Did you get one of those $1000 plastic bracelets? I got a few of those myself, oh they don't tell you it will be $1000 for the bracelet until you get to feeling better, then they spring it on you and you feel worse again.

 

Just found out today after being discharged - I had either severe reflux disease or a viral infection of the lungs - they don't know for sure until I take Prilosec for a couple of weeks.

It came on all of a sudden - I couldn't breath deeply and even shallow breaths hurt. I thought I was having a heart attack. I drove myself to the hospital (probably not the smartest thing, but I live close) Get to the ER, vitals and blood drawn then Chest X-Ray, and CT scans - I'm then admitted for observation, given 2 or 3 mg of morphine and an ambien - more blood drawn - the next (Monday) morning exercise stress test with nuclear imaging (imaging is before and after the stress test), more blood drawn - later topped off with a MRI of my guts - more blood drawn. Back to my room and I sleep for 4 hours or so. I wake up and the nurse tells me I'm discharged (with no explanation other than - all of your tests were passed with flying colors). With all that business, I'm guessing it is more like a 4-5K bracelet. Fortunately, I have good health insurance. Anyway, I had to get the info from my doc today since the nurses really didn't know much. I feel much better now. Thanks for asking.

 

Good Lord that's a lot of tests, get well soon. Yeah that was one of the expensive bracelets. I just had one little CT scan myself and they billed my insurance co about $4000 for it. Hope your max out of pocket isn't too bad. Hang in there dude.

 

Hey Cebby, I've not understood all you had to pass (Medical English isn't familiar to me) but I hope you get healthy and strong soon to continue with your swap.

You must be very very anxious to drive your truck again.

David

 

Thanks David. I think I may have a shot at getting down there tomorrow to make some headway.

 

Cebby,

I'm very impressed by this on-going writeup and all of the pictures and information you've shared. Out of curiosity, why are you going with a 3rd generation A340 and transfer case? Couldn't you swap the input shaft and Bellhousing from the Lexus transmission onto a 2nd gen transmission so that you wouldn't have to modify the 4wd system?

I'm also on Lextreme and have been considering putting a 1UZ into a 3rd Gen automatic 4Runner. Even though I had the valve body upgraded, I'm still worried about the transmission failing eventually. I wish there were an easy way to swap in an A340 from the Supra Twin Turbo, those can handle up to 600rwhp if I recall correctly. Swapping the output shaft is probably a giant PITA.

Good luck with your project!

 

The reason for the trans swap was my move to a Marlin dual ultimate setup. At the time, there was no way to add a doubler to the a340h trans. (Inchworm and Gear Slug have now come out with a kit for the a340h recently). The 3rd Gen a340f has a removable t-case and Marlin has had an adapter available for quite some time.

I also have some concerns about the a340f handling the added grunt, but from what I've heard, if you can keep it cool, it will last. The stock 1UZ is similar to the output of an SC'd 3.4, except the power is available at lower RPMs. Plus, I'm using a larger torque converter (either the LS400s or the even larger Tundra unit - I have both)

Over on Lextreme, I think Peewee paid to have his outputs swapped. He said they had to dismantle the entire trans to do it. I swapped the input from the LS400 2WD trans I have - piece of cake.

We'll see how it holds up...

 

Very interesting stuff. I'm thinking about swapping in a 1JZ-GTE (twin turbo 2.5L Inline 6) over the summer. Assuming it would fit of course... those I6's are long as hell.

 

Wow i'm daunted by replacing the 3vze in my truck with another one, let alone an entirely different engine, harness, ecu,tranny,tranfercase and so on. Awsome work

 

I guess it's time for an update. After a long absence, I've been able to spend some quality time with the 4Runner this week. Three separate sessions. Maybe a total of 5 hours or so (?).

Last week, I discovered that the gantry hoist that was at my disposal was too short (due to ceiling height) for me to pull the motor and clear the radiator core support, so I got a folding "Sams Club special" hoist. I think it was around $169. I'm not adding that time into the swap, since I had wanted to get a hoist anyway.

Session #1
Remove stubborn as a mo-fo driveshaft bolts. This seemed to take forever. Each took a breaker bar and several hard whacks with a deadblow. Pulled the driveshafts. I found it easier to remove the bolts at the diffs - the tcase end seemed to be pressed/rusted in place. I was able to knock these out afterwards, but not while on the vehicle.




Also removed the motormount bolts, disconnected the fuel line, throttle cable, tranny dipstick bracket, tranny fluid lines that went to the radiator, steering stabilizer, shift linkage and a few other misc little things I had missed before. I also took a sawzall to the downpipe at this point.

Here's the downpipe cut - I got in there where I could. I unbolted those two bracket bolts and the bracket dropped to the floor - it probably should have been attached...


Session #2
At this point, the motor is free enough to lift it up and pull forward so I can get at the top transmission bolts. I'm convinced that there is absolutely no way in hell these can be removed any other way since these took a long breaker bar to bust them loose. I removed the top 4 bolts and also removed the starter (let it hang). At this point, I also unplugged the wiring that was on top of the front of the trans. I think I only cracked one connector. The vehicle IS 13 years old.




Dropped the motor/trans back down to the motor mounts and went to work on the other bellhousing bolts. All the while I had the trans/tcase supported by one floorjack with the HF trans jack adapter. This thing works OK, but it is way too tall unless you have your vehicle up on jack stands,some sort of hoist, or a bigger lift/tires - but OK for supporting it while I pulled the motor. There are a few more wiring connectors that need to be removed at this point from the back end of the trans/tcase.

To separate the engine from the trans, I took a long piece of tubing (about 5') and with the engine/trans combo lifted back up slightly (so I could get a sightline to where the BH meets the engine), I took the piece of tube, threaded it through the core support and put it on the edge of the BH flange and gave ti a few whacks with a deadblow. After getting it separated about 1/2", I started to violently yank the hoist back and forth until the engine separated from the trans completely. I was finally able to get the 3.0 up and out. Even with the better clearance of the hoist, I had to lift the engine to the point where the end of the lifting arm was up between the ceiling joists, so I had to do a little monkeying to get the engine over core suppport, but under the joists to a skid I had nearby. That empty engine bay is the most reward part of this swap so far.



FINALLY!!!

Session #3
I have limited overhead space and didn't want to mess with trying to lift the 4Runner OVER the trans and jack - so with a combo of low profile floorjacks and some finagling, I was able to get the unit safely to the smooth concrete floor where I could drag it out from under. When putting the new trans back in, I really need to modify the HF trans adapter so it isn't so freakishly tall. I don't think I really need the pivot function anyway - didn't use it so far. Fortunately, there are at least 4 floorjacks floating around the shop I'm working in. That was one heavy mutha...








Coming up next - 1UZ to do's (modify fan hydro pump - turn into idler pulley, remove cut-off exhaust collector flange studs, replace fuel rail o-rings, reassemble engine intake, plugs, wires, caps, do cosmetic stuff, mount up the wiring harness, etc), Trans to do's (run oil coolant lines and prep for aux cooler, figure out wiring), and finally Tcase to do's (install 4.7's and doubler assembly) and driveshaft length changes, etc.

At least I finally made some REAL progress...

 

Looking real good. Can't wait for more updates.

 

Wow, looks great Cebby! You got a lot done in just 5 hours.

 

Looking good! Thanks for the write-up, you are just a step ahead of me and that really helped. Did you drain the ATF out of the 3.0 tranny first?

 

Yep...

All fluids were drained.

 

Cool stuff Cebby!

As always, if you know you're going to need a hand with something, call me.

 

How did you get all the ATF out or did you just drain the pan?

 

I just did the pan and cooler lines. I guarantee there is still plenty in there (in the tcase and torque converter. After I had the crossmember out and the driveshafts removed, I stuck a floorjack under the tcase end and tipped it up and got alot more out. Now that it's completely out, I can tip it up and empty it with my hoist.

 

keep it up cebby, glad to hear your ok with the medical stuff. i low profile jack might be your best bet for getting the new tranny back in. when i changed my brothers clutch in his ranger, i used a cheap harbor freight tranny jack, did a great job with holding the trans, but fully lowered with the truck jacked up, i still could not get it out from under, had to do like you and slide it out. i was lucky it was the 5sp, pretty light.

btw, i think you told me this before, but i cannot find it. do you know if a body lift is absolutly required with the uz swap?

 

Moto - there are claims that a 2" BL is required, but it is thought that the 1" *might* work. I have a 1", so we'll see if there's any truth to it.

 

On to the motor mounts...

Well - the previous notion of reusing the existing 3VZE motor moutns was only partially true. The rubber isolators that are a part of the 1UZFE setup are way too tall - not to mention the configuration just isn't going to work. Here's what I'm working with.

This is what the welded mount looks like in the 2nd Gen 4Runner/3Rd Gen Truck with the 3VZE - all of these pics show the drivers side mount - the passenger side is just the opposite, nothing out of the ordinary:


Here's the motor mount attached to the 3VZE engine:


Here's the mount removed from the motor and bolted back into the 4Runner


The nut down inside there holds the part that bolts the engine to the rubber portion of the mount:


Here's the 3VZE mount split into its components:


Well, the 1UZFE driverside mount (rubber part) was trashed on this JDM motor, so here's a pic of the passenger side mount - you can see that its quite a bit different then the 3VZE mounts.


Here's the 1UZFE mount split into its components:


And finally, here's a side by side comparison of the two mounts:


I'm going to do something similar to the moutns made by "Sideshow" from Lextreme. He has a 1UZFE in a 2WD 3rd Gen pickup - with NO BODYLIFT. If you've been reading, it has been thought that this swap will only fit with a 2" BL. I have a 1" BL and didn't want to go any higher - Hell, I'd like to take it out eventually. Sideshow used the bottom half of the 3VZE mount and fashioned new part that attaches to the engine. Seems to be pretty simple - I have a front diff to content with though, so mine will be slightly different. Here's a pic of what he did: