What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

So far this weekend, I’ve been able to finish building up the top end of the JDM transplant engine and finish dressing out the engine bay with the Scarab washer fluid reservoir, oil catch can, supercharger, and URD 7th injector (still need to wire this up). I did all that Friday evening after work.



On Saturday I was able to finish up the install of the AEM fuel pump which was really just reinstalling the gas tank and replacing the inline fuel filter. The second job I did was installing the transmission and transfer case which I had rebuilt while I had the engine out. Having the 800lb HF transmission jack made the solo transmission install relatively painless. The Jack is height adjustable (obviously) but has adjustment knobs to pitch the transmission left, right and front, back. Definitely recommend it if you ever plan on tackling this job solo.

 

Nice work dude. Out of curiosity what happened to the last engine?

 

thanks @Shortman5 The last engine started out as being just really tired at 320k miles. I was having compression issues which I partially resolved with remanned heads, but misfires continued and I found that the woodruff key had sheared off. Finally, the crank pulley bolt backed out last Halloween when I was traveling to the gulf coast to visit family; I ran into dead stop traffic and the engine overheated to the point where it blew a hole in the radiator. It was at this point I knew it’s be more economically feasible to swap in a JDM engine rather than break down and repair the original.

In the case of the trans rebuild, the lower portion of the OEM radiator that is the trans cooler failed on me and gave me the strawberry milkshake. I installed an external cooler and the trans did ‘okay’ like that for a while. It also had a leak between the transmission and T-case so it really needed a rebuild too. I still have to bolt the flex plate to the torque converter… which I’m not looking forward to. But, it’s nearly there and honestly… if I owned a car that didn’t need some sort of work, I’d sell it. I love to work on them as much as I love to drive them.

 

Looks beautiful!!!!!

 

Ahhhh sorry to hear that. Mine is estimated to be here Aug 5-9, and I’m leaving to go wheeling on the 11th…. Supposed to anyways, I guess we’ll see if it gets here in time and actually fixes my issue

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-steering-column.721066/

 

Plug and play?

 

Should note, I’ve had a rattle in the column for a while. It’s not just play in the steering, I can feel the front tires wobbling side to side above 40mph

 

Where did you tack weld?

 

One problem at a time. A column would at least solve 50% of the problem .

You can re pin it to if ya have access to a drill press. Some people still want the column to collapse on impact.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/97-04-tacoma-steering-column-re-pin.719480/

 

I guess I'll do both, doesn't hurt, already ordered a rack and its leaking so doesnt hurt to replace. I really appreciate the input

 

The tilt wheel mod is pretty dope! I have to do my column AGAIN so I’ll give it a go.

 

I had to Dremel out a lot of the plastic surround, but yes plug and play

 

[QUOTE="BeLance89, post: 26047552, member: 225436"]So far this weekend, I’ve been able to finish building up the top end of the JDM transplant engine and finish dressing out the engine bay with the Scarab washer fluid reservoir, oil catch can, supercharger, and URD 7th injector (still need to wire this up). I did all that Friday evening after work.



On Saturday I was able to finish up the install of the AEM fuel pump which was really just reinstalling the gas tank and replacing the inline fuel filter. The second job I did was installing the transmission and transfer case which I had rebuilt while I had the engine out. Having the 800lb HF transmission jack made the solo transmission install relatively painless. The Jack is height adjustable (obviously) but has adjustment knobs to pitch the transmission left, right and front, back. Definitely recommend it if you ever plan on tackling this job solo.


[/QUOTE]

What is the red canister on the left between air filter and cruise control? Is that the oil catch can?

 

oil catch can is correct.

 

Got my Camburg uniballs installed over yesterday/today. So fucking proud of myself since this is the first time I’ve had anything involving press work go smoothly. Every time I would change the stock ball joints in the past it would always be a nightmare getting them pressed in evenly, not having the right adaptor, not a good angle, no vise, etc.

I pulled each spindle and did the pressing with a c-clamp press in a vise and it was sooooo easy. I bought the Total Chaos press sleeves thinking I could use them with my Camburgs, but completely overlooked the fact that their spindle adaptor is not a puck like TC’s, it has the lower uniball adaptor machined into it as one piece so it wouldn’t fit in the TC sleeves. I happened to have one that it would fit and slapped a little anti size on the spindle and pressed it in nice and evenly without much hassle. The TC ones still worked great to press the stock bj’s out.



Sorry for being a windbag, but this is one of those jobs I’ve put off for like 6 months cause I just didn’t want to do it and it just went so damn well. It’s been a while since I’ve had this feeling when working on this truck haha

 

following up on my previous post…

I got the starter installed which was an absolute PITA with the Doug Thorley headers installed; that top bolt really gave me a good fight.

I also slightly modified the transmission pan dipstick tube inlet so the dipstick could get around the headers. It wasn’t a difficult job, but one I hadn’t planned on.

Finally, I bolted up the flex plate to the torque converter. Still have some minor odds and ends to button up before I can fire it up, but happy that all the big jobs are done now.

 

Is the rear most portion of the driveshaft the same between all years of 4wd 1st gen tacomas?

I would think they would be?
I was gonna get one from an 01 and put it on my 2000 and just want to make sure.

 

Knocked out a hill climb this weekend that's been on my list for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Fvguk4_SQ

The line to the right is one that is notorious for roll overs. I attempted that one and needed to winch because I was almost one of those victims.