What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Sure does look like an external head gasket leak. It's uncommon but it happens. Nissan even has a spec for how much external seepage is allowable. But usually on a junction between alum and iron like this it seems to happen less often. How often do you change your coolant?

 

Pretty easy

Blue tape on the headliner, draw out shape.

Put blue tape on 16 guage sheet metal... Cut it out. Leave tabs on the inside to bend in to keep sheet metal in place.

Use switch bezel to trace line on headliner and cut with razor blade (surprisingly easy to cut with a razor blade)

Pop sheet metal in to hole and bend tabs to secure.

Pop in switch bezel and re-arrange all your patches to look appropriately expedition as fuck.

And you're done.

 

I bet the coolant is coming from the valley line. They leak and fill the valley with coolant then pour out the back and look like head gasket leaks

You have to pull the intake manifold out to get to it. Best to replace the knock sensor wires too

 

Can you feed a borescope in someways?

 

Changed it about 15k ago and then again about 2k ago when I did the rad. Before that, not sure if the PO did it. Always had Toyota LL red in it though.

I'm actually leaning towards this because I reached back under the intake and it felt wet in the valley. Just on the back part though, the front of the valley is dry. Is there any way to get a better look back there without taking the entire manifold off?

 

Your mom likes this

 

Hah... You forgot the part of removing both visors, dropping the headliner, fishing line through the A-pillar, down behind the dash, through the firewall, then hooking everything up...

 

Oooof

 

Eh, with a hole that big I don’t think you’d have to drop the headliner

 

Ya... Well that's tomorrow. Dude just asked about the switch plate.

 

I knew someone that ran a cat5 cable or the like up to their headliner for switches. Thought it was a pretty solid idea. You only need a very small amount of power to flip relays.

 

Not really. There’s a plate that’s part of that hose. It covers everything up pretty good

 

Alright, well looks like I'm gonna remove the intake manifold then. If the bypass pipe is leaking, how hard is that to replace?

 

Nice! I missed this post
How was the install?

 

I would love my setup up top

 

About how long did it take to get the BB skids? I am waiting on a set now. It has been almost 3 weeks since I ordered. Their website says two weeks.

 

fuel rail has to be removed, upper and lower plenum, Intake manifold has to come off. Then its 3 bolts for the pipe i believe. Its not exactly a small job but its not too difficult, just make sure you get new injector o rings and new intake manifold gaskets (coolant runs through them too), and replace the metal pipe too, half the time the leak is from a bad weld and not the actual seal. and knock sensor harness isnt a bad idea since your in there already.

 

this is what it is. and as you can see the coolant fills up in there. then it'll leak past the rear plate
(the pipe isnt installed in this picture.) Its called the coolant bypass pipe

ive had to do about 7 of these since ive worked at the dealer. Its even more common on the 1mz and 3mz FWD engines

 

I'd already taken the shift plate out before to cut a hole for the transfer case so the only difficult part was getting to the bushings underneath all the electrical plugs. Some guys are buying the OEM bushings but I figure these will last a lot longer than those OEM rubber bushings.

 

They should! I've yet to find out what the OEM ones are yet, but they seem to be some soft rubber type bushing, whereas the ones Im making are 95A urethane. So they are much stiffer and should be alot more resistant to the elements vs rubber (assuming the OEM ones are rubber considering they don't last long)