2000 Limited TRD refresh/repair story

Any sound or just a vibration? All lugnuts present and tight? Where did you feel the vibration, in the seat, the wheel, the pedals?

 

You could hear it a bit, only with the radio off and if you were listening hard. It seemed almost like tire noise to me. Whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp.

It’s definitely a front end noise, it shakes the wheel a little bit at highway speed and you can feel it through the floorboard. I asked my brother if he’d locked up the front ties, as I was thinking that maybe they got a flat spot, but no.

 

Fast check: Rotate front tires to rear. If vibration stops or changes, it's a balance issue. IME, fronts are always more sensitive to balance. Chances of having a tire front and rear out of balance is pretty low. This has worked to diagnose balance issues probably 2/3 of the time I've done it.

 

Wow. Are you sure? That would mean your tank was literally on fumes when you refilled. It only holds 26.4 gallons. Impressive if so.

 

It was 443 miles exactly... 443 miles divided by 17.8 mpg equals 24.88, so unless I've done my math wrong, you're right. Just about a gallon and a half left in the tank. I don't remember what I put into the tank but it was upwards of 23. This was farther than I wanted to push it but I was tired of driving and just wanted to get there.

 

So my brother calls me today and says “yeah, the truck is super slow off the line. You need like 50% throttle to get up to speed, but it’s running totally normal.”

Great. So I drive back home from college to take a look at it. Sure enough, it requires a ton of throttle to get off the line. It just stalls against the torque converter until at least 25mph or so.

Hook up the scangauge, and sure enough:
P0753- Shift Solenoid E malfunction. This essentially means that the truck is stuck in 3rd gear. Clear the code, and it comes right back as soon as you shift into drive.

Some of y’all might remember that almost exactly a year ago I had some very similar issues, and it was because there was a short in one of the wires going to the transmission, which kept killing solenoids. It’s gotta be something similar.

I did a drain & fill anyway, and the fluid was pretty bright red. No change. Shifting manually from Lo to 2nd to Drive works as normal, but anytime it’s in drive it’s in 3rd or 4th gear. Transmission shop opens at 8am tomorrow! Ugh.

 

I hope you're actually teaching your bro along the way because he doesn't seem to be mechanically inclined like you.

Also nice of you to let him drive your truck. I hope he appreciates that.

 

Why don’t you replace it yourself?

 

I try my best to explain the stuff to him. He’s actually pretty good, he can understand a lot of stuff and taught himself stick shift on my old Fiat. He’s very appreciative which makes me a lot less nervous about him driving it every day. I know he drives it as safe as he can.

I’m sending the truck out for a diagnosis. I can’t easily or confidently diagnose an electrical issue, especially when the shop had difficulty diagnosing it the first two times.

If it ends up just being a solenoid, I’ll probably replace it myself, but usually when the wiring shorts to something it blows the solenoid and requires a solenoid and harness replacement.

 

Before I send the truck to the shop I installed my new mount for my scangauge. I love it!



The ashtray was useless to me, so when I found this link:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5492331 I couldn’t wait to 3D print it out and install it. I think it looks perfect and is nicely out of the way, and it doesn’t restrict the cup holder usage either. I ran the cable through the dashboard and it’s hidden nicely.

 

Good news !

Truck is fixed for free under the shop’s warranty, as the solenoid that they put in a year ago went bad, even though it was an OEM part.

That confuses me a bit but I’m just happy it’s fixed. My brother has been driving my ‘73 Fiat in the cold and rain for the past week, which isn’t good for it.

 

Just did a 200 mile round trip from Chicago to Milwaukee to do a couple final exams. I’ve done this trip in the Tundra 3 or 4 times before, and every time averaged between 17.8 and 18.1mpg, with cruise set at 70.

However today, the truck averaged 22.1mpg! I couldn’t believe it, and I can’t figure out why it jumped up so much. I haven’t adjusted or changed anything, I went the exact same speed, route, everything.

Any ideas? I know the scangauge isn’t lying to me, I always reset the trip odometer when I fill up so I calculated that and sure enough, 22ish.

 

Wow. Fuelly tells me I’m 13 MPG, hah. 20+ sounds amazing.

 

Yup, 12.9mpg
https://www.tundras.com/threads/1st-gen-lunch-table-general-discussion.60450/page-1774#post-3352215

 

Yup, I’m mostly city these days. Average for me was 12-13. Ever since I updated wheels and tires that’s dropped 1mpg. I haven’t figured out if it’s actually the same or worse mpg with +1.6” diameter tires over stock or what, but it is what it is.

 

I agree, it is what it is. Form over function. I don’t believe that any one of us bought a pick up truck based solely on fuel economy. The ones of us that are concerned with fuel economy have purchased other daily drivers.
Given the limited tuning and performance mods that I have done to my Impreza, that FB20D still averages 29 mpg.

 

A little patience makes the fuel go a long way. I hit 17 for the first time since adding the cap on my last trip to houston, but i was running blocker/drafting a 18 wheeler rolling 75.

 

I think my MPG’s might be held back by the tires. I need to do a chalk test.

 

doubt it, because my all tome high @ 19.8 was on 35 psi instead of 40+ and i lost 2mpg consistantly from the aero tax of the high rise cap. I'm dragging a pretty big bubble behind me.

before the cap i was running 18ish at 44F & 40R. It stayed the same at 35, but i dropped to 16 flat with the cap & 44psi didnt fix it. Gotta let the speed dip a bit further while climbing & draft someone that deserves it. Also 3rd locks if you have OD off, and thats mo'betta under 55mph. I think i want 3.73's to stretch 3rd to 60ish. I have low range, i'm not hurting for crawling power.

 

Hmm, I do wonder then why I’m much lower than some. Even with the DD injectors.

 

Tire size can make a big hit. Aero and weight wise. But most likely its driving style. I can get 14.5 because i like the way my truck sounds. But to get the big numbers it takes lots of coasting & downshifting to get the big numbers.

get to speed quicker & coast longer.

 

DD injectors shouldn’t be spraying more fuel, I think the gimmick is better atomization/distribution, not dumping more fuel in the cylinder.

 

Had to panic stop this morning while driving to work, locked up all four tires since it was snowy/slushy.

Stopped in time but the truck went into a slide, and bumped the curb pretty dang good. Truck looked fine, the wheel didn’t hit the curb, only the tire, so I told myself it was fine. Nope!

The whole rear axle is pushed at least an inch or two towards the drivers side. I don’t think the U-bolts shifted, I’m pretty sure that the leaf springs are tweaked. The leafs are splayed out and they pop and clunk 10x more than normal. It feels weird going around turns and sketchy at speed. I’ll send pics tomorrow when it’s light out.

So, what now? I can’t bend the springs back, can I? The shipping cost of new springs puts them beyond what I can easily afford. Anyone know of a place to get springs that doesn’t want $150 to ship them?

I’m not totally opposed to driving on the wonky springs until I can afford to replace them. Is this stupid? Ugh.

 

I

I got my ATS leafs for $500 shipped. And that was for the nicer HD springs. You can probably get em cheaper for the standard non-HD ones. I can’t remember if they’re in IL or not, they’re somewhere up there. Maybe in PA.

 

I would be willing to bet that if you unloaded them you could get them to stack back together nicely. You may have to replace/bend back straight the pack clamps if they are tweaked.

Conventional wisdom says always replace u-bolts, but I would get the rear of the truck jacked up and get everything loose and see if it can be adjusted back into alignment.

 

ATS wants $400 for non-HD springs, which isn’t bad. That’s doable for me in a few weeks.

Yeah, I think I might give it a try if I get some time. My worry is that after 23 years and 210k miles of abuse and road salt, the leaves will be too far gone to fix.

I haven’t gotten out a tape measure but I really don’t think that the axle slipped in the U bolts. Not sure about forward-backward movement though. There isn’t any alignment adjustment in the rear, is there?

 

BFH and smack em around good. If you hit hard enough to bend spring steel, the housing would be shaped like a pretzel.

 

Photos? Might also want to take some measurements of frame to be sure it’s not tweaked.

 

Thankfully I don’t think the frame is bent. I haven’t gotten out a tape measure yet but the rails look dead straight and the spring hangers aren’t twisted or pulled away from the frame at all. It also doesn’t look like the axle has shifted at all in the forwards/backwards plane.

While it was a pretty hard bump, I don’t think it could’ve done too much damage, I mean the tire didn’t even come off the rim.

I‘ll take photos this afternoon once the driveway dries up a bit.

 

So I took some measurements and some photos and took it for a good test drive and we’ve got a problem. The problem? I can’t find the problem!

The outside of the drums is the same different from the frame on both sides, and the distance from the axle to the spring hangers is the same on both sides too. The frame is fine too. Even though it was most certainly shifted to the side last night. The truck also drives completely normal.

Here’s the only stuff that I found wrong:

The LSPV bracket is bent (indicating that the axle definitely shifted)


This leaf seems to be splayed out more than normal


And these gaps in between the leafs seem a lot bigger than they were before. I don’t know anything about leaf springs, is this fine?


My dad borrowed the truck and drove it 30 miles or so before taking these photos. Is it possible that the springs could’ve worked themselves back into place? They still pop going up/down driveways more then they have in the past but less than they did yesterday.

What’s our thoughts?