Recent content by mcgonical

The new TengTools torque wrench arrived tonight. I had to grab a smaller torque wrench to cover the ranges required from 6Nm to 98Nm so far. So the rear main seal went back in after a thorough cleaning and new seal packing. Lots of residue from old seal. Cleaned up. New seal installed...

Just reading the service manual (great timing) and one option presented by Mr Toyota is to pry out the seal with a screwdriver and replace it with the frame still attached to the block - very carefully. Sometimes I just make things difficult for myself...

Tonight I thought I'd knock over the rear main seal as a maintenance item while the engine is out - easy peasy. Well, not as easy peasy as I thought. The seal frame has bolts through the oil pan. So the oil pan needs to come off so that I can remove the frame and the seal. You could...

Things I learned on the engine swap so far: 1.) A friend suggested that the new dump pipe will expose the transmission cooling lines to too much heat - I think he's right. I'll need to wrap the pipes or find some way to shield them, the clearances are very tight. 2.) I had very high hopes...

Someone had tried to remove the transmission without first removing the starter motor - they bent the metal joining plate pretty well. I used a heavy steel plate and dolly to flatten it back down again, it came up pretty well.

The motor looks like it's worked hard - I've found a few smooth river pebble in amongst the exhaust manifold. I've pulled off the old dump pipe. New dump pipe fitted. The turbo was missing one of the dump pipe nuts which could not have helped performance. I've replaced the nut and ordered a...

As I look at all the pieces piling up in the garage I hope to myself that it's a dream machine and not an expensive nightmare. Thinking positive though and reading lots on here and LCOOL from other helpful members. I'm going to learn a lot on this project! When we got the engine home on Sunday...

Drove 5 hours north to Maitland on Friday night so that we could begin the process of stripping down the front cut - Saturday morning we visited the family workshop and started in on the job. The car on the hoist and ready to go. There was some damage to the loom from the impact that wrote...

The current motor is great...when the car is empty and there are no up-hills in sight. Add roof tent, bar work and drawers and the poor old 1HZ struggles. If the 1HD FTE swap lives up to the hype then it should be smooth and powerful, especially hooked up to the 5 speed auto. The smoke smell is...

The Beaudesert exhaust arrived during the week - 3" mandrel bent and fabricated to match the FTE motor and turbo that I'm swapping into the 105. The engine crane arrived on Friday - just in the nick of time. All things going well I'll be home Sunday evening with the 1HD FTE on a trailer -...

Woohoo !!! Look what's on its way to my garage...

Chainsaw mount Now that we're downsizing room is more of a premium. A couple of items that were always needed close to hand and easy to store in the camper were my axe and chainsaw. The axe has been upgraded to a Fiskars jobby. I use the hollow shaft to good advantage in storing it down the...

New story The next trip we are planning is the Simpson Desert in 2015 and so we've decided to down-size and sell the camper to make our travelling lighter. After flip-flopping over whether to get an Oztent or a rooftop tent we ended up getting both somehow. The rooftop tent is a Gordigear unit...

Cargo Barrier We're caught up on the backlog of photos now. I've just finished the cargo barrier for the rear of the car. The design allows for the cargo barrier to be bolted to the tabs protruding through the drawers, linked to the metal frame in the drawers. I've learned that I really suck...

I made a bracket for mine, integrating it with the Anderson plug and airbag valves. I've scrapped the plugs off in the past so I like the plate to be protecting the underside. It's above the hitch height but scraping is still an option.