PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

After adding shift-on-the-fly 4WD and a front locking differential…

 

Happier than a pig in shit!

 

This a factory 4WD version of the same vehicle, and the only notable differences aside from the color combo seem to be…

• Smaller V8
• Crank windows (the black SUV has power windows)

 

Ahh, what's the plan now?

 

Getting used 62K-mile transmission with a 3-year warranty out of a totaled donor truck…

 

I’ve been jamming to Skid Row lately…

 

It all depends on how hot the fluid got, the amount of shifting, and how much the converter locked/unlocked.
If in doubt drop a gear and stay out of OD.
The damage can be done fairly quick, or cumulative. Ideally you want to change the fluid every 50-60K under normal driving.
And sooner if you tow a lot or do a lot of stop and go.
The problem is, ideally isn't so easy for most folks. They don't know how, or can't change it themself.
And it's about $150-$250 or more if you have a shop do it.

I'd say doing all that door dash and deliver stuff was harder on the truck than the little bit of towing you did.
Stop and Go is HARD of vehicles.

 

I am not doing DoorDash anymore; I am 99% sure that if I hadn’t resorted to DoorDash as a side hustle, my head gasket wouldn’t have failed at less than 160K miles…

 

I have been busy the last couple of days and just realized I never finished my answer to your question...

The thermostat failed in September 2022 at 157K miles due to old age, and my truck overheated in a convenience store parking lot ten miles from home. This in turn blew the head gasket, which due to my OCD maintenance, did not damage the engine. The head gasket issue would not manifest itself until almost a month later, and it was diagnosed by my mechanic as a failed thermostat. As part of that job, he replaced the plastic bypass pipe with a metal one as per Toyota guidelines...

 

@Black97v6MT

My truck has always been super reliable, but I suspect that the head gasket started wearing out somewhere between 120K and 125K miles, as shocking as that is. A friend of mine was helping me look for what I thought was an oil leak in April 2021, at which point my truck would have had about 128K miles. My friend observed that there was oil in the coolant reservoir; I freaked out and took the truck to my mechanic. My mechanic pressure-tested the radiator and did a leak-down test as well. My truck showed absolutely no signs of having a blown head gasket. My mechanic had to cancel an oil change appointment in February 2021 (125K miles) because he got COVID; I still needed an oil change, so I brought it to the dealer. The oil in the coolant was attributed to an absentminded Toyota tech using the same funnel for both coolant and oil...

I put almost 30K miles on my truck between April 2021 and September 2022. In either June or July 2022, I believe it was, on at least two occasions my truck's temperature gauge would shoot into the red zone for a few seconds on startup, then go back into the normal range; I checked the coolant levels in the reservoir, and the radiator once it cooled down, and found absolutely nothing to be worried about. I have been having occasional issues with my gas gauge reading as low three quarters of a tank immediately after a fillup, so I deemed it to be an electrical issue.

I drove to upstate New York in mid-July of 2022 to go to a car show in Syracuse and visit my cousin in Rochester. My truck performed flawlessly driving to New York and back, in the middle of July, at speeds averaging 65 to 80 MPH, with the A/C cranked...

In September 2022, the day before I was supposed to be driving my truck up to Massachusetts for a vacation with my parents, it overheated in the Wawa parking lot as mentioned above. I let the truck cool down, and limped it home with the heat cranked. The next morning, the truck wasn't overheating, but the heater wasn't working. We delayed our trip to Massachusetts by one day so I could bring the truck to my mechanic...

I ended up driving my mom's 2013 Nissan Murano to Massachusetts while my mechanic fixed the truck. He ran a battery of tests on the truck and it showed absolutely no signs of having a blown head gasket. The thermostat was discovered to be stuck partially closed, and my mechanic replaced both thermostat and the heater bypass pipe while I was in Massachusetts; I drove the truck for almost a month with no issues, but then all of a sudden on a Saturday in the middle of October 2022, the heater suddenly stopped blowing warm.

On Sunday morning, the heater was only blowing warm while the truck was moving. My friend, who happened to be a mechanic before he got sick of that job and became a truck driver, believed that were air bubbles in the system due to the recent service. I drove up to Centralia for a planned exploration with this friend, and back, without issue. I then went to my friend Gwyn's house, and in her driveway, the temperature gauge did that thing where it shot into the red on startup and then went immediately into the normal range.

I knew something else was wrong, and brought it to my mechanic again the next day. He pressure tested the radiator, and the results were not good. At this point, he could also smell coolant at the exhaust pipe, which hadn't been the case when the truck overheated in September. My choices were a head gasket job for roughly $5,000 or a used 50K-mile engine out of a totaled truck for $7,700. At that time, I didn't have that kind of cash immediately available, and my awesome dad said he would pay for either as an early Christmas present. He was going to go with the replacement engine, but I didn't know how that engine had been treated for 50K miles; I did my research and came to the conclusion that my engine was still good. My mechanic had never done a head gasket on a 2TR-FE before and wanted to make sure he did it right, plus he was a much smaller operation back then, so it would have taken 7 to 10 days to do the job. My mechanic also did not have the resources to give me a loaner, and I would have had to borrow my mom's Nissan again.

The dealer (Thompson Toyota in Doylestown, PA) would have normally charged close to ten grand for this job, but this same dealer had done my frame replacement less than a year earlier and I had been brought my truck to them for a number of recalls and warranty repairs over the years. I talked to Michael Graham, the service writer who had overseen my frame replacement, and he talked to the service manager. They agreed to do the job for like $200 more than my mechanic, and I would get a free loaner. My mechanic, who usually loathes dealerships, even agreed with my decision to take it to the dealer this time! Thompson did the job in three days, and since they add an additional year onto Toyota's 1-year warranty on parts, I am still covered on that head gasket job until the middle of October 2024!

I did end up having to replace my radiator in March 2023, totally unrelated to the head gasket. My truck never overheated this time; I just noticed a coolant leak and addressed the issue before it got really bad. My amazing mechanic Pete did the job in an hour and a half on the morning of the day I was driving up north to help my girlfriend move!

 

you need to get this rig to half-a-million miles!

have you ever replaced the cluster lens glass?
that thing seems to mark from water spots and scratch from simple dusting it way too easily imo

 

Now that my new job (where my girlfriend works as well) only has me putting about 7,500 miles a year on my truck, I doubt that will be happening any time soon. Also, if the engine starts burning oil at a rate of a quart every 500 miles or less, I’m pulling the trigger on a used engine out of a totaled truck. Also, what the hell is a cluster lens?

 

Forgot to post the pic…

 

cluster lens or cluster glass is what covers the speedo, tachometer and other gauges on instrument cluster panel

it looks like the proper term for it is combination meter glass
that is My mistake!

83138G in the diagram below

 

My replacement transmission arrived, and my truck goes in on Monday!

 

Put a Trans-Go shift kit up in that bich.

 

The fluid looks darker than normal and smells burnt, the truck shifts rather rough at times, and let’s not forget the whining noise that sparked this whole fiasco; I have no idea what the inside of my transmission looks like, and I am not taking any chances before me and the girlfriend go on vacation next month!

 

Piece of Me - is one of my favorite.

 

Symmetry!

 

The transmission I’m getting actually has 22,000 miles; I will seriously replace the engine and diff in this truck before I buy a newer vehicle with payments at 8%+ APR! FYI, I have great credit, but a loan on a used vehicle still has obscenely high interest…