Rust repair project (and a buch of other stuff)- my build thread?

I did say I dig that didn’t I? What about electric blue?

 

So far this morning, I reattached the donor LSPV and new OEM flex brake line and bracket, spectra fuel tank strap from rock auto and reattached the exhaust hangars. Everything got sprayed with rustoleum, as is tradition.

That plastic evap canister hose support thing is no longer available, the bolt holding it down was little more than a blob of rust and the plastic cracked and broke around the bolt hole, so I just zip tied it to the crossmember. I’m sure it’s not a super critical piece anyway. Whelp, time to start tearing down the front suspension…

 

I started tearing down the front suspension. This first picture will serve as a before image. The coilover bolts on top are too seized and I'm going to try cutting them off with a wheel. I'm not particularly skilled with an angle grinder so I'll have to be careful not to damage the hood. I might have to cut the UCA bolt too unless I can flex the fender metal out of the way. Everything else loosened up pretty easily after soaking in ATF.

My steering rack boots leaked some fluid after drooping down, so maybe I need to replace the rack. I don't really feel like trying to rebuild it. Maybe I'll replace it then rebuild the old later to keep as a spare. CV boots look fine so thats good. Also, I did not find any play in the wheel bearings. The brake dust shields came off in hand, rusted through around the inner edge. Good riddance.

The calipers, rotors, and brake pads looked fairly new, so they may have actually been recently replaced. I won't be adding my tundra brake upgrade until I can get my hands on some larger rims (these are 15" stock).

 

I cut mine off with plasma, both the coil over top nuts and the sway links, and on the sway links, I cut the nut off and not between link and the bar.

 

I wish I had a plasma cutter. I had to make do with an angle grinder. I got the passenger side off cutting the nuts, but managed to get the driver side nuts unscrewed. I cut the sway bar links there just to get it out of the way quick. I’ll finagle the rest of the bolt out of the bar ends in my vice later. I cut the Uca bolts and I’m realizing that I won’t be able to get the new bolts in until I lower the body, so UCAs will probably be last. But that’s a ways down the road. Clearing the space so I can wheel and seal the frame, then run the new brake lines for the ABS delete, then reassemble the suspension. Somewhere between that I’ll try to corroseal whatever I can reach on the engine block.

 

I got some Ray-10s for it woohoo.

 

The truck’s come a long way. Those will look nice on it.

 

These finally came in from KP Offroad. Front end will go back together real soon.

 

Update on the derustification: the front frame and crossmembers are finally clean and repainted. All rust mitigated. Here are some comparison pics before disassembly, after wire wheeling, corrosealling, and painting. All this took quite a bit of time and effort, but it was thorough. Hence the long hiatus.

Today I installed the new LCAs with new alignment bolts from KPOffroad. I had to go buy a 1-1/8” socket to install them. I put grease between all metal mating surfaces to help prevent future rust. My next step is to get all the brake lines run (ABS delete) so I can lower the cab on the new bushings and get the rest of the front suspension installed.

 

ABS delete is done.

All brake lines installed. The brackets on the side of the coil buckets were rusted and had to come off, so I bolted a bracket to the side of the frame rail and bent some new lines to fit. I was able to repurpose some of the old lines, made a splice, etc. I was daunted at first, but making your own brake lines really isn’t very hard. Fortunately, Toyota still stocks the long lines that go to the rear. All fittings were seized with rust so everything got cut out. Fixed now.

I also got the cab bolted back on the frame with new energy suspension bushings. I put grease between all metal mating surfaces to prevent future corrosion. Getting the old ones off was a nightmare.

I feel like the hard part is done. It should be smooth sailing from here.

 

Your Tacoma is going to give you back some serious love for all the hard work you've done. Excellent!!!
Did you coat the inside of the frame with some East wood internal frame coating? If not, you should look into it. Great job by the way.

 

Thank you very much. No I haven't, wasn't sure how best to tackle the frame internals. I think there's a lot of gunk and stuff in there. I blew out debris from the hollowed front cross-members and stuff, but that's about it. I'll look into the eastwood product and see what I can do. Thanks for the suggestion.

But also, the PO threw grease inside the frame at some point I guess. And they actually welded a plate to the outside of the middle frame section with a zerk fitting and packed grease between it and the frame. We had to put out a few grease fires when cutting and welding the frame there.

 

If there's already grease inside the frame then that might be a show stopper on the Eastwood product as I believe it's meant to be used over clean and/or rusted surfaces, unless of course you're able to clean all the grease & residue out (and actually ensure you removed all of it). You might just be better off coating the frame internals with Fluid Film Black or something similar. Either way, keep us posted. Love the thread!

 

Hood struts:

I installed the hood struts from @SpikerEng today. The install was pretty straightforward and easy. I’m just glad I happened to already have a riveting tool. By far one of the most satisfying mods on this truck so far. I have much more clearance and the old prop rod is no longer in the way. I messed up one of the rivet holes on one of the lower brackets, but it didn’t matter, 3 rivets are a bit overkill anyway, so if that third doesn’t have quite as much to bite on, it’ll be fine. The third hole got offset from the bracket hole, so I had to widen it, but it’s fine really.

I have 7 extra inches of clearance beyond the prop rod height.




EGR valve delete:

I installed the EGR delete kit from LCE. Also straightforward. Two bolts hold the EGR to the manifold and the kit has a block plate and gasket to go over the open port. All associated vacuum ports on the manifold get capped. The green vacuum switch comes out. I connected the two coolant hoses from the EGR with a 5/16 vacuum hose connector, bc Advance had no coolant hose connectors of the right size. Though I wonder if the coolant risks melting that plastic connector. I don’t know how hot it gets or how much that connector can tolerate.

I’ll have to remember to install the other block plate on the back of the exhaust header once I get that installed. I’ll also wait until I’m ready to crank this thing up again to put the resistor on the electrical connector to fool the check engine light. It was a productive day.

 

Was doing a search and your post came up. That first pic, at first I thought the trans was hanging on a wall.

 

It was a doozy for sure. I’ve got some pending updates coming on this build, vacation and business travel interrupting progress, but I’ve finally almost got the front end reassembled.