The Most Regular Cab Resto

Last year, I hit up a guy on Marketplace who was selling a 1st gen Tundra, or at least that's what I think I remember. In typical Marketplace fashion, there was no response...until 6 months later. He said he had been in Mexico but was now back in town and re-listing his items and noticed my question about the Tundra. Funny thing, though, is he told me the Tundra had sold but was now wondering if I was interested in his nearly broke-down, blown-head-gasket 95.5 regular cab?

A cheap Tacoma? It was worth taking a look.



Long story short, this stray followed me home. It was mostly rust free, kinda straight, dirty, neglected, blown up but it was pretty cheap. I had a new project and figured if I got it running, it would be something that would replace my old 4wheeler on the farm.

I got to work cleaning




What I didn't notice, because I didn't know this beforehand about the 3RZ platform, is that this blown motor wasn't the original. What I discovered was someone had swapped out a dual coil 3RZ for the stock distributor motor at some point in the past. I always thought all 3RZ's were either dual coil or coil pack motors, so when I saw dual coils on a 95.5, I didn't even think to look for engine swap shenanigans. Turns out the cab wire harness was hacked up and that's why indicator lights and my scan gauge weren't working. Bummer. Knowing what I know now, I likely should have passed on this one. But I was stuck now.

After clean up and some degreasing, work began on finding a motor. My other mistake was assuming 3RZ's could be found for $1200-$1800 like the pre-Covid days. Not so. Used JDM motors were in the $3k-$4k range now. WTF? 4 Grand for a used 4banger?

I kept looking. I went back and fourth about what to do. I researched 5VZ swaps, LS swaps, 1UZ swaps and kept scouring the classifieds for 3RZ motors. I finally made the decision to have Sunwest build me a longblock. I placed the order on April 2nd and they told me it would be about 5 weeks. Ok, I guess.

In that time, I missed out on a really good local deal for a 3RZ with 180k on it. A couple other 3RZ's popped up including one that had 250k on the bottom-end but with a new head, serviced, gone through with lots of extra parts included. But Sunwest was building me up something good (or so I thought).

Mid-May came and went and I hadn't heard anything from Sunwest, though. I gave them a call and they told me they were still waiting on a core to build and there were some issues sourcing parts. During this time there was lots of tariff talk and the threat of import parts going up so I wasn't happy about it but believed them. I still really didn't like they hadn't let me know about any delays without me having to call and pester them and I felt that was pretty unprofessional. I asked them about a timeframe for completion and the lady couldn't give me an estimate. That seemed a little off, too.

In that time, the gone-through used 3RZ sale on Marketplace went from $3500 to $3000 to $2500 and landed at $1800. There were about $1200 of additional parts included so I just had to run over the mountain and take a look.

I made the trip out to Happy Valley.




Good communication from the seller, pictures of a tidy shop, and the receipt folder pic all had me optimistic, but when I rolled up to the address and saw 2 very nice and clean 3rd gen 4Runners, I knew I was in the right spot. I spent 3 hours there chatting Toyotas with Jake and his dad Jason, looking at their projects and going through this motor. We made a deal and then figured out how to build out a pallet for transport to get everything safely over the mountain and home. Some new friends made, a gallon of their apple cider included in the deal and I've got my hands full with a bigger project then I think I bargained for.

 

With the new motor home, I set out to getting the remaining parts on order and prepping for install. I also called Sunwest, canceled my order and asked for my deposit back, saying it had been two months with no definite completion date on the near horizon with zero communication indicating their timeframe. With the cancelation, they quickly scrambled and told me the motor would be ready Friday of this week. I told them I was canceling my order and I didn't want the motor. They said, fine, but told me the deposit was non-refundable. You can PM me for the remaining details but I now feel pretty strongly that Sunwest can eat a kingsize bag of dicks. Zero out of 5 stars.

Anyway...the old motor coming out (with a painted valve cover. I thought that was going on the new Sunwest long block. Nope).


Yuck, so much gunk.




After a degrease time to hit everything up with Rustoleum Rust Converter and do a shitty job repainting the battery box area.





And hit the suspension and frame, too.



No torn down pics, but am happy with the results (with some new ARC splash guards)

 

I had a couple of flywheels now. Both looked to be in good shape without needing a resurfacing. The one I used had less than 12k miles on it. New hardware of course.




New clutch, pressure plate, TOB and slave, too.





Lotta other new parts too



And some paint work and resto on the accessories including the LCE header





And get organized for install



And, through the magic of the internet, it's in!



Along with some fancy kit for good measure



And now this little truck has had all 3 types of 3RZ's installed (distributor, 8 port, dual coil, 8 port, coil pack, 4 port. Was there a dual coil, 4 port?) Anyway, with the engine bay back together, the easy part was done. Now to figure out this fuct up wiring. Stay tuned!