Yet Another DC Manual Swap Thread

Nice, good luck to you guys! Happy to answer any questions.

Best price I could find on a used transmission in my area was $900 and that was a wrecker/strip yard, and had 200k on it already. I don't want to have any issues especially with major components on the trail, as I plan to explore way out from the nearest town. I do somewhat wish I had just purchased a whole donor vehicle but I just couldn't locate one at a price I was comfortable with.

My route will end up costing a ton more than it needs to, because of personal choices. For example, my radiator appears to be just fine and I could have just blocked the AT cooler lines and kept trucking. But I bought a $400 aftermarket rad that doesn't have those fittings. (for other reasons too

 

Sounds to me like forced induction is in your future! I'm struggling with my build direction right now trying to decide to regear, supercharge, or manual swap. I'm most likely going to do the gears myself soon. The other two topics would be easy to decide between if I could find a deal on a donor truck for the 5 speed parts, or a deal on a supercharger. If PA's governor would open Copart back up for personal bidding I could at least be trying!

 

Well Marlin Crawler is officially on the "I will never do business with them again" list. They have been an absolute disaster and quite frankly am glad I got out before they built my transmission. Their customer service is complete garbage and I wish I had read their Facebook Page before giving them $1,600.00.

I would avoid this company at all costs. I've now got to source another location for an R150F transmission after waiting a month for nothing. - Check out all the 1 star reviews for bad gear issues and horrible customer service. Big yikes. Hopefully I can just get my money back and be done with this horrible company.

Anybody got a lead on an R150F transmission in good working order? Or another place to source a reasonable replacement besides ebay or carpart?

 

Sorry it came to this, but this was the inevitable conclusion I knew you'd come to. When I first read your post about getting the tracking number I chuckled to myself and thought, "boy, he's in for a rude awakening." Hopefully you put it on credit card.

 

Right? Yeah me too. Lesson learned with that place. It was done on credit for this exact reason. They made me call them to give them my card number again to refund, so we shall see what happens. I was waiting for the "Your checks in the mail" bull shit...

It seems more or less like they do ok with the little items (shifter seats etc) but are a complete joke at the rest of it. I am just so glad I found out early. I was ready to give these clowns more of my money. As it is, I've given them 1k on top of the $1,600.00 that I wish I could give to a different company. Wonder how far that name will keep carrying them? Bad reviews on FB go back quite a ways.

 

Yeah priorities I guess lol. Was a busy nuking their social media and looking for parts elsewhere. Gonna delete that, and make some other mods to the original posts.

I would hate someone to read that and purchase based on that. Should have removed it sooner.

 

Hello osterhagen and this thread,

BigMike from Marlin Crawler here. I heard about your rare and unfortunate experience and we are sorry things played out the way they did. I don't wish to distract from your thread, but I would like to share with others what led to the issue with your order, which I expressed in a reply to your post in our vendor forum quoted below. No hard feelings over here and we hope things go smooth for your truck so you can get it back on the road where it belongs!

Regards,
BigMike

 

Hey "Big Mike",

Thanks for keeping it out of the build thread, I appreciate that. I did reply to your other post as seen below. I consider the matter closed now.

 

Ok been a while since I provided an update. Lots has been getting done, but it is stinking hot outside in AZ right now 110 degrees as I write this post.

Leaky oil pan before getting dropped and cleaned for like 3 fricken hours...

Somehow didn't get any pics of the of the cleaning of the surface but it was icky:

All fresh FIPG and cleaned all the hardware:

Because I had to pull the pan anyway, I decided to just pull the little "gate" that holds the rear main seal. This was I could re-seal it also and it would make changing the RMS a lot easier. Here is gate removed, oil pan removed and engine backplate removed for cleaning.

Here she is all cleaned up and re-sealed:

Flywheel and pilot bearing installed: (yes the surface was cleaned before installing the clutch and PP)

Clutch and PP installed and waiting for transmission:

Heaps more in next post, battery stuffz, Timing job and valve cover gaskets

 

The original battery cables on my truck were worn out and also on the small side. I decided while I had everything apart to upgrade the charging system as I will be adding a second battery, solar and DC-DC charger sometime in the nearish future.

I replaced the starter to battery cable, battery to fuse block cable, fuse block to alt cable on the positive side. Replaced Neg to block cable and neg to body cable. Will be replacing the block to body connection at back of motor soon.

Installed a 105 amp Denso alt that was direct fit other than post on bottom and needing to drill out bottom mounting hole on the alt itself.

This required taking apart the loom, removing the bracket under the crank pulley and the plastic white cable holder that attaches to it. This was again the ideal time to do this as most of this was already apart for other projects.

Cables were first clipped back, dipped and twisted in flux to pull the solder in and then crimped using a compression tool and my shop press. Then the lug was filled with solder after being heated with a torch. Once full of solder and cold, I applied liquid electric tape to cover the solder and wire above the lug. Once dry I applied heat shrink tubing (kind with glue in it) and heated with a electric heat gun till tight and glue ran out slightly.

I personally believe this to be the strongest connection you can make for battery or other high current connections. I used tinned lugs also for additional corrosion resistance. Here are some action shots to provide some additional context,





Completed cables and new 105 amp alt:

 

Inspiring post.

I’m going to eventually tackle the auto to manual swap on my ‘04 DC.

I’m a realist and realize a lot of this is out of my league. But I can source parts like a pro

 

Completed the timing belt job and all the bits included in that (cam seals, crank seal, water pump, thermostat, idle pulley, new tensioner & belts)

In addition to that I replaced both radiator hoses with OEM, replaced all 4 constant tension clamps as mine were removed by PO, installed new Koyo radiator, HD/Towing fan clutch, fan clutch pulley, oil cooler hoses (2 on side of motor by filter) and will fill with Toyota red coolant once ready to start things back up.

Things went smooth for the most part. I would say the hardest part for me was getting the new belt back on without rolling a cam or the crank. Second to that was cleaning the water pump mating surface as it was wrecked hard. Took my time with it though as with all these repairs and it came out great in the end.

Parts set out for the job:

Tools I used to complete the job:








^^ cleaned up and painted the motor designation in red cause I am accenting in red


New side oil cooler hoses. Didn't want to have issues with these later, especially as they are a bitch to get at even with everything out lol.

All buttoned up and the new radiator and hoses looking all sexy. Still waiting for my lower shroud from Toyota. Very pleased with how it came out. Radiator fit in perfectly and looks really nice!

Something else small I did in this whole replacing gaskets and rubber adventure was to replace the o-rings on the dipstick tube into oil pan and the top o-ring. Now it clicks in like it was new, kinda of awesome!

Can see my new AGM Plat battery from wally world in the background. Should work out nicely with the charging system upgrades

More to come soon!

 

I don't know about it being out of your league... I am no master mechanic and there is great documentation to follow in almost all cases.

 

I’ve read @SafetyDang ’s walkthroughs and watched his YouTube video ad naseum. There are certain aspects to it that I’m not comfortable with.

Not to mention my garage is basically a large shed. No room to really work on big projects.

 

I dunno if you found a new transmission source yet but I’ve had good luck with Yotamasters in Oregon. I bought a new tranny for my old truck and it worked great.

 

I rolled the dice on a JDM off ebay for $899, Solid reviews and the milage is really low... and free shipping to business address

https://www.ebay.com/itm/96-02-TOYO...?fits=Engine+-+Liter_Display:3.4L|Make:Toyota

 

i have an 04 I’m looking to do the swap on. I assume the “fits 96-02” description is due to the drive by wire change in 03? Though I’m unsure on how that affects the transmission.

 

This being a manual transmission the ECT/ETC won't impact anything. I've no idea why they put it only fits till 02. Maybe that was the last year the j-shift was even offered? Either way, it works for my application assuming it's in proper shape, I am happy.

 

Nice. I’m subbed to this thread so I’ll follow your progress.

FWIW I have a J-shift in my ‘04