Fully polished TuRD

The trucks been in a state of semi storage since AOP, well half on jadkstands since my rear beadlocks now leak and I don't want the tires flatspotting and it's been cold as fuck this week. Need to wash the truck down so I can see where this oil leak is coming from. Saying that I ordered 100+ bucks worth of valve cover gaskets, cam plugs, seals and spark plugs prepping to fix my leaking valve cover gaskets. I can honestly say this job intimidates me more than the damn sas just because of how much shit has to be moved out of the way to get to the valve covers and because of how dirty my damn engine bay is and the fear of dropping dirt and shit into the motor. I'm also going to check the valve shims as well since everything will be open. Need to order some feeler gages for that job (excuse to buy good tools yay!!), Going to get a set of mitutoyo feelers since my wife works there and they make kick ass stuff.

After this is done, fingers crossed this is the source of my oil leak, it's back to fun stuff like hacking together hydro assist steering as cheap as possible with common parts and getting it to actually work and be reliable.

 

Hack booty fab is the cool shit in the days of six figure builds at fab shops!

Don't let it intimidate you, its a lot less complicated that it looks. Toyota does a great job with plugs that only can only plug in one place so it's pretty idiot proof...plus everything will be heat formed from 200k miles. Just gunk the top of the engine and hose off with low pressure water to get the loose crap off so it doesn't fall in.

 

Go read the build thread for his crawler on pirate. "Big boned Toyota" or some shit like that. Badass truck!

I was going to try to replicate the cage cowl tie in.

 

So much for the rest of my productivity today!

 

Good news, it's not the valve cover gaskets leaking! Instead the input shaft of the trans is. I was NOT looking forward to taking 1/4 of the motor apart to change those gaskets. Kind of sucks since this is a Marlin freshly rebuilt unit with around 30k on it. So much easier to get the trans out without all that IFS bullshit in the way, the last time I had the trans out it took me 8hrs, this time it took me about 1.5hrs of not working that fast.



That last pic I just thought looked funny, like the truck was taking a leak on the trans or something.

 

Your tires are flat...

 

I did that so my trans jack would be able to reach the trans not fully maxed out. It's leaning over because I had to jack it up with the highlift to get the trans out from under the truck.

 

I was just being a dick. Thanks for the explanation though!

 

Lol!! Both my rear tires did go flat on their own prior to me working on it, I had it on jadkstands lol

 

Trans input shaft seal replacement:
1. Take off the bell housing by removing every 14mm bolt you see inside the bellhousing


2. Remove input gear cover. Unbolt every 13mm bolt you see and break the FIPG seal.

Scrape all that black shit off everything.

3. Look at the bearings and front of the trans, turn the input gear and stare at it a bit more. This would be a good time to drink a beer... Oh yea spray everything down with some brake clean.


4. Backside of the cover is where the offending seal is. Flip it off (not pictured).


5. Pry that bitch out with a set of small channel locks. No picture, if you need a pic for this step you should not be doing this.

6. Pound in new seal with a SST (chunk of scrap tube I had laying around)


7. Apply a real sealer like the right stuff, not that pussy ass FIPG crap. I put this evreywhere the old stuff was and on the bolt threads.


Install is reverse of removal, remember to grease the new seal when you slide it on the shaft, don't want to burn up the new seal.

 

Since I have the trans out I'm going to redo my tcase mounts. Currently I have a 4xinnovations mount on the stock Tacoma mounting point. This worked for years until I stepped up to 37a and now my entire drivetrain shakes all over the place. I think the poly mounts coupled with blown out stock motor mounts may be the issue. The plan: since you can probably count on one hand how many people are running a lefty dual combo like I am on a Tacoma I'm going to have to modify my trail gear cross member. I'm going to mount a new factory rubber mount off the rear most case, and put some new rubber motor mounts in and chain the motor mounts to limit movement. The goal is to keep the mounting bolts from backing out with the softer mounts and the chain will keep me from ripping my motor mounts apart. Onto the pics:

I'm going to chop off the mount with the 3 holes. On the trail gear cross member this is where you are supposed to run a mount for the crawl box. I'm going to move this mount back around 8" to mount to the lefty.


Mount cut off and skid cleaned up:


Roughly where the new mount with be welded on, won't know for sure until the trans is back in this week.


New mount, this is the early mini truck style tcase mount.


How it's setup now, you can see the 4xinnovations mount near the jack platform (far left) .

When all is done I'll have only one mount for the drivetrain, but it will be the furthest point back.

 

Dude, you’re going soft with an actual write up of a project instead of just a before and after picture with some words in between

 

I know right,? I was bored drinking beers in the garage while doing this and I figured what the hell, why not do a write-up on a project that 99.999% of TW members will never do.

Trans is back in, the pilot bearing is fucked, so in the spring I'll probably pull all this shit back apart again and do a clutch job AGAIN assuming the disc is full of trans fluid. By that time the input seal will be leaking again so it will be a good time to redo all this shit again.

Apparently all Japanese bearings means China koyo bearing according to the vendor I got this clutch kit from, I mean they are on the same side of the world so that counts.

 

New mount welded on, multi passed the shit out of it, now the mounts all soft lol, and no you cannot get the bottom mount bolts off. I'll need to haul this junk over to one of my friends with a plasma cutter and cut some access holes in the skid. I should have the truck driving tomorrow, just need some shorter bolts for the tcase mount.

 

Little bit of a rant:

As good as aftermarket parts are, buy OEM. I now have to do a transmission tear down, on a freshly rebuilt trans, because of a .15 bearing that failed by a VERY reputable vendor that touts quality as their competitive advantage. When you see a ground out chewy bearing that has worn a massive groove in the input shaft, a bearing that should last for 100k+ miles, and doesn't even make it 40k, that's a crock of bullshit. Not to trash vendors but I HIGHLY recommend just buying an OEM pilot bearing when replaceing the clutch. The ones the vendors sell is Chinese horseshit that should not even be in a skateboard, let alone near a transmission. Now I either have to tear down the trans and swap out expensive parts or ship the trans back to who I got it from to have them fix it with expensive parts.

Frustrating.

 

lol'd at this. ^^^

Sucks though. Live and learn, or something like that.

 

Yeah, expensive lesson. At least it's not my DD so that's good. I'm going to still drive on it, I mean everything is already fucked up!!

A factory new input shaft is only $250 bucks, that's 700 cheaper than I thought it would be LOL

 

Drive it to the vendors shop. Park the truck in front of the front door and drop the trans letting fluid poor everywhere. That will show them

 

They are in Fresno California, as cool as a drive that would be, not happening lol!!

 

There are quite a few people that don't like that vendor. Myself included. Their clutch kit lasted 60k miles.