Tomorrow the engine and trans will be together for the final assembly. I'm short on 17mm/12mm thread engine bolts. Then I'll pressurize the clutch and see how it feels. I'm definitely ready to move on with something more interesting... like assembling the intake or doing some wiring... anything.
I also scored a Sirius reciever unit to use in the truck as well. I've always wanted one and a friend of mine offered to trade me his Sirius thingy for my GPS unit. It's funny because I was wanting a new GPS to put in my truck to use for the speed indicator function. I would like to integrate it somewhere in the dash so that I can see how fast I'm going on the freeway and such. I just was bummed because I already have a GPS and I would hate to have two. So problem solved. I couldn't be happier. And it comes with a subscription... how long? We don't know. He got it with a new truck he bought and it just keeps on playing. If it just works forever then I really got a good deal.
Someday when my truck is running I can actually move on to a rollcage through the cab which will also serve as a base for my seats and stereo system in the back. I HOPE to be doing this in the next month. For now have a look at this sweet black dragon of a Trans-Am that I saw the other morning near my house:
Ahhh it's so annoying working out all the details now. I had to cut down some of the longer metric transmission bolts to use and then go dig up some additional bolts for some other things that I didn't have enough of. Luckily I was able go to a buddies shop and go through the buckets of metric bolts he saves. At least I'll have every single bolt correct and each will be stamped with the corresponding number for each hole that it is for. That makes engine work really quick when swapping out clutches or servicing the transmission or anything.
The throwout is looking good as well. Now I have the hydraulic bearing adapted and ready for duty. With that out of the way and a complete set of engine and transmission bolts I'm actually ready to move forward finally. Like I said the details are a time killer.
This afternoon I had to take care of even more details before putting the engine in, hopefully for the last time. I had to track down the hose that is used for the front differential vent. Then I had to tighten down the clamps to hold some solid lines in place around the engine compartment. With those things done I set the engine in and the transmission mated right up without much hassle.
I'm now just stressing over the power steering lines. I remember trying to get those off and they are on EXTREMELY tight. I don't know why that much force would be needed to assemble them but they really hammered them tight. I even used a bar for leverage on the line wrenches and still nothing was going to come loose. Maybe I can get more leverage from below? I don't know but I'll have to focus on this tomorrow. I'm going to start researching if it would be possible to install the clamps to extend them without removing them from the truck. I'm not really looking forward to it but my friends at Paso Carquest will help me out.
I'm basically just trying to locate a power steering high pressure line for a 5vz V6 Tacoma engine. These engines have the power steering pump on the passenger side just like the Lexus and it should fit right on. Of course the Tacoma 3RZ is on the drivers side with a much shorter line.
I have someone I can talk to about splicing my line to make it longer but that won't be until tomorrow. I am looking around to buy a used line in the meantime. Then I can move on to the radiator fitting.
Well scratch the idea for buying a used line. I missed out on a Craigslist line for $20. The posting expired! Lesson for the day: If you see something you might want on Craigslist write down the contact info immediately. If you just save the link it will probably expire when you come back to it later on. And Google doesn't cache the Craigslist ads anymore so there will be no history of it.
It's a complete waste of time to go looking around a selvage yard for a line that they will probably want $100 for. At least around here that's their attitude. They always want way too much. Napa and Carquest etc. they don't want to do anything that they can't just put an adapter on. It seems that they can't even touch metric hose or line ends so that didn't work out.
So I contacted a racing buddy who turned me in the direction of a business called American Hose in Santa Maria CA. These guys know what they are doing. I made the trip there and he looked at it, gave me a price of $50 and I said, "make it so!".
The cool thing about American Hose is that the owner didn't make it sound like some big smoke and mirrors Special OP. He didn't make an appointment, he didn't tell me it would take a week. He just walked in the back and started working. Jim was also kind enough to allow me to come back and watch the magic happen. He simply cut off the hard lines from the factory compression fittings and then brought out some standard couplers to silver solder/weld them onto. After a little cleaning and prep he brought out the torch and made it happen. He even showed me different hoses and showed me some blue hose that he offered at 3x the price while he laughed. I said, "hmmmm no black is just fine by me!". I guess some people like to use blue for some reason. I don't want to be that Fast and Furious.
Now if for some reason the line gets punctured I can just replace the hose with a standard high pressure hose that I can find anywhere. I am extremely happy with the result. Nice and clean looking as well.
It was a fun experience learning so much about high pressure lines for power steering units. Especially adapting the fancy Tacoma pressure fittings to regular style fittings in order to use standard high pressure hoses you can buy off the shelf at any tractor or equipment business. The owner of American Hose explained all the high pressure numbers for different hydraulic systems and showed me all sorts of fancy high dollar hydraulic lines he has made for some very expensive industrial and agricultural machines. Pretty cool stuff.
So once I took care of the Tacoma power steering problem... I then headed over to Harbor Freight to go on a quick shopping spree.
Last edited by Smithers on Tue Aug 09, 2011 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A lot of the things that I typically use were on sale so that was nice. You can't have enough C-clamps when your doing your metal fab and welding! They practically were giving these things away today. Also picked up a few packs of heat shrink for when I start working on the new engine electrical harness. Fuses - why pay $5 for a 5 pack when Harbor has them for $3 for a whole assorted box. JB Weld... heh that stuff works awesome! Don't kid yourself. I finally used the last of my super old tubes so I needed to grab a new package.
It might not look like it but I got a lot done today. I had to work on the water line passages such as deleting the routing that goes through the throttle body for preheating. The heater hoses are also important to me. Staying warm while traveling up through the snow and mountains is key. I was able to go through the Carquest inventory and pick out some hoses that are perfectly formed to go right where I need em to. Besides that I made a couple plates to block off some other vacuum and exhaust holes/passageways. The Adaptronic doesn't need much. Basically the ISC and atmostpheric vaccuum lines are the only things that I need to preserve. It's basically all sorted out now. It's just easier to do it with the upper manifold loose.
Tomorrow I'll be assembling the engines front pulleys, belts and beauty panels. It's going to look completely different very soon. The radiator will also go right in. I need to swap the fan over to the front to push the air now that there isn't enough room for the puller fan. Although I need to look closer at this since I have been tempted to build out the front just a bit while at the same time bracing it since it's not too rigid from the factory at all. We'll see.
ALrighty, another day. Time to get to work. I picked up some new hoses to hook up the heater. I had a couple that were close but I know they would just crimp once they heated up with coolant. Since I picked them out of the Carquest inventory I thought I would post a picture of the part number for those who are thinking of doing the same. They are made by Gates.
Basically today was the final fitting of the upper intake manifold and some other stuff. Before you slap on that upper make sure and put the cold start injector back in. I doubt I'll be hooking this up but you have to plug the hole and you have to plug the fuel line that feeds it so I'm putting it back in.
In the interest of making SURE that no sand or dirt gets by the timing belt covers I completely stripped the plastic covers of all the rubber trim. The trim is probably nice and soft from the factory so they didn't need to use any type of sealer to make them close off the seams. But nowadays the rubber gets a little hard so I put gasket sealer around all the plastic guards once I cleaned them. Then I put the rubber seals back around them and to make them stay in place while the FIPK / RTV Black dried I cut off a couple pieces of regular wire to wrap them up. This worked perfectly and after a couple hours they were nice and tight and ready to defend the engine from sand.
