kg206's 1992 Pickup Build-Up Thread
 

Well here it is, my new to me 1992 pickup, It's a 5spd with the 3VZE. Swore I'd never get another 3 slow, but its actually not too bad with the manual (my last truck had the auto). I've been on the search since my old '92 got totaled last year and finally got this truck a few months ago
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Done a lot of maintenance work on it so far trying to get it good and reliable before I start the fun stuff :great:

It had a few known issues when I bought it, I knew it needed a new power steering pump and the rear pinion seal, but what I wasn't expecting was the check engine light being covered with electrical tape :pissed: I think I was a little to excited when I bought it and failed to remember that the light should blink steady when you check the codes, not remain off. Remembered this after I'd already bought it and after pulling the dash off to investigate discovered the tape over the light contacts. Well after checking the codes it came up with 21 and 24.

The VAFM (code 24) took me a while to figure out, I checked it with an ohm meter per FSM and got a discontinuity between two of the pins. After failing to find a good replacement at any of the junkyards around here I decided I might as well pull it apart and see if I could fix it. Lucky me the wire to the temp sensor was unplugged! The sealant around the cap was a bit torn up so someone must have messed with it in the past. Just in case you were wondering what it looks like inside the VAFM here ya go
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After plugging the wire back in and resealing the case, no more code 24! I'm surprised the truck ran as well as it did with that wire unplugged.

So after fixing the the VAFM I replaced the power steering pump, thankfully I had a practically brand new one leftover from the 3.4 swap on my last truck. Replaced two of the hoses that were leaking as well, so now there's no more trans fluid puddles under my truck :D not a very tough job, but the old pump had clearly been leaking for a while so it was a mess.

Next I ordered a bunch of parts from RockAuto and went to town on all of my leaks. I also ordered a new O2 sensor, as you can see it really needed a new one. However this hasn't fixed my code 21 so I've got to do some more digging on it
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My clutch return line was leaking pretty bad so I decided to fix that first. If you are going to tackle this job do yourself a favor and go buy some ratcheting flex head wrenches, you'll need a 17mm for the bottom nut. The top of the hose isn't too bad to get off, but to get the bottom off I had to cut the hose off so I could get a socket wrench on the bottom nut. This however isn't an option when putting the new hose on, there is pretty much no room to work in that area so the flex head wrenches were the only solution I could come up with. I tried for probably an hour with what I had, gave up, bought some flex head wrench's and got the new hose on in like 5mins. The flex wrench allows you to thread the hose through the wrench end and get down to tighten the bottom nut. After bleeding the clutch and taking the truck on a test drive I could immediately feel how much easier it was to shift.

Next I tackled my leaking rear diff, it was so covered in grim I had to take it to the car wash and pressure wash it before I could even tell where the leak was coming from, here it is after the wash, you can see the trail on the bottom of the diff from a leaky pinion seal.
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The diff breather was all plugged up so I'm sure that contributed to the leaking seal, so I made sure to clean that out, will be putting extended breathers on it soon so I don't have to worry about this again. After removing the drive shaft and companion flange this is what I found
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That seal was a real challenge to get out and I pretty much had to destroy it to get it out, but it sure looks a lot better with the seal in there, make sure and use rtv in the splines of the companion flange when you put it back on to help prevent future leaks. Here's a great write up that I followed for the rear pinion seal and transfer output shaft seal https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...90/index2.html
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I then drained and refilled the diff with synthetic 75w-90, their was a good quarter inch of sludge on the drain plug and the old fluid was clearly past is lifespan.

Next came the transfer case output shaft seals. For this one you actually need two seals, the small companion flange seal:
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and the adapter case seal, not the output shaft seal like I originally thought it was called, their part numbers are almost exactly alike so make sure you get the right one
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Here's the mess caused by the leaking seal
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Her's the companion flange with the companion flange seal and then the old adapter case seal
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I found that the old seal worked perfect for tapping in the new seal
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Here it is all cleaned up and put back together, in this case it appeared that the companion flange was the leaky seal and probably could have gotten away without replacing the adapter case seal. Using rtv is critical here to prevent future leaks.
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New shocks are definitely in my near future
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You can also see that someone thought it would be a good idea to help out the saggy rear springs by installing lift blocks :pissed: I'll have to figure out how I want to remedy this ( zuk mod, add-a-leaf, or a new spring pack) when I put ball joint spacers up front.
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Next on the list is to drain and refill the front diff, drain and refill the transmission and transfer case and replace the leaking oil cooler seals and hoses. I also need to order a new shifter seat and socket from Marlin to fix my horrendous shifter slop.

nice work!! Great pics also. I put bj spacers on mine if you have any questions you can check my build thread on my 4runner. As for the blocks in the rear i would run them until you can afford springs or something.

Thanks kornhusker! I'll definently be checking out your thread when I do the bj spacers, need to get new tires before I do them though as the ones on there are bald 235/75/R15 so I've got to save up some funds first to upgrade those. I plan on leaving the blocks in there for now, I need to measure from the center of the rear wheel up to the wheel well to see what height I'm sitting at now, then I'll have a better idea of how bad those springs in the back really are.

This weekend I changed out the front diff fluid, it actually didn't look too bad, but there was still sludge on the magnetic drain plug so it needed to be changed anyways. Managed to smash a finger pretty good in the process though so didn't get much more maintenance done. Did take the truck to the car wash again and worked at blasting all the oil sludge off the undercarriage and off the oil cooler so I can work on that this week.

Well I wasn't really looking, but found these for $50:banger: they have some BFG snow tires on them and the guy even threw in 2 center caps, lug nuts, and a grey center cap from a later model Toyota, don't really need it, but can't refuse free parts!
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Thats a great deal!! Nice find!!! SR5 wheels and nice snow tires for $50??!!

Nice rig. Great find on the rims and tires. In love those kind of deals.

Yeah it was a sweet find, its a great feeling when your that lucky guy who gets the great deal. Trying to decide on a paint scheme for the wheels now, Leaning towards this one, but still got some time to decide before I actually get around to fixing them up
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Make sure the paint sticks otherwise it will flake off and not look good at all

Yeah the paint sticking is definitely a concern, I've seen a couple threads were guys have had good luck with duplicolor wheel paint and a couple other brands, I'm gonna start with one wheel and see how it turns out and go from there.

Well this past week I installed new seals on the oil cooler, and took off the throttle body and cleaned it out really good. For the oil cooler you'll need a 24mm socket, a deep socket won't fit in the tight space, and you'll also have to remove a plate that's bolted to the frame in order to fit a socket wrench in there. A fair amount of oil drained out of the cooler, so make sure and top off your oil after the jobs done. You could probably do this job without having to drain the coolant and just replace the seals with the cooler still on the truck. My hoses were in need of replacement and my cooler was filthy so I took it all off to clean.

Here are the two seals and washer that you'll need for the oil cooler
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Here are the two oil cooler hoses
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Here's the before and after pics of the oil cooler
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Here's the throttle body and also the IAC valve. Cleaning out the throttle body and IAC valve seems to have helped lower my idle, after my truck is warmed up it now idles at 1000 rpm instead of 1500rpm.
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Finally took my truck out today, just on a forest road so not really technical but fun to get it off the pavement. :D This is squaw peak road (also heard it called pole haven road or forest road 27) in Utah valley.

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Well I finally got the Marlin Crawler heavy duty shifter seat and socket, this pretty much cured my shifter slop and I recommend it to anyone with slop in their shifter, for $20 you can't beat it. I also replaced my transmission and transfer case fluids with Redline MT-90. I'll just add my recommendation to that of others, this stuff is awesome, way smoother shifts and easier downshifting. It's expensive at $15 a quart but worth it for a tired transmission. My transmission took just over 3 quarts and the transfer case just over one (3.2 qts and 1.2 qts per the owners manual) Here's a great write up on replacing the shifter seat
http://www.brian894x4.com/Shifter.html

Here's what it all looked like when I got it torn apart, the boots for the shifter and the t-case shifter were both broken so I also ordered those from Marlin Crawler.
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Comparison of old and new
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These pins were loose on my shifter base, not sure if they're supposed to be so if anyone knows feel free to chime in.
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One of the notches on my shifter was completely worn away, as a result its a bit loose in the base, might need to get a new shifter handle in the future, but for now I'll deal with it.
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After all this maintenance I decided to have some fun and see what my truck (and me) could handle. Here's some picks from the Forest Lake trail in American Fork Canyon, UT. Didn't make it all the way up the trail to the lake sadly, someone with more experience could probably do it in a stock truck, but I'm still a newb when it comes to off-roading. It was fun anyways and I'm excited to get some real tires on this thing. :hillbill: Lots of cool trails up that canyon I hope to be ready for by next summer.

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You can see why I need some bigger tires in this one (or how I need to choose a better line), the skid plate just barely cleared that rock
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Did some three wheeling to get past a tree here, also where my wife abandoned ship for fear of flipping....didn't even get a scratch
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Most of the maintenance is finally done on this thing....I hope. Still trying to figure out a code 21 for the O2 sensor. The new denso hasn't fixed it and I'm getting voltage at the plug for the O2 sensor so I don't think I have any broken wiring. Tried following the diagnostics in the FSM and that lead me back to a new O2 sensor:facepalm:. So I've got some more digging to do on this one.

Well to update since last time I replaced the PCV valve, which as expected was a real pain, long handled needle nose pliers are a must for this job, preferably some 45 degree tipped ones. I didn't come across any tips for this one, it just takes a lot of patience.

A while back I discovered that my fuel line forward of the fuel filter was twisted and pinched pretty good. Went to the junkyard and got a new one and installed it along with a new fuel filter. Here's the twisted section and the old and new lines
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On my old 92 I replaced the fuel filter and it was a pain because of the crossmember being in the way. I found that taking off the fuel line forward of the fuel filter makes the job way easier by allowing you to slide the filter forward for easy access to the front nuts. All you need to do is undo the brackets on the frame here:
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And this bracket here:
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Then undo the front of the line here
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By doing this I was able to completely remove my fuel filter and attached line with only the rear fuel line removed from the filter. This job is harder on automatics because of the extra cooler wedge between the frame and the transmission.

An update on the redline MT-90 fluid, before putting in the fluid and the new shifter seat my transmission didn't always like to go into reverse, while this problem wasn't immediately fixed, my transmission now goes into reverse much easier, guess it just took awhile to work its way into the gears.

On my last tank of gas I got just over 17 mpg, that's a record for me, looks like the maintenance is starting to pay off.

Took the truck out to the Utah west desert this past weekend to hunt for geodes and topaz, definitely the middle of nowhere, at just over 300 miles round trip, its the longest drive I've taken and the truck did great and looks like I might go over 300 miles on this tank, never even crossed 230 in my old 92, so I'm stoked for the great mileage, well at least for a 3VZE.

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I have a 1990 pickup 2wd with a 22re engine. I recently had a check engine code 21 come up. Truck has been mine since new and has about 252,000 miles. I replaced the o2 sensor with no change. Can't find any vacuum leaks or exhaust leaks or air flow leaks. That does not mean there are none I just don't see anything obivious. My question is there any way to check the output of the 4-wire o2 sensor without disconnecting it while it runs. Is there a point on the diagnostic block that I can check this component? I see a o1 and o2 point on the cover. What is the purpose of these test points? Tom

I don't know of a way to check to O2 sensor without disconnecting it, I hadn't noticed the terminals of the check connector before, I'll have to look into to that. The steps in the FSM for code 21 never have you check anything with those terminals. Sounds like your on the right track for trying to figure this out though, I know my exhaust is in rough shape, so exhaust leaks are something I still need to check out. Some guys with code 21 have had the wiring for the O2 either melt on the exhaust or break because of age, have you tried tracing your wiring from the sensor yet?

Thanks for the reply. Yesterday worked on truck with a friend. We swapped out AFM with no success. I have tried different methods to erase the codes from the EFI computer (remove EFI fuse and or disconnect battery) but cannot seem to erase the ck 21. When starting vehicle it will idle without posting the CEL. Once I give it some gas it will then turn on the CEL. I think I may have to trace the four wires from the OX sensor back to the EFI computer to see if there is either a short or open. I think the points may be marked on the EFI connector. If not I have to find a wiring diagram or maybe get a shop manual for this truck. Will keep posting if I find out anything.

3VZE code 21 fix
 

Well I may have finally figured out my code 21, after using an ohm meter and determining there were no breaks in the wiring I decided to try the ECU. Thankfully I had the ECU from my old '92 which even though it was for an auto it works just fine. I've had the new ECU hooked up for a week and so far no code 21 or any of the other random codes that kept popping up. All of the codes seemed to have one common denominator, that there was a break or short in the circuit. It seems to me that there must have been a short in the ECU causing all of my codes. So if anyone else has a stubborn code 21 try a new ECU.

Well I've finally got some updates after not doing anything all winter. Now that most of the maintenance is taken care of I've had time to work on the fun stuff. I managed to score some Aisin hubs for $35 a few months back, they were in good shape but I tore them down and cleaned them up anyways and replaced all the gaskets. Really easy swap to do and well worth it for the wear and tear it saves on the CV axles.

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Now that I had the manual hubs it was time to put on BJ spacers :D don't have too many pictures, but there's tons of good write ups out there. I also installed the diff drop and sway bar drop at the same time.

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I had a pretty good rake going on until I lowered the torsion bars, after lowering the torsion bars my ride was instantly better, I should also note that with the SR5 alloy rims I had to add a 1/4" wheel spacer to make sure the wheels wouldn't rub at full droop with 31/10.5 wheels.

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After putting on the BJ spacers I had to install extended length shocks, I went with Procomp es 9000's. They are pretty stiff but are doing fine so far and are a HUGE improvement over what was on the truck. After taking the old shocks off both the rears were blown and one of the fronts. So the ride is way better now that the torsion bars are lowered and I have 4 shocks instead of 1.

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After this I finally got around to painting my rims, I ended up plastidipping them, we'll see how long they hold up, but after two trips out they are holding up better than expected. I bought two cans and this got me about 4-5 light coats on each rim. I also got new 31/10.5 Goodyear wrangler authority's, only put a couple hundred miles on them but they've been great so far and they don't hum too loudly on the freeway.

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I also cleaned up my skid plate, sprayed it with some primer and then with some undercoating that I had laying around, looks way better now that its not all rust.

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Now that summers here I'm getting to enjoy my truck more, a few weeks ago I went camping out in the west desert again.

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Last weekend we went down to Moab and had a great time. Didn't get to spend much time on any trails as we went camping and hiking in Arches with friends so this didn't leave much time for offroading. Hopefully I can make another trip down at the end of summer though :)

These pictures are from the trail up to Hurrah Pass, definitely not a hard trail but there were still some fun shelves to play on and I need to get to know my truck better before I get too crazy:D I got 18 mpg's on the trip to Moab, and was getting about 20mpg on the freeway, which I'm stoked about because it means I can halfway afford to drive my truck now.

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Nice work on the BJ spacer lift. The truck looks great now with it and the tires!

Glad to see you had the chance to take it out. I love Moab, My Parents live there. Hurrah Pass is a fun little section to go on. Definitely has some great scenery on it!

Thanks! Hurrah Pass did have some awesome views, I can't wait to get back and really see everything!