hey all, been meaning to join here for the past 15 years or do. used to be active on offroadexpress till life & work got in the way. then had a major health issue 3 years ago and am still learning how to function again.
first off, apologies for the wall of text. it's just how my head works unfortunately, try as I might I just can't do the short version.
anyways...Ive got a 1987 LJ71 that I swapped a 1uz into 20 something years ago, back when I was a 2nd year apprentice who hadn't yet learned why some things should be left to professionals.
suffice to say there were many things I should've differently - the past 22 years have been and endless cycle of having a working & mostly functional truck for a few months at a time, followed by a costly malfunction that sees it pushed into storage while I spend a year or so sulking about it rather than just fixing it properly.
Just off the top of my head, in the 20 years since I got it running it's covered all of 80 000km and it owes me roughly $22k. Admittedly I haven't been gentle with it by means...and it had 250 000km when I bought it.
I've overheated it several times, torched the wiring loom, fried the ECU, welded the battery to the bonnet, broken a couple of driveshafts, stripped 5 rear diffs, tried and cracked 3 sets of custom headers (before figuring out that 1.5mm mild steel wasnt a good idea), snapped a cambeltburst three different radiator....and only ever done one actual 4wd trip with it. also it's had a squeaking release bearing the whole damn time too.
like I say, it's never actually been "finished" per se. And I've only got myself to blame.
so with that background info, where I'm currently at is it's been basically parked since a few months before I ended up in hospital 3yrs ago. I've gotten it running a couple of times & done a few quick trips to town etc but haven't made it road legal.
I'm medically unfit to work for the time being so can't earn a wage...and it limits being able to buy the parts I need to fix things "the right way". I do, however, have a lot of free time. so "the wrong way" is a viable option...
The issue I'm up against is each time I drive it I remember just how bad a shape it's in - it's seriously lacking on just basic maintenance & upkeep. This time around I had to replace the fuel pump before it'd even start, as well as flush the rust from the tank....and that led to me realising I'd never gotten around to ever adding a prefilter to the line. oops. scratch one Bosch pump.
Normally when it first starts after sitting for a year or so, the release bearing screeches brutally for a minute or so till the grease frees up and starts working again. then it settles down to a constant, very audible squeaking. Which isn't too big a hassle once you get moving since the gearbox is worn badly enough now that it'll happily jump out of every gear except 3rd & reverse. Oil has been replaced regularly over the years (its always leaked, badly) and I've never found anything other than furry bits on the magnet. no teeth....
I'd have fixed it if not for the fact I didn't ever clearance the firewall enough to be able to undo any of the bellhousing bolts...and did such a horrendous job of the loom that I've never dared unplug it since it's all the same colour wire and all the terminals are crimped rather than soldered. Worse than Lucas wiring.
In other words I've spent the past 20 years putting off dealing with the mistakes I made in setting up the adapter plate spacing & fork pivot length before any of it even went into the frame. Once the engine & gearbox come out I'll have to redo basically everything before it can go back again.
Sorry, rambling again.
Basically what I have been trying to find out online, without much success, is whether or not I'm better to rebuild the stock R150F JDM gearbox (it's an odd model as far as I can tell), focus on replacing with it something like a R151 from a LN130 Surf, or potentially find out which parts if any could be interchanged from another Toyota box into the R150F.
The key thing here is cost. I simply cannot afford to do the sensible thing and give it to a specialist or to chunk $2.5k on a used unit. My eventual plan once I'm earning a wage again is to take it right apart and do everything it needs - seals, bearings & brakes etc. Until then I just need to be able to trust being able to leave my driveway if needs be without it dumping it's guts all over the road.
And turns out Google isn't much help when trying to learn if things can be done improperly. I'm hoping someone here might be able to give me some pointers on what might work in this situation - I don't need to be told to just spend X amount on it, sensible option or not.
So...yeah. as before, apologies for the giant post. I've tried to keep it brief but I'm fairly sure I've failed. sorry.
Cheers
(....pics for context. hah)
first off, apologies for the wall of text. it's just how my head works unfortunately, try as I might I just can't do the short version.
anyways...Ive got a 1987 LJ71 that I swapped a 1uz into 20 something years ago, back when I was a 2nd year apprentice who hadn't yet learned why some things should be left to professionals.
suffice to say there were many things I should've differently - the past 22 years have been and endless cycle of having a working & mostly functional truck for a few months at a time, followed by a costly malfunction that sees it pushed into storage while I spend a year or so sulking about it rather than just fixing it properly.
Just off the top of my head, in the 20 years since I got it running it's covered all of 80 000km and it owes me roughly $22k. Admittedly I haven't been gentle with it by means...and it had 250 000km when I bought it.
I've overheated it several times, torched the wiring loom, fried the ECU, welded the battery to the bonnet, broken a couple of driveshafts, stripped 5 rear diffs, tried and cracked 3 sets of custom headers (before figuring out that 1.5mm mild steel wasnt a good idea), snapped a cambeltburst three different radiator....and only ever done one actual 4wd trip with it. also it's had a squeaking release bearing the whole damn time too.
like I say, it's never actually been "finished" per se. And I've only got myself to blame.
so with that background info, where I'm currently at is it's been basically parked since a few months before I ended up in hospital 3yrs ago. I've gotten it running a couple of times & done a few quick trips to town etc but haven't made it road legal.
I'm medically unfit to work for the time being so can't earn a wage...and it limits being able to buy the parts I need to fix things "the right way". I do, however, have a lot of free time. so "the wrong way" is a viable option...
The issue I'm up against is each time I drive it I remember just how bad a shape it's in - it's seriously lacking on just basic maintenance & upkeep. This time around I had to replace the fuel pump before it'd even start, as well as flush the rust from the tank....and that led to me realising I'd never gotten around to ever adding a prefilter to the line. oops. scratch one Bosch pump.
Normally when it first starts after sitting for a year or so, the release bearing screeches brutally for a minute or so till the grease frees up and starts working again. then it settles down to a constant, very audible squeaking. Which isn't too big a hassle once you get moving since the gearbox is worn badly enough now that it'll happily jump out of every gear except 3rd & reverse. Oil has been replaced regularly over the years (its always leaked, badly) and I've never found anything other than furry bits on the magnet. no teeth....
I'd have fixed it if not for the fact I didn't ever clearance the firewall enough to be able to undo any of the bellhousing bolts...and did such a horrendous job of the loom that I've never dared unplug it since it's all the same colour wire and all the terminals are crimped rather than soldered. Worse than Lucas wiring.
In other words I've spent the past 20 years putting off dealing with the mistakes I made in setting up the adapter plate spacing & fork pivot length before any of it even went into the frame. Once the engine & gearbox come out I'll have to redo basically everything before it can go back again.
Sorry, rambling again.
Basically what I have been trying to find out online, without much success, is whether or not I'm better to rebuild the stock R150F JDM gearbox (it's an odd model as far as I can tell), focus on replacing with it something like a R151 from a LN130 Surf, or potentially find out which parts if any could be interchanged from another Toyota box into the R150F.
The key thing here is cost. I simply cannot afford to do the sensible thing and give it to a specialist or to chunk $2.5k on a used unit. My eventual plan once I'm earning a wage again is to take it right apart and do everything it needs - seals, bearings & brakes etc. Until then I just need to be able to trust being able to leave my driveway if needs be without it dumping it's guts all over the road.
And turns out Google isn't much help when trying to learn if things can be done improperly. I'm hoping someone here might be able to give me some pointers on what might work in this situation - I don't need to be told to just spend X amount on it, sensible option or not.
So...yeah. as before, apologies for the giant post. I've tried to keep it brief but I'm fairly sure I've failed. sorry.
Cheers
(....pics for context. hah)
