Guess I'll start a build thread for this truck and 79Coyotefrg can merge my engine thread about the 20/22R hybrid in here.
I bought this truck about 12 years ago. It had the straightest, cleanest body I'd seen in awhile and it was only $1200 which even back then was fairly cheap around here. I think it probably lived it's early life in a much sunnier climate as the interior is pretty baked - all the plastic is brittle and/or chalky. I wanted an extended cab but for the price and condition of the body I couldn't pass this one up. It also came with a spare rebuildable core 22R in the bed.
It had about 195K on it and the engine was a mess. Leaking oil like the Exxon Valdez and burning oil to the tune of a quart every 500 miles. Someone who didn't know what they were doing had been working on it and there was blue silicone everywhere so I set to work getting it sealed back up. New oil pan, timing cover, and valvecover gaskets got rid of most of the leaks. The head was really clean, no sludge at all so I think someone put a new or rebuilt head on it too. I put a new timing chain in while I was at it. It still had one leak I couldn't figure out at first - oil was dripping off the underside of the intake manifold. That made no sense until I tried to change the oil filter. Someone had put it on with a filter wrench and kinked it, causing a pinhole in the filter itself that sprayed an oil mist on the underside of the intake. The filter was stuck fast to the block and I couldn't spin it off. Drove a big screwdriver through it and all that did was twist the body of the filter right off the baseplate which was still stuck to the block. Had to pry an edge of the baseplate up so I could get vice grips on it then use a hammer to pound it loose.
Here's what it looked like right after I bought it:
I was pretty poor at the time so since it ran smooth and quiet I just kept pouring oil in it and drove it, though I did have to put a new cat converter on to get it to pass emissions. While I was at it I had a 2-1/4" exhaust with a Magnaflow muffler installed from the factory headpipe and a high flow converter put on. After about six months I read about the FJ rotors with IFS calipers upgrade and since it needed axle seals I decided to tackle both at the same time. Ordered an axle seal kit from Marlin and spent a weekend getting familiar with the hubs, seals, and Birfields.
New brakes lookin' pretty:
After that I drove it as my daily driver until about mid '04 when the engine developed a knock. I decided to park it and then I changed careers, life got in the way, yadda yadda yadda and it sat in my garage untouched for almost ten years. I did read up on the 20/22R hybrids during that time and boought an '80 20R head with the power steering and mechanical fuel pump provisions and bought an intake manifold from someone else. Didn't know at the time that the manifolds were different between the electric fuel pump and mechanical pump motors, and there were several other small details I didn't know about and had to learn along the way. Hopefully I can detail those experiences here so anyone else who wants to build one of these will be a little better prepared. Also got the engine all re-machined and the head rebuilt during this time but the parts just sat for a long time until this last year when I finally got around to putting it together.
The goal is a reliable little truck that can be driven daily, haul stuff for home improvement projects, take me skiing, camping, hiking, and fishing, and explore some of the 4WD roads we have around here. I'm not planning on any hard-core wheeling with it and I want it to be as efficient and easy on gas as an old truck can be. I'll probably be getting a dirt bike and a small camping trailer in the next couple of years so need it to be able to haul/tow that stuff too.
On to the engine build - First off was the head - Had oversized valves installed that are the correct length for a 20R (22R valves are shorter) and got a rebuilt rocker assembly and a cam from Delta Cams in Tacoma.
Here's what the short side radius and intake bowls looked like after the new seats were installed:
That big ridge on the short side radius couldn't be good, so I got busy with the die grinder and did a little head porting/bowl blending.
Here's the short side and bowl after re-working:
Next it was on to the block. I decided to rebuild the core block that came with the truck. The original engine still ran even though it had a bad rod bearing and I figured it was better to leave an engine in it in case I needed to move it. This presented an unforeseen problem.
The early 22R blocks, up to sometime in early '84 used a different main bearing than the mid '84 and later 22R/RE blocks. I had no idea and ordered bearings for an '84. The only difference is in the placement of the locating tangs on the top center main bearings and all of the lower half main bearings:
Toyota must have had some bored engineers, I can't imagine why they felt the need to change this one small thing...
Locating the proper bearings for the early 22R is a pregnant dog but I did find some. The thing I didn't like about them is that they only come in fully grooved sets, not half-grooved like the later bearings but at this point I'd already had the block bored and the crank turned so decided to just go with the fully grooved bearings and hope for the best.
Longblock assembly went smooth and I used a double-roller timing chain for added strength.
After all this time I wasn't sure about where some things went but I still had the original 22R to refer back to and scavenge various bits and bolts off of. I completely de-smogged this motor so there were a lot of vacuum lines and sensors that didn't get reinstalled.
Next up was fitting the 20R intake. The original 20R water routing wasn't going to work and this fitting for the heater hose had to go. It was stuck bad. I spent two nights heating it red hot with a torch then dousing it with penetrating oil and letting it cool before it would budge. I had to clamp the fitting in a vice and twist the intake off of it.
Since I couldn't use the 20R hose routing I found a neat solution from LCEngineering - this spiffy water plate with the fitting in the right place for the bottom of the intake:
I also ordered EGR and O2 sensor blockoff plates at the same time.
A header isn't in the budget yet and the factory 4-into-2 exhaust manifold would have to do but I needed to block off the air injection holes, so a pipe tap and a couple brass plugs got the job done:
I re-painted all the brackets and pullies and disassembled the belt tensioner, flushed out the bearing and let it soak in oil for a few days, turning it by hand while submerged in oil every time I went out to the garage to ensure it was nice and clean and had plenty of fresh oil in it.
The tensioner spins nice and smooth so doubt I need a new bearing.
Here it is, almost ready to be reinstalled. I ended up pulling a couple of those plugs back out of the manifold for the PCV, power brakes, and evap vacuum lines.
Since I'm building a little hot rod 4-cylinder it needed a Weber carb. At the time I took these pics I was in a hurry to get the engine back in and running so didn't deal with the divider in the intake manifold under the carb. I didn't get the truck together in time for the trip I was planning to take it on anyway, so should have just dealt with it then. I'll get to it at some point in the not-too-distant future as this can't be anything but a restriction:
Since I needed to step the pressure down from the stock mechanical pump I ordered one of these spiffy regulators and a pressure gauge so I can tell what it's set to:
There was a very handy bolt boss on the intake to mount it to. You can also see one of the problems I was about to run into in this picture...
But before that problem occurred to me, another cropped up. I didn't get a thermostat housing (also called water neck) with the intake when I bought it and I figured re-using the 22R water neck would be no problem. Wrong.
The 20R intake clocks the water neck differently and the 22R neck ends up being aimed right at the fuel pump.
On top of that, the 22R neck is a different shape and won't even line up and seal properly on the 20R intake:
So, I had to burn a day hunting down a place that would sell me just the water neck off a 20R with a mechanical fuel pump.
Then I realized that the water temp sensor bung is in a bad place on this intake. This intake must be off an earlier 20R with the electric pump.
When I went to the wrecking yard to buy the water neck I saw that the intake manifold for the mechanical fuel pump equipped 20r puts the temp sensor in a different place, over by the water neck. This manifold just doesn't have the provision for that. The yard owner wouldn't sell the intake without selling the head, even though he was willing to part with the water neck. I wasn't about to buy the head *and* intake unless I absolutely had to.
Luckily, the temp sensor just BARELY fits. I bent the tab on the sensor over 90 degrees so the plug in the factory harness would fit onto it, and amazingly it works.
Back to the Weber carb. This thing is pissing me off. You'd think that for as long as Weber has been selling these things they'd have all the little details worked out, but apparently not.
First up was this tab on the bottom of the throttle linkage. It hit the adapter plate and bound up the linkage so I had to grind it down for clearance.
Other problems with the carb are being detailed in the thread about the engine which will get merged with this one, so more on that later.
