Brett's average build thread

Yeah the 90' coax adapter will help. I picked mine up at a radio shack down there on the front range.

My radio sits just a hair further back than yours. You can only see the gray plastic. I haven't bothered modifiying the air duct to get it flush.

Also curious to see this electical kit. I really could use a higher output alternator and clean up my wiring.

 

Here is what I started with.
This battery actually has the posts on the wrong sides for what is stock, this was an issue with the new terminals, but I was able to make it work and am satisfied with the results.


I failed to take step by step pics of the harness removal. The weather was supposed to hit 60 today and topped out at about 40 with occasional flurries so I felt rushed. Anyway, here is a shot of the harness removed.
Notice the small black wire, this broke during removal.
The new positive cable is next to it for reference.
Removal is really pretty straightforward, just start undoing the connections and release the retention clips from the harness.


Searching for the broken wire led me to this mess. The instructions that Bamatoy sent mentioned a 4 pin plug that neede to be unplugged to remove the harness. Mine had no such plug and afdter seeing this I can only guess the previous owner had some kind of issue and had to cut it out.
His wire splicing skills were lacking. I redid all this with new connectors and taped it up real good.


These are the cables that are removed and discarded from the harness.
Positive and negative cable, battery to body ground, battery to alternator, and battery to fuse box.


The yellow wire was my old replacement battery to body ground.
The shore black wire was battery to fuse box. Routed under the fuse box and screwed to a distribution plate. This wire is not replaced or reused and is apparently not needed.
The long white wire was fuse box to alternator, routed to the top of the fuse box. All were chucked.


No pics of the re-installation of the loom, just carefully remove the old cables and replace them with the new. Really wasn't a big deal, I started with the starter end and worked my way forward. There are only two wires that run to the starter, the rest break through the loom right under the alternator. I actually did most of the loom work right in place and allowed me to run the new stuff where I wanted it. My theory was that I could easily shorten the battery ends if needed and it worked out that way.
Pic of the New alternator, exact replacement. And the new loom.


There is a new small gauge positive cable that is routed through the upper part of the fuse box and connected to this terminal. I have a second wire there that powers my RV connection as well.


Another shot of that terminal for reference.


Moving right along, here you can see that I have reversed the battery. I had to or the new terminals would not install due to the coolant reservoir and the battery caps being in the way. A new battery will hopefully have the terminals on the correct side. I left the cables long for now to accommodate this potential change in the future.


Battery is about 5 now so It's due.


The red loom is the winch cables. The black is the battery cables and such. I ended up making a separate smaller loom for the alternator wires for ease of routing, you can just see it .




The supplied terminals have extra ports and I put them to use.
Left side top, body ground, supplied.
Left side bottom, ground for my inverter, mine.
Center, negative winch cable, mine.
Right, engine ground, supplied.


The positive terminal was a little trickier.
Left side top goes to fuse box top terminal in the previous pics, supplied.
Left side bottom goes to my inverter, mine.
Center 4 gauge cable goes direct to the alternator, supplied.
On the right side I had the cram the 4 gauge winch cable, mine, and the 2 gauge cable, supplied, into the same port. They fit.
The black cable that is visible is the battery to body ground.


The small blue wire is the ground for the terminal display. I attached it to the body ground wire with a spade connector as it was right close.
Also, the display is removable and reversible for differing orientations. Just remove the two brass screws on the base of the terminal and reverse the whole assembly. I had to reverse mine to read right side up, even though upside down in this pic.


I have a little excess battery cable, and was happy for it as it will give me opportunity to customize them when I get a new battery, hopefully with the terminals on the correct side, although it probably really doesn't matter.

Truck fired right up when I was done, absolutely no problems. I powered the winch and all my peripheral crap and the voltage stayed constant. It also looks like my lights are brighter and the stereo is louder and more crisp, prolly just the beer though.

If I had to do it over again, I would do the following.
I initially removed the battery and alternator, then installed the new alternator. Don't bother to install the new alternator until the end as it gives more room for working on the new loom.

Remove battery.
Remove skid plate.
remove alternator.
remove old loom.
Replace with new loom.
Make sure you're happy with the new wire placement and it's position in the new loom.
Install the new alternator.
Install the battery.
Hook it up.
Go wheeling, or in my case, we went out for margaritas.

 

I have a regular 34 size battery (34-78) only had to lengthen the body ground.

 

Awesome, thanks man.

 

Lookin good!

 

Thanks for the write up and tips. Will come in handy this spring!

 

Thanks!

Took about 4 hours due to the cold and having to screw with a few broken wires, plus those broke wires made me check over the existing harness with a concerned eye. In reality it should only take a couple hours to do the whole job. Also I attempted the install with the skidplate in place. Remove that thing right away and it all becomes visible and goes much quicker.

 

Had a shitty weekend, possibly the worst two f*****g days of my adult life.
More on that another day. Lets just say my house has an echo to it now.
Also, to top off my shitty weekend, my radiator decided to spew coolant out the top where the crimp seal is. They say shit happens in 3's so I'm warily waiting for the next catastrophe.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, I had to get it off my chest.
There will be a radiator replacement post here very soon.

 

Thanks man, I really appreciate that and I am moving forward.

 

I have a great 2 row replacement radiator in mine, I can give you the info if you want. You can have my old rad if you want to get you by for the time being.

 

Thanks man, where did you get the two row radiator?

 

Amazon. I got a tyc branded 2 row, but it came in a koyorad box. It has worked well so far!

 

Thanks Sam. I did some checking at Pederson's, they actually sent me down to Performance Radiator, and they had one in stock for $130.00, so I went with that to just get it done. Pederson's quoted me $305.00 for oem...

 

That is a pretty good deal. I paid around a hundred for mine. 305 is silly.

 

Came with a 3 year warranty too. OEM was only 1 year.

 

3 inches of snow this morning and 40+ by afternoon so I took advantage and swapped out the radiator.

Started by removing the grill



Broke every clip except this one, can't be helped. I had a bag from the last time I had to pull it a few years back and had enough to put it back on, just short a few.



Remove the fan shroud, 4 bolts in the corners then just push the thing back.


Toyota put these neat little tabs on the radiator to help with installing it.
This is actually the new one, installed. The bolt is one of four that hold the radiator in place.


Bottom bolt


And the old radiator. This one is actually a Harrison which is a good company. I'm not sure if this was original from Toyota or not. Notice the ribs on the upper tank....


Shot of my crack


New one installed, shroud still hanging loose.
Notice the lack of ribs on the upper tank...not sure if that makes a difference in strength or not.
It has a 3 year warranty, we'll see how it does and I intend to flog the shit out of it this summer


Done for the most part, just need to hook up the hoses and fill it, snap the grill back on, filler plates, the damn skidplate (really need a quick release for these....) and run it. No pics of the completed job, you've all seen the front before, looks the same. Came right up to temp and sat at 187° F which is about normal.


Took 2 hours start to finish and running the truck. Would have been faster, I had a stripped nut on the new radiator flange, which started a search for a slightly larger tapping bolt, couldn't find one in all the crap I have saved through the years, said "F" it and stuck a nut on it. That process cost me about 30 minutes.

Hardest part of the whole job is
Removing the skid
Removing the grill

Radiator actually comes out and goes in quite easy.

 

Bye the way, if you've been following and saw my rant, the 3rd catastrophe happened Tuesday. My business cell phone that I rely very heavily on, died and left me in a bind. The Verizon store here in Ft. Collins is absolutely worthless. I told them so when they said it would be an hour and a half wait and that I should have made an appointment. WTF?

Ran down to Best Buy, had a new working android phone on my same plane for a total cost of $10.99 in under 30 minutes.

Best Buy FTW!

 

Harrison might be factory because that's the same one that's in mine.

 

Thanks man, yep should be good to go for awhile. A few good beers and a lot of cheap beers made all the difference.

That's interesting to know, I hope I get some mileage out of this one.
Although, apparently the ribs didn't help stop the crack anyway.

 

Some of you may have noticed I posted about antifreeze leaking down the side of the tranny.
Turns out it is this thing, the heater control valve. It was leaking when it was cold and dripping off the arm. The drip had a clear drop straight to the side of the tranny and left no evidence anywhere else, so was kind of baffled for a couple days.
After I found it, I left the hood up and started the engine and the drip was much more pronounced until it warmed up then pretty much stopped.


Toyota wanted $150.00 for theirs, Napa wanted $55.56 for theirs.
For $55.56 you get to remove the casting flash yourself.


Some 400 grit took it down nice and smooth.


I removed the hose clamps and released the little clip that holds the cable down. It simply presses off from the bottom. Then I loosened the hoses and removed the bolt on the firewall for the bracket.


Old and new. Two screws on the base hold the valve to the bracket.






And done.
New clamps just because. Whole process took 15 minutes including pics.
No need to drain any water, this is at the top, only lost about a cup.
Hopefully this is the end of the cooling system leaks.