1996 4X4 Tacoma 3.4 exhaust crossover

seeking words of wisdom from those of you that have done the job... what to do and what not to do. I have heard that it can be a bear.

 

Google around, plenty of people have done it. Generally an exhaust shop will have no issues doing it.

My 2 cents, no real reason to do it if stock engine.

 

every nut seized no matter how much heat put into it and pb blaster used. broke 2 3/8" ratchets attempting to loosen them. snapped all but 1 stud off. tried to weld nut on half a dozen times and still couldnt get any to budge. had to use a 12" long drill bit on a hand drill through the small gap between steering rack and frame to drill out a stud. It was incredibly hard and dulled the bit multiple times. finally managed to get a hole drilled for a bolt. put an insane amount of copper gasket maker on it when installing and its still only on there with one stud and a bolt.

Overall it was hell and id sooner cut it all off with a reciprocating saw and spend $500 on aftermarket headers.

 

the flange at the P/S exhaust manifold to the crossover is cracked... someone attempted to do a weld while on the car but couldnt get enough heat into it to make it work.

all of my fasteners came right off, I guess I was lucky regarding them.

 

Mine came off kinda easily. I used wd-40 and most of the crossover bolts came off, but in the end I cut it off

 

what did you replace it with, the same, headers or? I am putting a new factory crossover exhause back in.

mine is loose and I can move it around a little just dont know it comes out the PS or the DS or do I take the motor loose and move it forward and take it out the top. At this point in time it looks like I am going to have to drop the trans pan to get the flange to clear the dipstick tube and I still dont know if it will wiggle out that way.

 

Are you talking about removing the factory crossover pipe? Comes out the P/S, just need to rotate it as you pull it out, I recall the brake hard line being a little in the way but nothing major. I was surprised at how easily the stock exhaust could be removed, not so much with installing the TRD headers.

 

hmm, my experience is vastly different... mine 1996 3.4 auto 4X4... all of my fasteners came off, even the catalytic convertor to exhaust bolts. There is just no wiggle room. To get some wiggle room I removed the DS exhaust manifold to crossover studs and took the motor mount to frame bolts off and slide the engine / trans forward maybe 3/4 - 1 inch. It hits either the brake line that you mentioned and or the trans dipstick tube. Cutting the crossover out does not help me if I cant get the new one in the same way the old one came out. If dropping the trans pan does not do the trick I am going to pull the motor and do all of my maintenance issues, valve adjust, seepy end plugs etc while it is on the stand.

 

dropping the auto trans pan required taking the sway bar brackets off and that allowed me to pull the crossover out. The new one went right back in with little effort. Definitly a messy, paitience trying job. Gonna put the trans pan in place with a couple of bolts clean up and call it a day. On a side note, I did see a few drops of anti-freeze on the bottom of the bell housing and if I wasnt there I dont think I would have noticed it... guess an inspection of the heater hoses and the little tiny hoses that go to the warm up plate under the throttle body are in need of a look see.