Oh I also forgot to add to this, i went to a wrecking yard in town this week and I scored a set of power windows, the full switch control panel and control box, power mirrors and their controls, wiring for everything, and some other truck odds and ends from a 94 4runner. i'll be installing all these when I do my center console install here coming soon. it'll be center console going in along with the rest of the sound system. i only want to have to take apart the interior one time to do all this stuff (sound deaden, wiring for windows and sound, speaker installs, amp and wiring install, changing some stuff on the back of the headunit, etc)

 

I fixed my buzzing blinker issue! hopefully for good, we'll have to wait for that to be seen.

i had to remove the steering wheel to get to the multiswitch module behind it (of course i'd also removed the steering column trim panels). with the steering wheel removed, i could then unmount the switch thing from the steering column. it was at this point that i gave up last night, because I discovered that the lower drivers side dash panel also needed to be removed to be able to unplug the switch module from the steering column, as there isn't enough slack in the wires to to pull it off the end of the column without unplugging it. in hindsight, i'm glad this was the case, because this would've been about 400% more frustrating to do on the floormat of the truck.

i moved the whole assembly to the bench and was able to remove the blinker switch mechanism from the module with very little fuss. i was then able to, very carefully over multiple trys, pry the cover off the switch contactor box. it basically uses a small copper bridge to connect a single center power pin to either the left or right blinker circuits. on mine, the point where the left blinker pin makes contact with the sliding copper bar was divoted in and only making contact sometimes. so i cleaned up the whole switch contactor box and replaced all the grease with new dielectric grease. i then sanded down the contactor bar with some 400 grit sandpaper to get it flat and remove the divot if possible. turns out i got got cold feet. i felt the divot was too deep to full remove, so i settled for "good enough', polished it with some 1000 grit, and then reinstalled everything in reverse order. wouldnt you know it... it worked! no more buzzing left blinker. now i can get it inspected with no worries.

heres a few pics of the process and showing the wear on the bar as well as my fix for it.



the divot in the original bar:



contactor pins:



cleaned up as far as i was willing to go. i also stretched that little spring a bit to give it a bit more force on those contact pads and hopefully keep this from happening again:





this really wasnt as bad as i was anticipating. i was dreading the steering wheel removal, thinking i would need a specific tool, but nope, just a little wiggle back and forth and she popped right off. it was also fascinating learning how these switches work, and seeing just how simple each thing was on its own.
i also took apart the window control switch thing i just picked up and figured out how that so cool all the little mechanical devices they used to control motion of small pieces to generate and manipulate electrical signals.

 

next thing to add on this (mostly so someone searching can actually find the info) the part number for an RF1A shifter C clip is 90521-49003. i am pretty sure mine is missing and my transfer case shifter keeps popping out of 4LO because of it. i have a new one on order for a whole $3.46 from the local dealer, hopefully this fixes the issue.

In other news, i cut my exhaust off, and like and idiot, cut it right it front of the axle. now i have to take it all off and weld a downturn onto it. it made my bed hot enough to melt my buddy's fishing net to the bed, and then melted the plastic side-panel/cover between the bed and the frame. this caused it to come loose from the clip and flop around. eventually it folded over from the heat and started hitting the inside of my driver's side rear tire. i really thought my rear differential was giving up the ghost, as this plastic piece reverberated in the newly covered bed due to the sipes in the side of the tire. i tool the driveshaft off yesterday to check for pinion shaft play and felt nothing out of the ordinary. then i discovered this piece of plastic rubbing against the inside of the tire. after a short amount of testing, i'm happy to say i dont have to rebuild my diff, just have to weld a turndown on my exhaust so it doesn't melt anything else.

i may also be picking up an IFS axle housing tomorrow that i can take my time to modify for the elocker rear diff i have. i still need to re-gear the diff, but i found a guy selling a housing {full axle minus the diff) for like $150 so i'm gonna snag it and build it slow. going 4.88s so i can eventually run 33s or 34s comfortably.

lastly, i started my diff breather mod for my current axles. between the snow here and water crossings, i am never confident what i'm gonna get into, so i've removed the old breathers and installed bspp or G1/8 hose barbs to connect fuel line hose to, to both diffs, i'm in the process of running these to the gas tank filler and then t-ing up to the filler cover, where i will drill a hole for a brass particulate filter/breather. this is going to be finished this weekend hopefully. i also added an aluminum channel riveted to the bottom of the plexi on my camper top to give it some strength

 

Nice wood work and updates. Thanks for sharing!

 

got some more work done on the center console. more to come this week too

 

a few more pics from the progress from today. got it set to make the floor mounting brackets. lid will go on next week, and i'll start designing the cup holder, front panel, lid clasp, and console bucket so that i can print them out.

i also fixed the transfer case shifter by reinstalling a new snap ring. somehow the old one got loose from the groove and my shifter kept popping out of gear. got that fixed and now my t-case shifter feels good and locked in again

 

got the lid mounted and mounted the console in the truck. still working on the front panel and cup holder final design before printing them out.

 

Big news in this one, and some frustration.

Replaced both rod and main bearings in the truck, from the bottom, with the engine still mounted. It's doable, and not fun. An M4 rivnut is the perfect size to roll the main bearings out of the block.

Do yourself a favor and pull the block for this task. My dumb ass didn't and it took me 4 days working on it in the evenings to make it happen.

Pics to come of bearings.

I thought I had a rod knock, so I replaced all the bottom end bearings. Every single bearing land on the crank, rod or main, was smooth as glass, with no scoring or anything. But definitely glad I did it because the front main and rear main bearings were not long for this world. Everything was machined 10 thousandths under(as evidenced by the 0.010 on the old bearings, and replacing them with 0.010 bearings with them all plastigaging in spec for oil clearance), so I assume this engine had been gone through in its previous life, cause I doubt it would come like that from the factory.

The worst part about this whole thing is it only took away about half the noise. Just adjusted the valves to 0.007 and 0.011 hot, and brand new main and rod bearings with everything looking pristine and the valve train is still super noisy, to the point I thought I had a rod knock... timing chain was done about 50k ago by me, so possible that its timing chain rattle due to a bad tensioner(metal backed guides looked fine from the top and below), but it definitely sounds like it's coming from rockers for 3 or 4 when listening with my poor man's mechanic stethoscope (a piece of vacuum line). Could also be an exhaust leak but didn't feel anything substantial enough to be detected by hand or with the vacuum line.


Gonna adjust to 0.006 and 0.010 and see if it quiets down.

Painting the center console tonight, so it'll be protected 'til I can get it wrapped in vinyl. Also printing out all the parts for it hopefully this week, then adding power windows, locks, and mirrors!!

Then finishing the sound system and getting it tuned!!

 

as promised, bearing pics:

rod bearings, rod side on left, cap side on right, 1 on top, 4 on bottom. looks like only one had worn totally thru the babbit layer in one small spot.



main bearings, same thing. block side on left, cap side on right, 1(closest to oil pump) on top, 5(rear main seal area) on bottom.



this one is definitely interesting, and possibly the source of the noise on startup. 1 and 2 had some wear in the area directly in line with the alternator and power steering pump. I don't have AC so those are the only off-center accessories. the wear is very clear in that direction. and on 5, the wear is pretty much on the opposite side of the bearings from #1 and 2. 3 and 4 looked pretty good (as in more evenly worn) but still glad I did this.



journals:



all con and main bearing journals were glass smooth and pristine looking, checked a few with my calipers (not calibrated recently but I trust them to ~ 0.0005") and they all seemed fine. thrust bearings also looked good but got replaced anyway, and crank endplay was fine with new bearings. plastigaged every journal for oil clearance and they all fell right in the middle of the tolerance zone with the new bearings.
And now the knocking on startup is totally gone, so it was worth it. I also fixed the major oil leak I had (possible culprit to all of this) so this shouldn't happen again.

 

http://www.teamtoyota4x4.org/archivi...m/4_runner.htm

picked up all the stuff to do power windows, mirrors, and door locks from a 92 4runner from the scrap yard.
the link above is the only place i've been able to find the EWD for the 4runner. the ether3al link for the FSM has been pretty hit or miss lately so i've had to resort to other options. i may end up throwing all of these together to make a full pdf manual if i keep having trouble.

this will also be helpful/inspiration
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...wiring-295623/

 

Tweeter pods finished up and ready to be bolted in place. check out that color/texture match!



and i've started tearing out the interior of the truck to install EVERYTHING. power windows, power locks, power mirrors, woofers, tweeters in pods, full sound deadening, etc. all power stuff has been validated as functional and is ready for install!





Gonna be a busy week full of picture taking to post up here as the build progresses to the tuning stage!
if anyone knows a decent shop in the reno/tahoe area that can help me dial in the tune, i'd appreciate it!

 

power mirrors getting installed (old one is the tiny black one on the right):



door speakers and new mounting rings getting mocked up for placement to clear internal door structure, existing holes in door panels, window rails, wiring location for speakers, etc:



finished half the sound treatment of the doors yesterday, got all the old amp wiring out, and basically everything cleaned up and ready to be cld'd, ccf'd mlv'd, powered, and reinstalled. got the power window regulators installed, along with power locks and the new larger power mirrors. gonna try to have the whole cab cld'd by the end of the day, tip to tail. and then at least get my wiring lengths set for all the power components so i can begin building the harnesses for everything.

 

The main wiring is finally done. I now have fully functional power locks, windows, and mirrors. Everything works as anticipated from factory.



The wiring took me way longer than expected, but I can't half ass anything so I did it right and now need to take the time to record the extensions I made to the wiring harnesses, for future use. Bulkhead door plugs will be here on Tuesday to finish out the wiring.

This wiring project makes the car audio part of this seem trivial. After spending a full week figuring out and building a wiring harness for 3 separate electrical systems that all intertwine, from different vehicles, I feel confident that sound deadening and running a power and ground for and an amp will be in my wheel house...
Pics to come tomorrow

 

building out the wiring harness:





my crazy dirty workbenches:


mocking up in the car for determining wiring lengths. i think i probably installed and removed the center console like 10 times through this.


full harness wrapped in Tesa tape and ready to go in while i wait for the door fittings. its temporarily installed so i can use the truck.


once the bulkhead stuff is done, i'll final wrap the whole harness and do the final install. i'm not 100% happy with the power situation on it, but what I have will work for now, and i will eventually add a dual-powered fuse block with switched and constant power that i can pull power from for this whole system.

 

still waiting on bulkhead connectors so i can drill holes in the doors and cab of the truck, but i got some other stuff done while waiting.
i'd forgotten i needed to fix my seats so they have 4 bolts in them instead of 3. so i remembered that. then did it. no pics because it was lame. had to drill and rivnut some stuff, blah blah, etc. spent lots of time on this.

wrapped the harness in the door and got the clips on so i could figure out how i wanted to start sealing up the doors and adding deadening. wrapped up door-wise harness. i shouldn't need to take this out again to do the door plug, so i also went ahead and did some of the sealing of the GAPING holes in the doors. only one hole is left now so i can figure out what to do about it as that's where the speaker will go, but that means less work later.




also got a (crappy) video of the locks and windows working.

 

Finally finished the audio/interior project. Or like 98% done. Will post a photo summary soon. It sounds world's better.

 

in cab wiring is now done enough to lay down MLV. all wiring at amp left long to make room for routing to amp.




doors were removed to drill holes in the cab and doors for window, lock, mirror, woofer wiring to run thru and be removable.




as key and peele say, "Can't go back middle now". A-pillars almost ready for tweeter pods and tweets.


Cap'd at 47uF because the f3 on these tweeters is higher than i would like... i'll likely eventually get some other ones, but we'll see how these tune out first.


more install pics:
wiring into "a-pillars" to connect to doors



tweets in pods in a-pillars fully installed

when your hole saw isnt big enough, you sometimes have to use a "holed" saw, and some elbow grease

doors prior to MLV. ended up having to remove some of the foam on the high spots due to the thickness of everything.

door panels finished and installed!! speaker rings mounted, mlv in the door, all the stuff.


i'll have a full photo shoot of the finished product once i finish tying up loose ends.

got everything installed very hastily and set my gains on the amp using the DMM, at a 95% of max power rating for now until i can spend some real time on the tune itself. set some basic crossover points and slopes just based on the tech data and output curves from Focal. then i used the headunit's built in mic to set an auto time alignment and auto eq curve, with the mic stuck to my forehead. came out with a tune i'm ok running until i get some time with it. time alignment could maybe be a bit better, but i just don't know enough about enough to know where to go with it by ear until i download REW and start playing around with everything. i also have a ground loop or power source clicking that cycles with engine rpm. potentially a poor amp ground, but my money is on the ground for the head unit currently.

long term i want some help with everything for sure, tune and gains and whatnot, but the install is pretty much done!!!

 

long time since i've posted, and wanted to save this info somewhere.

LONG story, but picked up a 7mge from a guy for cheap, but needs a full bottom end rebuild. so that sucked to find the spun rod bearing.
also got a w58 bellhousing and was wracking my brain and scouring the internet trying to find a w58 clutch fork for a 7mge motor. turns out all the clutch components are the same between w series stuff except the bellhousing. so my current w56 clutch, flywheel, slave cylinder, fork, and TO bearing are all interchangeable. saves me a few hundred on the swap cause my clutch is a marlin HD and totally fine.

will post a ton more stuff soooooon

https://toyotaminis.com/forum/thread...mission.11902/

 

missing the camper top off look of this truck. but a small lift, some hammering and bigger tires, and a regear will look incredible on ol' Shirlee

 

A lot has happened since the last update on Shirlee.
I will break it up into a few posts consisting of:

1. 2 camping/wheeling trips of note(Bishop/Mammoth and White Rock Lake)
2. A modular camper bed platform setup build with very few pictures and lots of pondering
3. An epic southwest camping trip to Sedona, the Grand canyon, and Zion, with a link to actual good pictures because I'm lazy, and this is a truck-centric forum
4. Current exploits into the realm of upgrades/maintenance, and engine swappery.