Baka's 1998 Build

Holy shit, Batman. I got that oil Pressure gauge hooked up today and boy was that not what I expected! I nervously started the truck up for the first time and expected to see some sort of dismally inadequate oil pressure. But as she fired up and the needle started to climb, passed 10 psi, passed 20 psi, passed 30 psi...my eyes started to get big as it passed 40 then 50 then 60 and it finally settled at 68 psi @ about 1500 RPMs. I was stunned. So I took it up to about 4K and watched the needle climb passed 80 psi! Wow.

However, as the truck warmed up, the pressure came down. It's probably going to be between 20 psi and 30 psi at 800-900 RPMs.


The plumbing wasn't my prettiest work ever but I barely ended up with enough tubing to run between the engine and the gauge.

 

Are you tired of your door sills being sloppy and loose from being screwed too many times? Is your tab broken off leading to insufficient penetration?





Well, here's how to fix that.

Required materials:

Strips of aluminum (can be sourced from Lowe's)
1/8" Pop Rivets or sheetmetal screws

Tools required:
Drill with number 30 bit
tin snips
screw driver

Cut your strips of aluminum into sufficient sizes. I just eyeballed it. No need to get OCD about it. Drill pilot hole for your screws or rivets. Lay the strips over where the broken tabs go in and drill through the aluminum into the sheet metal. Screw or pop rivet the piece of aluminum down one hole at a time.



Next, cut the remaining tabs off your door sill using your preferred method and place the door sill in place. Drill a pilot hole through the screw holes in the door sill into the aluminum. Then simply screw it down with the original trim screws. It should now be like German Virgin...Gutentight!


Cheers.

 

Had the truck aligned today for the 3rd or 4th time this year. I can honestly say she hasn't ridden better in two years. I'm thrilled.

I got nothing left to replace outside of the UCAs and the steering rack. Hopefully I'll be good for a while now.

 

I should be getting my blue LEDS Thursday so hopefully that will get my primed for the fall camp and ride. I think I'm just going to cheese ball my hitch and put a stack of washers in it unless I can find a long enough piece of angle. Regardless I'm going much less elaborate than I had planned. So the only outstanding item is the water deflector to correct my design flaw in my front bumper.

Might end up moving my oil pressure gage because it seems to induce more vibration in my tach mount than I'm comfortable with, but we'll see.

Had a good day to day so I'm getting blind stinking drunk to celebrate. Thank gawd for spell check or have this shit wouid be illegible.

 

Oh and I have an accessory bearing going out. I'm hoping it's the A/c tensioner not the water pump, power steering, or A/C, but I have aspare alternator so that's wouldn't hurt too bad. I just have to deal with removing belts until I find the one that quits making noise.

 

Got lucky. It was the A/C tensioner pulley that was bad. It was an easy fix. I love repairs that take less than half an hour and only require two tools, haha. So...having some additional time and motivation on my hands, I decided to move my oil pressure gauge. I noticed it was bugging me on the way too and from the alignment shop yesterday because it was obstructing my view. It looked like it might fit between the tach and the door without covering the A/C vent, so I tried it out.



I'm digging it there a lot better than in the original position. It's a lot more unobtrusive. So as long as it doesn't rattle on anything on the trail I'll be golden.

 

Great build thread lee,cool to see how she’s been transformed over time

 

I might have to do that oil pressure gauge as well. Post up the fittings you used to plumb it to the motor if you don't mind

 

Thanks Rick!

The fittings were a bit tricky. The OEM oil pressure sensor threads into an 1/8" NPT brass fitting just fine. The reverse...not so much, the hole is too small to get a lot of thread engagement. So it you really wanted to do it right I'd suggest getting an 1/8" NPT tap to tap out the port on your block. The rest is pretty simple. I used an 1/8" NPT male/male brass nipple, an 1/8" NPT all female brass tee, and an Autometer 1/8" copper tubing/compression fitting kit sourced from Pep Boys for $17.99 (they keep it in the razor aisle, haha, almost like they don't want to sell it to ya). And, of course, teflon tape.

Only thing I would have done differently, I think is I think I would have reversed where I put the OEM sensor and the compression fitting for the tube, simply because I think it would have put less mechanical stress on the assembly. Also, if you get the gauge, don't go with the nylon tube it might come with. It's crap, especially for the bouncing and vibrations we deal with off-road. Go with the copper tubing. That said, I think I'm going to get a couple of 1/8" unions and start carrying my tubing cutter just in case I need to repair the line.

 

Another two mods completed and scratched off the list in the OP...

 

Full night shots...



The Oil Pressure gauge showed up a lot better than I was expecting it to. I thought it'd be a lot dimmer. I'm so tempted to send my tach back to Autometer now. It's about 150 RPMs high out of calibration, so they could recalibrate it and put a blue light in it. But I doubt that'll happen anytime soon. I think I'm just going to let things ride until I get my new cross member, my regear, and my 35s. Then I'll start worrying about cosmetic shit.

 

Outstanding

 

Lookin like a race trok

 

Rick did a little update video of the OGT since the last one he did went kinda nuts, we're waiting to see what this one does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9QyrIqAp60

 

AWESOME info!




I came across your thread while researching CVs as I am thinking about welding my front diff as well. You have a nice truck!

 

Thanks. Glad it helped. Hopefully you'll have better luck with a Lincoln Locker than I have. I honestly think the rear locker helps a lot more than the front does, but I guess I'll find out when I regear and put that True Trac LSD in the front diff. I expect to lose some capability but I'm not sure how much and I hope to recover some of it by going up to 35s. As long as I gain some reliability though, I'll be satisfied. There's not really too many places in Florida that require you to be locked front and rear and I don't anticipate going out of state much, though if the True Trac and 35s prove to be dependable enough, I might try to make it to some of the less intense stuff.

As far as CVs...good luck with that. If you have a good supply of factory CVs, that should last you for a bit, especially if you're not running as aggressive tires as I am, but unfortunately, they can break at the stub axle which can in turn destroy your hub, which can get costly. My other one snapped the birf. I'm running NAPA Max Drive CVs now and they seem to be holding up okay, but I haven't really hammered on them much as yet. They do have a lifetime warranty on them so when they do snap, they'll be free to replace, but hopefully I won't have to do that very many times before I get the regear done early next year. I'll still be running the 33s for another couple of years I hope before going to 35s after I wear the 33s out, but in the meantime, I'll be lifting the truck another 2" with a body lift (which may at some point afterward turn into a cab MOUNT lift) and I'll be raising the engine/trans/t-case 2" as well to flatten the belly. That will hopefully minimize any tubbing I have to do up front to clear the 35s. Then other than my rear bumper, I'll be done...probably just in time for some idiot with a brodozer to slam into it and total it. That would be just my luck.

 

So, the Fall Camp & Ride was a lot of fun this year, but we had some major body carnage for a couple guys and I managed to temporarily crap my alternator in the cursed mud hole that ate @michaelrussell 's motor and killed Eve's alternator twice that I know of. Drove the OGT back to camp on the battery after shedding as many electrical loads as I could and we rinsed it out with the waterhose and let it dry over night. Still wasn't working in the morning, but my plan was to drive it towards home until it died and then call AAA to tow me home. Strangely enough though, by the time I got to the paved road at the end of trail 10, the alternator and started working again and worked fine the rest of the way home. Unforunately that was the extent of my good news because when I stopped to air the tires back up, I noticed that my rear pinion seal was pretty much obliterated. My whole 3rd member was wet with gear oil. And if that wasn't enough, I managed to trash my throw-out bearing for my clutch, so I'm gonna have to drop the tranny. Hopefully the bearing is all I'll need to replace and it is frozen and wearing the fingers of my pressure plate.

It's probably fortunate in a way that I have to drop the trans since I've got that new TG crossmember coming and it will probably be easier to cut the old crossmember mounts off with the transmission and t-case out.

On the other hand, it appears my radiator armor works like a charm. I'm going to have to pull the shroud to get a better look at the lower section of it, but I don't believe I chewed any holes in the radiator this time.

Some vids of the OGT from the trip, including the cursed mud hole that likes to kill Toyotas...(videos courtesy of @Key-Rei )

https://youtu.be/I16MiyFyQ9k

https://youtu.be/I55TsHwy2Ko

https://youtu.be/pjsNp2Wrnh8

https://youtu.be/QVav-hkeUUc

https://youtu.be/yi5WbZ2Bcec

 

Damn looked like you guys had a great weekend

 

It really was. These meets have really become more fun in spite of the fact that they've become less focused on wheeling and more focused on partying. I feel like I'm still hung over from Saturday night. I got pretty hammered, but at least three people commented Sunday morning what a fun drunk I am, lol. At least they weren't saying I was an asshole or something.