DCLB Auto to Manual RC62F, VF2B transfer case and 3rd Gen E-Brake Swap

Looks awesome man!! I'm glad my template helped!

 

Ohhhhh boy that‘s looking goooood!!!! What‘s next, TRD Supercharger?

 

It did! Thanks again!

 

Hey buddy!!! Thanks! I'd love to start going long travel but need to win a scratch ticket to do it. Or just start saving up. A supercharger would be pretty sweet, though.

I hope all is well back home.

 

Busy couple rainy days. I love rainy days!

As you can see, I got the tranny/t-case in the other night and installed the shifters so I could snap a pic and take a victory lap.

Not so fast, me. Still a lot of work to do.

With all the downtime I had, I likely could have figured out the twin stick shifter throws and clearance. But I kinda thought I'd wait til the tranny was in because I needed to sort out the 3rd gen e-brake conversion, too, and didn't want all the shifters to interfere with the e-brake handle action.

So I spent the whole day yesterday playing with shifters, fabbing brackets, painting parts and just having fun in the shop without worrying about all the outside projects I had to do. Thanks rain!

First thing was to cut 1" off of the main e-brake handle pivot. As wide as it is from stock, it wouldn't even fit in my center console for test fitting. 3rd gen center consoles must be considerably wider. I just slid the stop washer things over and took out the pipe cutter for a nice, clean straight cut.



After a bunch of test fitting with all the parts I came up with a plan. But first I got the twin stick orientation how I wanted it. There was lots of interference from how they came from Front Range and with the B&M shifter. 4th and 6th gear did not play nicely with the setup. So I disassembled the Front Range twin stick housing and cut the sticks off about an inch from the weld and another 1" off total (they're long! Notice they're almost as tall as the shifter in their stock form), then clocked the driver side stick (H-N-L) about 90 degrees adding a little more bend to the back and did the same thing on the passenger side (4WD-2WD) but clocked it about 45 degrees to the back.



Perfect clearance for everything.

Now it was time to figure out this 3rd gen e-brake. I was all-in at this point. I was sick of crawling under the dash and didn't even have 2nd gen manual e-brake parts. It was time to figure this out. I laid everything out again and started cutting more cardboard to build some templates. Arts and crafts again! What I came up with is a little crude but I've got a working 3rd gen handbrake that fits within the narrower 2nd gen center console, doesn't interfere with any of the shifters (including 2nd gear and reverse, with both brake engaged and disengaged) and I didn't have to crawl under the dash again to do it.





I was stoked to wrap things up today but knew there was lots to do. With the interior ready for re-assembly, I turned back to down below. The whole time I had this nagging feeling something was up and I even left the tranny jack under the truck so as not to jinx myself. I thought "no way am I doing this again soon". I torqued the center flange nuts to spec on the transfer case, installed the drivelines, tidied up some routing, brackets, wiring, etc. and then went to put my URD y-pipe back on. That's when it hit me. o2 sensors! Shit!

There were so many plugs on the transmission wiring harness that I didn't reuse. Lots from the auto tranny and two extra from the old auto transfer case. When prepping the harness before install, I carefully heat shrunk or dielectric grease and e-taped each empty connector and zip tied them to the main harness. It had been so long since I had removed the tranny, I forgot about the o2 sensor connectors and taped them off to the main harness...that was now neatly tucked out of reach and lying at the top of the transmission. Shit! I looked, I reached but I couldn't get to anything. I was certain the tranny had to at least get moved down by removing the center cross member and lowering the tranny with a jack. But that was tons of work I'd have to re-do. I went to lunch and thought on it, super pissed at myself for making that mistake.

Turns out (after some homemade chicken noodle soup), after removing the shifter boot and cutting the ever loving crap out of my hands reaching around up there, I was able to free up the o2 sensor connectors and get everything zip tied back and out of the way. But it literally took me the whole day to do it. I likely would have been quicker to just lower the tranny! That said, everything is buttoned up down below and now I just have to re-assemble the interior, bleed the HRB, fill the gear boxes, have @JustDSM re-flash my ECU and get rid of auto tranny functionality and tie up the rest of the loose ends, but the light is at the end of the tunnel. I'm stoked.

 

Installed the interior last night






A few things to tidy up. My brake lights were constantly on so had to figure out how that adjusted. The CSC button doesn't latch so need to sort that. And still need to bleed the HRB and fill the gear boxes.

And then I need to figure out a faceplate/bezel for the center console. If any of you guys have an idea, I'm all ears. Amoungst you that are watching so far are a talented bunch. Findus KZ diesel swapped a Tacoma, 6 Gear is an electrical engineer, Kasbien is a talented machinst, bravinci came up with the clearnacing template and billdacat pioneered all of this. I didn't want to spend money on a manual trans console as I'd just be butchering it to accomodate the twin sticks and hand brake so was thinking something custom would be better (and cheaper). Have something 3D printed, cut a nice piece of aluminum or figure out how to layup carbon fiber? lol.

You guys are all smarter than I am. How should I trim out the final final, gents?

 

@BassAckwards came up with the below solution for his setup. Something similar might work perhaps.

 

That's a great idea. Thanks! Will at Blue Dog Designwerks is receptive to working with me so we'll see what we can come up with. For now, I've got some scrap aluminum sheet and will see what I can do.

 

Rad progress dude! Very stoked to see how this turns out. I vote aluminum for the shifter box, get that truck driving and enjoy it and then you can always re do it.

one of the best mods I ever did on my old truck was suspension from accutune. 8 inches of well tuned shocks beats 12 inches of untuned travel all day

 

Good call! I'll likely have Accutune go to work and have them rebuild my gear at some point in the next year.

And good call on building something I can redo later. I did another round of arts and crafts and have something that will at least keep dust from accumulating in the bottom of the box. I chose some 16ga sheet metal over aluminum as it's thinner and I thought it would fit in place easier.



I'll sort out attachment and get it painted up this week and may vinyl wrap it to try to match factory color/texture a little better.

If anyone has leads on shifter boots that match the factory boot material (ie, the e-brake boot) or a vendor to source the material, I'm interested. The cheap Amazon boot I have for another application isn't close but they are cheap. I've reached out to KC Upholstery who makes custom boots for 3rd gen trucks but, looking at his product page, am worried it's going to cost me $250+.

The HRB is bled, pedal stop is made, gear boxes are topped off, extended vent lines are routed to the highest spot in the engine bay and I'm ready for a test lap. I'm running out of busy work so am now chomping at the bit for Justin to carve out some time to tune my ECU. I'll keep you all posted.

 

Looks so good. Reminds me of the group b rally cars from the 80s. Form through function

 

I wish I was that cool

 

Well...

Wifey helped me set the pedal stop and bleed the HRB, Clutch Start Cancel switch was an easy fix. Apparently tying in to keyed 12v is important if you actually want electrical systems to work. LOL! What I found to tie in to initially was not in fact keyed 12v. Must have misread my voltmeter while crammed under the dash. So, I ended up tying in keyed 12v at the empty inverter plug. Since the empty connector isn't under the dash and is instead right out in the open, I was able to soldier this one and that makes me happy. The CSC button and circuit now work as designed. 4x4/4Lo lights work, reverse lights and rear camera work. And I got a whole bunch of little stuff tidied up before flashing Justin's tune.

Now there was nothing left to do but go drive it. After months of sitting there, the truck fired right up. I drove about 10 miles down a couple slow backroads and it finally felt "right" to be rowing through the gears of my favorite truck. All gears and all 4x4 positions in all gears shift smoothly so it seems, at least initially, the used parts I got check-out. I'm pleasantly surprised by the precise short throws of the RC62/B&M shifter combo and, when I got it on the 55mph highway, 6th gear is impressively tall. I'm at 1700 RPM at 60 indicated.

What didn't feel right, though, is the clutch judder from a stop, both in 1st and reverse, from the Stage 2 URD/Competition Clutch. Hmm. I've done numerous clutches now and this isn't how things should feel. Backtracking in my head, I ponied up for a new Toyota flywheel and new Toyota hardware, kept everything acetone clean and was careful about the torque sequence of the flywheel and pressure plate. I'm certain I did all of that correctly. This is, however, my first performance clutch (have always used Toyota/Aisin parts in the past) and is my first experience driving anything with an HRB, so not sure if this is *normal* for break-in or if there's actually something wrong. My hunch is something is not right so plan to pull the tranny again tomorrow to inspect the system unless someone here tells me this is normal and to just keep driving it to break it in. What do you all think?

 

I had a stage 2 exedy in my last Tacoma and it grabbed harder than stock but never had any juddering even brand new.

 

Shoot. That's what I keep reading. Plus, lot's of bad accounts of Competition Clutch's State 2 clutch now that I'm looking deeper. I'm kicking myself for not following my usual protocol of installing Toyota/Aisin parts for critical components like the clutch and am half-tempted to just put an Aisin clutch on order but will wait til I can pull the tranny and see what's going on, likely tomorrow. Thanks for posting, Anthony

 

Well, pulled the tranny today and was hoping to find a smoking gun, but it all looks ok.

New flywheel still looks new:


Clutch and components do too. Maybe some slight wear on the clutch disc but???:





HRB bearing to clutch finger gap was a little tight and there's some marks on the bearing, but it looks ok. I'll fix the gap this time around.


Here's the crap video I shot while my neighbor walked by and distracted my narration so sorry about the terrible commentary but feel you can still hear the juddering:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pLtnPiDfcA1P8pDf7

I've reached out to Gadget at URD about the clutch but not sure what to do. A big part of me wants to call my local Toyota dealer and pick up a new clutch, pressure plate and hardware and get things buttoned up today. What do you all think I should do?

 

I just saw your video. That is pretty bad.

Silly question:

Where are your alignment dowels? There should be three pressed into the flywheel that align the pressure plate. Maybe this is an old pic?

 

Oh man. That pic was taken yesterday. No alignment dowells!

I've never used a new flywheel before, just had old ones resurfaced. After going out and checking the pressure plate to see if they landed there and seeing that they didn't, I definitely don't have those installed.

Great catch. Thank you!

 

Get ahold of a set of those and try it again. I'm betting that you'll see an improvement. They don't come with a new flywheel obviously. You can knock them out of your old flywheel if you still have it. Or, order new ones from your dealer. Part number posted above.