TOYOTA, more than ever before... (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

I know why they closed down the road now. There was a 500 yard pull up hill that was covered in 4 inches of ice. Cruiser handled it in 2wd just fine and in 5th gear none the less.
EADEC797-FE2C-433F-9DA6-6D199501E3B3.jpeg
956BFF7F-CC95-49C8-86D6-3E0263022198.jpeg
3D475082-35F6-4F47-9633-C62424963384.jpeg
 
Going down the Wind River Reservation was epic…
D55FE62E-307D-437E-93B8-D20EF7AB6CBC.jpeg
9E1A7EA6-2A62-4DD4-834A-8E29DB605FA9.jpeg
D213C637-E941-4FB1-8561-8A93CA654CAD.jpeg
 
We made it to Montana last night and stayed in Red Lodge over night. Hendrix got his own queen bed. Spoiled rotten boy.
014F5385-89A0-47C3-846C-2322965A141E.jpeg
958622B5-1B76-4B5E-BDCC-D2D904CA3E22.jpeg
 
@ToyotaMatt, I learned a bit of history the other day you may be interested in. Perhaps you’re already aware of this?

I started work at at Gibson USA this week as a new career path. Yes! I make guitars for a living, finally!

In our orientation we learned that during WWII 90% of Gibsons staff joined the armed forces and their production was devastated. Not only that but all the manufactures had the same problem. What to do? We didn’t have the strategic advantage to win the war so the USA needed an other approach.

The women and young men who were not quite fighting age were hired. But they were unskilled and needed to be brought up to speed in a matter of days. So Gibson developed a step by step process for teaching someone a new skill that they could apply to other skills as well.

People were mastering their jobs in record time and the production numbers went through the roof despite having no experienced employees. The guitars manufactured by those women are some of the most sought after and prized instruments ever made starting at $75,000 today if you can find one.

The rest of the nation picked up on what Gibson was doing and they shared their methods with the entire country. We had something like 5-6 tanks to every one German tank. This is how we won the war (arguably) we simply outgunned the enemy.

When the war was over and the soldiers returned home it was seen as condescending to teach a Marine veteran how to pop a rivet using a step by step card (step 1. Pick up the rivet gun. Step 2, pick up a rivet) yeah that’s wasn’t gonna fly with these hardens vets so the country got away from those practices and relaxed a lot.

The Japanese and Germans, after the war, were so amazed by how much America produced that they approached us and asked how we did it. Well, Gibson shared their point by point training mindset with them.

Japan went on in the 70’s and 80’s to out manufacture everyone else using this method developed by Gibson. Toyota was leading the way in developing an even more in depth training mindset and came up with the concept of building people who make cars.

This was the birth of T-Ten! And it goes deep as you know…

Gibson and many other American manufactures were suffering in the 80’s and 90’s and approached Toyota to ask how they were performing so well. Surprised, Toyota told Gibson “you taught us this method”… haha!! So Gibson gave Toyota the brainchild that turned into T-Ten and then later took the Toyota method and applied it to guitars again.

So here I am, an American luthier and a Toyota nut working for the company that started it all. If it weren’t for Gibson we would be living in in a different world and Toyota wouldn’t be a part of it. 😃
 
@ToyotaMatt, I learned a bit of history the other day you may be interested in. Perhaps you’re already aware of this?

I started work at at Gibson USA this week as a new career path. Yes! I make guitars for a living, finally!

In our orientation we learned that during WWII 90% of Gibsons staff joined the armed forces and their production was devastated. Not only that but all the manufactures had the same problem. What to do? We didn’t have the strategic advantage to win the war so the USA needed an other approach.

The women and young men who were not quite fighting age were hired. But they were unskilled and needed to be brought up to speed in a matter of days. So Gibson developed a step by step process for teaching someone a new skill that they could apply to other skills as well.

People were mastering their jobs in record time and the production numbers went through the roof despite having no experienced employees. The guitars manufactured by those women are some of the most sought after and prized instruments ever made starting at $75,000 today if you can find one.

The rest of the nation picked up on what Gibson was doing and they shared their methods with the entire country. We had something like 5-6 tanks to every one German tank. This is how we won the war (arguably) we simply outgunned the enemy.

When the war was over and the soldiers returned home it was seen as condescending to teach a Marine veteran how to pop a rivet using a step by step card (step 1. Pick up the rivet gun. Step 2, pick up a rivet) yeah that’s wasn’t gonna fly with these hardens vets so the country got away from those practices and relaxed a lot.

The Japanese and Germans, after the war, were so amazed by how much America produced that they approached us and asked how we did it. Well, Gibson shared their point by point training mindset with them.

Japan went on in the 70’s and 80’s to out manufacture everyone else using this method developed by Gibson. Toyota was leading the way in developing an even more in depth training mindset and came up with the concept of building people who make cars.

This was the birth of T-Ten! And it goes deep as you know…

Gibson and many other American manufactures were suffering in the 80’s and 90’s and approached Toyota to ask how they were performing so well. Surprised, Toyota told Gibson “you taught us this method”… haha!! So Gibson gave Toyota the brainchild that turned into T-Ten and then later took the Toyota method and applied it to guitars again.

So here I am, an American luthier and a Toyota nut working for the company that started it all. If it weren’t for Gibson we would be living in in a different world and Toyota wouldn’t be a part of it. 😃


you forgot to add the fact why toyota bowed out of the Gibson brand totally ,

i know this fact well ..........

and it might blow everyone's mind to simply read what i may decide to type in a below post here over the weekend ?

i have only ever shared these concrete little known toyota corporates history time line facts with my solid MUD Buddy @Spike Strip ..........


one long nights outside mud live chat where he actually had more to update and discuss on his end then Chatty-Matty himself usually does .......... :popcorn:



my longest social chat via cell live with another MUD member lasted just a hair over 6.0+ hours long , i took a screen shot of when i hung up for my well , personal amusement , i really wish i could post it now ? but on a Iphone there is way too much personal info to photo shop out ..........:confused:


but .............
 
Man…just read your whole thread. Was a great read in between coats of paint :). What an awesome journey you’ve had with your truck. And killer side kick you have. Keep thinking I need to get another pup. How are you liking Montana?
 
Man…just read your whole thread. Was a great read in between coats of paint :). What an awesome journey you’ve had with your truck. And killer side kick you have. Keep thinking I need to get another pup. How are you liking Montana?
So far Montana is awesome! It can’t decide if it’s winter or spring though. That’s the mountains for ya though.

Thanks for the kind words! It has been a journey to say the least, but I wouldn’t change it at this point. This truck has given me more character and expanded my abilities and self esteem unlike anything else I’ve gotten myself into, other than luthiery.
 
Here are some pics of that area cleaned up as best I can without disassembling the sniper.View attachment 2982304View attachment 2982305 @g-man I don’t see any cracks where you pointed. I believe that was dirt build up that was scratched at some point. I did the carb cleaner around the manifold trick and didn’t experience any rpm changes so I don’t have any vac leaks to note. I have found a few vac port plugs that have cracked due to heat. I’ll go find some new ones for high heat applications just to make sure there’s no leaks. I’m wondering if there’s just not enough air flow when I’m really asking her to work hard. I can hear the sniper sucking like crazy through this edelbrock air cleaner.View attachment 2982310
I've got a question about the air injection nozzle block off plugs I bought some from bellmetric that are 14mm X 1.5 and they won't thread in more than three revolutions. The old oem part will easily go in 7 turns. Under a dissecting microscope there is something off about the new hardware. Has anyone had success with another source? What about the plugs that JimC sells? I almost bought those when I ordered a secondary air pump idler pulley from him.

IMG_20220603_105921.jpg


IMG_20220603_110220.jpg
 
Has anyone had success with another source?

Toyota makes the plug specifically for those holes and they fit perfectly.
Still available new.




E48F9A32-B653-4F5A-AFBF-B4BF1FCAB5B5.jpeg
91B560F2-FE42-4992-B473-C3562143E2AA.jpeg
E76ABD54-F1AC-4ADB-9203-057C55A75896.jpeg
 
Last edited:
Toyota makes the plug specifically for those holes and they fit perfectly.
Still available new.




View attachment 3024153View attachment 3024154View attachment 3024161
Awesome thanks. BTW I talked to some guys I work with and we found that the old hardware threads perfectly into a 9/16 X 18 die. My tap and die set at home only goes up to 12mm or 1/2. 9/16 is the eqivalent of 14.28 mm so maybe it is slightly lose. The new allen plugs still could only thread into the 9/16 x 18 die a couple of turns and then get stuck.
 
Last edited:
I’m pretty sure those plugs are measured in Japan Imperial Standard. It’s so similar to the British standard that they’re basically interchangeable. I used the plugs from JimC and they all worked fine. I did install them with thread locker.
 
Well, it’s been a long time since I logged in or posted on the forum. I figure it’s time for an update here.

It happened. The engine has taken a dump and the fun machine has died.

It got cold here in Montana last week. The truck has been running pretty rich the last few months and I’ve fouled up several O2 sensors. I started the truck last week when it was cold and I heard something crunchy. I thought it was ice on the belts and pulleys. It ran alright for a few days until one morning when the AFR spiked up into the high 20’s.

By the time I got to work it would stumble and die if I let off the gas. I barely made it into the parking space. It was -4 degrees. That afternoon I barely got it started and had to hold my foot on the gas for ten minutes till it got up to 170 degrees. I managed to limp home, stumbling all the way. The next day I heard the same crunch when I started it up and again I had to hold my foot in the gas to get it warmed up. I limped to and from work for the rest of the week like that. Yesterday I changed the O2 sensor again and it fired right up. Then the sniper got very confused and would spike the AFR from 35:1 down to 10:1 and it cycled like this for several minutes. I shut the engine off and tried to start it again.

I’m able to get it started but the thing will not idle on its own without my foot in the gas. Even still it’s acting like it’s only firing on 5 cylinders and it’s running extremely rich and is blowing blue smoke. I smell oil burning. I suspect a spun bearing. Possibly a seized piston due to the cold.

It’s too cold now to work on it in the driveway and I have no funds for troubleshooting. I just hit 290,000 miles last month and was hoping to make it to the spring time before this happened. I knew it was coming.

I’m at a crossroads here and I think it’s time to call it quits with this truck. With all the other minor issues I need to deal with such as window/weather seals and interior deteriorations and the rust forming in the rain gutters and wheel wells I just can’t justify pulling the engine and rebuilding it.

I’m going to pull the plug and pass this project on to someone who wants a toy to play with. This is no longer a daily driver project. It’s with great sadness I’m saying goodbye to my beloved 60. I will be putting her up for sale in the next few days.

Thank you to all who’ve taught me so much and helped me through some of the toughest spots I’ve ever been in. I could not have done it without you all!
201E8607-783D-410D-91C6-6F644B9C584D.jpeg
 
Last edited:
So, just for chits and giggles I decided to check the coolant to see if there’s any oil contamination from a blown head gasket. I found the radiator is completely frozen solid.

Now I’m very very curious about what happened the other morning. Wtf???? What was that crunchy sound??? What has happened inside this engine….. I wanna know but I don’t want to do the work. Lol
 
Sorry to hear your problems and deciding to pull the plug on the 60. What coolant mixture were you running? Temps combined with a strong windchill could have caused it to freeze sooner than the 50/50 mixture. Crunch may have been your water pump biting the dust. This is why I installed a block heater.
 
Here’s my theory:

Last time I changed the coolant I was dead broke and still living in the truck. I mixed the ratio closer to 40/60 water to propylene glycol to get down the road and forgot about it. I spent that winter in Florida. Then drove up here in the spring. Things have been pretty good in warmer weather.

Now that it’s -4 at night the coolant froze. The engine block froze and the radiator turned to a solid block of ice. I got the engine started which warmed up the coolant in the block. The engine was trying to force it to flow into the radiator but no dice. This has caused the thermostat housing to start leaking all over the pulleys. That’s what the frozen crunchy sound was.

My job is only a 7 minute drive from the house and it’s been a while since I’ve gotten the engine raging hot. I’m fairly certain the pistons have carbon build up and the spark plugs are two years old at this point. This is likely why the sniper has been running rich. With the cold temps it’s probably getting mixed signals. There may be hot spots in the block due to lack of coolant flow.

All this has probably led to a catch 22 type situation where the computer is getting confused and trying to compensate by adding too much fuel to the mix which is causing more fouling and pre-detonation in the cylinders. After changing the O2 sensor yesterday and running the sniper wizard it’s really confused as to what to do.

I think I need to get this bad boy into the garage somehow to thaw the radiator and get some new coolant in it. I’ll check the spark plugs tomorrow if it’s not -100,000,000 degrees outside. Maybe do a compression test to see if there’s anything going on there.

Lol I just can’t give it up can I???
 
The Sniper is AN AFTERMARKET PART. Aftermarket parts have a horrible track record for reliability for every component they attempt to replace.

Yes —get it all warmed up and try again.
 
The Sniper is AN AFTERMARKET PART. Aftermarket parts have a horrible track record for reliability for every component they attempt to replace.

Yes —get it all warmed up and try again.
Yes, we have had this realization many times. I just can’t leave well enough alone!

Maybe I’ll get a Japanese carburetor without the smog provisions and install it in the spring if I get this thing running again. Maybe I’ll just sell it like a smart person!
 
Yes, we have had this realization many times. I just can’t leave well enough alone!

Maybe I’ll get a Japanese carburetor without the smog provisions and install it in the spring if I get this thing running again. Maybe I’ll just sell it like a smart person!
Man I hate to hear about this. I’m pulling for you and wish we were closer to actually lend a hand. Glad to send you a carb core for a quick rebuild. If you go down that path you might be able to sell the EFI system to fund any other expenses getting your 60 back on track. I truly don’t know if there’s a market for used Sniper systems.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom