The 6 Million Dollar Tundra Revival Story

Thanks to @Professional Hand Model for the idea, I had to up-level his 4 million dollar revival so am doing a 6 million dollar Tundra Refresh.

I have always wanted a 1st Gen Tundra and have always admired my neighbor's 'Phantom Grey Pearl' Crew Cab Limited TRD Offroad 4WD and one day let him know if he ever wanted to sell that I would be interested - it turned out his new truck was en route, thus I am now the owner!

The truck is amazing, a great used vehicle to own. Garage kept it's entire life, mostly highway miles, never off road, and it was maintained by the book with records from 2006 to present. The body is very close to perfect, paint is shiny, interior with leather seats and carpets without blemishes. Unbelievable time machine I say!

Of course after 16 years of life and 133,000 miles there were issues to address - this thread will be a walk through bringing this time machine back to its original glory in appearance and function. My dream has come true!

 

Nice Tundra.

 

I will admit that I am a bit of a ringer in the car revival process, in the last 5 years since I retired from work I have done about 18 cars. All have been in the 1997-2005 model years, mostly BMWs, Hondas, and now my second Toyota. The first Toyota was another time machine, a 2000 Tacoma TRD 4WD V6 manual transmission that my son is now driving. These cars have all been at the precipice of needing so much mechanical work that their owners knew better than to keep them, and I was able to get them for a reasonable price. Usually as I am reviving a car someone in the family or a friend decide they want the car and they go off to their new homes. I think I will keep this Tundra.

I start with a detailed inspection, cleaning the interior and engine bay, looking for problem areas. Then the car goes up in the air and the wheels and brake drums come off. As a home remodeler once said, there are always surprises, and almost never are they good!

Here is my inspection and refresh check-list for a new-to-me car:

Owner Make Model Year Color Trans

VIN:
Plate:
Production:
Engine:
Trans:
Color:
0-60:
Hp:

Out:
Smog
register
tires
road force balance
align
Dealer - check that all recalls have been done

Look Up:

Parts:

Engine:
clean engine compartment
check hood liner
clean windshield washer reservoir
check battery-CCA, water level
engine air filter
cabin air filter
clean evap
check motor mounts
oil and filter change
PS fluid change
brake fluid change
transmission fluid change, complete flush
check belts
check/replace timing belt
check CCV/PCV
check computer for stored codes
check for oil leaks
fuel system cleaner/send out fuel injectors
spark plugs
check/replace water pump
check/replace pulleys
check/replace tensioner
check/replace radiator hoses
check/replace thermostat
change coolant
check/replace O2 sensors

Undercarriage:
Inspect/disassemble/clean/grease brakes
measure brake pads front: ____ Rear: ____
check/adjust emergency brake
bleed brakes
bleed clutch
Inspect suspension
pressure wash undercarriage
inspect/pressure wash wheels
check/repair splash shields
check for leaks
check spare
change transmission fluid
change differential fluid
change fuel filter

Interior:
clean
clean repair seats
check/repair window regulators
check/repair sunroof
check all electronics
Check A/C, heat, fan
clean/replace floor mats

Body:
check lights
adjust headlights
polish/replace headlight lenses
check/replace wipers
adjust windshield washer jets
grease locks/hinges/seals
repair paint
repair dents
replace broken trim
check/replace windshield
Check gas filler door
clean sunroof drains
grease sunroof rails
license plate holder

 

This Tundra came through the inspection with flying colors. I expect to find problems and am happy to find good surprises. The best was in a BMW that belonged to a drug dealer, the center console was stuffed with pot. I found it when the car wash attendant was vacuuming out the car, we both had a little moment there.... Next best thing was a car I bought from a beautiful young woman who had the voice and presence of a true angel. Really captivating. Under the passenger seat of her car I found a piece of paper that was ... a printout of her rap-sheet. Some pretty interesting things there, goes to show, you just never know.

How about this flip down DVD screen! Too bad the kids are grown up

 

The Six Million Dollar Man!

 

Perhaps the Six Million Dollars poorer man is more appropriate!

$200 of my dollars went to RC Fuel Injection in Torrance, CA https://www.rcfuelinjection.com/ for injector cleaning and testing.

Details of the process of removing the injectors are on this thread: https://www.tundras.com/threads/can...-without-removing-the-manifold-4-7l-v8.84366/

Thanks to @Professional Hand Model , @bmc02 , @jerryallday and @Hooptytrix for your help getting this done!

Of course I wanted the @dirtydeeds 12 hole injectors but decided to keep the truck stock and not spend the extra money. 6 Million only goes so far.

This is my favorite 'refresh' item, it really wakes up the engine and has the most bang for the buck. My intent remains to create a Tundra that is as close as possible to how it left the dealer lot in 2004 in both performance, looks, and reliability.

Here is the report, after 133k miles the injectors were 'fair to dripping' with fuel delivery 117-243 cc/min, really bad, now they are perfect.

 

Nicely on the report!

My Inner Mojo was tingling on mine at 152k miles. This corroborates.

 

Well many rounds of service are done, I will first talk about the components in charge of burning gasoline.

The fuel filter was original to the truck. I love this video by ChrisFix where he shows many aspects of fuel filters during their service life. The video should start with the portion where he pours gasoline through a new fuel filter and an old dirty filter. The flow is way slower through the old one:

https://youtu.be/92TfTQTmuq4?t=351

I am still struggling to get the new filter to not leak, I fear I damaged the flare connection on installation so I will try another new filter today.

Spark plugs were original to the vehicle, what a great service life, 133k miles! I have never seen plugs with the electrode burned down as far as these were, the gap was at least twice what the new plugs were. As they were original they had no intention of leaving their safe secure places, meaning they were stuck in there pretty well. I read mostly about Ford truck engines where plugs get stuck and used their technique. I broke them free just a tiny bit, maybe 1/8 turn, then filled the base of the tubes with AeroKroil penetrating oil and let it sit. Then I unscrewed them a bit, screwed them back in a bit, and put more Kroil in. Eventually they all came out with no stripped threads or broken plugs. Hooray!!! I used OEM Denso plugs, I think they were $2 each.

Air filter is new, I cleaned the MAF and throttle body, the previous owner just replaced the pre-cat oxygen sensors so I left them be, and as above the fuel injectors were cleaned and reinstalled.

Startup and WOW! It started right up and runs so smooth, like a different engine! It used to start a little stumbly and run the idle very high, now the idle is a little lower and it is smooth as silk. Still jacked up in the air so no test drive yet, but very satisfying to feel how good this engine can be.

Pictured are plugs(not mine, just for demonstration) of what the gap on the old plugs looked like, mine were actually a bit worse:

 

Next stop - Cooling system! The previous owner had done the timing belt and water pump, otherwise components were original to the truck. My experience is that radiators are done at 15 years, this one is at 17 years, so along with the big pile of parts I ordered a new one. Mostly I use Denso brand for Toyotas but went with a 'Spectra' radiator from Amazon due to some good reviews. It was a little more expensive. Unfortunately I had 'fitment issues' with the fan shroud, I had to cut it with a jigsaw so it would go around the radiator inlet tube, also had to fiddle with the bolt locations where the shroud attached to the radiator. Ultimately it went in. I also replaced the radiator hoses and thermostat and put in Toyota coolant, luckily the previous owner had used the same red coolant.

Once I took off the lower skid plate indeed the old radiator had been leaking!




Nothing a few dollars and time won't fix. The new one arrived with a few fins mashed down, fine to use so in it went:

 

On to the parts flow. I love inspecting vehicles and figuring out what parts and services they need, then finding and buying the parts so much, really it is a bit more fun than actually putting them in.

New Parts Pile, Christmas in March!




The next most fun is seeing the old dirty broken parts in the trash can. Of course I give them the 'Marie Kondo' sendoff, thanking them for their years of service. Note the dirty old radiator sawed in half so it fit in the trash can, I was very proud of that move.

 

Try wrapping 3-4 wraps/twists with this Pipe Tape made for Gasoline/Oil/Harsh Chemicals. You’ll wrap the Flare Nuts threads counter clockwise so when you insert/screw Nut on the tape doesn’t peel back on the righty twist.

If you’ve damaged the Flare on the pipe they make a Flare Tool or you can try bending it back with a blunt metal punch. Hold the Flare Tube taught into the Filter while simultaneously Twisting the Nut. Think Hand Jujitsu. Obviously, you’ll be dodging gas dripping but holding the Pipe taught into the Filter diminishes the flow and creates a nice mating.

This tape (big box) saved my day the other day when doing my OEM Toy Filter with Bracket. I found it on the street corner a few years ago.

 

Okey doke thank you, I have some of that tape that I used for propane and natural gas fittings. I am waiting to do the repair until I forget the pain suffered when gas dripped around my glasses directly into my open eyeball, it feels back to normal now. It was one of those moments I asked 'Is this still fun??'

 

Thanks again to @Professional Hand Model for the tip on water leaks through the clips onto the passenger floor. I was living in denial that that could be present in my new truck but bit the bullet and dived in. It turns out that I did have the leak as evidenced on the water streaks on this blower motor cover piece:



I took off the hood (wiper) cowl, torx 25 screws on the edge nearest the windshield and clips on the edge nearest the engine, they pry up with a panel removal tool or medium size screwdriver. They are quite able to release at light speed and fly around the engine bay and end up who knows where, after the first one went into orbit I covered them with a rag or hand when removing.

The area under the cowl is all designed to handle a large flow of water. It comes down off the windshield and flows over the cowl and dumps into the trough below the cowl, then moves to both sides and dumps down between the door jam and the fender liner, ultimately ending up on the ground. I shined a light through the opening into the trough toward the passenger side, there is an tube that sticks up that the fresh air uses to enter the cabin for ventilation. The water simply flows around that tube to exit out the sides since the opening of the tube is about an inch above the level of the trough.

The key is that one of the clips is directly over the tube that lets fresh air into the cabin. I removed the clip and looked down the hole and could see the floor of the passenger footwell as the blower motor was removed, then went inside and contorted myself (Yoga, secret car repair weapon) and looked up and could see the open hole where the clip was.




There is no need to remove and seal all the clips, just this one. Most people use RTV or some other sort of urethane sealer, I used a piece of butyl rubber. This I used so many times in sealing up holes I cut and drilled in the Sprinter van I just converted to a camper, big holes like for vent fan, and windows, as well it is what the two halves of headlights are sealed with. Very tough, good through hot and cold, durable, and removeable.

 

Next I moved to the evap cleaning. I am very glad that cabin air filters were invented and very sad they came a little after our trucks were designed. I took out the resistor, two phillips screws, and got this view:


Quite a nice little ecosystem! I got frustrated trying to clean it out so drilled a hole just larger than my vacuum hose:





The only dangers were the one pipe toward the rear of the box, and of course drilling into the evap, neither of which I did. Small victory.

Once accessible the debris came out easily. I then used a spray can of evap cleaner but couldn't direct the spray directly into the fins. I had previously used one hairy leg of a halloween spider that has a wire in it which lets me bend it and direct the spray around obstacles, lashed to the leg is a long spray tube. I fully coated the evap top to bottom. Then rather than blow the debris deeper in the system I vacuumed off the liquid and dirt. It worked great!




The hole was sealed with one piece of gaffers tape. I love that stuff, sticks when hot or cold, durable, very sticky, and removable without leaving any residue (unlike duct tape - yuck)

 

Thanks for pictures and detailed information here! Certainly going to save this for later.

 

Award for creative use of a Halloween decoration goes to BobTTundra!

 

Nu-Calgon take me away!

 

I used Specialized Gorilla Arm Technique. Also, had to go bare knuckles to work the tape Mojo with gas getting on them. A rarity with these Money Makers.

 

Well I'm happy to receive the award for creative Halloween decoration use, everything has a price, somewhere out there is a 7 legged spider

I am still chasing debris out of the truck, the trough under the wiper/hood cowl drains down into the space between the door jam and fender liner. I read mention of a 'flap' in the door jam to get at that space but couldn't find a picture of the flap or a DIY on what to do there. The 'flap' is a thin piece of plastic that runs the entire vertical distance of the door jam:






I first vacuumed it out from the door side and couldn't get it all, then I removed the 3 10mm bolts holding the mudflap on. There was one panel pin/clip remaining that I couldn't get out so I just bent the mudflap and wrangled the fender liner out of the way and had a good angle to get all the debris out.

 

Clean clean clean, that is what I do! I did a power steering flush yesterday, the fluid likely was original to the truck. Black. I did a complete flush and after complete found this DIY https://www.tundras.com/threads/power-steering-flush-how-to.85254/ that shows what I did. My only modification was to use a Mityvac to evacuate the reservoir and attach to the return line to catch the flushed out fluid. Turning the steering to pump put the fluid was delicious, slow and stead flow, it seemed like it really got out all of the fluid from the lines and the rack.

I also cleaned the reservoir - I have not found a DIY on that so will document. My reservoir was black to the point that I could not see the level of the fluid, once I removed it and peered inside the black goo covered more than half of the screen on the bottom,

Two 10mm bolts hold it to the body, once removed and lines removed and stuffed in plastic bags to catch most of the dripping I used an oil drain pan, brake cleaner, and compressed air. Mostly I flushed backwards but did spray inside the fill hole to dislodge the grime, then flushed backwards and used the compressed air to evacuate. It was cool, the air nozzle sealed against any of the three orifices, plug one with a finger and all the gunk and brake cleaner came shooting out! I used a wool tipped paint dauber (pictured below) to get the soot off of the sides of the reservoir, bending the wire handle made it put pressure and scrub the inside.

After drying it out I filled it and drained it with ATF to get any remaining brake cleaner out.

Old fluid is a little dark:




Drain pan with black soot and clean reservoir:

 

I know I am not alone, the light that illuminates the 'D' in the instrument cluster was not working. I liked this DIY video the best:

https://youtu.be/ETHNS5BK_Co

I disconnected the battery before doing the repair. I had the gear lever all the way down and the steering wheel all the way down to open up space. You only have to remove the two bolts on the right side of the trim piece below the cluster, that gives you enough room to get the cluster out. As usual it is a bit of a puzzle, twisting and turning, intermittently releasing the connectors as they present themselves, not too bad.

Once I got the cluster out I found I had purchased from the dealer the incorrect bulb:


Not to be deterred and having no patience I simply took out the 'D' bulb and switched it for the 'L' bulb. I figured I almost never use 'L' and always use 'D'. Strangely enough when finished BOTH the 'D' and 'L' lights worked! I will accept that. My triumph:




Now on to a question: I think there are 15 or so bulbs in there, I have no idea if any others are burned out. I read that when you start the car and the key is in the 'On' position before the car starts it illuminates all the bulbs, kind of like a self test. Here is what I show on startup:



Can anyone verify that this a complete set of lights on startup? Thanks so much.

 

Fuel Filter Round #2 - Done with no leaks, hooray!

Thanks again to @Professional Hand Model for the tips and pictures. I was intrigued by your mention of 'hand jujitsu' and after the second time I put in a new filter I got it. Here are the steps, it really was an intricate puzzle with each move required in sequence to move on to the next move. I have not seen this described any where else in DIYs or videos, perhaps because it is obvious to many, it wasn't to me at first. My error was installing the output fuel line with the filter not completely seated in the bracket, thus crooked/cocked a bit when I started the nut. It needs to be completely lined up so that the flares and threads do not get gouged or bent with insertion and tightening down. There was a nick on the line from my first try, thus the leak.

Sequence to installing fuel filter:
Removal:
14mm flare wrench, 19mm open end, loosen flare nuts
dodge dripping fuel
Remove clamp bolt
bend clamp out
unfasten front/output line from plastic clips holding it to the frame. Remove all the way forward past the two right angle bends. This is critical to getting enough clearance to move the lines longitudinally so you can get the filter out.
push forward line forward, remove
slide filter forward, removing off rear line
remove filter from bracket

Installation:
jam filter into bracket, slid forward a bit so it clears rear line
slide filter rearward, seating rear line and start flare nut. tighten almost all the way so filter can still spin on the line. It must spin later to line up ridges with bracket grooves.
cram front line forward, lift gently over lip of edge of fitting on filter, seat
tighten nut almost all the way
replace front line into plastic clips on frame
rotate filter until 3 ridges on filter line up roughly with the 3 grooves on filter bracket
channel locks to compress bracket, insert 8mm bolt into bracket
tighten bracket almost all the way - you want the filter to be able to slide fore and aft as you tighten the flare nuts, but not rotate
tighten flare nuts
tighten bracket
start car and cross fingers no leaks!




Another mistake I made was assuming one of the ridges on the fuel filter would line up with the opening of the bracket. This prevents the bracket from compressing enough to start the bolt, a sure sign something is wrong.

 

@Voss ^^^

 

Yeah. I loosened those two top bolts on the frame, as well. Allows the Alignment Mojo full powers. Tighten Bolts after flare nuts confirmed not leaking and filter is resting in the sweet spot.

 

The only one I am not seeing is the A/T Oil Temp right under E of Fuel Guage, other than that looks good Bob. Below is mine with Ign in On position.



I have 31 and the majority can be tested for functionality by normal action. Open door, should get light. Emergency Brake engaged, should get light....etc.

 

@BubbaW Thank you! That helps a lot. My A/T Oil Temp does work it turns out, I just cut off the light in the picture. That's a great picture you posted, thanks.

Part of the reason I asked is that on a 1997 BMW I fixed up and drove for about 3 years about 1/3 of the dash lights were burned out, not working, and I didn't know it since they had never worked. It was much better with all the switches on the dash and displays lighted once I figured it out!

 

Driveshaft Rebuild and Center Support Bearing replacement

My truck at 133k miles was in pretty good overall shape. I noticed on initial inspection that the rubber part of the drive shaft center support bearing was very floppy. The shaft nearly rested against the metal, not suspended in the center as it should be. At lower speeds, low RPM high load conditions like going up a small hill there was a slight but noticeable vibration/oscillation/rumbling consistent with center support bearing being worn.

My experience is that this center support bearing wear is partly due to age but also due to wearing U-joints. The vibration from the wearing U-joints wears out the rubber of the center support. The continuum ranges from new car (all is well) to my car (slight vibration) to my sons car (loud thump-thump-thump under your butt) at low speed high load condition to his car after not repairing the worn bearing and U-joints (transmission output bearing destroyed from vibration). Of course I wanted to just replace the center support and be done but know that the vibration from shaft out of balance and U-joints slightly worn would just wear out the center bearing again and put me right back to square one.

I decided to remove the driveshaft and send it out for rebuild, new U-joints, new center support bearing, clean and grease slip yoke, balancing and painting. I have used Oceanside Driveline http://www.oceansidedriveline.com/ before and they do incredibly good work - conscientious, precise, and when it returned it was beautiful. $325 for the rebuild plus shipping.

One problem with the 4WD propeller shaft (Toyota uses this name, I like it!) is the 'double cardan joint' or double U-joint. Oceanside does not have a way to rebuild them and at present does not have a source to replace them, thus if this joint is worn out the entire propeller shaft must be replaced. Luckily mine was fine.

Now please give thanks to Mr. Cardano, an Italian mathematician and physicist who developed the 'Cardan' joint, aka U-joint:




Here are pictures of my propeller shaft. I always feel like I am wrestling a dragon getting these out. I got smart with this removal, I put loops of webbing at the differential end and center support area and started detaching it first at the differential. Once free instead of dropping on my head it simply rested in the web loop. Same at the center, then once completely free I could lower it in a controlled manner. It weighs 50 pounds.



New prop-shaft in place, new center support bearing. Ready to go!

 

When is Zerk Greasing going to happen? She looks dry.

 

Slip yoke = Saharan Desert