Baka's 1998 Build

If I can get my hands on that engine Kyle has for me, I could use that to mock up the fittings so they fit neatly and then transfer the whole thing to the OGT's engine. That'd make life much easier...although it might be kinda scary to see what the oil pressure does on some of those steep climbs and weird angles I put the truck in, lol. The idiot light never came on but who knows how low the pressure got.

 

Sounds like you have a plan ,and easier said than done I imagine

 

I don't think it's anything I haven't done before, except mounting it in the instrument cluster. That could be a PITA with the 1/8" copper tube and all but like you said, where there's a will there's a way. I'll just have to be sure I do my LED instrument light conversion at the same time so I don't have to take the thing apart again...hopefully ever.

 

Or I could just make life simple and mount the gauge in the cup it's currently mounted in and mount the cup beside the tach. Then I wouldn't have to go through the bullshit of disconnecting the oil line from the gauge if I had to remove the cluster.

 

I did an engine swap on an '86 Monte Carlo in the late 90's. I ripped out all of the electronics and replaced the instrument cluster with AutoMeter gauges. For oil pressure, I used a gauge with an electronic sending unit.

 

It's more a matter of using what I already have. I have both a mechanical oil pressure gauge and a mechanical water temp gauge that went with the Autometer Tach I have mounted in the truck...Ironically enough, all three gauges were originally bought for and used in my '83 HiLux and were mounted in my '87 Hilux, although they were never used in it. It'd only be fitting to use the oil pressure gauge in the Tacoma. The water temp gauge I don't really need because of the Scan Gauge, but it might be interesting to mount it old skool style on the hood/cowl since it's such a PITA to run that thermocouple. That would be a real PITA though since I would definitely need to keep the OEM sending unit for the computer.

 

Well, my radiator armor came in today...the day after I just put the radiator back in...

 

Chicken wire?

 

.063" Stainless steel wire mesh. But yeah, it does look like chicken wire, lol.

 

Going Deep (outside view)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMb1D83tqic&feature=youtu.be

 

Got my new lightbar installed today. I think it's almost perfect. I need to shim the mounting brackets up a little though because I think the lightbar ends are touching the bumper on the bottom. It also sticks out a tiny bit past the bottom angle which means it's not quite as well protected, but I don't think it'll be a huge issue.






I'm going to put my old 20" on Natty. It's a perfect fit for her bumper opening.

 

Looks fantastic Lee

 

Thanks, John. I was just thrilled that it had adjustable width mounts and I was able to mount it to the same holes the old one went into without modifying anything. I need to get some lock nuts for the mounting bolts and trim them down so I'll just slid one or two 5/16ths large area flat washers in under the mounting brackets when I do that and raise it up hopefully just enough so it's not touching. I love that it actually sits lower than the other one. I feel that less light will be blocked by the main tube that way. Hopefully I'll get some decent service life out of it and it doesn't go all Close Encounters on me like LeeMar's bar did.

Edit: I remembered I had some 3/8" fender washers. I slipped one under each mount and it's no longer touching. Yay, me! Now all I need is those lock nuts.

I also need to get some stainless steel mounting bolts for my ditch lights before the bolts supplied with them start leaving rust streaks down my fenders.

 

What can I say...I put lock washers on the lightbar bolts--still need to trim them though--and I put stainless bolts on the ditch light mounts, so that operation is pretty much all done. I'm not terribly impressed with the light bar though. My old one seemed brighter. I don't know if that's because there's a cuple inches of bumper over-hanging the light bar now of if that's actually the case. I guess I won't really find out until I put the old 20" bar on the T4R, but here's some comparison shots (keep in mind the older shots were taken with my old phone and the camera wasn't as good)...

20" w/Ditch lights





28" w/Ditch lights...




I just don't know. It's definitely not a huge noticable improvement, but it will be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison with the 20" on the T4R.

 

Ain't life great? Thanks to a leaking inner axle seal, in the process of preparing to install the new one, I discovered a completely toasted wheel bearing, LCAs with completely shredded bushings, and Marlin sent me the wrong seal. I'm probably going to keep the seal on the off chance it fits the other side because I know the seals are two different sizes, but since I opted to get the correct seal from the stealership, I've now got $72 invested in an axle seal.

So my list of shit to do before the Fall Camp & Ride has expanded. I now have to:

• Done -- Hide the Scan Guage wire
  
• Done -- Get my radiator armored
  
• Done -- Get anitfreeze back in it
  
• Done -- Get a new wheel bearing installed
  
• Done -- Replace my LCAs (ironically considering how often I had to replaced the UBJs, the UCA bushings look great)
  
• Done -- Get the truck aligned (again for the 3rd time this year)
• Have Todd weld some tabs to the opening in my bumper so I can bolt a water deflecting plate over it when I'm wheeling.
• Reinforce my hitch so it quits pulling the bumper up when I have to yank hard on someone.

So much fun ahead of me!

 

Armored radiator...Take that you POS fan! Of course, now the fan will probably get destroyed and take the water pump with it if it hasn't already.



I know it ain't my prettiest work, but as long as it does work, I really don't care. The fastener spacing was dictated by the radiator tube and the wire, so it looks kinda ugly.

 

@TacoTRD78 Now with photos...

 

Yeah, I posted and was like why do I have pics and Lee doesn't lol

 

Finally, a long awaited mod has begun thanks to having a spare engine to use to figure out the needed fittings.







It's starting to look like the cockpit of an aircraft with all the crap I've added over time, haha.