Hey everyone,
The time had come once again for me to attempt to smog my 1987 FJ60. Unfortunately, this most recent test did not provide me with the answer I had hoped for and resulted in a solid FAIL.
Long story short, I purchased this truck from the original owner's family back in late 2018 with about 289,000 miles, and drove it for two years until the tags expired in November of 2020. I attempted to run it through a smog test at that time, which it failed miserably. As a result, I put it in a non-op status, focused on other projects, and recently revisited the emissions issues. During the "downtime", I continued to drive it weekly to keep things fluid. In terms of maintenance, I had the carburetor rebuilt, had the smog pump rebuilt, installed a new catalytic converter (Magnaflow OEM replacement), performed an oil change, replaced the spark plugs, all vacuum lines, adjusted timing, distributor cap/rotor, and spark plug wires (among other things).
What has me stumped is that PRIOR to performing any of these repairs/maintenance, the truck passed (or "passed"?) smog at a local shop. Yet after I replaced a significant amount of emissions equipment, it continues to fail. I have gone through the 2F emissions manual religiously to ensure the vacuum lines are routed correctly and that all emissions equipment is functioning as it should. At this point, I'm thinking the carburetor needs to be fine tuned to pass emissions, despite running extremely well for regular street driving. If it's running a bit rich, how lean does it need to be to pass emissions? Do I need to screw the fuel mixture screw ALL the way in when attempting to pass emissions?
My current carburetor setting has the fuel mixture screw backed off about 1 3/4 turns, with the float level dead-center in the sight glass. Jets installed are factory at 147 and 200. Idle is set at 650rpm when HOT using the lean-drop method to tune. Idle with choke pulled all the way out is at 1500rpm, though that shouldn't matter when it comes to emissions. I live in San Diego near sea-level, so I've kept that in mind as well when fine-tuning.
At this point I've just about given up, but refuse to throw in the towel because of the hours and money I've invested into a silly emissions test. Pretty silly that I can drive my 1967 Ford truck around as a daily driver in California, but a 1980's Toyota with a plethora of emissions equipment won't make the cut.
For those who have successfully passed emissions in CA, what's your secret? Adjusting timing to 5* BTDC? E-85 fuel mixed with 91? Carb tuning using a digital A/F meter? I'm all ears! This community has been extremely helpful in getting me this far, so I figured I'd reach out to the experts to get me over the final hump. Attached are photos of the most recent FAIL and the emissions test that PASSED. Thanks everyone!
The time had come once again for me to attempt to smog my 1987 FJ60. Unfortunately, this most recent test did not provide me with the answer I had hoped for and resulted in a solid FAIL.
Long story short, I purchased this truck from the original owner's family back in late 2018 with about 289,000 miles, and drove it for two years until the tags expired in November of 2020. I attempted to run it through a smog test at that time, which it failed miserably. As a result, I put it in a non-op status, focused on other projects, and recently revisited the emissions issues. During the "downtime", I continued to drive it weekly to keep things fluid. In terms of maintenance, I had the carburetor rebuilt, had the smog pump rebuilt, installed a new catalytic converter (Magnaflow OEM replacement), performed an oil change, replaced the spark plugs, all vacuum lines, adjusted timing, distributor cap/rotor, and spark plug wires (among other things).
What has me stumped is that PRIOR to performing any of these repairs/maintenance, the truck passed (or "passed"?) smog at a local shop. Yet after I replaced a significant amount of emissions equipment, it continues to fail. I have gone through the 2F emissions manual religiously to ensure the vacuum lines are routed correctly and that all emissions equipment is functioning as it should. At this point, I'm thinking the carburetor needs to be fine tuned to pass emissions, despite running extremely well for regular street driving. If it's running a bit rich, how lean does it need to be to pass emissions? Do I need to screw the fuel mixture screw ALL the way in when attempting to pass emissions?
My current carburetor setting has the fuel mixture screw backed off about 1 3/4 turns, with the float level dead-center in the sight glass. Jets installed are factory at 147 and 200. Idle is set at 650rpm when HOT using the lean-drop method to tune. Idle with choke pulled all the way out is at 1500rpm, though that shouldn't matter when it comes to emissions. I live in San Diego near sea-level, so I've kept that in mind as well when fine-tuning.
At this point I've just about given up, but refuse to throw in the towel because of the hours and money I've invested into a silly emissions test. Pretty silly that I can drive my 1967 Ford truck around as a daily driver in California, but a 1980's Toyota with a plethora of emissions equipment won't make the cut.
For those who have successfully passed emissions in CA, what's your secret? Adjusting timing to 5* BTDC? E-85 fuel mixed with 91? Carb tuning using a digital A/F meter? I'm all ears! This community has been extremely helpful in getting me this far, so I figured I'd reach out to the experts to get me over the final hump. Attached are photos of the most recent FAIL and the emissions test that PASSED. Thanks everyone!
