Well, in my never ending quest to change stuff, I decided to up to V6 brakes and MC on my Pickup. Yes, I'm still only running 31" tires...but it gave me a chance to play with stuff. Plus, I'm not sure when the wheel bearing were last done, so it was good maintenance.

Tools Required:
BFH(as always)
Regular Toyota Sockets: 10, 12, 14, 17mm
Various extensions/u-joints and/or a rubber arm
10mm Flare nut Wrench
Pry bar(2 would be good)
Flashlight
Grinder
Brake Fluid...lots
A brake bleeder pump makes things easy too.

I had V6 Calipers, Master Cylinder and Brake Booster all from a 90 V6 4Runner. This made it a bit nicer. On 80's IFS truck/4Runners (at least), Toyota used a 7/8" thick rotor, same one used on the 81+ Land Cruiser. However they switched to a thicker (just over 1") rotor in the 92-93ish timeframe.


1: vehicle up on Jack stands, remove wheels tires, and locking hubs.

2: Drain the master cyclinder. You can do this a few ways: some messier than others. I took a squeeze bottle, and sucked out 90% of the fluid in the MC.

3: Unbolt the brake lines from the calipers, and pull then back a bit. Put a drip pan under. This will save on clean up, and get the rest of the fluid out. This is the point I went to NAPA to get parts (let it drain for about 30min to be sure). When I got back, I wrapped and tied rags around the brake fittings to keep them a bit cleaner.

4: Next step was to unbolt the calipers, easy. And since they arn't hooked to the brake lines anymore, just pull them off and set them in the junk pile, or as I liek to refer to it, the: "how can I reuse this part to make myself think I've save money, when in reality it just makes me spend money to start another project I don't really need" pile.

5: Unbolt the wheel bearings pull them out, then pull off the hub and rotor. Take a minute here to clean off the spindle, makes it much nicer to work around.

6: This is the only part that really requires some "customization". the dust sheild must be clearanced to fit the larger V6 calipers. You can either remove the plate and trim it with a hacksaw or really big tin snips, or just take a 4" grinder to as I chose to do.

The dust plate picture shows a slightly exagerated view of what material must be removed. Material must also be removed in the same spot on the bottem of the dust plate.

the Caliper mounts are the same, so just take off a bit at a time till they fit. Easy.

7: Time to mount the new rotors. Start by unbolting the old rotors, and pry them up from each side little by little. Then just clean off the packing grease from the new rotor with some carb cleaner, and bolt it on. I sued the impact gun for these. Nice and tight, and the hub isn't going to move when I'm tightening stuff.

8: Reinstall the hub: re-pack your wheel bearings, regrease the spindle, slide everything in place, and retorque the bearings.

9: Make sure the Caliper pistons are fully retracted before you try to mount them. Use a piece of wood(or the old pads) to protect the cylinders and gently pry them apart with a pry bar. Put a rag around the hole that the brake lines goes into: if the cylinders are extended, expect some old fluid to squirt out.

Once you have the calipers reset, simply bolt them on, and drop in some new pads.

The other picture is a direct compairason of the 4cyl 4x4 Caliper(left) to the V6 caliper(right) As you can see, the rear piston on the 4cyl is significantly smaller. And although I havn't actually measured, I'm positive that the V6 pistons are both larger than the large 4cyl piston.


Moving onto the Brake booster/MC
1: because you've already got the MC drained, we can skip this step.

2: place a rag underneigh the MC, actually, place a couple. you will leak fluid when you take off the fittings. Once the rag is there, go ahead and undo all the brake fittings. there will be 4 in total:
1. to the rear brakes - located on the MC closest to the Brake Booster
1 on the front of the MC, for the front brakes
2: actually bolted onto the brake booster, these go from the fron port on the MC to the front brakes.

3: this is where you should learn from my mistake: REMOVE THE MC AND BRAKE BOOSTER SEPERATLY.

I removed them as a unit, and it was a pain in the ass. Don't do it. Unbolt the 4 bolts on the brake booster the hold the MC in place. You will be left with 3 pieces: the MC, the BB and a small piece that bolts to the BB that also mounts the ports for the front brake lines, and that runs to the MC...I should have taken a picture here, but just believe me.

Now just pull the MC off, and wiggle it around a bit to get it around the wiring/vacuum lines.

4: Unbolt the Brake booster. This is a bit of a pain aswell, as the bolts holding it inplace are under the dash. there are 4 nuts you need to remove that surround the push rod going to the brake pedal. You will need some patience toget these off, as there isn't much sweep , and you need some different length extensions.

 

This sounds good, are just to assume the reverse on the BB and M/C or is there a write up about that too, coming?

 

5: once the brake booster is unbolted, disconnect the vacuum line to it, and just wiggle it out of place.

The first picture shows the V6 MC and BB on the right, and the stock 4cyl MC and Turbo BB on the left.

the V6 MC is wider, and shorter, so should do the trick nicley. However, I noticed that the V6 BB is actually thinner, and wider than the stock Turbo BB. After some searching on pirate4x4, I decided to keep the stock BB. Plus because I have a turbo, I got a heat shield for my BB, so I don't know if it would fit on the larger diameter BB.

6: reinstal the Brake booster. Same process as removal. put a new gasket(I just used some RTV) on the back, and slide it in. Don't worry to much if it doesn't sit quite flush with the firewall yet. tightening the nuts will bring it to the right spot.

7: Bench bleed the MC...I tired using a pump, it sorta worked, but took some effort, to get it right.

8: bolt the MC back onto the BB. again, I sued some RTV to seal it up. this is a step you will loose fluid. That's why you have lots of rags in and around the engine compartment to soak it up before it east you paint. once again, there are 4 bolts that hold the MC to the BB. You need to make sure that you bolt on all the "extra", like the front brake splitter, before you bolt everything down.

9: reconnect all your brake lines. I used a little bit of teflon tape on the outside of the threads to make sure it sealed, but didn't get into the fluid.

10: deal with the electrical. As the picture shows, the cap from the 4cyl(left) isn't compatible with the V6 cap...splicing time!

11: Bleed the brake. Then bleed them again. You drained all the fluid from your front brakes, it's going to take a while to get them right.



Oh, I did find a picture of the Master Cylinder "extras"