1999 Tacoma SR5 TRD Imperial Jade Build, Sweat and Tears

First time sleeping in my truck with the shell on. Learned a lot.

Bought a Mr. Heater Little Buddy before I went because I knew it was going to be freezing. Thought it might work out since it has a low oxygen shut off built in and doesn't really
create any carbon monoxide from the tests Ive seen on youtube.

I set it up in the back with an air mattress.


It worked really good as far as heat goes. Laid in there about an hour and a half with the windows cracked too see if I was going to leave it on all night.
My chest and throat weren't really feeling it so I decided not to. I really wanted a carbon monoxide alarm before I do that. Pretty much only slept 2 hours. It was somewhere around 10-20 degrees F.
Really wasnt fun. Also it made it incredibly wet in there. The humidity had to be close to 100%.

From what I learned. I need an insulating layer/pad between the mattress and the bed of the truck. The air matteress was ice cold through a packing blanket, arcteryx down jacket and a 25 degrees sleeping bag.
The windows need covers that insulate and I need to look into a heater that puts dry air only in and keeps all the burnt propane air out. The one Im looking at getting is the Propex ones, but they all need electric to run which sucks.
So IDK right now.

Also looking to get a baby monitor (video) to put on the top of the shell once I block the windows and need to add screen door material to the sliding shell windows.



I froze my ass off while my friend slept in luxury.




Woke up to this frozen. Put the heater back on once I opened the rear to thaw out.




You can see I leveled it out so I was able to sleep flat. You can see my yard sale from all the stuff I had in the back.

 

Its been awhile. Got a couple of issues now. Looking for some advice possibly.

Got a p0325 knock sensor code/check engine light that wont go away. I clear it constantly and it comes back immediately. Also not sure if its pulling timing, Ive noticed the power is less and the mpg is a little down. Any tips? As far as I know I have to pull the intake manifold?

Was just having a look underneath because I smelled a little gas and noticed this nasty mess. Oddly enough there have been no drips. Might be the crazy heat where having (112F) thats brought this about.



Might be a slow leak from pan or rear main here??? Will have to let this one play out a little bit. It hasnt leaked since I washed it.


Took it to the car wash to degrease it so I can ID where its coming from.



So when I got back I had a look. The end of the boot is ripped on the CV. It appears the milky oil is the grease being flung out of the CV. Not sure what the best method for this is going to be. Ultimately, Im going to tape back into place because Im not taking off the CV for a boot. Not sure if I should try and get some grease back in there or I need to replace the grease due to water contamination. I dont know at this point. Gonna let it sit in the heat tomorrow and evaporate whatever water is in there.

 

Hello sir. Is the oil residue on the back of the transmission (right above the power steering rack) coming from the valve cover gaskets or rear cam plugs?
As for the knock sensor, I've read several posts where it's the knock sensor wiring harness that may be bad due to the heat cycles, etc.

Hope you get it figured out, and keep us posted.

 

Went and picked up some stuff for the fix.



The boot was torn on the very end.


I put the grease gun up against the bearing in a couple different spots and pumped away. While I was under there I greased the front suspension and the driveline.



I cleaned the area off then cut the flextape to a electrical tape size so it wouldn't fold in weird ways. After giving it a shot, flextape is not for this job. Pretty sure the people shilling this on forums as a fix for cv boots is just an ad. Its not flexible enough and its not on a roll where its easy to apply like electrical tape is. So I just went with electrical tape which worked fine. Also flextape is a ripoff, this tiny roll was almost $20.


I zip tied over the top of where the original boot clamp is to hold the tape. I guess we'll see how long this holds for.



Now on to the knock sensor. Im not sure if I found the right connector but I did find a chicken wing bone down between the manifold, the pervious owner must of been heating his lunch up.


This is what I believe to be the connector. I took it apart and it looked a little dirty so I scraped the terminals.





While looking into this issue. I read that someone said they got the code from bad gas and that the code still wouldn't clear when reset with a code reader, so they disconnected the battery and reset the ECU and it fixed it. I am certain mine also came from bad gas or the timing of the problem was at the same time. I bought gas from a gas station that was $.70 cheaper than anywhere else and it was pinging like crazy and thats when I got the code. So I decided to reset the ECU. The negative terminal didnt look great either so I wire brushed it. Once back on I started it up and no code. Drove it a couple miles, did a couple hard pulls and no code. Im guessing the battery reset fixed it. Ill update if it comes back. Also the truck runs much better, lots more power, so I assume this code pulls timing/limp mode and as a side note it was still very drive able, so if you're on a rode trip of something you should be fine youll just be a little down on power and mpg is gonna suck.

 

Never mind. P0325 came back as soon as I got on the freeway. Also starter got stuck on today too.

 

Drove some steep hills today. Tired running it to redline and the powerband felt choppy. Decided to check the plugs since I hear they wear fast because of the wasted spark. All were between 45-50. Since the plugs are on the backend I set them to 35.





Then I found this. Hopefully this was the reason for the p0325 code. I looked into the boot and there was a lot of black/carbon build up. So I assume it was arcing in there. The wire braiding on the end just turned to dust.


Also found a cracked vacuum line on the big hemorrhoid on the intake.

 

Replaced the broken Sumitomo wire with a set of NGK. Runs massively better all over the entire rev range. Ill report back in the p0325 stays gone. Also found cracked in the main intake rubber tube, right at the bellows near the throttle body. Just used some RTV for now, till I can find another.

 

Tired of my truck running hot. Since all my hoses are getting worn out and cracking and Im now having a problem with the knock sensor. Not really happy with seeing 211f on the scan gauge.

Pulled the thermostat to check the jingle valve. It was at 12 o clock so I flipped it to 6 o clock. It started running even hotter. 204-211f at 80f outside temp. Spent over an hour trying to make sure all the air was out, didnt make a difference.



Looked online to see if this was the stock one, its not. Ordered the Toyota one and put it in tonight with the jingle valve at 6 o clock. Runs at 190f now instead of 200-202f. Its running 10-15 degrees cooler. Seems this entire time Ive owned the truck my issues with it running too hot was a shitty no markings thermostat.

Toyota on left with markings.


The garbage one that was in there.






Should of fixed this sooner. Probably would of saved all my cracked hoses and bad knock sensor/harness and probably better mpg.

 

I’ve fought knock codes myself on my gen1, and it’s a bitch to resolve, but here’s a couple tips I was given. P0330 and p0325 only set when rpm is over 2000. If you can make a crossover jumper for that plug, and the error swaps to the opposite sensor, it’ll give you an idea of which part of the wiring the problem is towards. Also, when the code is set, it retards engine timing, so yes, engine performance and gas mileage will be reduced.
Good luck.

 

@tleble Sorry for the late reply. Been really busy and the truck has been sitting. Trying to figure this out and now its turning into a nightmare.

Plugged in 2 factory sensors from the junk yard taken off a 4runner and bought a new OEM cable. Tried rigging it up just to see if I can get the code to go away and now Im getting codes for both sensors. Before it was just one.

Not sure if I have something wrong. Since the harness is 3 wires and only 2 go to the sensors I assume they need to be grounded, so I ran a ground wire to the battery am Im still gettng the codes.

I want to try and resolve this without pulling the top of the motor off. I need to get a smog and my tags are over due. Also there is no way Im pulling all that off to just get the codes again after putting it back together.

 

Tested both sensors for ohms and not getting a reading on either. I also thought these were factory which I guess they arent. Going back to the junk yard with a voltmeter to find some I can at least get a reading from.

 

I’m no expert, but I believe you have to have knock sensors mounted firmly for them not to error out. Also, based on you finding a chicken bone in there, I’d bet at some point there was a small rodent making home and may have slightly chewed your wires. You may have an intermittent open in the harness underneath. Also, check out the P0330 thread I was OP on for more tips from others on troubleshooting these things.

 

Just got back from the junk yard and pulled 2 more sensors. From the 3 4runners Ive pulled sensors from the connectors just crumble. I dont doubt thats whats wrong with mine. I just dont have time to pull this thing apart right now.

I plan to mount the 2 sensors on the engine hook on the drivers side.

Ill check out the thread.

Also Im pretty sure these should be the factory sensors. All 3 4 runners had the same sensors.

 

Bringing this back from the dead.

The truck has pretty much been parked. Might drive across the country again

Vantop mirror 610 burnout.

Both KC C2 led lights I was using for backup lights burned out.

Intake boot has a bunch of cracks.

Both front CV joints ripped.

Front tires out of balance from the shop that mounted the new tires.

AC stoped working, low side schrader valve leaking, could me more issues havent fully looked yet.

Clutch throw out bearing making noise.

Doors seals leaking water in the rain.

Various vacuum hoses cracking.

Emergency brake cable still bad.

Front brake calipers need rebuild.


So much for the that Toyota reLIEbility everyone talks about.

 

Boo to shitty thermostats! OEM is the only way to go.

Back in the day, I played a master certified Toyota technician on TV. We'd often encourage customers to replace the knock sensor harness whenever we performed any major top-side engine work (head gasket/intake manifold, valve cover gaskets), especially at higher mileage. That harness gets a lot of engine heat and over time will break near a connector. It just takes one flaky wire to cause intermittent codes. This harness is available separately from the main engine harness from Toyota.

 

Def not looking forward to replacing it. Im going to do it at the same time as the timing belt. Also debating if I should put a rebuild set of injectors in when I do it too. Also when I change the harness Im going to using an insulating sleeve to keep this from happening again.

 

Some updates..

Vantop sent out a new mirror under warranty. Which I think is kind of crazy since I cant even find Vantop stuff forsale anymore and this is an old model.

New one installed



KC had me cut the wires to the bad C2's and sent out replacements under warranty.



Front tires getting rebalanced. I had them test the balance first to see if they were off and they were, I was even able to tell which one was more off balance. Kinda annoyed they charged me since they are the ones that miss balanced them and theres only a couple 100 miles on them since they worked on it.

 

Still alive. Got some things to fix and upgrade.

 

Drove it the other day on the freeway when it was 110f out and the water temp got up to 212f. Really tired of this running hot stuff.

I took some gator board and made a funnel to ram some air direct into the rad. I added it to the top, bottom and sides to keep as much air escaping as possible. Ill have to let you know how it goes. Its not as hot out right now.

 

Trying to add some old thule bars to the shell, so I can mount a top box I have. I ordered the

$92 thule 542 artificial raingutters for thule 300, 387, and 953 gutter feet

thule 542 artificial rain gutter brackets and wasnt paying attention to the ebay listing and it only came with 2 mounts, so kinda screwed for the moment.

Trying to decide the spacing the bars. Im thinking 36 in is a good number but just want to just sure its a good universal spacing in case I never want to put anything else on the bars. Not sure what the spacing is on most roof top tents.

Looking to mount the bars a little more forward on the shell so it supports the front of the top box a little better and keep it from flexing the floor of it too much in high wind.