Topic: BigMike's Big Project

[ifssucks]

mike, so i should be able to use a w56-L and the bell housing that came with the 3rz motor and tranny to keep my 4wd. any used trannys kickin around your shop. i have the original tranny from my 86, g52 i think its called, and the one from the tacoma to barter with.

[BigMike [OP]]

Hey ifssucks you know I believe the G and W series both have the same trans-bellhousing pattern. In other words, you can use your G54 with the W59 5speed tranny bellhousing that came behind your 3RZ. BUT!  I wouldn't recommend this as the G is not really designed for such an engine. To put it into perspective, you wouldn't use the G behind either a Turbo 22R-TE or a 3.0L 3VZ-FE V6 engine, both of which are almost identical power as the 2.7l 3RZ...


Well well wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY  HEHHHHHHHHHHHH

HEY!!! DUDES              HOLYCRAP

Those who Ive spoken to in person or on the phone know that I've had some kind of power problem. I dont have my tach setup yet, but somewhere above mid range rpm the power seems to drop and flatten out. I had a list of possible contributors to this problem, and after setting up the speed sensor, finding out that it wasn't the issue, the only thing left was the damn air flow meter.

So SOOOOOOOOOOOOO SOSOSOSOS SO I finally got a good used unit  and HOLY CRAP. THIS ENGINE IS SO FREAK'N POWERFUL ITS RIDICULOUS. THIS IS by far the most powerful normally aspirated 4-cylinder engine that I've ever driven. I thought I had some "top end" power problem? yeah right, try ALL OVER power problem. Ok sorry about the bold type but im really crazy excited tonight
That cracked air flow sensor was the whole problem. I replaced alot of stuff before it, which is ok cuz now everything is in top shape, but geeze its a damn strong engine to say the least.

I called my friend who has a '86 Turbo rebuilt by Marlin using TEC's aftermarket Turbo kit and a NA cylinder head, and I asked him to do some 2nd and 3rd gear pulls side by side to see how the comparison is. Im not going to drag race this baby yet, I dont even have any rear shocks right now + its not even registered for the streets so I've gotta be careful. But it'll be interesting to see how I compare to his truck, Im lighter and using smaller tires than him, so Ive got the edge, but I cant wait to kick his Turbo ass with a Normally aspirated engine SWEET

Well enough talking, on to some pics from this weekend-

[BigMike [OP]]

Since the engine is finished, I started on the interior today. As you can see in the above pic, I've started removing complete circuits from the T100's loom. When I converted my MR2 to the Levin supercharged engine, I just trimmed the wires back but never removed them. So I had like extra power window wires, power mirrors, dome lights, all kinds of extra circuits that I dont use because obviously my MR2 already has those features with its own wiring, and I always regretted not removing them because I've got alot of wires running all over that poor car and only about half of them are really in use.

So I decided from the beginning that once I start on the wiring, I would completely remove each and every wire from the T100 harness that the '81 truck does not need. Its taking alot of time, research with the service manual, and energy, but it will be worth it in the end. Already I've about cut the main harness size down by almost half. There are about another dozen circuits that I still need to trace out and remove, but I got 12 circuits out today and that's pretty darn good.

I didnt have anyone with me when I got the truck running so well, so I couldnt take any videos of parking lot burnouts or anything, but I'll try to get some footage sometime this week.

Man this engine is still completely stock!! I dont even know about the spark plugs, they could be the originals and wasted, also puny stock wires and who knows about the rotor... oh man it'll get a good dress'n up once its all finished. I really dont need that Supercharger kit TRD's got. Not after how nice this thing is running right now. Its amazing. I would rather this engine last then poud the crap out of it with boost for another 30% power. Its already powerful enough for me!! We have a 22R-E 1-ton 2wd 1984 pickup thats really light and with very small 2wd tires and it cant even touch this thing. Cant wait to get some 37s on it and take it up 168 towards Shaver lake. That grade always kills Toyota pickups.

cya
BigMike

[ifssucks]

looking great mike, sounds like youve about got that thing licked. so what do think i should do if i want to kee[p 4wd? i was just going to pull the front diff and run 2wd until i could do an sas. i got a t100 pan and pickup. this will clear all my steering interference problems but wont come close to clearing the diff. so with a real lift kit and not just cranked tbars i might clear. but still 2wd. to be honest im not all that hip on crawling, i just like bombin through the desert. so an sas kit isnt all that apealing except for the fact i can get about as much lift as i want. id really like to make a long travel coilover setup but that gets expensive. let me know your thoughts on the tranny setup

[ifssucks]

o h yeah if i do an sas kit i have to oilpans and pick ups for whichever clears best

[BigMike [OP]]

so what do think i should do if i want to keep 4wd?

Well it's true that you could use an American front axle and locate the driveline on the drivers side, which is how the W59 and the VF1A chain drive Taco transfercase would have it. So its really up to you I suppose. It's always been my preference to try to keep everything Toyota because I Toyota. But some actually reasons to stay with the passengers side Toy front solid axle would be that it has better ground clearance, its lighter, the steering arms on a D44 are double ended and people never cut off the lower arms and I've only seen really funky crossover style arm modifications - so Im saying that Toy HySteer kits look nicer, um.. thats about it. Both can use Hy Pinion front diffs, both can run 4.88 or 5.29 gearing to match with your rear end if you choose to gear down for larger tires, lockers are available for both as well as axle upgrades. Its my opinion that a D44 has equal strength with a Toy 8" axle.

So if you want to go Passengers side drive line, which is what I did, here's what you would do:

• 3RZ > W59 Tacoma Bellhousing > W56 transmission > Gear Drive Toy tcase

Some notes:

• 1989-1995 W56 uses a forward shift style tcase just like your G54, so your shifters will nearly be in the same spot. The rods on the tcase are slightly shorter however, so you cant just simply bolt your G54 transfercase directly up to the late model W56. You would have to change the shift rods to the 89-95 shift rods in the transfercase.
• If you stay with the Gear Drive transfercase, then you are open to the entire World of Crawling with either Dual/Tripple Transfercases and aftermarket Lowrange Gear sets, like a 4.70:1. Who knows, maybe you might get into Crawling some day?

If you want to go Drivers side drive line, here's what you would do:

• 3RZ > W59 Tacoma Bellhousing AND transmission > Tacoma Chain Drive tcase

Some notes:

• The Tacoma chain drive tcase uses a stronger input than the 21-spline input you would use with the W56 transmission and transfercase setup.
• The Tacoma chain drive tcase allows "shiftable 4WD on the fly" up to 50mph where as the gear drive tcase must be below 5mph or so to engage 4WD.
• The Tacoma chain drive is slightly lighter.
• The shifter location for the chain drive tcase is a top shift style, so it will be back, maybe by about 5", so you will have to cut out a new hole in your cab to mount the tcase shifter back about 5" from where your stick tcase lever was.

to be honest im not all that hip on crawling, i just like bombin through the desert. so an sas kit isnt all that apealing except for the fact i can get about as much lift as i want.

Like the pictures toyhastu posted up, many people have built some awesome coil over setups that believe me will do very well and be very smooth at high speed bumps. Also, Solid Axles are lighter than IFS setups plus the weight is suspended between the tires, not on the frame. So their is less weight over the shocks, so less dampening and rebound is required. Do you see what Im saying? The weight of an IFS setup is bolted straight to the frame. So all that weight is above the suspension whereas the weight of a solid axle is below the springs. This probably has advantages and disadvantages, and that's why the tires of an IFS system move easier, less suspended weight on each tire. But the frame has alot more weight so a higher spring rate is needed and thus more dampening is required. Sometimes I think solid axles ride better than ifs..

You know the length of the two forward links depicts travel and axle movement during articulation. If they are too short, when one wheel goes up, the axle will yaw and loose its perpendicular arrangement with the vehicle. The wheel going up will move rearward and the wheel on the other side will be jammed down and forward. Those Montero arms look long enough, but I was just curious how they compare to some custom setup where you decided how long you want your links..

[Bazzi]

this is simular to the rangerove set up that we often use for out front coil suspension

[WHITE_TRASH]

While Ive not seen rover suspension in action, Fords radius arms work pretty nicely except if you put much power down it will be lost in wheel hop and broken front shafts.....  Go ahead, ask me how I know

[BigMike [OP]]

Tuesday,

Last night I completed cleaning out all of the unneeded T100 wires from the interior loom, so tonight is the first day to start wiring up the interior.

Again I've decided to just hang with the '81 interior for now because I want to get it daily driven asap, so the '89-95 interior conversion is on hold for the moment.

So I began about 6p and just got home around 11:30p. So what did I do during all of that time? Jack didly . Thats what. I spent an entire evening and finished one thing, got the ignition hooked up combining both the '81 system and the T100 system to the '81 ignition. The problem was that the '81 only uses 4 wires to run everything while the T100 uses 7 wires and has two separate switches within it's factory ignition cylinder. So I had to make a jumper wire to combine the two circuits into one, and then find a way to make 7 wires run off of 4. It wasnt really so hard, but it was very time consuming and just basically sucked ass. I removed alot of the '81 dash including the broken top piece that I need to replace, and pulled most of the '81 crowl harness outta the truck.

But now that the '81 has power throughout its accessory and ignition on systems, I can now wire in the dash and see it working for the first time under the power of the 3RZ. So hopefully tomorrow (If I can find time to work on it again) will go much smoother and I will get alot more finished in one night..

So that's for today, the starting day on the interior. Next step is to wire in all of the gauges.

BigMike

[SWAMPER]

Sweet deal....slap on a pic of the wiring please me wanna see

[BigMike [OP]]

Sweet deal....slap on a pic of the wiring please me wanna see

I dont have much to show because I was too frustrated to even think
This pic was when I first finished the "conversion plug" and tapped it all up, and then when I tried to fire it up, it was all wired wrong even though it followed a '80 book I was using. I later just started hot wiring all kinds of different possible wire arrangement until it worked. It turns out that the '81 has one Ignition On circuit while the T100 has two. That really pissed me off when I finished the whole thing and tapped it up and it didnt work. 

Anyway, I forgot to mention that at lunch time yesterday, I went back to the wrecking yard and completely murdered some early 90s style Celica interior wiring I needed some plugs to do some wiring, so I got a bunch of single wire plugs, 2, 3, all the way up to a huge plug I found and cut out. It's got like 15 wires on it. So now I can use these plugs, for instance, for the fuel pump, since I only have one side of all of the T100 plugs, so for right now just to make sure everything would work, I just used a bunch of crimped ends and spliced garbage together just to make it work. So now I've got some great Toyota quality plugs so I will do all soddering and heat shrinking now

[BigMike [OP]]

Thursday,

Worked until mid night, and I opened up another can o'worms. Tore the dash 100% apart and I sifted through all of the stock '81 interior harness removing all circuits that are related to the 22R, and got the parking lights, head lights, blinkers, all interior dash lights, wipers, etc working, which actually felt really good considering I've been doing wiring since Saturday with no progress to show until tonight.

There isnt much to say, just im knee deep in a ton of wires. This is the most wiring work I've ever done, so its really a great experience. I've mastered both the T100 system and now the '81 system.

This weekend I will put all of the wires back into looms and clean everything up. The wires for the oil pressure, engine temp, charge light, etc have all been separated and moved over to where the T100 wires are, so those are almost in the bag now. I hooked up the stock '81 tach and fired the 3RZ up, and to no surprise, it doesn't work. I'll have to dig into both dashes and see if I can mount the tach brain from the T100 instrument cluster inside of the '81 cluster.

Oh, I found something out which might just be the biggest life saver of this entire conversion: The '81 instrument cluster has it's own speed sensor for the on-board emissions control computer, Toyota's early version efi, or as Marlin likes to call it, a poor-mans EFI. I haven't checked to see if the output is in AC (which is required for the 3RZ) but if it is and it works, MAN that'll save me about a million headaches.

Anyhow, its late, im tired, enjoy the pics of wires 

[BigMike [OP]]

a couple more

[79coyotefrg]

Sweet deal....slap on a pic of the wiring please me wanna see

Anyways, I forgot to mention that at lunch time yesterday, I went back to the wrecking yard and completely murdered some early 90s style Celica interior wiring I needed some plugs to do some wiring, so I got a bunch of single wire plugs, 2, 3, all the way up to a huge plug I found and cut out. It's got like 15 wires on it. So now I can use these plugs, for instance, for the fuel pump, since I only have one side of all of the T100 plugs, so for right now just to make sure everything would work, I just used a bunch of crimped ends and spliced garbage together just to make it work. So now I've got some great Toyota quality plugs so I will do all soddering and heat shrinking now

  MURDERER    I cant believe you would just be so cruel to a poor defensless little celica 

[brainlessfool]

Holy cow, looks like that truck     up a bunch of wires!

[FIREBALL]

Way to go mad scientist!

[ifssucks]

mike did you not have the complete harness from the t100 ? i ask because i do have the complete intact harness and im just wondering how much splicing im going to have to do. i guess ill find out when i get there. well, today i knocked out the body lift in about 2 1/2 hours. pretty good considering ive never done one before. its pretty simple actually. especially  theres no gas tank in or motor or basically anything in or on the truck. tomorrow im going to fab up my new motor mounts and try to secure the motor and hopefully be level. im worried i wont have enough room for a cooling fan. i think im going to haveto cut the motor mounts off the frame and move them back. that makes me nervous. i guess ill see what happens tomorrow.

[BigMike [OP]]

mike did you not have the complete harness from the t100 ?

Yes, I had the complete T100 engine and interior wiring harnesses. I do not have the interior cowl harness though, but I dont need it anyways so that's ok. Do you have the Instrument cluster from the donor vehicle? That really helped me out.

i ask because i do have the complete intact harness and im just wondering how much splicing im going to have to do.

The actual wiring isnt bad at all you know, really all you've gotta do is hook up the ignition, and then just the gauges and idiot lights, maybe 20 wires tops. But Im do so much work because I dont want to have a zillion wires running all over the place that don't go to anything and arent even being used. So Im taking alot of time and cleaning up alot of wires.

well, today i knocked out the body lift in about 2 1/2 hours. pretty good considering ive never done one before.

Dude that's pretty quick!

im worried i wont have enough room for a cooling fan. i think im going to haveto cut the motor mounts off the frame and move them back. that makes me nervous. i guess ill see what happens tomorrow.

Well you have to cut and remove the motor mounts anyways to fit the mounts on the 3RZ, unless you plan on fabrication new engine mounts on the 3RZ itself that will fit onto your stock chassis engine mounts. hmmm... that's not a bad idea, but I liked keeping the T100 mounts I've got. If one goes bad, I can just order a new one from the dealer or find one used.

I am going on five weeks this coming week at the garage........................I was hoping to have my rig done first since I can't do the work myself but you guys may be finished before me 

Hey hatsu, he's beginning to sound like a fruit cake. or a space cadet. or something along those lines.
Hopefully he will do top quality work and you will be very happy once its done. Just ponder on how much power and fun you're gonna have and your be ok!!

Im off to the shop now, its about 9am Saturday morning.. I will try to complete all of the wiring and put the dash completely back together today and tomorrow. I've got the whole weekend for my truck!

BigMike

[ifssucks]

yes i do have the gauge cluster, it seem s to fit ok. it just sucks because i cant weld so i have to have one of my tech s help me out. thats why this is going so slowly.

[ifssucks]

mike, well i spent most of the day bustin knuckles on the project today. i removed the front diff and pulled the shafts, which was a pain in the ass. i had to pull my hubs all apart. then when i went to go put the oil pan on i realized the pick-up i bought wasnt the right one. this is what i dont understand is if the pan is right, which i know it is because the sump is in the rear and it lines up right, it can only go one direction. how come the pick-up the sold me with it doesnt go back far enough. i had the parts guy at toyota seach for 97 thru 02 t-100s and tacomas in 2 and 4 wd and i coulnt find one for a 3rz that worked. yours is a 3rz and not a 2rz right. this is getting agrivating because the pan is right and there has to be a pickup that goes back far enough for a rear sump oil pan.   what  year is you motor out of. it was also a t100 2wd right? arrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!! i need a 

[BigMike [OP]]

Saturday and Sunday, The Weekend of Completion.

Note to Toyhatsu and ifssucks: You might want to prepare your self for over exertion and an extreme case of the "I wish mine was running" syndrome. All I can say is its been nothing but hard work since July 4th and its all paying off now. So don't get discouraged and be patient. These things just take time! But once you guys get your rigs back on the road! man it'll be sweet!!!!!!!!

I didnt get a chance for any updates Sat. night because I got home very late after working 14 hours straight with no breaks or interruptions, and then on Sunday I got another 9 hours in and this Project is about 95% wrapped up now.

I've thought it over, and here is a complete comprehensive list of all items still remaining on the truck:

• Finish gas tank filler neck
• Mount rear shocks
• Mount purge tank
• Make a bracket for the intake/air filter and mount it
• Add a muffler to my exhaust syst

AND THAT'S IT GENTS! JUST 5 THINGS REMAINING.

So before I begin, and believe me you are in for a rear treat today, I'll start ya off with a video of my truck early Saturday morning showcasing the extensive wiring nightmare inside the cab-

1.3 MB   http://board.marlincrawler.com/temp/3rz_rev_wires.mpg

[BigMike [OP]]

So Saturday went something like this..........

Getting into the shop around 8:30, I had my work cut out. The interior wires were in a mess and some of the '81 circuits still needed to be sorted out. The dash was still in the bed of the truck and everything was in pieces. However on Thurs night, I was able to get most of the gauges working except for the oil pressure gauge and the "sensor" check engine idiot light.

I dont have much to say really, I just started knocking things down and completing tasks. When I've got so much to do and I can't really do anything without research for just a single wire, I really dont know where to start. So I would just check the '81 wiring diagrams and anything that I saw that wasn't needed I would check for those wires, trace them around to make sure they weren't tied into something else, and then I would just start cutting stuff out.

In the end, on Saturday, I had all of the wiring 100% completely finished. All of the circuits had been traced and all of the wires were in the correct location. Everything on the dash was working including the factory SR5 oil pressure gauge which required the 3RZ sender to be switched out with a 22R sender which bolted right on. I got the check engine light wired into the '81's California emission's "sensor" indicator light, and I'm hoping the smog ref will allow that light to be used for the check engine MIL lamp.

Also, can you believe it, the stock carburated tach seems to work perfectly with the 3RZ's efi system. Im not sure if its correct, but the low speed readings are correct as the idle is just below 1k. But im not sure if it will be right up towards redline.. Also the '81 speed sensor is wired in and a couple of test drives revealed that there is a difference with it plugged in or unplugged, so Im hoping that its working..

So that's Saturday. Just alot of work, I stayed busy, fortunately I wasn't interrupted, and I had a great day and got alot done. Here are some pics of the finished wiring looms. SURE LOOKS GOOD EH? They are so much smaller now compared to their original size I am VERY happy that I spent over a week cleaning out unneeded wires. It paid off in the end!!

[BigMike [OP]]

Sunday, I got in just before 9am, and hit it hard. First I knew that if I'm going to finish up the dash today, then I need to get an actual speedometer cable, and not the goofy cable extension I had routed through the shifter hole to test the functionality of the speed sensors. Unfortunately when I got the truck, it's speedo cable was already missing, or even worse broke off inside the housing. The housing was there, but I could not see a cable at either end. Marlin donated a cable out back for me from a 84-89 pickup, but when I took the cable out to put it into my '81 cable housing, the cable was broken!! And this was my last resort for getting my dash together. I didnt want to go home empty handed without the interior 100% finished, I just wouldn't feel good about it. Also finding a cable locally, or getting one from a wrecking yard through the mail was almost certainly going to take at least 2-3 days and I didnt want to wait for those results. So check this out-

[BigMike [OP]]

Yup, I welded that baby back together. I dont know if this is common, Im sure WT has done this but I thought it was cool Who knows if it will last At first the speedo was bouncing around, I think I packed it with a bit too much grease, but now its very smooth and slows down nicely under heavy braking too. So luckily the '81 cluster has a speed sensor or this job would have become a nightmare. Also, I like having a mechanical speedo cable, because if I am crawling around in some trails, an electric pickup sensor would not register anything at those slow speeds, and I would go through a 20 mile trail with only a couple of miles registered on the odometer. So im very happy to have a mechanical cable and the speed sensor and the tach do work.............. because............... because..............................

[BigMike [OP]]

This is my newest toy, an OBD-II scanner tool! I got it from http://www.obddiagnostics.com/ for a measly 88 bucks! But I wasnt expecting it to come until Mon or Tues, but it came in on Saturday, but I crashed at a friends house that night, so I didnt come back home until lunch time on Sunday, so you could imagine how happy I was when I saw it in my room. And how did I get home you ask? Well

[BigMike [OP]]

So there's the first time taking my new truck home Then I plugged in the scanner tool into the truck, and then into my pop's laptop, and wa-la! The 1995 T100 system is fully OBD-II compatible 

Check it out-

[BigMike [OP]]

Isn't that just too damn sexy!!

I took some screen shots while driving around and loging data.



I'll just post 1 pic per post and describe what's going on....

Here is the main screen. And check it out, the whole reason for getting this scanner is so I can see if I have any check codes BEFORE going to the smog ref. And Im happy to say that there are NO CODES STORED! So I feel really good about the ref, I think this truck is going to pass with flying colors!

[BigMike [OP]]

Here's a shot of the first (front of the cat) O2 sensor. It's functionally perfectly, and I can use this scanner to see if the sensor is going bad too. Also the 2nd sensor (behind the cat) is working great as well 

[BigMike [OP]]

Here is a series of On-Board tests that the 3RZ ecu reported to the scanner. I think the catalyst test takes a couple of start-up cool-downs  before its completed?? So Im gonna make sure to drive the truck around a while to get that test to pass before taking it in to the smog ref.

Also since I dont have a muffler, the second O2 sensor is about 2 inches away from the exit of the whole exhaust system, so it could be getting strange readings on deceleration, so I think once I install the muffler I will reset the computer and let it start all over again and learn what's up with the muffler on..

[BigMike [OP]]

Here's the Trouble Code screen. The MIL is the check engine light, its off, and no codes are stored
The "Clear Diagnostic Data" will reset the computer error codes and turn off the check engine light if it was on... So that's nice because with the older EFI systems, if you had a check code, once you replaced the part, sometimes the light will still stay on, so its difficult to know what the computer is actually reporting. So then you would disconnect the battery and ground out the ecu to reset it, and then hope that the light doesn't come back on, right? Well with OBD-II, you can manually clear the ECU from the scanner tool WITHOUT disconnecting the ECU, so now the codes are reset and the computer doesn't have to re-learn how to run your vehicle. Nice.