lil_red_yota

Ive had this lil yota for only a few months and its been quite the adventure.

Saw the truck on cl, was in need of a vehicle bad at the time. Got my tax return in and kinda jumped on the first thing cause I had a feeling the vehicle I was driving was gonna go out, and lo and be hold a week later the car quit running and hasn't ran since.

The owner of the truck told me the motor only had 16k on a rebuild (a bad rebuild cause Im burning a quart of oil every 2-3 days), it does have all new balljoints under the front, and new shocks all around, and new front brake pads and rotors. Has 32/11.5 maxxis buckshots, torsion bars are maxed, and homemade leaf spring shackles.

One of the first things I had go wrong was the ignition relay went bad, the po wired the relay outside of the fuse box so he could start the truck. So I had to re-wire it into the fuse box and find the break in the wire, which was under the fuse box. As soon as I fixed the break it fired right up. Next was rewireing the passenger side headlight cause the po didnt know wtf he was doing. The pinion seal started leaking after I got it, and I noticed the passenger side of the rearend axle seal was leaking, So I replaced the drum brakes, inner & outer axle seals, wheel bearing, and brake cylinder. I need to do the same to the other side cause the wheel bearing is bad on the opposite side.

On my way home one day I was comeing up on a busy intersection and the light turned yellow and I knew I wasnt going to make it so I laid on the brakes pretty hard and blew a hard line where the 2 lines going to the rear right before the tank. So I replaced both lines from in front of the lil hole where they run through in the frame to the proportion valve that splits to the rear wheels. I have some picks of this just need to upload them, also made a trailer hitch at work and welded it on while the bed was off.

Next thing I tried to tackle was fixing the oil burning. So I made some spacers in my dads lathe so I could change the valve stem seals without removeing the head. Which didnt help any. So I ordered a new head with cam, gaskets, and new head bolts from japan engines for 325 shipped. That cut the smokeing down a good bit. We figured it had bad valve guides which is why I replaced it.


So I just sold my gas guzzeling 96 f150 that I couldnt afford to even drive. So Im bout to pull the motor and replace the bearings and rings, the rear main seal (stated leaking recently), oil pump seal (started leaking at the same time as the rear main).

I thought about trying some of the engine cleaners you put in the oil to see if I just have clogged oil rings. Any input on this?


So things to do. For now....
Bottom end of motor----Done!1
A/c
cv axle seal
driver side of rearend
some interior pieces
Mount some door speakers, build box/storage area behind the seat


Heres some pics of the truck from the day I brought it home.
Btw the gold car next to it is the pos I was driving.

rustED

iTrader: (2)

Nice looking truck! Sounds like you been re- fixing a lot of the PO's work, which seems to be pretty common on this site, lol. Sounds like you got a few more things on he list to fix, but it will be worth it, you'll have a nice reliable truck when your finished!

P.S: I sold a 96 f150 that I got from my dad, (300 inline 6cyl) it was a gas hog too, lol!

lil_red_yota

Ya I get a lot of crap cause I over paid for the truck but I was in a bit of a bin. Thebtruck didn't smoke when I went and looked at it. Just my luck I guess. Lol. Ya mine was a 5.0, if you look in the pics above you can see it in the back ground. My uncle gave me the truck and I put almost 2k into it fixing things cause they where worn out or broke.

Ya I don't have too much to left to fix to make the truck dependable. Really if it stopped smoking and I fixed the oil leaks on the motor it would be very dependable. Not saying it isn't dependable but I won't have to worry about how much oil is in it day to day.

lil_red_yota

So I dug up some pics of rewireing the ignition relay back into the fuse box, a couple of pics from when I did the spacers to do the valve seals, and a few from fixing the brake lines.

Also my dad pointed out that I can buy a complete bottom end for 1075 with free shipping, been thinking about doing that but Idk if I wanna spend all of my money on that one thing.

Anyways heres some pics of the other stuff. Sorry if the relay rewire ones look bad it was really late when I did it.




How I wired it back in.


Heres the spacers.



Brake line.
Fluid everywhere when I came to a stop.


Bed off.

lil_red_yota

I found some more pics of the work I have done.

Heres a pic of the trailer hitch I made at work. Took a hitck off a bronco and cut it up and remade it to fit.


Heres a pic of it welded tothe frame, frame mounts where all messed up so I had to
weld it on.


Had to change the plugs and wires and such cause 3 of the wires did this.


From when I did the axle seals, wheel bearing, drum brakes, wheel cylinder, and pinion seal.

lil_red_yota

Im ordering a new short bolck this week hopefully. Also ordering a gasket set, and timeing chaing kit w/ steel rail & oil pump. Also a new clutch from oriellys.

Well today I had to go do a lil offroading to put some stuff in an old pond that my paw paw has been filling in with stuff. I got stuck due to one hub not being locked, apparantly My driver side hub has been locked and I didnt know it. I think someone at work did it to mess with me. But after digging some mud out from around the tire and locking the hub it pulled right on out.

Heres some pics.

Yamiryder

How hard is it to replace the pinion seal? Pretty sure mine leaks a little

lil_red_yota

Replaceing a pinion seal is very easy.

lil_red_yota

Ordered my short block the other day. Also ordered a gasket set, Timeing chain kit w/steel rail also w/ oil pump. All I gotta order now is a clutch from oriellys.

lil_red_yota

So I did a couple of things today.

First I changed the bulbs in my front blinkers, since one had went out. There was all kinds of mud and crap inside the housings so I cleaned them while it was apart. Also found out why the lights didnt sit right on the bumper, po had the right housing on the left side and vice versa. Then I fixed my license plate lights.


Heres a comparison of the 2 blinker housings, clean vs. not.



Heres how I fixed the license plate lights

Small female spade connetors and butt connectors to connect the wire to the harness.

lil_red_yota

Starting tomorrow night Im tearing into the yota. Hope to have the motor together and back in saturday afternoon-evening.

Also Im parting out my old prelude, so I pulled my door and deck speakers along with my radio to put in the truck. I gotta get a pair of spacers and speaker covers before I can put some in the doors.

lil_red_yota

Ok it took me an extra day to get the motor back together but I got it in and it runs great. The only issue Im having is an exhaust leak where the manifold meets the down pipe. But anyways on to some pics.

Heres all of the new parts. Ended up not being able to use the clutch kit cause it was bigger than it was suppose to be, but the old one looked brand new so its all fine.






Oil leak from the headgasket.




My dad turned the flywheel in his lathe for me. This is before we realized The new clutch kit couldnt be used with it. It had looked like someone took a grinder to it with a sanding pad.




I dont have a pic of the motor all put together but Yall know what it looks like.

Edit:

I also had a guy at work weld my broken ac line that goes from the drier and runs across in front of the condenser.

lil_red_yota

Installed my hid retrofitted headlights yesterday. I had to modify some stuff to make them fit.

bone collector

i like the lights! do they help alot?? i need to upgrade my lights too. nice truck keep up the good work

lil_red_yota

The light out put is a lot better with them. My old headlights were the Sylvania performance and they were bright. But they don't have anything on these. And thanks.

lil_red_yota

Heres a couple of pics of what I had to modify to get the headlights in. Was mostly on the drivers side. i had to slide the battery back some for it to fit on the passenger side.

Also I cleaned the inside of my truck really good for the first time since Ive gotten it.

lil_red_yota

So I was on my way home and pulled into the driveway, kept hearing something. Sounded like a ticking noise behind the gauge cluster. But When I tore everything apart everything looked fine only thing I can think of is that it was touching that metal bar that runs behind it. So here's how I fixed it. Only thing I could think of thats quick.

duct tape over the exposed metal.



Heres a pic of the po's horrible radio wireing, which Im going to try and clean up some and change the radio out. Also I dont see the wires for the cig lighter so Im going to hook that up too.

lil_red_yota

Ok so I didnt get to finish putting my dash back together last night. So I brought the section that goes behind the steering wheel so I could mount my oil pressure gauge, and paint the piece thats green back grey. Which the grey the can is suppose to be is suppose to be darker.Turned out alot lighter than its suppose to.

lil_red_yota

I put a blue led bulb in the oil pressure gauge. I need to do the led bulb swap to the gauge cluster and the climate control unit.

possum34

You get stuff dones thats for sure. Good job it looks like a nice truck.