1995.5 2.7 Manual 4x4 - Vermont Transplant - Back to CA

Hey Everyone,

Now's the time to start this thread, I think. Here's my new 1995.5 Tacoma 2.7L manual 4WD.



I found it craigslist hunting out in California. Anything this clean in VT is priced to match - no matter the mileage (this one has 218k and is unbelievably rust free). I also specifically looked for pre-'97 to get by some of VT's emissions regulations, and that made it a lot more difficult to find in the northeast.

I bought it during a visit to my sister in Sacramento, so the truck has been sitting at her place until I can get back out to roadtrip it home. This also simplified registration/inspection/insurance, as I can do it all here in Vermont. As long as I have it back in Vermont for an inspection within 2 weeks of the day I register it, I should be totally legal. I think doing it this way saves me about $300 bucks in taxes alone, because the VT DMV values my truck at $1800. It probably saves a hassle with insurance, as well (only saying that because everything in CA is weirder). Also, even though this truck was already smogged and titled in CA, I think I could use the same process with one that wasn't. That opens up a world of old vehicles to me, because VT doesn't use titles on anything over 15 y/o, and our emissions is basically OBDII dependent.

Here are my nieces and nephew playing around on the truck just after I got it back to their place.



I'm home in VT now, but I'll be flying to Sacramento on 5/15 to start the adventure. I have to get myself and the truck to Vegas for a bachelor's party by 5/23, so I have about a week in the west to thrash and dash. I have no service history for the truck (I will be asking the PO for that while I'm there), but it was owned by a Toyota mechanic (supposedly). The engine bay and drivetrain looked very tidy, but there are some bits that I'd like to fix in CA because I like cheap labor (windshields). Otherwise I'll just be doing DIY service stuff (replacing all fluids and filters, inspecting plugs and plug wires, battery, brakes, and belts) in my sister's driveway, and cleaning up any crusty wiring I find along the way. I'll go through the manuals on this site to try to follow some sort of 200k service guide, I may buy a Hayne's manual as well.

Ok, so a few questions as I'm preparing for the trip:

Should I pre-order some specialty Toyota tools? I'll be working out of my brother-in-law's garage for the first few days, so I'm just wondering if our trucks require anything out-of-the-ordinary for service.

I'm planning on just a small toolkit for roadside troubleshooting on my trip home. Multimeter, spanners, screwdrivers, pliers, fuses, fluids, belts, tire kit. Basically the same toolkit I use for trips on vintage Honda motorcycles (these trucks are metric, right?!). If anything serious happens - well, I've bought roadside assistance. Still, are there any other tools I should consider bringing? I've decided that $30 for a checked bag will save me money, rather than buying things like screwdrivers to fill out my toolkit when I get out there.

Thanks for any help, grief, compliments, doubt, admiration, or belittlement. I've been reading around other threads for a few months, and I'm especially impressed by the regional communities. I'll be rubber-tramping through a lot of backyards, so perhaps I'll have the opportunity to meet a few of you on the way.

Eric "check please" Root

 

I finished my voyage home a few days ago. There were absolutely no problems with the truck (it was almost boringly reliable), so I filled the entire month with sightseeing and parties along the way.

When I got to Sacramento to start the odyssey, the plan was to give the truck a thorough service. After changing the oil/filter, and gapping the plugs, everything I had been planning on attending to seemed pretty fresh - so I gave her a thorough cleaning inside and out, a wax, replaced the windshield, and did a few more walk arounds.
Right after waxing.

The plan was to drive out of Sac, hit Yosemite, then Death Valley, then San Diego to visit my brother.

Yosemite NP, CA

I got to Yosemite in a snowstorm, so the route to Death Valley was closed. Instead of Death Valley, I ended up driving through Sequoia-Kings Canyon before continuing down to San Diego. From there I drove through Joshua Tree on the way to Vegas.

Joshua Tree NP, CA

After Vegas I hit snow again in Grand Canyon NP, and Taos. Weather was definitely a theme in every conversation during the trip. A lot of communities are having a hard time dealing with this Spring for various reasons.

Taos Pueblo, NM

From Taos I headed to Houston and tried to drive as near to the Gulf Coast as I could. Unfortunately, Highway 87 north of the Bolivar Peninsula is just gone since Hurricane Harvey(?), so I saw a lot of Bayous through the rest of Texas, and basically all of Louisiana. The rain was incredible, the truck handled a flash flood like a champ, and I saw alligators - then I was in New Orleans during their Pride festivities!
I finally saw some beautiful weather and coastlines in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, but after staying in New Orleans a few extra nights, I was feeling pressed for time for the rest of the trip.

Pensacola, FL

I hadn't really planned what the route home from FL was going to look like, but the themes of the trip so far had been mountains, and rednecks - so I headed for the Smokies where I saw my first East Coast Elk.

Great Smoky Mountains NP, NC

Then up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Shenandoah.

Shenandoah NP, VA

Then I followed the Appalachian Trail as closely as I could the rest of the way home.

After 5500+ miles on the truck this month, I feel prepared to start on the project!

Eric "probably napping" Root

 

My intake boot ripped while I was giving my truck the Seafoam treatment. I also want to replace the whole intake tube with something simple to get rid of the boxes hanging off of it (resonator and EGR?). The threads I found while researching either didn't pertain to my year, or were addressing full cold-air-kits. I want to keep the stock airbox, and just replace the tube. Anybody know of a product for this, or is it easy enough to replace with sections of pipe?

 

Welcome to the regular cab club! If you don’t know how old your lower ball joints are, you should change them soon with OEM parts. It’s a known failure on 1st gen Tacomas.

 

That looks like a bad day. Front suspension parts are definitely on the list, and I think ball joints just moved up a rung, or two.

I've been home almost a month now, and my truck has been needed quite a bit already. Everything from manure, to scrap metal... here I'm helping my sister move.


It's gotten a little attention in the way of maintenance and upgrades. I changed the diff, transfer, transmission, and engine oils. I had to replace a few bulbs for inspection, so I upgraded to LED license plate lights. I installed a Draw-Tite trailer hitch. And today, I replaced the warped rotors with stock Brembo units from eBay.

I'm still hoping to clean up the intake tubing as I said in my last post. I've done some more research, and I'm now even less clear what the box on top of the engine is. In this diagram it's simply called the "intake air connector".


It has a few hoses that would need to be accounted for if I replace it with homemade tubing, but other than those hoses, I can't find any information about what the box does, or why I should have one.

 

Apparently, I need 50 posts to create a thread in the buy/sell/swap section, so I'll post here and hope..

I cracked my bellhousing pretty good during a clutch job this weekend. Totally my fault. Don't sit in your truck while the trasmission is on jacks.

It's cracked pretty much right around the top - the crack will affect 4 out of the 5 fasteners, so I don't think it's a job for the old JB Weld. I know welding automotive cast aluminum is a long (aka expensive?) process, so I figgerred I'd ask if anyone has a spare, or leads on a spare. Didn't find much on the ebay motors.

As far as locality, I'm living in Sacramento at the moment (yes, the truck made it back here full circle ).

 

There are a couple W59 manuals in FB marketplace in the seattle area, maybe someone could ferry you one, or check car-part.com

 

will a 2rz bellhousing bolt up? I've heard they're nearly identical engines, and this 2rz:W59 is like 10 miles from me.
https://imageappky.car-part.com/ima...a Transmission Bellhousing Only-Stock# 200019

 

Yes it should be identical

 

Nice! Thanks a ton, that's a huge help! Hopefully their price isn't sky high.

 

I figured while I have the transmission out (waiting for parts), I'd address some other things I've been putting off.

Exhaust Gasket - Just whipped the converter to manifold section out and ordered new gaskets. Was missing one, and the other was all burnt up. No big deal.

Oil Pump Housing Gasket - Big deal. Pulled the whole front end apart. Happily found that my AC lines had busted, so I guess I didn't need to worry about disassembling that..... Borrowed the neighbor's pressure washer and went to town on everything with some good old Simple Green. All good.

Then I tried pulling the harmonic balancer All the cool tricks I saw on the internet required a transmission to be installed, so I had to get creative.



Nothing too complicated, but it took me about a day of futzing around to figure it. The internet did help me with the front side of it, though. This setup worked great. (yes, I did stage this pic, and you can see the oil pump housing has already been removed, but I hope you get the idea)



No worries, though. I still found a way to get creative. I didn't have a breaker bar in the brother in law's garage, so I took the handlebar stem off that there kids Razor scooter and used that. Don't tell my sister... I had to be just a little careful, but by god if it didn't work.

Then it was onto those silly phillips screws on the pump housing I put my #3 screwdriver on there, and there was no. movement. at. all.

Some internetting later, I went and got the right tool for the job. A #3 3/8" socket driver.



I don't know whether it's because it was brand new or what, but that driver made a very satisfying click every time it engaged with one of those screws properly, and I didn't see any slippage at all.

Another thing that helped was something I read over on IH8MUD. Crack the screws loose by tightening them ever so slightly first. They really do make an audible crack when they break loose, and then you can just loosen them right out lemon squeezy.

This worked so well, I almost don't see the point in changing them out for the fancy allen head screws, but I'm doing it anyway.

Now I've got the pump housing in the freezer. DO NOT tell my sister... I'm hoping it'll help to get the crank seal out.

EDIT: Not sure if the freezer helped getting the crank seal out or not, but I got 'er done with a screwdriver, a rubber mallet, and that stool with a hole in the top from the 2nd photo above. It took some pounding, but I didn't damage the housing.

 

While I had my front end apart, I took the opportunity to flush the coolant system, too. I pulled the thermostat, threw the garden hose into the upper radiator line and just let it run for a couple minutes. Pulled one of the heater lines and did the same there.

It really needed it, it was a hot mess in there.

 

Just got the final piece of disassembly done. Just in time, because I expect parts to start rolling on in tomorrow.

Today's big job was popping out the pilot bearing. I like using an old trick I seen on the internet awhile back where you use a grease gun, a bolt, and hammer but apparently my bearing was too far gone because when I smacked the bolt with the hammer, the grease went shooting out through the ball bearings like a hot lava cake.

So, back to the internet I went and found the bread method. A worthy tool for all those who tackle this job, for sure. It saved the day when grease didn't work, and went off without a hitch. Bread is also cheaper than grease.


My tools for this job were a bagel, a claw hammer, and one of the bellhousing bolts.
For more on this method, check out this video, that's where I learned it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TLsD5pAor0&ab_channel=thomasbrian

 

boy, wrasslin that trans around trying to get it back in sure is a bear!

 

Here's what ended up working for me. If you don't have a tranny jack, this is definitely the method I'd recommend. Even if you had a lift, this method opened up a lot of space under the truck and made moving around down there totally carefree.

Start by securing your transmission to the truck by putting a ratchet strap around the transmission (locate the strap aft of the crossmember mount for best results), and hanging it from the transmission tunnel.
NOTE: The sheet metal on your transmission tunnel is FLIMSY, use as wide a board as you can to spread the load out.

If I were home, I'd grab a 2x12 scrap board that covered the entire opening and drill holes in it where I wanted the strap to go, but this 2x6 was the best I could find at my sister's house.



Next, start jacking the transmission up. You can do it with just one floor jack if you keep the ratchet strap tight since the strap is doing the stabilizing.

I attached my crossmember at this point because it offers a ton of leverage as you're trying to wiggle and jiggle the trans into place. It also gives a lot of visual cues in terms of alignment, and forces you to keep the rear of the trans low as you're moving it into position.



This pic was taken after the trans had been wrassled into position. You can see that the crossmember is lining up with the crossmember mounts, and I can just jack the tail of the transmission up.

There was still about a 1" gap between the bellhousing and the engine, so I needed to get the trans secured to the truck a different way, then I could get the ratchet strap out of there. I needed the ratchet to clamp the engine and trans together and get the positioning dowels to seat.

So, I jacked up and mounted the crossmember to the frame mounts, and pulled the ratchet strap out of the transmission tunnel. Then I hooked one end of the ratchet strap into one of the bellhousing bolt holes on the engine near one of the bellhousing positioning dowels. The other end of the strap went around the trans crossmember mount so that as I tightened the strap it pulled the engine back towards the trans. The positioning dowels seated easily. I did this on both the driver and passenger side.

Then I could get the bottom two bellhousing bolts in, as well as the clutch slave, and the starter.

Then I lowered the rear of the trans again so I could reach up over the top for the remaining two bellhousing bolts, and route the wiring.
NOTE: I used about 40 inches of extensions for my socket wrenches to reach those top two bolts, including a u-joint.

I wish I'd taken more pics of this, but I was exhausted. I tried several different methods before hanging the trans from the transmission tunnel, and they were....... difficult my back is STIFF!

 

I took the truck for a test drive today. Seems I've stopped leaking oil, and my clutch is working... sorta (it needs adjustment).

There is a very audible clickity clack coming from the passenger side suspension. This isn't a new issue, but I thought it was related to the failing clutch before. Now I'm thinking it's a wheel bearing??? The only thing is, it's only audible at low speeds, and turning the wheel doesn't seem to have any effect at all. It sounds more like a CV axle, but I've only used 4wd about twice this year... Do those wear out even if the hubs aren't locked?

 

I figured out what was wrong



After getting my front tires off the ground, I was happy to hear that there was nothing out of the ordinary going on when I turned the wheels, and tested the ball joes and tie rodgers.

Figured I'd test the rear wheels while I was at it, and that's when I found the wallet walloper.

 

So, here's the story after a little research. That there driveshaft on the right is my rear shaft. It's rare to have 1-piece driveshafts in tacomas, apparently, and the joint I'm having trouble with is the dreaded "double cardon" (aka CV) joint, which is the big fat feller bottom right in the picture.



These have the reputation of being unrebuildable, but thanks to some folks over on our WHYDTYTT1GE page (https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...acoma-today-1st-gen-edition.138573/page-10759), I found a walkthrough (https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/double-cardan-joint.273119/#post-6745013)

I figure I'll rebuild as much of it as I can find parts for, most of those threads are pretty old. It'd probably make sense to replace the U-Joints while I'm in there, but it seems like those are actually the hardest things to find.

 

Replaced my "sloppy" rear drive shaft with a unit from a local wrecker. I'm hoping to rebuild my old one at some point.



The price wasn't as good as I'd hoped. $250 for the driveline and one 12" long high pressure A/C line.

Once I'd gotten it installed and I was out on my shakedown I forgot the price real quick. That old shaft's been going bad since I bought the truck 22k miles ago!

All the vibrations and clickity clacks and rattles that I've been dealing with right along are gone, and the truck runs smooth like a cheetah.

Here, I've been blaming my tires or the alignment, and I've been worrying about my suspension and checking on it constantly.

I sure am impressed that it takes that long for a wobbler bearing to go from bad to worse, but it's always gratifying to be able to blame the PO I'm even ready to blame the driveline vibration for the pilot bearing, the clutch, the throwout bearing, and the busted bellhousing!

 

Next projects are: cleaning the throttle body, paint "repair" on the hood, and getting the A/C figured out.

I do have a sneaking suspicion that I've got a head gasket issue, but I'm choosing to continue ignoring it for now.