1997 FZJ80 Rehabilitation

[jpoole]

That's a pretty good list based on a quick review. My only contribution at this point is to recommend that you get all of this done sooner than later. With that many parts changes/etc. you want to be able to drive it around for a while before the long trip so that any issues will be discovered locally and not on the long trip. You also need to have time to order more parts, change things after you are done, etc. which often can be needed. I'd want to be done with all of the important items by mid November personally since the Holiday's get a bit busy and I assume you hit the road some time in December. My goal would be to knock it all out by the end of October to pad things and have November for the testing/fine-tuning.

 

[Wrencher93]

I've begun the disassembly for the engine parts. Broke a connector for an injector while removing fuel rail - had to wait a week for new ones to come in

 

[Wrencher93]

That's a pretty good list based on a quick review. My only contribution at this point is to recommend that you get all of this done sooner than later. With that many parts changes/etc. you want to be able to drive it around for a while before the long trip so that any issues will be discovered locally and not on the long trip. You also need to have time to order more parts, change things after you are done, etc. which often can be needed. I'd want to be done with all of the important items by mid November personally since the Holiday's get a bit busy and I assume you hit the road some time in December. My goal would be to knock it all out by the end of October to pad things and have November for the testing/fine-tuning.

Agreed. I've already begun working on it.

 

[Wrencher93]

Originally I was doing all of this for the simple reason that I felt the vehicle needed it. Now it's 100% about getting the vehicle, and more importantly my family, where it needs to go.

 

[Wrencher93]

Side note: the Wit's End tools are pretty sweet. Haven't used them yet but I look forward to it.

 

[Wrencher93]

Question for those who have done this or know more than I do: is it worth removing the lower part of the intake manifold to clean it out if I have the top half off already and I'm planning on replacing the fuel filter? I have a new gasket to go back in but I don't think it's currently leaking and I read that cleaning the manifold out doesn't really do much if your engine has some internal wear because it will just get filthy again in short order. Thoughts?

 

[jpoole]

A big factor with lower intake removal is that a wiring harness runs through it so full removal either requires disconnecting the harness and feeding it through or cutting a slot in the intake. I'm in the "cut the slot" camp and don't see a downside to that approach but some folks prefer to feed the harness through. Here's a post I made that shares some relevant photos:

FZJ80 lower intake removal by sawzall

I've heard mention of cutting the lower intake manifold to remove it without disconnecting the harness on either end, etc. but have never seen pictures so I thought I'd share a few. The story is that after pulling the head on my '97, with lower intake in place but pulled out of the way, I...

forum.ih8mud.com

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If you don't need to get to anything below the manifold or have other reasons to remove it I wouldn't remove the manifold just for internal cleaning personally. I would stuff rags in the intake holes and clean the side of the block and the outside of the runners/etc. a little while in there since it's easy. The inside of the runners may be dirty but it's unlikely to impact performance and you can clean them if/when you do the HG at a later date I'd say.

 

[Wrencher93]

A big factor with lower intake removal is that a wiring harness runs through it so full removal either requires disconnecting the harness and feeding it through or cutting a slot in the intake. I'm in the "cut the slot" camp and don't see a downside to that approach but some folks prefer to feed the harness through. Here's a post I made that shares some relevant photos:

FZJ80 lower intake removal by sawzall

I've heard mention of cutting the lower intake manifold to remove it without disconnecting the harness on either end, etc. but have never seen pictures so I thought I'd share a few. The story is that after pulling the head on my '97, with lower intake in place but pulled out of the way, I...

forum.ih8mud.com

​

If you don't need to get to anything below the manifold or have other reasons to remove it I wouldn't remove the manifold just for internal cleaning personally. I would stuff rags in the intake holes and clean the side of the block and the outside of the runners/etc. a little while in there since it's easy. The inside of the runners may be dirty but it's unlikely to impact performance and you can clean them if/when you do the HG at a later date I'd say.

This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for - I think I'll let a sleeping dog lie haha

 

[Wrencher93]

Got new connector housings on the wires yesterday. Looked like some of them had been replaced in the past - not surprising. So, I just replaced the ones that were broken and called it good.

 

[Wrencher93]

Also, for anyone who hasn't replaced these before and doesn't know how I wanted to explain the process. It isn't complicated but if you don't know, you don't know. First, you need something with a fine point on it. I used something resembling a dental pick but others have used a thumb tack or something like it. Once you have a suitable tool, you insert it here:

Now, pry the little white tab towards you and it should pop out part way and look like this:

Now, it will seem like this is stuck and maybe you'd break it if you continue to pull - it won't. It's just designed not to fall out. So pry a little more, straight out, and it will pop out and look like this:

 

[Wrencher93]

Now you need to get the wires out of the connector housing. If you look the connector head on, you will see four "holes": one above each metal connection and one below it. There is a small plastic clip located in the upper hole on each side. It slides between two metal ears that are part of the crimped end on each wire. This prevents the wires from backing out of the housing. Stick the end of your tool/pick in the upper hole and wedge it between the metal end of the wire and the plastic clip.

The goal here is to snap the plastic clip off so that it will release. If you don't hear a crunch when you insert the pick, pry upwards (away from the metal connection) with the end of the pick and you should here it break. That's all you need. You don't have to do anything else. In fact, if you do it any other way you can get the wires jammed in the housing like I did to one of mine. Fortunately the entire point of this is that you're replacing them so I just crushed the crispy offending connector with a pair of channel locks (crab leg style) and liberated the wires. Anyway - if you do it right the wires will pull right out the back of the housing and look like so:

Pay attention to which wire goes on which side of the connector because the ends are identical other than the color of insulation on each wire. On mine, and I would think this would be standard, one had a red stripe on the insulation and the other had yellow. Red was on the left side of the connector as you look at it with the locking clasp (spring clip) facing you.

The last steps are almost not worth writing but for the sake of continuity I'll go through them anyway. The new connectors come with the white lock tab in that half-inserted position. Leave them that way. This allows you to simply slide the wire ends into their respective slots until you hear a faint click. That click is this plastic clips snapping into place and holding the wires. Give a soft tug to make sure they have seated. If they have, push the white tab fully in to secure everything and you're done. It's that simple. Enjoy your new connectors!

 

[Wrencher93]

I also replaced the fuel filter while had the upper half of the intake off. Made the job super easy. After looking at the "old" filter I don't think it was really all that old. But, I didn't know when it had been done last and now I have a shiny new one in its place.

 

[Wrencher93]

Pro tip (ok, ok, probably more of a noob tip but pro tip sounds cooler so ): if you're having a little difficulty finagling the fuel rail out of its place you can crack the 17mm banjo nut on the back of the fuel filter and it will let that hard fuel line swing more driver's side. Gives you a little more room to work both removing the rail and cleaning up the port where the 6th injector sits since it's right below the EGR valve. Oh, and while we're here: I hate whoever invented the EGR system so if you see them please let them know I said to die in a hole

 

[Wrencher93]

Ok so after a little more tinkering I got the valve cover off, removed the spark plug tube seals and gasket, installed new ones, and reinstalled the valve cover. Took me a minute to find the torque spec for the cover bolts but thanks to a few old threads on Mud I finally figured it out. It's 9ft-lb for anyone who was wondering. Also, the back corner bolt behind the EGR tube - no idea how you would get that out/in with the upper intake in place. It was all I could do to snug it up with the intake removed.

 

[Wrencher93]

While we're here, this is what the camshafts and timing chain look like. I was pretty happy with what I saw. No scoring and no heavy varnish except in a few small places. I'm no expert but after seeing this I'm a little relieved that I didn't find a nasty mess.

 

[Wrencher93]

While I had the cover off I went ahead and yanked the half-moons, cleaned them, cleaned the VC gasket surface, and then reinstalled the half-moons with fresh FIPG. After removing the VC and the half-moons I don't actually think the half-moons were leaking but better safe than sorry. In fact, I may have been able to re-torque the VC bolts and call it good since most of them were only finger tight upon inspection. But, I had no way of knowing the gasket was fine until I removed the cover. The leaks I did have were small anyway and this was more of a "let's do this before we're forced to" type of project -this part of it anyway.

 

[Wrencher93]

With the new seals and gasket in place and the VC back on, it was time to remove the old plugs and replace with new. I kept track of which ones came from which cylinder until I could take a good look at them. They appear to all have comparable wear and fouling. I remember reading that sometimes if you have a HG issue or some other anomaly, one plug might look noticeably better or worse than the others. Again, not an expert here. Just trying to get this right the first time.

 

[jpoole]

Plugs don't look bad, and as you observe they are all similar which is good.

My guess is that the light white deposits are from a bit of oil burning. I'd also guess that the valve stem seals are the main contributor though I assume that some of the PCV circuit oil could also be showing up there. If those plugs have been in there a long time then the level of oil burning seems minimal based on the quantity of deposits. If they are low-mileage plugs then the burn rate may be higher but still not too bad. Of course, your oil level stability between oil changes could help assess if there is any problem worth thinking about regarding oil consumption. I'm guessing there's nothing needing attention now re oil consumption.

 

[Wrencher93]

Installed new plugs with a generous coat of anti-seize on the threads. Also lubed the spark plug boots on the new wires before installing them. The old ones were installed the same way and I was very happy when all 6 plugs and wires came off without any trouble. Old plugs were NGK, new are Denso but they're OEM and came in Toyota boxes so no worries there.

You can see in this last picture where the date of manufacture is printed on the Yazaki wires. These are obviously new. I'll have to look again but I think the set I took off were from 2003. 17 years old and I'm pretty sure after removing them that they're still perfectly serviceable. I think I'm going to test them per the FSM and keep them as spares if they check out. Definitely speaks to the quality of these parts.

 

[Wrencher93]

Plugs don't look bad, and as you observe they are all similar which is good.

My guess is that the light white deposits are from a bit of oil burning. I'd also guess that the valve stem seals are the main contributor though I assume that some of the PCV circuit oil could also be showing up there. If those plugs have been in there a long time then the level of oil burning seems minimal based on the quantity of deposits. If they are low-mileage plugs then the burn rate may be higher but still not too bad. Of course, your oil level stability between oil changes could help assess if there is any problem worth thinking about regarding oil consumption. I'm guessing there's nothing needing attention now re oil consumption.

I don't burn a noticeable amount of oil and I don't drip any either. The valve cover gasket was one of several very mild, gradual leaks that are more akin to seepage than a drip. I've habitually parked the 80 in the same place in my driveway for over two years and there's no discernable oil spot. I don't say any of this to tout my mechanical prowess - more my good fortune