Yet Another DC Manual Swap Thread

I did not install a locker at this time. While it is in the plans (ARB Air specifically), I will be doing that when I re-gear to 4.56 hopefully late this fall / early winter.

In regards to the different colors of FIPG, it relates to what they seal against. Black is used for engine oil related seals. Orange/red is used for gear oil. Using the wrong type in the case you specified engine oil black where it interfaces with gear oil could cause breakdown of that gasket material. It being a Toyota or not doesn't matter but I know you knew that

Now they do make more universal type gasket maker that is suppose to be able to do multiple fluid types but I've never used it and had issues with universal products in the past. Here is one example for context.

 

So that more or less concludes the manual transmission swap and 4x4 conversion. Will continue to BS and answer questions here as people desire but new content will be in the other thread.

Here is a photo of it at the alignment shop Friday the 3rd of July right before a ~750 mile shakedown. Which is the perfect lead into heading back to my main build thread where I will next be covering the test drive and the further building out of L.O.R.A.



If you made it this far, thanks for sticking around! Lots more to come in the near future. Just got done sourcing and starting purchases for some powerful additions

 

Don’t know how I never knew that haha, although I’ve never had to reseal diffs before

On a side note, I’m getting more surprised with each post, the extant you are rebuilding everything is insane, Looks like she going to be rolling off the showroom floor by the time you’re done
It’s going to put shame on the write up for my swap
If you don’t mind me asking how much did you spend on the starter? That is one part I definitely wanted to do during the swap. Either rebuilding or buy new and having one as back up.

 

Thank you! I've really been enjoying the building.

Yeah you are right, the rebuild is a bit insane. But the way I look at it is, when I am done I'll have a more or less fully rebuild 1st gen that I know how to fix nearly everything on. I have a fully manual drive train that is double disconnected (with the exception of engine & fuel electronics) and rock solid. I built it to be as bush proof as I can reasonable make it. I can push start the truck now with a manual if I can get it rolling, limp out in front wheel drive only and as long as a single gear works in that 5-speed I can make it to help... cannot do that with an auto... and many other awesome things.

You won't ever catch me in a new one for those and many other reasons. Getting replacement keys, not being able to diagnose stuff myself and so on. So I decided to invest the money I would have spent on a fancy new one to build out my old one. Suits me anyway, we can be old together

Here is the starter I purchased. But you are opening a can of worms there. Need to make sure if you have the cold weather variant and what KW rating you have. You can google around at telling if you have the cold weather package, it is pretty easy once you know what you're looking for. That narrows it down as the cold weather is one of the more powerful kw versions. It was $135 and a core charge on top of $60 I believe. It was really well rebuilt as I took it apart and had a peek. More than just the contacts like some of the really cheap rebuilds.

Regarding the option to rebuild it yourself by purchasing the parts, it doesn't save you any really over just buying a whole rebuilt unit from Toyota. Now if you knew what specifically was bad and just wanted to replace that and say the contacts, it'd be way cheaper. The other reason to possibly rebuild it yourself is knowledge and peace of mind, knowing it's rebuilt properly. I learned how some 20 years ago in shop class and for some reason always enjoyed rebuilding starters, generators and alts.

 

Awesome writeup, I did the same manual trans, 4x4, manual hubs & 4.56 on my prerunner. The worst part for me was drilling that damn hole in the firewall. As far as ecm I ran the auto one with the shift indicator in neutral for a awhile before I found a manual ecm. I pulled the harness out, depinned and removed the unused wires and rewrapped the harness.

 

I feel the complete opposite to everyone whose done the swap, the firewall seems The easiest and the electrical seems to be the hard part
To be honest vehicle electrical is more complicated to me than rewiring an entire house. I haven’t started my swap yet and this might be a dumb question, but what exactly do I have to depin, the ECU or the connector?I decided to go donor route for my manual swap and wanted to swap my auto into the donor to use for work, without having to swap the entire harness between the trucks. I’m used to basic housing electric, nothing that deals with a computer talking to the components connected. My construction electrical instinct tells me just splice in any necessary connectors between the harness but that seems completely wrong as that line of wire is going into the ECU that is reading info coming from that connector for a certain application, also that the donor doesn’t have a current wire loom for the auto connectors seems like it would be a challenge to work that one out.
I feel I’m completely wrong and I would have to add a new line of wiring to the donor to add in the auto plugs onto it?
don’t hesitate to call me a dumbass if I’m not making any sense. I really need to learn more about vehicle electric

 

You cut or depin on the harness side of the ecm. You would be better off finding a complete harness to swap in. There was close to 15 wires I removed when I did mine if I recall.

 

According to the OP @osterhagen no cutting or de pinning is required, I did mine but he didn't on his and has been running fine.

 

That swap came out pretty sweet. Did you end up selling that truck?

 

Excellent write up, detailed and focused. I like that glass tool you have on the shelf.

 

Still got it, running like a champ. Working on the 95.5 now. I’m looking for some 3rz parts if you know of any local

 

Nice, that's awesome. I have a few random 3RZ things laying around the garage. I'm not sure if they'd be useful to you or not. PM me your number and I can text you list of what I have.

 

Thanks

 

Yeah that is quite a bit to unpack... to be honest I can only speak to the auto > manual conversion. I haven't researched or attempted a swap in the other direction.

1. What do you have to de-pin: (Auto > Manual)

There are (3) ways to approach this;

A: You do NOTHING to your current ECU (would be an auto ECU) - You will have at least (6) CEL codes relating to the auto transmission being absent. The truck will run and drive mechanically fine assuming you wired the clutch switch to allow the vehicle to start.

B: You directly swap the same year and configuration ECU but with the manual transmission type. In my case this was a 2003 v6 4x4 MTM. You literally remove the plugs from one ECU and plug them directly into the manual ECU. This is what I did and it has worked perfectly for me now for 1.4k miles and counting. No engine codes, zero issues what-so-ever.

C: You either de-pin or cut the wires on the backside of the engine harness ECU plugs. The pro to de-pin is you can just plug them back in later if you wanted to go back to the auto (who knows why you would...). If you wanted to de-pin you just use a really small screwdriver or special tool and pop a tab on the pin after unlocking the gate and it pops right out. It is time consuming and annoying. The other reason folks originally suggested this was out of an abundance of caution to ensure any wiring differences between the vehicles didn't damage the ECU.


*** Speculation about a swap the other way... (manual > auto) ***

It would stand to reason that you could do the reverse of what you do for the auto to manual swap and wire the clutch switches to a donor plug that fits the neutral safety starter switch on the side of the auto. Basically the reverse of the tacoma-4-life diagram in my write-up (not the author).

You could also quite probably swap the entire harness across for those sections if the trucks were of the same year. Some years I think they even made changes mid year so I have no idea how well all that would play out and again why I only feel comfortable speaking to the auto to manual swap

 

Yep that is correct. Still have had zero issues with it. I would be very surprised if that were to change at this point.

 

Thanks! How do you like the 4.56's? I am hoping that will put me in the sweet spot because I do a lot of highway travel to my destinations and then go off roading. It's a leisure vehicle so not daily driven but I still want to cruise nicely on the freeway but have a bit more grunt off the line and off-road.

 

They are perfect , I had 4.88 in my other Tacoma with auto trans and it worked well but I always wished there was something between 5.29 and 4.88. If you want to know specific rpm @ specific speeds on uncorrected speedo with 285s let me know. I would say it’s geared a little lower than stock with stock tires (Toyota’s are geared tall from factory) I have a tundra also and it could use lower gearing from the factory but it not as noticeable with the big v8 power. I live at high elevation and lots of big hills, I have towed 2 sleds on a trailer up to around 10k ft.

 

I appreciate it man. You’re definitely going to be my #1 go to thread during the swap.
I think I’m just getting intimidated by the electrical, just need to suck it up and get into the build. I haven’t done any serious electrical on vehicles before and I didn’t want to fuck something up in the ECU, but for now I’m just going to stick with the auto to manual and choose the “plug and play” method and if I figure out how to swap in the auto I’ll post it if for the rare occasion that it will ever be done on purpose to get rid of a manual haha
I really shouldnt be worrying about anything considering I’ve got a whole vehicle as a template

 

I can’t read this thread anymore. Too envious.

 

Well then get busy!