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I know it's been covered a bunch already, but my glow screen light doesn't come on until it gets low teens. Do you not have a choke on it? Mine has a choke. Another thing to keep your eye on is the Oil Pressure gauge. You have the same exact interior as me (including the wall to wall carpeting.) The dude who had mine before me installed a mechanical oil pressure gauge and I am so happy he did! It is awesome. I'd recommend that upgrade. When is the last time a quart of BG244 was run through the fuel system? I get white smoke when I'm getting build up. If you're having trouble passing emissions, that stuff is voodoo! Our rides are almost identical, down to the diving board front bumper and the PTO winch. Mine has a different paint job but is a high roof too. I am getting some clicking on my sunroof. I think the gears on it are stripping out, but I haven't torn into it yet. I am looking for the big hose that connects the turbo to the air cleaner. If you find a good source for parts, I would appreciate the info. Just a suggestion, but welding a full exhaust up in a driveway or garage sucks if you don't have a bender. I'd suggest you head to AA Performance Muffler on south Broadway. Would take them a few hours to whip up an exhaust, and a full exhaust will probably be under $500. Most of us in the Denver metro use them, because they are awesome.
Is it the nut on the stud that you can't get out? And are you trying to take the entire exhaust manifold off, or just the downpipes off the back of the turbo? If it's the downpipe, I'd simply drive it to AA like that and let them give it a go, bringing a couple new exhaust studs with you to replace those. I'm quite sure that they are used to dealing with stuck hardware.
As to your slowly losing power note--fuel filter. Toyota can get them, @beno probably has some lying around, and NAPA carries a filter that will work. I carry a spare all the time, because if you get bad fuel it's a serious headache, and even worse if you don't have a fresh filter in the truck with you.
That's a great looking 61! That's two that I know of in Golden, another 3 in the Denver Metro, and two up in the mountains (including the one in my driveway). The HJ61 is definitely one of the best cruisers Toyota ever made. The 12HT is just so incredibly well matched to the 60 series it's scary.
Dan
Do you guys have a good place to find parts in Colorado? I am in need of the hose that connects the air cleaner to the turbo. Mine was previously broken and fixed with silicon, (I didn't know this when I bought it) and is now sporting a sweet duct tape patch job.
And you can add one in Loveland, Co. Although I bought mine in Denver, so it might already be accounted for in your list.
Nice!! Congrats on finding a sweet ride! Another HJ61 in Colorado! I'm up in Loveland. I've had mine for about 2 1/2 years. I have 395,000km on mine
. Also thanks for the heads-up on fuel filter a few posts back - I've been slacking on my replies, but I've got a new one & the bosch primer pump going in soon - maybe tomorrow depending on my energy levels. They were meant to go on this weekend, but I spent the entire weekend trying to hunt down electrical gremlins instead 
Yea, your right. The chokenis just connected to the pedal. But it's nice to be able to chokenis and walk away for a second.
I'd be happy to let you take a look at my rig
Thanks for the tip!
. Averaged 25 mpg there & back on 1 tank - pretty excited about that. The cruiser performed perfectly, had no problems, and got a bunch of locals really excited about the rig - I got probably 20+ comments over three days, and I barely even drove it anywhere -- every time I went outside to grab something, there just happened to be someone there, and they said something every time. Pretty fun experience, and the views were awesome I unfortunately forgot to take any pics of the cruiser, but here's one at the top of a mountain for good measure.
head unit doesn't output any sound to the right front channel. 
Just buy a cheap-ish MIG welder and have at a bunch of scrap metal after watching some YouTube vids! (although having a teacher certainly helps a lot) I learned to weld just for this - it's not that hard as long as no one can see how s***ty your welds are. Also invest in a grinder if you haven't already - you're gonna need it for a while
/ MORON ). My guess is that he f---ed something up with the wiring when he did whatever he did there. I did figure out that the Light Control Relay (90987-01004) was nonfunctional (which I replaced and it still didn't fix the issue) I'm far from an electrical genius (actually, I'm far from even basic competence, probably) so I can't figure out what's truly wrong...and wiring diagrams are still a foreign language to me. Some saturday when the weather sucks I'll buckle down and hopefully figure this issue out once and for all. But for now -- I wired in a switch spliced from the ACC fuse to the PWR wire in the right front running light. The rest of the lights are wired in series -- RHF, LHF, LHR, RHR, so at least I won't get pulled over (for this) (for now).
).I have a 1987 JDM HJ-61 with the 12H-T, 263,000 km on the odometer with zero previous transmission issues, and all of the sudden, I'm having a terrible whining/grinding noise coming from my transmission, an H55f-K052, which the search feature on MUD tells me means I have a 37 ring : 10 pinion, w/ open diff. Of course this happens a week before a giant rock climbing/road trip from Denver to Vegas—although I suppose this beats getting stuck in bumf—k nowhere Utah or Nevada with a shot transmission and no cell signal.
I did an extensive search of H55 issues on here, and it seems wildly surprising that an H55 with this few kms would be having this kind of issue. Any pointers on what to try would be hugely helpful—or if worse comes to worse, a great shop to get this fixed in the Denver area
Symptoms:
- nasty whine/grind in 1st through 3rd, although it's inconsistent in 1st and 2nd.
- 3rd has popped out of gear a few times with quite a loud bang. This has happened under both high and low loads and throughout the RPM range.
- 5th makes a nasty sound intermittently
- 4th is perfect, zero sound, zero whine.
- sounds go away as soon as I put the clutch in
What I've tried/checked so far
- checked transmission fluid level (full—immediately some poured out as soon as I pulled the fill plug).
- adding or removing pressure from the shift lever does not change the sound or symptoms at all.
- some fine sparkles in the gear oil that spilled out, but no chunks. I don't have any extra gear oil so I'm not going to do a full drain until it comes in tomorrow, although I have the bypass/equalization hose so I doubt it would be too low without noticing on the transmission as well). I could be wrong about how much sparkle is in (i.e., it might be BAD), but I've never had any amount of sparkles in any kind of oil I've changed so I don't have a frame of reference.
- checked xfer case level (low, but not sure how much. I have some MT-90 coming in tomorrow to check.)
- whine is same in 4Lo as it is in 2Hi
- clutch fluid is full and clean, and no sign of leaks from either the master or slave cylinders. Clutch action seems totally normal.
Other Relevant Info:
- I've had no issues with the transmission or transfer case previously, it's always shfited perfectly with no signs of grinding or hard shifts.
- Just did a new carpet install which involved removing the shift boot for fitment, which I know can occasionally put some pressure on...some kind of spring that I forget what it's called but came up in my searching. But since adding/removing pressure to the shift lever doesn't do anything, I'm doubtful that this is the cause.
- Just did my valve clearances, went great and had zero issues, although I can't imagine how it could be connected. There were only 3 out of spec even after 4 years since the last time they were done.
- Truck sat for over a year (15 mos, IIRC) getting (a f'n saga of) rust repair and a full respray. But I've been through a few tanks of diesel since then with no issues, and as I said, the fluids were all full and no signs of leakage from either the transmission or transfer case.
- I've had this truck for 5 years now, and the mechanicals have been flawless, no signs of poor treatment by previous owners.
- I do most of my own wrenching, but don't have the time or space in my garage right now to undertake a rebuild myself
- AFAIK has never had anything larger than 33s mounted, it's on my 31 winter set right now
Here's a link to a video I just shot driving around my neighborhood. The sound is fairly representative, although it sounds MUCH louder in the video than in real life—I think because my phone was touching the steering wheel.
Someone please tell me I'm a huge idiot and I'm missing something simple and don't have to rebuild or replace my transmission, I just spent a metric-ton of $$$ over the last year doing a full course of rust repair and a full respray. And then new carpet, full dynamat, new rubbers and seals, all new glass, some electrical repairs, new snorkel, new decals, new emblems, new grille and headlight buckets,...the list goes on.
