I pressure washed the motor in my driveway (neighbors really love me) and used some Purple Power degreaser to help out. The heads are significantly better but not pristine by any means.

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I'm planning to flush the oil after I get it running with a bottle of seafoam and an extra oil change, hopefully that will help!

However, I was able to make some progress on the truck, including getting the engine most of the way together, I got the oil pickup tube cut, I just cut off the extra leg and installed it with the 3.4 baffle in there then got the oil pan on.

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Oh, and I tapped the old oil dipstick tube hole with an M10x1.25 thread and dropped a bolt in there with a healthy dose of gasket sealer (FIPG / RTV, whatever you want to call it)
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After that I got the new water pump, timing belt, covers and pulley on the engine, then the valve covers back on with fresh gaskets and a healthy dose of pretending they didn't look terrible underneath there.
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Alright, so I've run into a bit of a problem here, I was working on the wiring and I have 2 connectors inside the pickup that go to the Engine harness but don't go to the ECU on the truck side. I've searched and searched but I just can't figure out what part of the EWDs describe that connector!!

I assume they're things like dash lights & sensors, etc. but I can't find those two connectors in my files. Anybody have any ideas?
First pic is of the engine harness side of the connectors:
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This is of the truck side of those connectors:
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Any thoughts?

Alright, so I found a brief reference in TheMonch's Wiring Theory PDF (Thank you!) and searched for IH1 or IH2, nothing there

Then I refined my searching and used google so I could search only the 3.4 swaps forum within yotatech - with this search term "site:yotatech.com/f160/ connector" and found this thread: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f160...please-191729/

So far I've searched my EWDs for IH1, ID1, C1 and still nothing looks right. I think the 1 by 1 search of each wiring (A/C, Coolant temp from dash, etc) is my next step. Wish me luck!

Alright, quick update as it seems I'm asking questions then answering them myself.

It seems the connectors on my pickup are IH1 and IH2, I must've missed something before when I wasn't finding IH1.

And on the 1997 4Runner harness it looks like they're II1 and II3, pic attached of the harness connectors:
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Also, is anybody out there? I feel like I'm talking to myself but I've gotten so much help from YotaTech I figured I'd post my experience in case it can help someone else!

Those plugs (from your 91 pickup) may not be named IH1 and IH2 in your EWD, that's certainly how they're labeled for my 91 4Runner but I've seen various threads where the same functional connector is labeled differently between pickups and 4Runners.

To find their "real" names, look in your EWDs (that you downloaded form TIS, https://techinfo.toyota.com/) under "Power Source Network" -> "Electrical Wiring Routing" -> "connecto.pdf". From there you will need to search through all the EWD pdfs for those connector numbers (they are scattered throughout multiple files) to find the functions of each pin.

As for the 97 4Runner, II1 and II3 are the correct names for those 2 connectors. If you're keeping it 5 speed, there is one wire in II1 that you may possibly need, all the others are for the A/T. This may help: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f160.../#post51891254

Awesome SacRunner, thanks for that. the location within the files is what I really needed.

That is interesting about II1 because I am keeping it manual, will be nice to get rid of extra wires!

I did download as many EWDs as I thought I'd need but I've been thinking I may have to sign back up because I'm pretty sure I missed a few things. I'll do that tonight and DL things this weekend.

Thanks!
Tony

The best way is to just figure it out, just like you are doing! It will help you troubleshoot down the road. Also those heads look bad. Hope it's not the cause of issues for you.

Yeah, the sludge in those heads looks pretty bad, just be careful cleaning things out, you don't want to do too much too fast and possibly clog a smaller oil passage.

Check out this thread for how someone else cleaned out a 3.4 with a lot more sludge build up than you have: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/o...ttacks-167704/

And also this one talking about cleaning a 3.4 with everything from Marvel Mystery Oil to SeaFoam to just plain old distilled water: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/s...y-work-243376/ ...but of course you won't be able to do this until you have a running engine, but still a good read since it raises some real concerns about clogging internal oil passages.

Unfortunately i cannot contribute much, but really intrigued by your build! you do great work Tony. I have a 1991 pickup in automatic and wanting to do a similar transplant. My 3.0 has seen better days! Keep up the good work!

Any updates?

Thanks for the feedback guys, I did get this thing running and promptly took it on a 1200+ mile test-drive to CO and back!

I was in such a rush that I quit updating this thread but I took tons of pictures so I'll go back and post my build-info over the next couple weeks. More info coming tonight.
-Tony

For Sale
 

Ok everyone, I've loved this truck and EVERYTHING works, including Cruise Control and A/C but it is time to part with it. Truck is for sale on eBay if anybody is interested: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Toyota-Tacom...-/272399190676

Thanks for all the help along the way!

What did you end up doing for the hood clearance. I have a '91 pickup and will begin my swap tomorrow. I have the motor and all components and am trying to figure out if I need a body lift, hood scoop, or just cut the brace in the hood. Thanks.

Justin