I took the plunge on Saturday and tore down the old 3.0. She has given me 3 years of trouble free service. All I've done is mod it some and change the oil. I came across a killer deal for a timing belt, water bump and all the tensioners from a member here so I snagged them and after sitting in the box for 2 months finally got around to putting them in. The T-belt was in pretty good shape but the tensioner and idlers were pretty shot. Only real surprise came when we took the top pulley off. You have to pull the plenum to get the bolts out that hold that sucker on!!! What a pain that was. I was glad we did though as at some point a critter had made it's home under my plenum. There were seeds and some other debris under there. Not sure how they got in.. Anyways while the plenum was off I replaced the gasket, cleaned the throttle body and EGR valve. I was going to change the cam seals too but getting them off looked like a real pain and they weren't leaking so I left them alone. Total time on the job was probably about 8 hours but this was with a lot of distractions from a party that was going on in the shop while we were trying to work. Truck seems to run a bit better now. Tonite I put in a cap, rotor, wires, and plugs. Just a heads up a pair of wires from Toyota cost me $93 !!! I haven't driven it yet after doing that but I am thinking I should be good to go for a while in the maintenance dept. If you are thinking about trying this it's not that hard but getting the engine back in time is a bit tricky.

 

Good stuff mate, that will bring back the smile when you fire it up again.

I just had to replace a clutch hose that blew fluid all over the place today. It was a nice wakeup call to do the rest of the maintenance stuff I have been putting off.

 

Changed my oil and greased the U-joints and steering stops tonite. She's good to go for a while. Seems to run a little smoother and have a bit more power now. It better with them $100 plug wires!

 

I got a new (OEM) clutch in my truck this past weekend. Man is the new clutch ever smooth! Also got new CV boots on all 4 wheels, as well as I had both my tail light assemblies replaced (they're $110 CDN EACH!) just b/c one was leaking, the other was slightly cracked, plus they were starting to rust a bit and short bulbs for some reason. I like taking care of my truck b/c it sure takes care of me!

 

To get the bolts for the top pully i just put the torch to a 12mm wrench from Wal-mart and bent it into shape. It worked great. Slow but great. Can't believe they put the bolts in like that. Thank god we don't have to go through that too many times.

 

Yeh that top idler was a pain...we managed to get that access plate off in front of it and wedge a socket on the bolts and bust it loose. Got lucky I guess...It took us about 4-5 hours to do mine and that was with 2 of us. Yeh good luck in getting them cam gears off....we couldn't and the seals weren't leaking...so we said screw it.