94 xtracab pickup

Creating this thread to document my progress on my 94 pickup project.

While in search of a first gen taco, I bought this truck with 371000km on it. The frame and floor is in great shape. The box and rocker panels have the typical Toyota rust areas of this generation which is fairly minor and will be addressed.

The engine had a miss in it. The truck is solid but has some tiny things that need to be corrected.


Stay tuned.

 

First up, 40psi compression on Cylinder #6.
(3.0L v6 3vz-e)

Pull heads, no supprise here, #6 exhaust valve is burnt.



Pulled the other head since I was in this far and sent the heads off to be glass beaded and cleaned to see what I had to work with.

Checked for warpage and pressure tested, no cracks and only slight bit of warpage that I had planed.

Front what I can tell someone has taken these heads off once before at least. However it appears they simply lapped in the valves and called it good by the looks of the seats. Several of the valves were badly cupped and there was stem wear on several aswel. Overall not really worth putting back together as is.

Replaced all I/e valves, seats, valve guides, shims, both cams, polished the caps, shimed all valves while off the truck with some new shims from Woodward equipment (much cheaper than the 20$ each Toyota wanted). These have a shim and bucket design which makes for a bit more work when adjusting valves.

Didn't take many pictures of the heads but here a couples pictures of everything going back together. New timing belt, tensioner, and components.






If I didn't want the truck up and running asap I would have sources a donor Tacoma and swapped to a 3.4L may still do that down the road.

 

Pulled the dash and started to address some of the 'wiring' from previous owners.



All bolts were cleaned up in the parts washer. Any threads cleaned up with a tap/die set and antisieze applied. Thermostat housing studs were replaced as they were in very rough shape. All top end gaskets were replaced and Toyota fipg used as per the Toyota fsm



Also replaced power steering and alternator belts. New plugs, and ngk wire set. Pulled the front grille and cleaned that up and replaced all the broken/missing clips.



After getting the head on and starting up the truck, it threw code 52. I tore the upper and lower plenum off and changed out the brand new aftermarket knock sensor for a known working Toyota used unit. This resolved the code 52. Sadly this ate up about 3 hours to remove and reinstall the upper and lower plenum.

 

Picked up some factory locking hubs, cleaned them up and replaced the gaskets and the dial orings.

 

Time to address the rusty drivers side rocker panel. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I cut the xtra cab portion of the rocker out removing any thin metal. Then I cleaned up what was left and hit it with por15.

Also hit the bottom lip of the door with a flap disk and coated with some por15 then some primer and then paint. You don't have to primer over the por15 but I did anyway.



I then removed the rear interior to prevent melting any plastic and welded in the patch. Then I covered the bare metal inside and out with a couple coats of etch primer and then painted inside with some leftover blue paint.

Outside was primed and painted with rocker guard and some blue color match paint for now.

Note: In the bottom of this picture you can also see the very rusty exhaust system that had every flange welded and the cat removed. It was in very rough shape. This was all replaced from the downpipe to tailpipe. None was salvageable it was so rusted. Also put in a magnaflow highflo cat

Edit:
Added Picture after welding and primer/rattle can 'color match'. In the spring I am going to consider painting the whole truck.



The shop light and the muddy frame makes the frame look rusty. It's actually thick greasy undercoating with mud on it.

 

New exhaust installed! Cut the old one off with a recip saw. That was oddly satisfying

Mounts and rubbers were all in great shape.

Had to do some cutting to the pacesetter kit I ordered, and make some new hangers for the muffler. I later changed the hangers a bit to make them cleaner looking and cut off the original hangers from pacesetter.

This kit fits all of the wheelbases for the v6 and 4 cyl pickups of this gen and may also fit the 2wd. Because of this, I had to cut the midpipe to the correct length and massage a few bends to get it to all fit so that the flanges were square. Overall for the price I'm very happy with it and the piping is very thickwall. But buyer be warned, it may not simply bolt up for you. I would suggest to have a muffler shop put it on if your not comfortable cutting, bending welding and tweaking as you install it.

This kit also has provisions for a downstream o2 sensor after the cat so it will work with a California emmisions equipped truck. Otherwise for the test of us the kit comes with a block off plate.


Note: In the bottom of this picture you can also see the very rusty exhaust system that had every flange welded and the cat removed. It was in very rough shape. This was all replaced from the downpipe to tailpipe. None was salvageable it was so rusted. Also put in a magnaflow highflow cat

 

After getting everything back together I noticed the truck would occasionally click and not turn over. I pulled the starter and rebuilt it. This only took about a hour. Long extensions are the easiest way to get at the bolts. Also the 3" body lift made it a bit easier to get the starter out of the fender.

I can't imagine how difficult it would be to get out without a body lift, it still took a bit of playing around to get the starter out and back in.

In the photo below I am pointing at the starter from inside the passenger side wheel well. After this I removed the access panel for starter removal. With that removed it was still a bit of a chore.

 

Chapter 8... Blown struts and broken swaybar links.

After getting the truck on the road for a quick maiden voyage I noticed the front end was sloppy.. Drivers side strut is toast and the drivers side swaybar link is broken.



Installed some skyjacker hydro 7000 units for now

 

Good work, looks like a great start. I hate that engine with a passion but I understand that they can be decent if you deal with the exhaust issues they had. Looks like you take pride in your work.

 

Stopping needed to be addressed



Both front calipers were siezed causing some very uneven wear.






Out with the old and in with the new, two front calipers and pads. Toyota were well within spec. Also not pictured, both rear drum assemblies were taken apart and refreshed with new shoes and needed components, and bellcranks greased. Wheel studs all cleaned up aswel. You can see the thick grease like undercoating that covers most of this truck in this picture. Most of it has attracted some dirt but the metal underneath is in excellent shape.



Note: I took a chance on the carquest pads but am pretty happy with them, even with the atv on the back of the truck, I have plenty of stopping power.

 

Thanks for the kind words!

Yes the 3.0 isnt ideal, I wish I could have found a donor truck quickly to pull the harness and other bits and do a proper swap to 3.4. I don't regret rebuilding the 3.0 it works well now that it's back together and should last a long time with all new valves, guides, seats and cams and proper shimming.

 

Trimmed the front lower valence in preparation for a 32" lightbar I wanted to tuck into the front end. Recoated the valence with rockgaurd.




Fabricated a bracket out of 1x1/8" plate steel to tie into the front bumper supports for a solid mounting location also welded a tab on to tie into the rad support to give the middle some stability and drilled small holes in the side to allow for zip ties to fasten the wiring harness to.. Primed and painted with some silver paint (ran out of black and I wanted to get this finished)




Mounted a switch in place of a factory block off plate under the hazard switch. The dash was thoroughly cleaned after this. Also you can see the new headunit installed.



Finished product, swapped in clear bumper lights as the Amber ones were all cracked and hazy.

 

Are you going to keep the body lift? I guess a better question would be is there any damage from it being there? I've heard about the lift pucks focusing the weight to specifically and causing it to break through the body.

 

Had these little eagle eye style 3w led lights that i bought for something else laying arond. So I added some front lighting to the circuit I put the lightbar on. This really lights up in front of the truck well and gets rid of the dead zone from the oil pan to about 3 feet in front of the number. This picture makes me realize one of the LEDs seems to be a different temperature.. Its not noticeable in person however.

The skidplate is custom made out of aluminum to replace the missing factory one. I had to tap the skidplate mounting holes out to a bigger size as they were all stripped.

 

Was initially worried about that but it seems to have been installed properly and so far doesn't seem to be any damage. I wouldn't have lifted it 3" on a body lift personally but since it's already done and seems to be OK I will keep it for now.

I did have to cut and modify the shifter geometry as it was cutting through the shift boot. The brake lines seem to not be under any stress, and the body and box mounts all look good.

I know a 1st gen Tacoma I looked at had a body lift and it was just about punched through the floor, but it was very rusty. The floor and frame in this is very very solid and in good shape. I will be pulling the carpet to clean and address any floor rust in the future before winter.

Edit: I should add that if I have the cab or box off I will likely reinforce the mounts the avoid the possibility of it punching through in the future.

 

Quick action shot, I have since removed the cap.



Reconstructed the shift boot with ultrablack rtv after reading the idea on another forum.
It worked rather well. I'm in search of four runner buckets that are in good shape and a centreconsole, although the usefulness of the 60/40 split bench is growing on me

 

Locking hubs Installed. Using the truck to drag some trees out of the woods and clean up a property.



(Blue smoke is from the chainsaw)

After removing the cap, I found the previous owner didn't apply any tape to the cap, so it scuffed the paint on the top of the bed pretty badly and some surface rust had started. I hit all of that with a flap disc and several coats of self etch primer, you can see that a bit better in this picture.

 

Swapped in some second gen 4runner headrests to replace the terrible very cracked original pickup ones. The flash makes the color difference really apparent but in normal lighting its not noticeable. The flash also makes the drivers seat look very dirty, its mostly just faded.. At any rate its a great improvement over the original ones.

 

Replaced the burnt out dash lighting with led units from superbrightleds.com and burnt out idiot lights. The lighting is very even but the camera doesn't really show it that well. Also I did the climate control lighting as it was also burnt out.



Picked up a Toyota inclinometer to add to the truck next time I have the dash apart. I don't think it suits the ford dash lol.

 

Shifting was a little sloppy, upon inspection, the shifter seat bushing has turned to mush, so I replaced it with a oem Toyota one for now and figure it will probably be good for another 20+ years