92Shawman's 1992 3VZ-E SR5 Pickup

Yeah we just bench tested it this evening. While it's not as loud as the mv50, it's not quiet by any means. It is, however, smoother and not rattly and jarring, if that makes sense.
Yeah no way is it going under the hood. I need to put a picture in the OP of the engine bay...there's barely any room for anything other than the engine itself!
My thought is that I've subjected passengers to airing up tires with the mv50 before, which is super loud, so the fact that this one's not as loud and would be muffled a little by the seats makes it okay in my book. Sure it's in the cab, but it's not like it's going to be running full-time during locker actuation, which is when people would be in the cab with it. When I'm airing up usually people are out walking around appreciating the freedom before cramming back into the back seat, if I have a back seat passenger

Thanks, man. I didn't have any luck opening it up today but it's actually the same one as some of the earlier model first gens! I think not the same as yours, but who knows.

Actually today was kinda a bust progress-wise for the locker.
I spent the whole day visiting different hardware and auto stores trying to find a fitting for the locker bench test and never found it. Couldn't find a 1/4" NPT tap, either. So I'm going to try to order some stuff off Amazon tonight and keep working on wiring up the compressor. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

 

Yeah and I'm pretty sure that you can rotate the compressor at an angle without losing much performance (correct me if I'm wrong), which means it'll fit to the far driver's side of the compartment, farther away from any passengers.

I'm trying to go from a female 1/8" NPT to a female 3/8"-24, so I need an adapter with both ends male in those sizes. The closest thing I can find are 1/8" NPT to 5/16"-24. Need to check sears or lowes or grainger on monday.

You'd think most hardware stores would, and Harbor Freight does but it's in a 6 piece $20 kit. Every other hardware store that I went to didn't have it (again, still need to check sears or lowes).

I haven't even gotten to the diff yet...but the compressor mounting is moving along!

 

Compressor's done!

...mostly. Still gotta zip tie in the power cable and check for a small leak and decide if I want to bother with the switch "off" lights not coming on with the dash lights...

 

Today I decided to bother with the switch lights. Turns out they were dimming when I turned the dimmer up and brightening when I turned the dimmer down, so I figured I'd just switch to the other wire coming off of the dash light I was tapping into. Nope! That one just kept the switch lights on full power regardless of the dimmer.

Soooo, one quick google search later and I find out that Toyota's dash dimming system works off the ground instead of the hot wire for the dash lights. In other words, the light circuit works like this:

Battery --> lights --> dimmer --> ground

instead of

Battery --> dimmer --> lights --> ground.

This means that ARB's instructions for wiring the switches don't work because the switch is trying to do battery --> dimmer --> switch light --> ground.

Instead, I wired it so that the positive lead for the switch light comes from the battery lead of the rheostat (dimmer) and the ground for the switch light goes back and ties into the ground of the rheostat instead of going back to the battery, like it would in the normal loom according to the instructions.
And it works and it dims when I want it to and everything!

Now I'm still checking the leaks of the fittings on the compressor. The pressure switch seems to be the main culprit for leaks, but I had that one taken care of and was manipulating the compressor back into it's final resting place and heard a new leak come from the locker solenoid. So I just kinda jimmy'd it a bit and it stopped audibly leaking so now I'm just waiting to see how much time passes before the compressor starts up again.

The manual says that if it doesn't last 15 minutes before starting again to top off the little internal tank then you should fix leaks. I'm thinking I want it to last for as long as I would be running the locker, but I have no idea how long that would be. Guess I'll start at 15 minutes and then see if that's how long I run the system and if I need longer I'll try to seal it better.

EDIT: So far it's lasted 35 minutes and hasn't come back on.

Pictures coming at some point...

 

The compressor lasts about an hour, so I am very happy with that!
Aaaaaaaand the diff's out! Everything looks pretty good on first inspection. Haven't gotten to the bearings or anything yet, but the ring gear backlash and run out look good.

 

pics!

 

+1

 

Beat me to it, let's see em!!!

 

Haha, they're coming, they're coming.

 

Compressor install:

The wiring was the most ridiculous part of this. This was my first time taking this much of the dash apart and it was a little intimidating but the FSM indicates where the hidden snap clips are so that was really helpful.

Got into the climate controls. Neat to see all the cable-driven things:
DSCN9715_small by 92shawman, on Flickr


DSCN9717_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

I pulled out the cluster to see what was going on behind it so I could hopefully find some way to fix the intermittent speedo and non-functioning trip meter. This is the back of it, so all the malfunctioning parts are inside, which is too bad.
DSCN9718_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

The inside where the cluster sits. Quite dusty!
DSCN9720_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

And with the big piece of trim that goes from the left vent, over the cluster, to the center vents out, I could cut out the blanks for the switches. Luckily they fit perfectly right between the edge and the dimmer switch and below the clutch start cancel switch.
I started by drilling a hole in the center and then used a coping saw to cut relief cuts out to the edges, like you can see in the right side. Then I cut the relief cuts out with a razor blade and shaved down the edges to fit the switch with a file and razor blade.
DSCN9721_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Popped 'em in...
DSCN9722_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

...And put the cover on!
DSCN9723_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

The back side...
DSCN9724_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Then I proceeded to wire up the compressor. I decided that this cubby would be a good spot for it because it's a little closer to the battery, reducing the amount of air line needed to go to the locker, it's sheltered, and it's not in the hot engine bay. There's really no room in the engine bay anyways.
DSCN9725_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

The wiring loom that comes with the locker has a relay and all of the compressor-end connections basically in the middle of the stretch of wire coming from the battery (looping out to the left in the above picture with the big fuse) and the stretch of wire that goes to the switches (thin one going off to the right into the cubby in the above picture). They give you the switch wire connector separately so that you can feed the thin wire through smaller holes, which was super convenient. I fed it through a little tiny gap in the corner...
DSCN9726_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

...alongside the seat...
DSCN9727_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

...and up to the switches, sticking out above the speaker.
DSCN9728_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

You can see a thin yellow-red wire and a blue-white wire dangling down from the switches. The blue-white one is supposed to splice into a dash-illumination wire so that the running lights on the switches will dim with the dash lights and the yellow-red one is supposed to splice into the cigarette lighter port or some other accessory that will come on with the ignition in both ACC and ON (basically the only other option for me is the radio). I decided to go to the cigarette lighter port because it was simpler . I tried getting into the fuse box behind the kick panel below the switches but I could not get into it no matter how hard I tried. So I routed the yellow-red one over there and the blue-white one over to the ash tray light.

Then buttoned it all up!
DSCN9731_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Except for this part of the steering wheel trim...the screws are all stripped so it's just kinda resting on top. The bottom one is held on to the steering wheel itself so it's solid.
DSCN9732_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

And I drilled and mounted the compressor! I had some of the leftover trimmed-off bits of my all-weather mats so I cut out some flat pieces to pad the bottom of the mount. I have no idea if it makes a difference in terms of vibration noise, but let's say yes
DSCN9733_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

And I hooked it up only to realize that the running lights on the switches didn't work. In fact, they dimmed to off when the dash lights were brightened all the way and they brightened when the dash lights were dimmed, so something was weird. I tried splicing into the wire on the opposite side of the ash tray light and they just stayed on all the time. So I went to the internet!
Because toyotas use a ground-based dimmer, the standard wiring loom for the compressor needed to be modified. A few other people had contacted ARB about this and they just said that it couldn't be done, which is strange. There were at least two people online that figured it out and I was able to figure it out off of their posts. I had to take all the dash apart again, unfortunately, so that I could get to the dimmer switch wires.

I ended up also taking out the speaker...no wonder I can't hear much coming from it!
DSCN9729_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

And I spliced the blue-white wire into the power supply for the dash light dimmer, which should be a 12V+ line coming from a fuse, and I spliced the grounds for the running lights on both switches into the ground of the dimmer. The ground for the running lights comes off of tab 7 on the back of the switch.
You can see in this picture there are two columns of tabs, one with three tabs and one with two. The two-connector column controls the running lights and the three-column tab controls the actual switch and has an additional light bulb that comes on when the switch is flipped. Tab 7 is the upper right one in the two-connector column and that one I directed to the dimmer ground.
DSCN9724_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

On the dimmer side of things, the green wire is the positive that comes from the battery and the red wire is the ground. The blue-white wire attached to the green wire is going to the bottom right connector on the switches and the black wire attached to the red wire goes to the upper right connector on the switches.
DSCN9734_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

After figuring that out and put everything back together the switch lights dim and the compressor works! I just had to adjust the amount of teflon tape and tightening applied to the pressure switch on the compressor to prevent it from leaking. Turns out about 2 turns of tape and a little less than finger tight stopped the leak!

And here's the finished product, all nice and neat with it's jumper cable and first-aid kit friends
DSCN9748_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

DSCN9749_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

 

very nice!

 

Now for the mechanical side of things, the diff pull!

Started with the truck on the ground and in gear in 4-low to break the driveshaft bolts. The first order of business was applying a bolt lube to make the bolts easier to get off. Once the driveshaft bolts were loose we jacked up the truck, drained the diff, took the wheels off, and disconnected the drive shaft.
DSCN9735_small by 92shawman, on Flickr
Don't worry, all the greasiness is from the thread lube.

Disconnected the parking brake
DSCN9737_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Pull off the speed sensor from the top of the diff
DSCN9739_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Lubed up and broke the axle bolts
DSCN9738_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

We disconnected the brake lines and pulled the axles out and rested the drums on jack stands so they weren't sitting on the oil seals but we didn't have to pull them all the way out. There really is very little room in the garage, especially with my truck in there, so we wanted to leave the axles in. Also, we don't have brake line caps so we just pulled the lines off real quick, took the axles out, dropped the diff, and put the axles right back in so we could reconnect the brakes without them just dripping everywhere.

Dang that diff is heavy! We popped it off and then put it on the trusty shop skateboard (only really used for wheeling heavy items around ) to wheel it out from under the truck.
DSCN9741_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

DSCN9742_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

My dad found an old wooden stand thingy and cut a hole in the middle so we could set the diff in it. Works like a charm!
DSCN9746_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

Looks pretty good inside!
DSCN9745_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

DSCN9744_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

And the last thing we did yesterday was measure the ring gear backlash and runout.
Runout was about 0.002", well below the maximum allowed of 0.0039".
Backlash, measured on every other tooth, averaged out to 0.008", a little higher than the specified 0.0051"-0.0071".
DSCN9747_small by 92shawman, on Flickr

 

Nice pics!

 

Interestingly enough, that cubby connects to the one on the other side through a little channel, so it's bigger inside than it looks. But yeah, it will probably get pretty warm in there, so we'll see if it affects the operation. I figure it's better than the hot engine bay, though, which is where most people put them.

 

Great write up Kevin!

 

Thanks, guys! I'll probably write up the rest after finishing.

Yeah I'll let you know. You can check it out when I come through Santa Barbara in the beginning of February, too.

Haha, that's definitely true. It's nasty in there!

 

Bit of a progress update...
Got the diff all taken apart, pinion bearings split (that was a challenge...), and everything but the housing cleaned up. I also drilled and tapped the housing for the fitting to connect the air hose to the copper tube inside that goes to the locker.
Tomorrow it's time to mount it all up and then it'll be all patterns and shims and stuff...I'm hoping I'll be okay with just using the same shims that were already in there, but we'll see.

 

Ring gear installed and carrier bearings pressed on the locker, inner bearing pressed on the pinion, and the housing is cleaned up nice. Tomorrow's when it's going to get technical with the backlash and pinion preload and everything!
My dad and I are taking our time, making sure we understand everything, which is why it's taking so long. Doesn't help that half of today was spent finding old pipes to use to press on bearings!

 

Sounds good! I have to say that setting up the backlash/preload is what kept me from doing mine.

 

Same with me, initially, but then we did a lot of research and figured it was worth saving the $900 for having someone else install it.

And I'll be heading through Santa Barbara on the 6th, I think, by the way.

That's for sure! Not having a full-time job or school at the moment sure is helping...