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

looks great man — what are those stubby metal levers near the shifter?

 

That would be the shifters for my dual cases.

 

Is there a place I can read up on dual transfer cases? Not familiar.

 

Look up crawl box.

 

Pulled my throttle body off, replaced the gasket, adjusted the TPS, and chased some vacuum leaks. Brought my idle down from 1200 to 900-950 which is better but still too high. I'll take the improvement, though

 

Installed FJ 8 hole wheels, new tires, and joined this forum.

 

Stepside in the house!

 

About 7 weeks ago I replaced the valve cover gaskets and associated parts (spark plug tube seals, half moon seals, camshaft plugs, wiring harness, etc.) as well as cleaned the throttle body assembly. Drove around for 15 min afterwards and go no codes and nothing seemed off. Truck was parked until last weekend in the suburbs before I drove it in to the city ~25 miles and 50 minutes of driving, all seemed fine. A week later go to get groceries and the check engine light comes up. I'm seeing 2 codes, 1 for a cylinder 3 misfire and another for a too-lean fuel mix.

My first question is: how bad of an idea is it to drive ~25 miles with a misfiring cylinder on a V6? Since I moved the truck to the city where it's street parked I can't really re-do the job and fix the spark plug tube seals. I either have to drive back out to the suburbs where I have a garage or rent space/pay for someone to do it (which I'd rather avoid). Can I safely get there without damaging my engine or should I avoid that and just tow it to somewhere nearer where I can work on the truck?

When I put back the passenger side valve cover I did notice that the angle slightly squeezed and maybe moved out of position the spark plug tube seal on cylinder 3. I put it on anyways and hoped it was fine. My guess is this is why the cylinder misfire is happening, because the seal isn't working properly so oil is getting into the spark plug tube causing a misfire. Does that hold water or does it seem like I'm hoping for some relation when it's likely unrelated?

For the too-lean I'm wondering if that could be caused by me not properly cleaning the MAF sensor (I didn't clean it at all actually). Is it something that I can clean or should I just order a new MAF sensor?

 

There's a crawlbox thread on here somewhere. That's typically one of my recommendation for people to start with.

 

Flushed that nasty old brake fluid out this afternoon, while adding some air-free brake bleeders at not only the wheel locations but the rear proportioning valve as well. I read somewhere here that the rear slave cylinders on the drums use a different, smaller bleeder screw; not true, at least in my case. All four corners have the same threads and bolt diameter: I bought Russell Speed Bleeders, pt. #639560 (10mm x 1.0 thread pitch, 35mm length). The only different one was that rear valve, it took a Dorman part (12708, 7mm x 1.0, 32mm length). They all worked great, I used an entire bottle of DOT 3 and the stuff that came out resembled tea. However, the test drive revealed brakes that were only marginally better than before...the front pads were changed only 3 months ago. I'll do another flush and fill soon to see if things improve any.

 

Hopefully you have better luck with your speed bleeders. Had them before and they failed after several thousands of miles with one or two bleedings done.

Got some recently for my other vehicle and the check valve on one got stuck right away so back to a stock set.

 

Camped in Bear with the boys this weekend and got lucky with the beautiful yellow post 7

 

the unicorn stepside. love it!

 

Did your bleeders come with dust covers?

 

None of them did, cool to know yours do. The check valve was stuck upon first use, not from being exposed to anything. I had just bought them to install them when I installed extended brake lines so it was all new.

The recent set were Dorman but the bleeders that failed my other car some years back were a premium set from Summit or Jegs, I forget.

 

Yeah, I would think that the caps are important in keeping brake dust and road grime out of that check valve.

 

For sure.

But worthless if it's stuck right out of the packaging.

 

Have replaced the antenna with a 4” stubby. Not listening to the radio ever but I have just tested it, and it picks up some of the strongest stations in the metro area.

 

could you link the reservoir? Mine is completely busted open:’)

 

Installing some mass loaded vinyl with closed cell foam over it, then overlayed with a specialty qausi jute material(

$85 Design Engineering 050111 Under Carpet Lite 48" x 70" Sound Absorption and Insulation (23.3 sq. ft.)

Design Engineering 050111 Under Carpet Lite) in critical areas.

All in the Texas afternoon heat, which is the reason for this project!