3 Tons of Fun! Littles' Build, Travel, and B.S. Thread

Bingo.

all 3 of them.

 

I spent a few hours this morning reconfiguring my fuse panel to accommodate the clutch reservoir I need to add when I swap in my tundra brake booster and master cylinder. Fortunately, years ago when I bought this aluminum fuse panel mount, I ordered the version for the manual trans that had a big hole for the clutch resi without realizing that some manual trans 2nd gens had a separate clutch resi and some dont. At the time I was scratching my head about why they had a huge hole in the mount plate because my brake booster/master/resi also feeds the clutch lines, and I don't have a separate clutch resi. In retrospect, I could have bought the mounting plate for the auto years ago, but now I'm glad I got this one.

Here is my original fuse panel panel install from 2018.

2 years later in Mar 2020 after the initial install, I had an issue with the positive terminal on the blue sea shorting against sheet metal of the engine bay and draining my batteries from all the mud and shit blowing up throw my fenders. I remember thinking that orienting the positive terminal on the driver side was pretty stupid to begin with when I put it together, but I went with it because all the slots for the blue sea panel were cut so specifically for the wires. My gut was right..stupid fucking design.

So here's what it looks like today, 4 years later...




Unfortunately, the 12 circuit blue sea panel I had is pretty much trash due to corrosion and rust. The positive terminal started spinning when I tried to back off the bolt since it's just barely tacked to the distribution track inside the fuse panel. I'm guessing the heat from that short years ago compromised the plastic of the fuse panel because that was all brittle and broken apart.



I had another 12 circuit fuse panel in the back in my topper, so I decided to cannibalize that for now in order to get the rest of my accessories working again. I am going to order a smaller 6 circuit one for the rear since I dont need 12 circuits back there.

I also decided to flip the the panel around and put the negative side towards the driver side and positive towards the engine/passenger side. That way if water grounds the negative side to the body, it's just a better ground. This meant cutting the divisions in the slots for the pos/neg buses on the panel so the wires wouldn't be a pain in the dick to rewire.

I also flipped the negative bus I was using for my accessory connections down to the bottom of the panel, and switched the relay grounds to the relocated lower bus. The reason is I wanted to free up the negative bus on the fuse panel, and keep those open for my accessories since I cant access the lower bus once it's on the truck. Hopefully that all makes sense. I had to extend all my ground wires, as well as the yellow wires to my positive bus that are hot only when the in-cab switches are flipped on.




I tested it all with a spare battery and it's all ready to go back in the truck now. I decided to finally label shit after 4 years too. This has worked well for me, but my next version will probably be sealed inside a box that will isolate it from the elements, but I expect I can get another 4 years outta this one before that's a serious issue.

 

New shoes



TRD Pro 4 Runner 17x7s
BFG KM3 35x12.5x17

 

Great wheel choice!
Remember to take off those nice center caps when we go wheelin’ (er … ridin’). I forgot one time and squished one on a rock. Now it is a garage wall ornament.

 

I like them a lot more than I thought I would. Way too nice for the likes of me. Doubt I will ever take the caps off... I am far too lazy for that.

 

Was going to camp this weekend the truck needs some maintenance attention. They said my brake pads were pretty toast when they put the tires on and I just got all the parts in for the brake upgrade.

Long day. Got a later start than I wanted to, but got the 4 runner discs and calipers installed, along with stainless lines and tundra master/booster. The driver side hub was a bitch to get loose, and the hard brake lines of course didnt want to come loose from the flexible rubber lines so I almost stripped the flare nuts, but otherwise not a bad install. I will see if I can find some short brake lines at the parts store tomorrow that I can bend and replace them so I am not kicking myself next time I need to get them off and they are totally trashed.

Still need to bench bleed the master, then bleed the whole brake system. Also hoping to have time for the accumulator delete tomorrow and bleed the clutch system too, and figure out where all the oil and power steering fluid is coming from.




Gotta love beating the shit out of a brand new $65 heat / dust shield. Fits better around the gussets than the taco shield.




The tundra booster is like double the thickness of the tacoma. Further modifications are going to be needed on my fuse panel. Probably need to loose the rear circuit breaker to accommodate the length of the tundra resi.



New clutch resi and tundra booster/master installed.

 

Awesome upgrade. You’ll love the accumulator delete. Still one of my favorite mods to date.

 

I sure hope it lives up to the hype. I spent some time on it yesterday, bloodied a few knuckles, ate some brake fluid, and only managed to get one fitting loose and round out the other. In comparison to what I saw in the ADM delete thread, it looks like lot tighter space to work on my 2nd gen than the turds.

I got up early this morning before work and managed to get the bracket off. It was a bitch. I'm hoping that I can gently stretch the line down and get a decent angle on the semi-rounded flare nut later today. No way in hell I'm gonna mess with dremmeling and re-installing this thing, it's getting hardlined.

 

I think I got a good bleed on the master yesterday and bleed all the brake lines. The key on the master seemed to be slow press and release to let air bubbles settle and push through the line. I did a 5 count down, 5 count release and watched the bubbles in the tube through the gap in my dash and hood until I forced all the air out.

I put speed bleeders up front, but the rear speeders I bought did not have enough thread to seal properly so I went back to stock bleeders and wasted $15. So much easier to bleed the front brakes with the speeders.

I had to wrench the fittings onto the master my couplers way tighter than I expected. At first when I thought I had things good and tight and thought I bleed the brakes properly, i applied brake pressure and the pedal slowly went to the floor. I had a puddle of brake fluid under my truck that was puking out my couplings from both the toyota lines on the left, and my custom made brake lines on the right. You have to get them TIGHT. Cant use a torque wrench, but you need a lot of ugga duggas and should be afraid that you're going to strip the threads.





Here is my oil shit show. The wet spot up front on the floor appears to be PS fluid from one of the hoses, a separate issue from my oil leak.



Front diff skid wet from crossmember back.



Of course, despite the fact that I replaced all the rusted carriage bolts on my skids last October before moab, one of these decided it wasnt coming out and I was not in the mood to discuss it.




Tcase skid...just wet all over:

Wet all down the side of the FJ case:

Driver:



Passenger side.


Wet all the way up at the linkage, apparently from the shifter base again.

DRIVER:



PASSENGER:


There is no apparent oil leakage forward of the crawl box/trans tail housing/crossmember. The trans is dry with all the wetness in front of that appears to be PS fluid from the rack.

The only time I ever saw oil like this out the shifter base was when I installed it and put 2qts of oil in the crawl box. It spit out what it didnt want and settled at somewhere between 1-1.5 it's based on past refills as history has proven these things do.

So my problem with all this oil is that I haven't added any oil to the crawlbox. The only thing that has changed since I noticed the oil puddles is the addition of my oil cooler for the trans. I have seen huge puddles of oil under my truck and all over my skid plates on at least 3 occasions now, since that got installed, however, this most recent oil dump occurred when that was completely disconnected.

My guess is that either because of the oil cooler creating pressure (I know it is not a pressurized system but maybe????) or maybe a clogged breather, oil is getting past the seal from the trans to the tail housing and crawlbox, and spitting out shifters as a result. Any thoughts? Plausible?

Any help troubleshooting and diagnosing is appreciated.

 

Not brake clean...brake fluid. Even tastier. Splashed some in the corner of my eye too when a wrench fell on a puddle of it. That burned a bit.

I hate brakes so much. It's always messy full of fuckery for me.

 

Yeah getting those flare nuts off is a pain. I used a braided line with a banjo fitting on it and called it good. I did it at the same time as I did the urd stage 2 clutch, short shift kit and heavy duty flywheel. Felt like an entirely new truck afterwards.

This is the exact line I used. It’s everything needed once you remove the accumulator. The pic on Amazon doesn’t show a banjo fitting but that’s how it comes and hooks to the slave.

$35 Techna-Fit Stainless Steel Clutch Line Kit for 2000-2003 HONDA S2000 - HNCL-20

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00AQ2ODS2?ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

 

Had to pull the front drive shaft to be able to get the vice grips on the stripped flare nut for the accumulator, but finally got it off.



Figured I have one shot to get the coupling on there good and right and tight. Got it a little too tight.







Fortunately oreillys had them in stock. I got a bleed on there, and its not leaking so I think I am finally ready to claim victory on this thing.



I think I'll leave the front shaft out until i can drive it around again and I know it's working properly and not leaking. What a cluster.

 

Why not just run a flex line from the leader to the follower? Two connections is all you need. I always learned the more connections the more chances of leaks.

 

The thought actually crossed my mind. Would have been pretty easy to drop a flex line straight down the firewall behind the motor. I could have eliminated the short rubber section of clutch line next to the brake booster, at least 3 connections, and the ADM without actually removing it.

Aside from the front drive shaft, it's all back together now. The truck stops and the clutch works.

Now it's on to trying to figure out where all this oil is coming from.

 

Finished all my modifications and fine tuning to the fuse panel. Aside frome the obvious movement of the rear circuit breaker, most of the other cuts were to give my fingers access to the fender bolts. It was a lot of tedious work, but, I could not be happier with how it all worked out and perfectly I got it to fit. Moving the negative bus to the bottom for all the relays was my ah hah moment that made it work.

Where we started back in 2018:






Where we ended to accommodate the tundra master and booster:





I didnt really think about the implications on my electrical setup when I decided to tackle my brake upgrade...so if you've got stuff up there, know that the tundra shit takes up a lot more space. Happy it all worked out. I will take electrical work over hydraulic lines any day.

 

Got in a trip to Moab this weekend with @bot102 and @YamaDirtrider. We spent two nights on White Rim.

















Camped at Airport the first night and had some proper beef and chicken tacoburritofajitas.









When we started day 2, we saw these big horns just around the corner from our campsite. Watched them for about 15 minutes. They actually came pretty close to our trucks at one point and made me feel a little uncomfortable being that close.

































On our way into Taylor Canyon, Zeus and Moses off in the distance.



Taylor campsite at the bottom of Zeus and Moses. Doesn't get much better than than this...







Thou shall not pass...



Truck did great. I do feel like I'm running a little heavy even on this new Chevy leaf pack.

As far as the oil leak i am chasing...I topped of the trans with about 10 pumps of oil before the trip, so it was definitely a little low. I still don't know what caused the oil from the trans to blow past the seal into the crawlbox, but I am pretty confident that is what happened. It did not happen again on this trip. I ran my oil cooler consistently over the passes to keep the trans under 200 degrees with no issues or leaks, so I don't think that the addition of the cooler is related.

 

This was my second time on White Rim and it left me just as speechless as it did 5 years ago. The Maze district is equally spectacular and a lot more technical/interesting as far as the trail. Can't wait to go back there and do some more hiking.

 

Sounds like we need to throw you an invite for the next run. Thought about hitting you up this time around but forgot lol

 

Canyonlands 6 years ago…



Now you know this area like the back of your hand…

can’t wait to do it again.

 

Would love to see your bucket of bolts out here this year. Permits are available through end of September now