Builds Evolution of a Land Cruiser: My 80's build thread (1 Viewer)

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Whats your plans with the head? You find a good machine shop in Sac?

Plan is to drop it off at a local shop for the typical testing and adjustment. I've heard of two good shops so far, still haven't called them for a quote though...
 
Intake manifold - how the heck did you get the whole thing out? In Doug's DVD it looks like the main engine harness runs through it. Seems like a nightmare trying to chase down all those plugs to disconnect them. Was it difficult to get the whole thing out?

It's a major PITA and probably if I had watched Doug's DVD first I would have left it in. Because aside from the work - it's easy to jack stuff up when making all those disconnects. One of my buddies snapped off knock sensor #2 (~$70). So - clean or no - leave the bottom half in there. It looks like you're already past this point - so kudos to you for getting the DVD. I was following FSM.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the head bolts lately. Buying new ones, reusing the old ones, or going as far as buying new ARP studs. I think my head is going to explode (no pun intended :D). Not sure what to do here. The OEM bolts are freaking expensive. $13.31 each x 14 bolts = $186 for something that most argue you don't even need to replace, so I have no idea what to do. I'm not ordering anything until everything is torn apart so I know exactly what I need to order.

Yeah Toyota's price is insane. I purchased new because I'm a noob and I got them for $55 through rockauto I think.

Torquing - did you do the two 90º sweeps like it says in the FSM or did you go a little tighter?

I torqued two 90º sweeps. I didn't have the balls to reef on it any tighter than that.

You're beyond this point too - but hopefully you've figured that it's not necessary to disconnect your throttle cables from throttle body when removing that. I had to go back in after my HG job and do fuel injector gaskets. That's when I realized that you can just disconnect throttle body and all the cable clips and 'lay' the throttle body out of the way on passenger side of engine compartment. To me - the minor inconvenience of working around it is worth avoiding the major inconvenience of reconnecting the cable barrels at the end when you just want to be done. To much needle nose plier work for me.

Sometime we'll have to meet. I'm in Sac too. If I haven't already given you tip to use Parrish Automotive for machining - they're awesome guys. I've got 1500mi on my HG job and so far so good!:clap:

Great thread going here - you've got me inspired.
 
Oh and I have been debating on what to do about my failing paint. Was recently inspired by dingo thread to line the whole truck this summer. First I was thinking Al's and then read through Monstaliner's material and I think I really like their product.

Just got the approval from:princess: to do whatever I want. So - this summer I'm deflaring and considering the same two greens you're considering and also the brown eyed girl color. Anyway - if it works - maybe we set up a monstaliner party and help eachother out. Let me know if you're interested. I'm game.

I'm super busy - but if I calendar something far enough in advance I can usually pull together a plan.

Cheers!:beer: ~Jeremy
 
HEAD GASKET - DAY 3

Took a few days off from working on the truck, back at it again! I've got about 7 hours into it so far; about 2+ hours each day after work. Should be able to have the head pulled off in the next session.

Started off by removing the fan/clutch assembly, fan shroud, all belts and pulleys since I'll be replacing them.

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Cranked engine to 0º TDC (30mm socket) and removed distributor...

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Then alternator...which was pretty damn hard to squeeze out! Followed by radiator inlet pipe and lastly the alternator bracket.

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It was then time to remove the lower intake manifold from the head. Nothing exciting here, just a bunch or hard-to-reach bolts. Doug had the right idea. Leave the harness plugged in and just move the manifold to the side. Use a strap attached to the rim to hold it in place.

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Here you can see the port for your PHH way at the back of the head. I'll be bypassing the blasted thing completely.

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Unplugged the 3 sensors at the head and left them in for now...

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Valve cover came off easily after that. Time for the fun stuff!

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Pretty cool to start to get a view of the internals :clap:

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Caps are marked and numbered for intake and exhaust sides

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FSM refers a lot to the "1 dot" and "2 dot" marks on the back of the cam gears. This is what they look like. You'll want these lined up when the crank is set to 0º

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1-dot marks towards the outside

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Removed the chain tensioner next and used this setup to remove the distributor gear and remove the chain gear from the camshafts. Big wrench at the back with a 19mm socket up front.

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Timing gear removed with zip ties to hold it in place. This part makes me nervous, as does removing the camshafts, so I'll stop here for tonight. Tackle that tomorrow or the next day. Time for step #6 :beer: :beer:

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Oh yeah, your best friend in all this madness. The holy FSM

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It's looking good - wish I'd taken as good of photos as you are. Fun stuff! Also wish I had had the time you've got. I put in several 16hr days because it was my daily driver in a borrowed garage. Sheesh!
 
It's a major PITA and probably if I had watched Doug's DVD first I would have left it in. Because aside from the work - it's easy to jack stuff up when making all those disconnects. One of my buddies snapped off knock sensor #2 (~$70). So - clean or no - leave the bottom half in there. It looks like you're already past this point - so kudos to you for getting the DVD. I was following FSM.

Yeah Toyota's price is insane. I purchased new because I'm a noob and I got them for $55 through rockauto I think.

I torqued two 90º sweeps. I didn't have the balls to reef on it any tighter than that.

You're beyond this point too - but hopefully you've figured that it's not necessary to disconnect your throttle cables from throttle body when removing that. I had to go back in after my HG job and do fuel injector gaskets. That's when I realized that you can just disconnect throttle body and all the cable clips and 'lay' the throttle body out of the way on passenger side of engine compartment. To me - the minor inconvenience of working around it is worth avoiding the major inconvenience of reconnecting the cable barrels at the end when you just want to be done. To much needle nose plier work for me.

Sometime we'll have to meet. I'm in Sac too. If I haven't already given you tip to use Parrish Automotive for machining - they're awesome guys. I've got 1500mi on my HG job and so far so good!:clap:

Great thread going here - you've got me inspired.

Thanks for all the tips! Too bad the throttle cables are all disconnected. Didn't think about leaving the whole thing in there! :doh:

I don't even wanna think about trying to chase down that harness. Glad I got the DVD first. Did you have any issues with removing the camshafts and holding the gear/chain in place? This seems like the only parts of the job where something really go wrong.


Oh and I have been debating on what to do about my failing paint. Was recently inspired by dingo thread to line the whole truck this summer. First I was thinking Al's and then read through Monstaliner's material and I think I really like their product.

Just got the approval from:princess: to do whatever I want. So - this summer I'm deflaring and considering the same two greens you're considering and also the brown eyed girl color. Anyway - if it works - maybe we set up a monstaliner party and help eachother out. Let me know if you're interested. I'm game.

I'm super busy - but if I calendar something far enough in advance I can usually pull together a plan.

Cheers!:beer: ~Jeremy

Good stuff, sweet! And yeah we'll have to meet up once I get this thing running. Have you been to any of the Gold Country Cruisers meets yet? Hopefully I can make the next one to meet all the local guys. Paint party, ha that sounds like fun. Where do you plan on painting yours, outdoors? All I have is a single car garage, but I might end up having to do it in my driveway since space will be tight. Still not sure what to do with the door handles though, might disassemble the whole piece and paint them separately.
 
It's looking good - wish I'd taken as good of photos as you are. Fun stuff! Also wish I had had the time you've got. I put in several 16hr days because it was my daily driver in a borrowed garage. Sheesh!
Thanks Jeremy! And yeah that's tough. If this was my daily driver I don't think I could have done it myself. I would have had to pay a shop to do all the work as I'm sure it would involve me missing work. Thank goodness for having 3 cars, including the wife's!
 
No issues with cam shaft and timing chain. I did notice from your picture that it looks like the zip tie is through the sprocket and the chain. Clever idea - I had min separated - took the sprocket out and just used the white out marks to re register them when I put back together.

Use a bungee cord attached to garage ceiling to connect to timing chain - so the slack doesn't allow the chain to get bound up or otherwise goofy down below. Then as you lift the head off - have a neighbor quickly unhook and re hook the chain - keeping tension on it with their other free hand. It's not difficult.

Yep I'll need to paint outside too. No garage. Though I might be able to scare one up from a good friend - it's large, deep and big enough for two cruisers.

Haven't met up with the GCC guys yet - would love to - and have even been working on a logo for that club.

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You're doing a nice job - keep up the updates - it's helping me re live a traumatic week of my life in January! :eek: I hadn't ever changed more than an alternator prior to tackling this project myself - so it was scary.

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Keep the great pics and notes coming! That way if I ever have to do mine, I can just link over to this thread.:flipoff2:

And, if we ever meet up, you are my official camera man.:D
 
No issues with cam shaft and timing chain. I did notice from your picture that it looks like the zip tie is through the sprocket and the chain. Clever idea - I had min separated - took the sprocket out and just used the white out marks to re register them when I put back together.

Use a bungee cord attached to garage ceiling to connect to timing chain - so the slack doesn't allow the chain to get bound up or otherwise goofy down below. Then as you lift the head off - have a neighbor quickly unhook and re hook the chain - keeping tension on it with their other free hand. It's not difficult.

Yep I'll need to paint outside too. No garage. Though I might be able to scare one up from a good friend - it's large, deep and big enough for two cruisers.

Haven't met up with the GCC guys yet - would love to - and have even been working on a logo for that club.

You're doing a nice job - keep up the updates - it's helping me re live a traumatic week of my life in January! :eek: I hadn't ever changed more than an alternator prior to tackling this project myself - so it was scary.

Yeah still not sure how to handle the timing gear and chain. I zip tied it for now but didn't pull it all the way off the camshaft. Maybe I'll try some wooden shims, although I do like the idea of strapping it to the roof!

Keep the great pics and notes coming! That way if I ever have to do mine, I can just link over to this thread.:flipoff2:

And, if we ever meet up, you are my official camera man.:D

Thanks :cheers: Haha, I think I've become the default photographer every time we go out wheeling!
 
HEAD GASKET - DAY 4

Head is OFF!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know why I feel so happy, I'm not even halfway done. Ah hell, it's still a lot of work. Step #6 as I write this :beer: It only took me about 9hrs and a full array of cuss words to get it off. Cuss words sure come in handy when tackling a job like this. Ok, on to the details. Let me know if you guys see something that doesn't look right on the head/block/gasket :cheers:

Time to remove the cams. This part hard me nervous because of the stress and cracking that can occur but it really wasn't bad. Just take it slow and trust in the FSM.

Here's the 'service bolt' that the FSM calls for to secure the sub-gear to the driven gear. M6x1.00, 20mm long.

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I also took this time to further secure the timing chain and gear. I ended up running a zip tie through the hole where the chain tensioner was. Wrapped it around the chain guide and zipped it up. Ended up working well. We'll see how it works for reassembly. This is how Doug had it in his DVD, I think.

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To start removing the exhaust camshaft, the FSM says to position the 2-dot marks at a 35º angle. This is the angle that ended up working for me:

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Remove the bearing caps per the FSM. You'll end up with 2 caps at the end holding down all the pressure. I just loosened these in 1/4 turn increments and it came out with no issues.

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Exhaust camshaft out!

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Now it's on to the intake side. You need a 25º angle on this one. Here's how I set it:

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The purpose of the 35º and 25º angles is to have the cam lobes of 4 cylinders off the lifters and the lobes of 2 cylinders ON the lifters. Then you evenly loosen the last two.

Cam lobes pushing down on the lifter

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Both camshafts out!

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Now it was time to loosen the head bolts. Didn't take any pictures here. Straight-forward, just follow the order in the FSM. A long breaker bar will be really handy here. 12-point socket required, 6-point won't fit. After the bolts were removed I easily lifted out the head. Didn't need to pry anywhere. It was tough to lift out by myself but certainly doable.

Now the time we've all been waiting for, the head gasket!!! Gotta say, this thing was A LOT worse than I anticipated, WOW! I used to think doing this as preventative maintenance was overkill. I was wrong! And I thought it drove great. That's either a testament to Toyota build quality or I just have really low standards when it came to the 80's performance....or both :)

Cylinder #1. This one was DONE! Check out the severe deformity of the firing ring.

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Cylinder #2, same type of deformity.

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Cylinder #3, same thing

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Cylinder #4, same thing

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Cylinder #5, same ol' story

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And the infamous #6, a little more firing ring separation on this one

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Water ports towards the back of #6. These sections were toast.

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Continued....

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This head bolt in the back corner was tough to remove. Bolt was covered in crud. This metal piece was completely loose from the gasket and I think it let stuff seep into the bolt hole.

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2nd-to-last head bolt on the passenger side. FULL of crud.

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Back of the block and the transmission housing. You can see the dried up puddle where coolant was leaking out.

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And here's the front part of the gasket, around the timing chain housing. This piece was destroyed!

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Metal part of the gasket was lifting away.

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Some dried up gasket material towards the front. Is this normal? Did it come from the factory with gasket sealant up here?

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Another shot of the timing gear and chain showing how I secured it to the rail.

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Victory shot of the final carnage :clap:

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And the parts table. Where would I be without this little table??? :hmm:

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And that's it for today. I didn't even bother taking a closer look at the head. Just plopped it on some cardboard pieces. Stay tuned for more details...
 
Where can one find a FSM?

There happen to be two posts relating to a 96 fsm dated today in 80 series tech - free download. I would give you the link but I'm on my phone. I downloaded the one from Delancy. Don't know what year you need but this should work for the newer years.
 
Man your doing a great job. Keep it up.

Thanks!

Where can one find a FSM?

There happen to be two posts relating to a 96 fsm dated today in 80 series tech - free download. I would give you the link but I'm on my phone. I downloaded the one from Delancy. Don't know what year you need but this should work for the newer years.

Yup, you can download it here:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/80-series-tech/716610-1996-fsm-pdf-3.html#post8408868
 
There happen to be two posts relating to a 96 fsm dated today in 80 series tech - free download. I would give you the link but I'm on my phone. I downloaded the one from Delancy. Don't know what year you need but this should work for the newer years.

Thanks, but I need it for a 3FE.
 
Well not much activity on the HG job lately. Just been starting to slowly clean the old gasket material and the pistons. I'll post some pics when it's all clean. Then it will be time to determine the condition of the block.

But here is an update of sorts. And it's somewhat related to my 80 since he'll be my new little companion everywhere I go with the 80. We adopted this little guy last week so needless to say he's been taking up much of my time! He's a shelter rescue. They estimate he's about 4 months old, so he's gonna be a BIG dog. He's definitely got some Lab in him, what else we don't know. I'm thinking a bit of shepherd or pitbull?

Introducing: Gunner :)
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Awesome dog! Lucky guy gets to ride in a sweet truck. It should be a law to use only HD photos, they look awesome.
 
Gunner looks so happy. Do the blocks go bad? I thought the Aluminum head would warp before the cast block?
 

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