What can go wrong with my truck - or RysiuM build

My truck passed annual safety inspection with almost flying colors. Almost because left parking brake showed much less braking power (still within legal limits) than the right one. It is not the a problem with brakes as both rear brakes from the pedal showed full and equal stopping power. So it is the left auto-adjuster was not set correctly. I did open and clean my right rear drum, but I never touched the left one. I guess it's the time to do that. I don't have a garage here so it will have to wait till the winter is over.

One of the inspection item is the whole front suspension. They put the front wheels on some metal plates that are twisted left and right (one wheel at the time) putting huge stress on all joints. While doing that the inspector is looking at all moving parts for any trace of loose. It is painful to watch as it seems something will break in any second. Anyway my truck is good and road legal for another year. By the way none of H4 LED bulb would pass the inspection in my reflector housing. They do very strict low beam pattern test.

 

@RysiuM does the Dino Snot you sprayed on inside and outside your frame ever dry, or does it stay sticky and nasty looking.

 

It does not dry. Now the frame is covered with thin layer of dust covering the "nasty" stuff so it does look just dirty but when you touch it you can smear it and the sticky stuff is still there. Inspector tried to find the VIN number stamped on the frame and he was surprised with his hands getting nasty.

I am amazed by Fluid Film that it does wash out with soap and pressure washer but is resistant to normal splashing. The only thing it does not like is the heat and it burnes of all the exhaust pipes (I wish it could stay on them and keep from rusting ).

 

A small update. When I received the truck in Poland I did not have my life and tools organized yet but the oil change was due. So I did it at local Toyota dealer. All went fine and now 3k miles are closing so started preparation for the oil change. Yesterday I found on the label that dealer (probably not knowing this particular engine) used 15W40 oil (used for high mileage vehicles here) instead of factory recommended 5W30. Service records confirmed that. That's a bummer and big oversight on my part. I had so many things going on after the move that I completely missed that. Good thing is that they actually used correct synthetic for my 4Runner that they did at the same time.

Anyway I am preparing for my first time oil change here. Just got 10 quarts of quality 5W30 - I will be doing oil change in my wife's Nissan Versa Note too which is using the same oil as my Tacoma (but only half of the amount my truck takes). Got correct size oil filter wrenches (about 3 dollars each) so now I'm just waiting for nice weather. It is still to cold (40-50F) or to wet.

 

from page 1 over 2yrs ago...

this is funny
thanks for the laugh

 

But my truck was never submerged

 

That is very possible. Bearings don't like to run dry.

 

It's done deal. The battery officially is dead. Starter was only making clicking sounds. Any tricks to revive it did not make any difference. When I tried to charge the charger started at 2A and very fast it the voltage went above 14.9V and of course charger stopped. Then voltage immediately dropped to 13V this is when charger tried to charge it again, and that cycle continues.

That battery has a sticker for January 2012, it means that battery lasted "only" 7 years and 2 months.




I went to the battery store and they tested it: unloaded was 12.4V, under load the voltage dropped to 5.4V. Not good.

Batteries that would fit mechanically in the designed spot are not very popular here. The height of Tacoma battery is 200mm (222mm with terminals), while all European cars have battery height 175mm. That 222mm size they call here "The Asian size" (no offense intended). Many reputable manufactures don't even make that size.

Researching all brands available here (very different than in USA) I decided on well respected Austrian brad "Banner". Most of brands available here (including Bosh ) don't last more than 3 years. For environmental reasons they use very thin plates, some "green technology" and the result is visible - everybody is shopping for batteries every 2 or 3 years. Banner on the other hand is family owned company making batteries for the last 80 years. The normal life expectancy from these batteries is 6-10 years. So I pulled the trigger.

I found the exactly the same physical size as my old Super Start, "Banner Power Bull P80 09 ASIA" (don't laugh, the "Asia" is in the product name) that has 640A EN (equivalent of 703 CCA) for the price of $108 (including tax and core).



While replacing the battery I took my time to clean the battery connectors and check for any signs of rust under the battery tray. I guess I did good job the last time because no single rust spot there. The battery comes with 24 months full replacement warranty but I hope I will keep it for at least 6-7 years.

Here is the new battery installed

 

First beautiful day in months. 75+ F full sun, no wind. And Saturday. What else would I need? Yes, correct parts, but about it later.

First thing is the oil change in Tacoma. I found it is easier to remove stock skid plates if I remove the rear first and the front second. Less weight to deal with. I used to take out both skids as a one piece that required some muscle, which I don't have anymore. At least not that much. Since I stopped flying (my PPL is not valid in Europe) I converted my muscles to something more pleasurable: bear belly .

Anyway, I did not even use my ramps - stock truck have enough clearance to do all the work under the engine with no jacking it up. The old oil was dirty. No sludge, but definitely dark. Taking oil filter in 2.7 is quite easy, practically no spill (maybe few drops). OEM Toyota filter requires 72mm wrench so my 73mm was a bit loose but no slipping. Just long 1/2 extension that fits between front axle and frame and unscrewing is was as easy as changing a light bulb. I have not cut opened the filter yet, but I'm curious what is inside.



Put new filter (hand tight - I did not have time to play with torque wrench, maybe next time), new crush washer under the plug torqued to 27ft-lb. Refilled with 5.4 litters new 3W-30 Toyota dino oil and I noticed the level is about 1/4 inch above the high mark. I will drive it a bit and recheck. Also strange is that I drained only 4.5 litters plus what was left inside the filter (it should be about 5 litters plus filter). It does not add up or maybe that old thicker oil did not drain from all cavities. Oh well, next time I will change oil sooner.

I fired her up and immediately oil warning light turned black - that's a good sign. I keep my fingers crossed that that 15W40 did not sludge that engine to much.

Having skid plates off I noticed some surface rust started to show on the front skid. I did fluid film skid plates before the winter but the front skid is exposed to splashes the most and the fluid film did wash out. I wire brush cleaned the rust and painted that skid with 4-in-1 Rust Control paint. Should stop that orange thing from growing (on the picture below the brown part of the skid is just reflection of the ground - the skid is black).




Now the fun part. I was going to change the oil in my wife's Nissan Versa Note. That little guy needed ramps. But once on ramps, the oil change is even easier than in Tacoma. Oil filter low in front part of the engine easy to grab. No skids to mess about. So I drained old oil, removed the filter, put new crush washer on the plug, torqued it to 25ft-lb and started to putt new filter. Strange, it does not want to go in easy, binding on the thread. WTF moment. I compared the new filter with the old one, and looked almost the same, just part number was different. I started googling both part numbers and I found the filter Versa Note takes has thread M20x1.5, while the filter Nissan sold me has thread 3/4-16 UNF. What the F-k Nissan? Imperial thread in cars sold in Europe? Not only that it is imperial, but Nissan dealer in Wroclaw sold me this filter (15208 70J0A) as a direct replacement of original 1528 65F0E. What an incompetent moron. Toyota dealer is much better.

So, even I was fighting to my last keystroke that oil filter has to be replaced together every oil change (Motor oil filter change interval?) I put my tail between my legs and defeated by Nissan put the old oil filter back. That Nissan will not be driving much next week anyway and I have already ordered on Amazon genuine Nissan part number 1528 65F0E with expedited shipping to arrive to my house in Poland next Thursday. Next weekend I will just swap oil filter and refill with new oil.

Lesson learned: don't buy any parts from local Nissan dealer, they are incompetent and don't know what they are doing. The good thing is that my wife's Versa Note has only 5k miles on the clock and is driven no more than 1k miles in a year (my wife's shopping cart), so maybe it will not need any parts for the next 20 years.

 

Last weekend I took my Tacoma "off road" - literally. Drove to check on my property, see if there are any damages after the winter. Did not even lock my hubs, just to not bounce to much I shifted to 4L and on the first gear drove on idle across my field. Here is all stock 1995.5 4x4 Ex cab in its natural habitat.

 

Another beautiful weekend, time to catch up some work on the truck. During safety inspection in January I discovered the driver side emergency brake has much lesser power than the pass side one. I suspected auto-adjuster being dirty and not working correctly. In 2017 I did inspect and clean the pass side rear brakes, and that one was working fine. So time to do the same to the driver side.

After lifting the truck and releasing e-brake I found that the rear driver side wheel was binding. I quickly found that the "T" of emergency cable was not moving. It supposed to be "floating" giving equal force to e-brake levers on each side. This one was frozen solid. There is a bracket bolted to the diff and it should swing easy on the rubber bushing between the bracket and the bolt. The swinging action was not there. The bolt was "welded" to the bushing. When I moved the bracket (using significant force) the wheel started to turn free.

I love to work on California truck treated with fluid film. Everything is so pristine, just a trace of rust. Removing the drum was even easier this time. The method @Timmah! show on his video to use two bolts worked like a charm. I suspect that the auto-adjuster was not tighten as I did not need to release it to remove the drum. Inside everything was almost perfect (the same as was the pass side two years ago), just covered with 24 years worth of brake dust. I used compressed air first blowing off the black cloud, and then brake pads cleaner to finish it. Auto adjuster thread was clean and working correctly. It was not tighten because the cable was not pushing it enough. So I started working on the bracket.

It was not rusted on the thread so it was easy to remove from the diff (at the same time the bolt started to turn inside the bushing). Using electric ratchet I was able to remove the bolt from the bushing. The rubber bushing was in good condition (no cracks or swollen rubber), but the bolt was covered with layer of rust bubles. That rust caused the the bushing not swinging freely.

With a drill press and different files, scrapers and sandpaper I was able to remove almost all the rust. It is not perfect but smooth enough. After greasing it I put everything together. Now the arm swings freely and cable pulls the brakes on both wheels at the same force.

I'm not sure if it was a good idea, but before I put everything together I put a very thin layer of anti-seize compound between the drum and the hub. Just to have the same easy job when I will replace the pads in next 20 years or so. Now I will need to drive to inspection station so they can re-check my e-brake. It is not required, but I just wanted to be sure my truck is safe to drive (and park).

 

I noticed a rusty-colored paint on the very bottom of the tail gate. After inspection I found what's going on. I have never pulled the rear bumper since I bought the truck in 1998. And that bumper has a plastic lip rising up, not sure what it is for. Anyway the bumper sticks a bit far away from the bed and that lip is touching the very bottom of the tail gate every time the tail gate is opened or closed. That slight touching scraped all the paint from the gate to the bare metal. I have not noticed it while the truck was in California - the paintless metal was in invisible spot and there were no rust in California. Now in Poland any exposed metal is attacked by rust quite fast. While the thin layer of rust was scraped by that plastic lip every time I opened the gate the paint above get discolored slightly (now visible on white background).





I got to the mounting bolts - first mounting the bumper to the bumper brackets and was surprised these M12 bolts gave up without the fight. They supposed to be torqued to 65 ft-lb but that was much less than that. Same with bolts mounting the bracket to the frame. Surprisingly there were not enough adjust on these bolts to push the bumper forward closer to the bed.

Then I got Dremel and started grinding the mounting holes in the bumper to oval shape, to give a bit more give. After I turned all my grinding stones to dust I gained about 3 mm of adjustment move. It's still far away from what I would like (I'd like about 5mm more) but that was just enough to that lip not touching the tail gate anymore. Before I rustproof and pain the bottom of the tail gate I need to get more grinding stones for my Dremel and repeat the process again.



Now the scary part - when I torqued mounting bolts I got 65 ft-lb on all of them except the front bolts mounting the bumper bracket to the frame. They were turning close to 60 ft-lb but did not want to click 65 ft-lb. I don't know if the nut goes bad, I just gave up. The same bolt is going through towing bar bracket so I don't know what's going on. I am not towing anything (the tow bar is used as a supplementary bumper) - I would have to do Europe legal trailer plug wiring before my truck would be registered to tow. My bumper and the towing bar is not going anywhere so I let it be as is. For now.

The strange thing (or maybe not) is that the tow bar is much worse quality than the Tacoma frame. I mean the paint is flaking, rust is showing up and bolts and nuts are really rusted (comparing to other "original" bolts)

 

A little check of coolant temperature gauge. That darn thing does not move up above the level showed on the picture below. That picture was taken after driving for 45 minutes in county roads and then for 5 min at 4L at about 2 minutes across the field. The only time I noticed the gauge went up to half way between the C and H was after I shut down the engine and then started it after 2 minutes. But as soon the engine started the needle quickly went down to the same level as usual.



It's been like that for the last two years. The only thing I suspect at this point is the Engine coolant temperature sender gauge connector - it's covered with green substance, maybe corrosion that falsifies the reading

 

What do you mean "trashed"?

By the way this sensor is not connected to the computer in any way. It is connected to gauge only. The computer is reading the engine temperature from different sensor (mounted on the back of the engine). And as you can see on the picture the idle is perfect

 

I'll check it then. I hope it doesn't fall apart. If that sensor is not shared across other Toyota cars in Europe the lead time will be 2 months.

 

Obviously the sensor still works , it may be just 2-3 F off. My coolant temperature shown by ECM (from the ECT Sensor) is 85C (185F). It's cold again so I don't want to work with 24 years old plastic, but my plan is unplug the wire from the sensor (this is where the green stuff is showing) and clean both contacts. Maybe additional resistance from the corroded contact is causing it false reading. I mean that reading is off by not much. Just annoying. To be clear, the engine has two sensors:
1. Engine Coolant Temperature Sender - that is located at front pass side (the one with green stuff on my picture)
2. Engine Coolant Temperature (ECT) Sensor - that is located on the back side of the engine (close to firewall).

Unfortunately I can't find any documentation about the firs one, what is temperature vs resistance characteristic. Only ECT is described in FSM.

The other possibility is that the thermostat opens to much at lower temperature (or maybe not closing completely). I wonder if there is any way to measure the real engine coolant temperature of course besides removing the rear sensor (that reports to ECM) and compare it with the chart:



I wish they included a chart like that for Engine Coolant Temperature Sender. But the only thing they have is a procedure of checking the gauge operation (pretty much on and off test)



EDIT: Found the part number for this sensor (sender): 8342020040
It is actually shared across the whole Toyota family.

 

Yep, OEM is about 30 dollars or so, the wait time might be 2 months. Like you wrote Toyota cars in Europe use exactly the same looking sensor but different part number, so I guess the electrical data is different. Tacoma 2.7 sensor is shared across whole bunch of cars and trucks but US models. It's still cold here - 44F is to cold to work on the truck.

 

He, he lucky you: 84F. I'm waiting for that.

In the meantime I'm thinking of breaking my truck by changing fluids I have never ever touched. That is transmission, transfer case, both difs, and power steering. I'm not sure what oils to get (I mean brands), as most of common US brands are hardly available here. I can either go by "Toyota brand" and get whatever they have, or get brands I know and trust: Amsoil or Motul. I don't trust Castrol or Mobil 1 here, as these bottles are quite often hacked and counterfeited. These fluids are not cheap here:

$29 75W-90 Synthetic Gear Lube - 1 Quart (Pack of 2)

75W-90 and 80W-90 is is close to 15 dollars per litter, and ATF is close to 10 dollars per litter.

 

Example:

https://www.amsoil.com/shop/by-prod...-transmission-and-transaxle-gear-lube-75w-90/

In Poland there are many on line stores offering Amsoil (not counterfeit ) for less than MSRP.

 

Finally the sun showed up again and getting warmer. Still not warm enough to fluid film but I could get back to my tailgate as i mentioned in this post.

I removed the tailgate, cleaned the rust from the bottom edge with sandpaper (it was not that bad, mostly discoloration with no perforation) and painted it with rust inhibitor. Tomorrow I will touch paint it (if weather cooperates). Also I found what is wrong with my bumper brackets, that I could not torque it to the spec. Today both front bolts gave up. Closer egzamination showed that they were holding just by the end, like these bolts were to short and now the tread is completely stripped. I think I know what happened.

I have hitch receiver and step on bumper - both installed by the dealer (originally before I bought the truck). To bolt both brackets to the frame dealer used original bolts that are M12-1.25 x 30mm. They are long enough to install the bumper bracket alone, but not bumper and tail hitch bracket. Bolts were holding by the end of the thread, and this is the weakest point, as the bolt is split there. The bumper + hitch setup requires bolts that are at least 35mm long. Now being still new to the country I had no clue where I could buy such bolts. They are not common because of strength and super fine thread. Aftetr few phone calls to Toyota parts (my new friend ) and car shops specializing in installing towing stuff I finally got directed to long forgotten store that has all kind of bolts - pricey but available. I could buy chepper on-line but only by box of 100, so that is not valuable option.


Now some funny story, not related to Tacoma, but to my wife's Nissan Versa Note. Last year I was fixing flapping registration plate on the rear hatch - Nissan Versa Note is tiny car comparing to my trucks, so everything is in tight spaces, including washers and nuts used to bolt the registration plate. So last year the rear hatch "swallowed" one small washer. I spend over an hour digging inside that hatch and the washer just disappeared. I gave up, and put new washer letting the old one to settle down somewhere inside.

And now the funny part. Yesterday my wife came from the store with the back door open - the lock got blocked and the rear door did not latch. Somehow I knew right away, that the long lost washer found its way to the latching mechanism. After half hour of removing all parts to get into the latch I was able to free it enough to see its guts and ... (drum roll) the washer was there blocking the latching lever. Now at least I will be sure that it will not get into wiring creating some electrical short or get wet and starts rusting spot. Nissan is fixed and happy.