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Just realized that this is the first time I’ve ever installed the dirt cars in Redee. They’ve Been in storage since I removed the interior, and did a major de-turding shortly after bringing her home in 2018.
Made some great progress on the interior today with one of my daughters. We had a blast doing Truck arts and crafts in the garage.
We cut new Vapor Barrier, applied new butyl rubber to keep it in place. We had to repair the door cards too, they are weak from the speaker holes that were cut into them. So we added some peg board and wood screws. Not great, but better than naked door frames.
I’m waiting on adhesive backed sound deadening to apply to the floor before putting down new carpet. Should be here this week.
Planning to save interior improvements as daddy-daughter time, and exhaust building at night by myself.
Some before and after door pics
Great news everybody!
The Australian header fits like a charm! Perfect clearance all over. Soooo happy. It won’t floor nearly as well as the LCE unit, but this one was 1/3 the price to my door.
The money saved is noticeable in the finish (painted vs ceramic), diameter (2” vs 2.5”), and bends (die vs mandrel). However, I’m not upset because I can more than finish the rest of the exhaust system with the money saved there.Perhaps after next payday I’ll buy the fluids I require (gas, atf for power steering, and Coolant), and attempt to test fire.
In the meantime i am trying to sell a pair 2.5” catslytic converters, so I can buy a smaller ID one. The header Outputs at 2.0” ID, and I was planning to run a 2.25” system. Now I’m not so sure.
It’s not pretty but it works. I cut off the original steering stabilizer mount off the frame, and welded it to the idler arm steering stop. Overall it’s only about 10cm from its original location.
Another item off the list.
Did some work on Redee last night, mainly cutting and welding.
I started my night by cutting off the stick mount for the steering stabilizer because the stabilizer interferes with the oil pan. So I’m working to relocate the passenger side mount lower and forwards. After cutting the mount off Matt popped over for half hour.
Just before Matt left I got him to help me lift the hood off the roof so I can test fit it. As I thought, it was being held up by the rad cap. So a small careful cut on one of the supports made enough space for the cap, however the latch wouldn’t latch properly. Turns out the missing lower latch support bracket was allowing the upper rad crossover to bend/rotate away from the hood striker. So I used some scrap metal to make a vertical support, and fixed my problem. Test fit the grill to make sure it cleared my prop, which it did.
By then it was 1am, so I called it quits for the night.
If my Australian header doesn’t fit, I found an alternative on eBay to try next.
Took some jumping through hoops, but I’ve ordered that Australian header today, ebay says it’ll arrive in less than 2 weeks. We shall see.
I plan to build the rest of the exhaust from 2.25” pipe, and run run a Magnaflow muffler. YouTube shows me I like the 3RZ & Magnaflow combination.
There’s a DIY builder kit, should have more than I need for $200 once it comes back in stock.
Not gonna order anything else until the header arrives and fits.
$1300 for oem LCA is too much for me. Dealers pricing is whack.
Today I got the Taco re-aligned again to have Caster added and the steering wheel Centred. Only driven 20kms since, but it is way better now. Pretty happy.
Still gotta call my buddy for rear wheel bearings, by far the worst part of my truck right now.
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Nice collection of equipment there Evan.
Is your barge operational all winter? Lakes stay clear enough?
That suburban was just a lil stuck on the one side eh? Was that a buddy? Or just stumble across a stuck fellow?
You are onto something with the Aussie style 1/2 canopy. Having space for dirty spilly gas, as well as lockable dry storage is gold. For me, an SUV is preferable, but At the same time I don’t know how I’d be able to do away with a truck bed. Maybe an 8’ Utility trailer? I feel like i should have bought a nice 5th gen 4Runner and a beater truck 12 years ago when I bought my taco. DD something nice, work and play to beat on something cheap.
Judge for yourself, but the plate is fairly beat up for being aligned once and having 3,000kms on it.
The shop is replacing my LCA hardware, I’m tired of running around. Tomorrow i will pick up my truck and pay them.
Then off to Lakeside for rear wheel bearings (fingers crossed I hope that’s my problem).
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The LCA hardware has failed somehow. I’m getting the truck realigned currently, Shop just called me and said the Camber plate is per bay chewed up, needs to be replaced. Add in the fact the nuts were not flanged like the OEM units, safe to say these are inferior.
Will try to get a picture of the failed part today.
Been chipping away at Redee on The Shop, a few items knocked of the list.
Mid last week I glued and screwed in my Fiberglass battery tray, and modified the 3RZ tie down to fit the rad support. With the battery secured, I tightened the positive and negative leads, and added a pigtail for my fancy battery charger. In hindsight the pigtail was unnecessary, but it looks good at least.
With the battery connected I tested my clutch start switch wiring and it failed. So I spent the next day at work pondering reasons, and making a game plan. Check continuity, check schematic, check computer, check hard notes. With all the checks showing positive, James suggested I clean the contacts in the switch. So I blasted it was contact cleaner, and voila, problem solved. Gotta keep it simple sometimes.
I ordered an exhaust header from Australlia, fits a 4wd Hilux, with 3RZ. Here’s to hoping it fits. Only $400 to my door. Fingers crossed.
Since the new header doesn’t have an egr port, I made a block off plate last night.
Sweet collection of parts. As always, your truck is kitted out properly. Hope they installed well.
Never seen a sway bar link like that before, will have to youtube it later.Hey Kevin, here screen shot off the lower Control arms and hardware.
The lower control arms are greasable, but the nipple they provide is not greasable once the lower ball joints is installed. So got to grease it up first. A 90* nipple did not help.
The lca hardware was OK, not as stout as the oem hardware, but also greasable.Now onto the Tacoma.
I had big ambitious plans to road trip across Canada and pick up a new project out west, but first I needed to replace the entire front end which wobbled, groaned, creaked and vibrated. Not bad for 235,000kms essentially from the factory.Over the course of 2 weeks I stripped the front end, and replaced: UCA, LCA, lca hardware, struts, hubs, seals, cv shaft seal, inner and outer tie rods, sway bar end links, calipers, pads and rotors! Also, new rear shocks.
Holy crap, was quite the parts bill. Add a new set of duratracs too. All was supposed to be well, but alignment time failed. The passenger side, rear alignment tab on the frame folded like tin foil. Using most my strength and some ratchet straps, the alignment guy and I were able to correct camber from -2.0, to -0.1. Spec is +0.5 to +2.0, so Camber is still out, and my truck drives like shit despite $3,000 in new parts. Steering is heavy, pulls to bad side, wanders badly between 90-105 km/h, and fails to “return to Centre”. All very terrible. But seeing camber into spec should fix all of that.
On Monday coming up, truckee goes back into the alignment shop, will have that tab repaired, and alignment sent into spec.
Now that the front is mostly repaired, the rear has spoken up that it is unhappy. Bad bad vibration, I hope is just rear wheel bearings. I’m not setup to replace them, so I’ll have to outsource that job. Haven’t made any calls yet, but will call my buddy Brian first.
Before I bring truckee to Brian, I have to replace the rear hard lines on the axle. The portion just inboard of the backing plates is wayyy too crunchy to be separated and reconnected to do the wheel bearings. Will run two lengths of copper nickel line up to the flex hoses. Annnnd, I need drums and shoes. Drums were turned one already, but really the problem is they are disintegrating from rust on the outside, prolly down to half weight.
Lots going on, just nothing exciting really. Did i mention I’m glad 2024 has left us?
The shop has been busy, but not in a good way haha.
James’s FJ puked it’s AC compressor. He thought it was just the serpentine belt or idlers, but after swapping the horrendous grinding remained. It’s on the back burner now, James has been pretty busy lately, haven’t seen him in a couple weeks now.
Matt’s 4Runner has puked its power steering rack. The hard lines rotted out, and unfortunately the lines themselves are not replaceable. Matts truck is queued up for James to work on. He got a free used rack in lieu of a $1,000 replacement, then stumbled across a $200 manufacturer closeout deal that was too good to pass up.
Sams Caravan has puked so many parts I’m tired of working on it. I put a set of spark plugs in when a persistent misfire in cylinder 2 showed up. The electrode was mostly gone, so that made sense. Less than a month later the misfire returned, so in went a set of ignition coils and plugs. A day or two later, the e-brake cable snapped. So I put the 5th set of rear brakes into that damn Caravan, and a second replacement e-brake cable. This thing needs a full rear brake do-over every 25-40,000kms. Sitting at 170,000 now, maybe perhaps this set of rear will last to 2026? Oh, I also had to peel off the chrome caps from the lug nuts that were too swollen to fit the 19mm socket. That was a real pain.
