Hey Ed, good to hear from you. Ahh you got rid of yours! So many times I have thought about selling mine, but I just can't bring myself to do it....I know I will never be able to get another one like it.

I put in my order with Toyota Parts Deal earlier this week, their process and shipping is a little slow, just got notice today the order has shipped. So new headgasket, new TPS, some new exhaust studs & nuts, gasket for the EGR cooler plate, a new dipstick (the rubber grommet on mine has degraded) and that is most of the items I think.

I ordered a Remflex exhaust gasket, they are thicker than stock and supposedly seal up well...so we'll see about that. Also ordered the M12x1.25 tap for the head bolt holes.

I forgot to order new spark plugs, and Toyota is cheapest place at like $2 each, so that was my mistake, got to put in a new order for those and maybe a few other little items I forgot, like a gasket for the fuel pump blockoff plate.

Getting closer to the day I swap the head. I just want everything here and want to get it done in a single weekend.

 

It's nice to have the patience to take your time and think everything through to have all the parts you need all at once. That's something I'm getting better at as I grow older, lol is being more patient, not rushing things. I hate getting into a project and then realize I forgot to order a part or not having the correct tool for the job. I had to replace my head on my 91' pickup last year. I couldn't believe how much carbon build there was in the threads of the head bolts! I thought they were stripped for sure before getting it all cleaned out. I didn't have a tap at the time and my Uncle showed me a trick to grind a V groove in the old headbolt. It kinda acts as a tap and did a good job (in a pinch) of chasing the threads and cleaning out all that buildup. I look forward to seeing your progress, good luck with you head swap!

 

Disassembly has begun. Lot of vacuum lines disconnected, plug wires and distributor cap out, coolant drained, throttle body removed, valve cover off. I spent maybe 1 hour, I'll be out there tinkering after work this whole week an hour here and there.

 

Some progress: Exhaust manifold disconnected, upper intake removed, you can't tell in the pictures, but the power steering bracket is unbolted from the head, distributor is removed.

The fuel rail is an absolute pain the butt. The front most bolt that bolts it to the lower intake is very hard to get to because the fuel line is right in the way. Also, I guess to get the fuel line loose, I have to get up under there and remove the fitting on the fuel filter...maybe tomorrow on that.

There are some hard lines, a coolant line and the aux air valve or pair or whatever it is that run around back of the head, and I believe they have a bracket bolted into the head that is holding them there, so once I get the fuel rail, then the lower intake off, I have to get around back there and get that bolt out.

 

Finally got the lower intake out. Head is almost ready to come out, just need to rotate to TDC and secure the timing chain to the sprocket and then I think I can remove the head. Did have one casualty, I broke one of the bolts that hold the water pipe to the lower intake, they are 10mm heads and this one just snapped like butter.

From the looks of things in here, I should change these heater hoses, I had to cut one to get it off the pipe anyway, so have to replace that one, might as well replace them all. Good time to change the fuel filter as well, easy access with the intake off.





Here is the snapped bolt on the underside of the lower intake, hopefully there is enough sticking out there for me grab onto with some vise grips.




This is the oil pressure sender I believe, do people normally change the o-ring on the end of it?

 

Finally got the head off. Those head bolts were tight.

 

Head gasket seems to be in great shape for 35 years...maybe I should reuse it




Running a tap down each headbolt hole. Cleaned up the bolts on the wire wheel. 3 of the 10 were pretty carboned up, other 7 were very clean.

 

Well, bit of a disaster with the stuck bolt.....could not get a grab on it with vise grips, so I filed it down, drilled it for an extractor, and snapped off the extractor down in there. So thinking about buying another lower intake off ebay.

 

Dang, that sucks, nothing worse that broken off bolts to slow down your progress! Hope the eBay lower intake works out good for you.

 

Thanks Ed, yeah super frustrating, but the struggle is part of the reward I guess. I'll be relieved when this is all done. I put in an offer on a lower intake on eBay, we'll see if the seller accepts.

 

i got a couple of those remflex exhaust gaskets, probably over 10 years ago, gonna use the second one as a backup but so far i haven't needed it, the first one has worked really well, probably been taken off/on three times.

for all that work, you might want to consider doing the early to late model intake swap, but i know that parts are harder to come by these days it's not like it used to be... sadly, i just threw away one of those lower intakes :-/ got tired of stumbling over it searching for stuff.

did you clean out the plenum? a job that you only ever want to do once in your life, lol... if it still has to be done, might as well do it on the newer straight plenum.

 

Thank you for the comments. I do have some of the components to do a later intake swap but not all...and while this is probably the time to do it, I think I'm going to hold off for now. I swear I had an extra lower intake as well, and I looked in all my hiding spots and did not see.

The seller on eBay accepted my offer, so I have an intake on the way. I have not cleaned out this plenum I have yet, so maybe I'll do that while I wait for the new intake.

 

My lower intake did not show up today as expected, but no big deal. I installed a new fuel filter while I was here. Noticed that my old one was only bolted on by 1 bolt, so went thru my bolt bucket and found a match. Sprayed brake cleaner into each head bolt hole and blew them out with compressed air. Put new oring on the oil pressure sender. Getting very close to putting the new head on.

 

Well another big setback on this project. So just prepping things and was about ready to install the head, when I notice the frontmost 12mm bolt on the cam bearing hold down bracket was not all the way down. It was finger turnable, so I gave it some turns before putting a rachet on it and it did not seem to be going down, and I thought, hmm. So I keep turning and very sure threads are stripped down in the hole, and I twisted it out and definitely looks like thread material is stuck to the bolt. I took another bolt out of my old head, and same thing, it will thread a little bit into the hole, but I can't tighten it down, it gets to a point where it starts to tighten and then it gives up and just turns. I have contacted the eBay seller, we'll see what he says.

 

Looks like it's time for a thread-zert. Solve THAT little problem real quick.

Good luck!
Pat☺

 

Maybe Pat. Under that bearing cap there are sleeves that go in the holes, that sleeve I guess lines up the bearing cap. Not sure if that sleeve can be removed or not to drill and insert a helicoil... Either way I would rather not do that on a new to me head that was rebuilt.

 

No resolution yet on the head issue, hopefully the seller will contact me in the next day or so. Meanwhile my replacement lower intake showed up. It was greasy but otherwise looks good at first glance. Also it came with the IACV and the 2 temperature sensors. I'll probably just clean those up, check them out and put them into my stash for replacements. Started cleaning the grime off of the intake, one pass with degreaser, water hose, and a toothbrush and it looks better. Still needs probably another cleaning and I have to scrape off a very stuck on felt gasket. I have nothing but time right now as I wait to figure out what to do with this head.

 

I've dealt with that exact scenario. May be a bit late but EZ-outs are very close to always a bad idea. If the bolt broke due to corrosion/rust, it's stuck in there way more than an EZ-out can deal with. Here's how I got the broken water pipe bolts out of my lower intake. Starts at 30:08.

 

That's the knock sensor. Don't worry about the o-ring. Oil pressure sensor is lower and more towards the front of the engine.

 

Alex - oh man, wish I would have seen that video BEFORE I snapped that EZ out down in there. They are just too brittle, you are right, I'm done with using them. Appreciate the posts, I'm still waiting on a resolution from my head seller, which is some kind of head shop in California. They asked me for pictures, which I provided on Tuesday....this is Thursday and I have not heard anything yet.