Hilux '90 Hilux daily driver build (1 Viewer)

[John in Utah]

Back in July I picked up a LN106 Hilux from a fellow Mud member:

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My goal is baseline the truck for daily driving plus longer excursions around Utah - and of course document it as much as possible here. Aside from being a filing cabinet of my own personal rambling and mechanical failures it would be nice if this thread could one day help some other North American lux owner.

Things I’ve ticked off so far:

• BeBs replaced (as PM)
• Harmonic balancer (as PM)
• 52mm aluminum radiator
• 5LE Hilux 10 blade fan and 3.0 4Runner clutch w/10k oil
• Dorkel
• 3rzfe 82 deg tstat, ground to fit
• LJ78 “3 bolt” oil cooler for the bigger filter and turbo supply
• 30001 (Wix 51368) oil filter required to clear solid axle trucks
• 5/8” Turbo drain to the pan
• 2lte exhaust manifold, ported
• CT20 turbo housing & outlet elbow, ported
• NOS Toyota CHRA
• Auto meter boost, egt, and coolant gauges
• Egt gauge in the manifold directly before the turbine
• Custom 2.25” Exhaust downpipe, heat wrapped
• Stock exhaust under the truck firewall back
• Stock fuel pump, turned up less than 1/2 turn. Timing set at .84mm (bottom of spec)
• Ebay special air to water intercooler, Bosch pump, 9x11 cooler, 24x6 heat exchanger
• Ebay special manual boost controller, bleed off style

Some pics from the truck when I got it in Atlanta, and on the drive back with some cruiser folks in new mexico.
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[John in Utah]

The thing about buying a car on the other side of the country is a 2000 mile drive is a great way shake down the truck. Anything over 100 kph and it would start to overheat - up to 112 deg C (with evans coolant). I stepped through all the basics: re-cored the radiator, tridon tstat, new fan clutch oil, belts, etc. I could get everything to stay cool in all but the toughest climbs - in the end I had to swtich to toyota red to get temps to stay cool.

I realize now I didn't take nearly enough pictures of everything I went through. Thankfully the folks with 2LTE prados have done a good job documenting cooling system maintenance and improvements.

here you can see the tridon diameter is quite a bit larger than OEM

opens faster too

Not sure if this air filter made any difference but I switched it out for OEM.

 

[John in Utah]

3 of the 4 auxiliary gauges didn't work reliably on the initial drive home - initially I went out and found all new dash components from a junked SR5 truck. This fixed the water temp, fixed the oil pressure only briefly, and did nothing for the fuel. I ended up ordering new OEM senders for oil, fuel, and water temp.

New sender, plus alternator oil feed hose and banjo fitting as well to address one of the many oil leaks (more on that later)

You can't pull the bed on the double cab trucks to get to the fuel tank like on the ext cabs, but good news is you hardly have to drop the tank to get at the screws:

This is as low as it needs to be, provided you can worm your way up in there:

 

[John in Utah]

Knocking out a few small things. Engine mounts aren't too bad on this truck:

Between Aus and Atlanta I'm not sure the last time truck saw below freezing temps (does it get cold in WA?). Did the plugs on both the 3L and 3B this fall and it really improved the cold starts.

Doing diff fluids and found the front axle overfull of slimy grease-oil mix. I guess I'll be ordering a knuckle rebuild kit soon enough

 

[John in Utah]

Got a couple of long trips in before tearing into the timing case to chase more oil leaks:

In the mean time I got a mess of oem parts delivered from overseas: timing belt and pulleys, water pump, cam and crank seals, flywheel bolts for the eventual clutch job, etc

 

[John in Utah]

This is the first vehicle I've owned with a timing belt, so I was pretty nervous about my first time I watched every video I could find of back-bush Australian fellas doing L series timing belts and I still managed to screw up the pump timing the first time around! thankfully no harm down save an afternoon of my time tearing it back down

Think this might have something to do with all that oil I've been missing...

Much better:

Read about using the oven to heat up pulleys before but never needed to do it. Outside tmeps in the teens really helps

 

[John in Utah]

Got the timing case all buttoned up only to have problems with intermittent stalling and loss of power. Classic symptoms of air in the fuel line. Turns out I had loosened the water separator drain cock when I was going through fluids and filters, but the o ring was rock hard and wouldn't seal properly after I broke it free. Got a new primer pump, filter, and separator assembly (Toyota, of course):

 

[John in Utah]

And finally a shot from skiing this last weekend. Still a lot to do but finally feeling good about the progress I've made

 

[SteveH]

Gobs of hard work put into this truck. Very nice!

 

[John in Utah]

Gobs of hard work put into this truck. Very nice!

Thanks! Waiting for warmer weather to tackle the big things like clutch and knuckles, but happy to have it *mostly* sorted for now

 

[D21FJ60]

This truck is beautiful. Absolutely

 

[John in Utah]

Had a canvas cover made for the existing frame. Local shop that specializes in boat covers did the work and I think it turned out great

 

[John in Utah]

Beginning to tackle all the old window tint. (Thanks for the tips @BHillteq) The bed canopy blind spot is forcing me to use the side mirrors more and seeing through the bad tint at night can be downright dangerous.

I bought a steamer on amazon for $20. Makes it so much easier I highly recommend it if you need to remove a large area of tint - and it’s great for clothes too.

 

[BHillteq]

Beginning to tackle all the old window tint. (Thanks for the tips @BHillteq) The bed canopy blind spot is forcing me to use the side mirrors more and seeing through the bad tint at night can be downright dangerous.

I bought a steamer on amazon for $20. Makes it so much easier I highly recommend it if you need to remove a large area of tint - and it’s great for clothes too.
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Glad it's working out! This Hilux is freaking cool.

 

[John in Utah]

Pulled the pan to chase some oil leaks and may have gotten carried away:

The good news is the rod bearings looked great considering the mileage. New OEM std bearings plastigauge’d withinin spec (13041-54042-02). If you do your rod bearings be smarter than me and don’t buy the first bearing part number that pops up - there are 5 for the 3L - read your repair manual...

Also used this down time to swap in a 10-blade fan off a newer 5LE Hilux I picked up (16361-54131). It’s shallower than stock by about a fingers width, which is the clearance I need to eventually stab a 4 core radiator in

 

[John in Utah]

Made it to the winter gate this weekend without throwing a rod through the block, so I guess my BEB change was successful.

 

[WallE]

Curious about that 5L fan, was the upgrade worth it? Is it any bigger than the OEM 2LTE one?

I've got a 2LTE myself I've been building up to drive down the Pan American highway

 

[John in Utah]

Curious about that 5L fan, was the upgrade worth it? Is it any bigger than the OEM 2LTE one?

I've got a 2LTE myself I've been building up to drive down the Pan American highway

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Hard to say if it’s bigger, since the fans depend more on the chassis than the engine. Not sure what model yours is, LN108 maybe? But safe to assume it’s the same diameter as what you’ve got now - you can see in the picture it’s the same as my stock 3L one (16361-54040).

The hilux/surf radiator and fan shroud are smaller than the cruisers, so a 2H or LJ7# fan won’t fit without mods. I will say the 5LE fan moves a lot more air just by feel and sound, but I’ve already baselined my cooling system pretty well so I can’t see any change to the coolant temp. I was mostly after the increased clearance between the fan and rad, so I have the option of a bigger radiator if I ever go turbo.

 

[John in Utah]

Added some aftermarket gauges. Was excited to find the headlight reminder buzzer is located right behind the shifter boot panel and is perfect to tap into for the gauges - has 12v inputs for ignition and lights, and is powered through the 10A gauges fuse to boot. Connector is standard spades so no need to cut up the factory harness if you don’t want to.

 

[John in Utah]

Digging around behind the dash to put gauges in a found the truck had a factory hand throttle. I guess most diesels do I’m just not used to working on one that isn’t bastardized looks like someone had shoved it up behind the dash when the cable broke, luckily it’s all still available from Toyota. You can even get the pedal assembly from Japan for ~60 bucks; if anyone wants to add it to their US truck let me know I’ll send over the PNs

Operation turbo is nearly done, checking interference with the LJ78 oil cooler, which hangs the oil filter pretty close to the torque rod bracket on the front axle. Looks fine but I think I’ll carry an extra filter on the trail from now on.

Adding a turbo to the 3L is something I’ve gone back and forth on for awhile. It’s risky given the negative results seen on the 2LTE, not to mention the Kms already on this engine. Hopefully my recent cooling system And bottom end maintenance as well as some very conservative tuning (Not upping fuel at all to start) will save the crank and head. This truck will get a 1kzte one day anyway

Opted to spend the big bucks on an NOS turbo cartridge instead of one from eBay. A little disappointed in how Toyota chose to package something that costs as much as this did. No harm no foul I guess.