Tacoed Tundra project

I think the sequoia is an inch wider. I just know the brake backing plate bolt patterns are different, so sequoia brakes on a tundra axle would be more work than its worth.

 

These are my favorite sorts of builds and I've been enjoying watching the progress. Great work so far. Also love that you used the truck as is for so long, and put it through more work than most of these probably see in their lifetime.

 

I got a bunch of stuff done on the truck yesterday. One thing i did was torch off the lower swaybar brackets off the LCA. There was really no reason to do that, but then again there was no reason not to do that. It now has a little bit cleaner look and it might provide a little bit more elbow room when wrenching.

 

i’ve been working like gang busters on the tundra so i haven’t had time to keep up with my postings. The same day i torched off those LCA sway bar brackets i also received my used ebay 2004 4wd engine harness! I began to install and after about 10 minutes i realized that about a 1/4 of it was missing. Apparently wrecking yards don’t sell an entire engine harness assembly together. They will unplug portions of it and sell that separately as a sub harness. I was mildly annoyed, but i realize that’s just how wrecking yards are. I didn’t complain or leave negative reviews, i just sucked it up and made stuff happen.

FYI, the sub harness has the a/c, alternator, battery cables, 02 sensor, ground cable, and fuse box connector.

I compared my 2000 sub harness with the 2004 main harness and found out they can work together...except that the 2000 4wd harness connectors don’t match to the 2004 4wd harness connectors. I ended up having to unpin the two 2000 4wd connectors and join them into the one 2004 4wd connector. The 4wd extension sub harness was also missing from the 2004 harness so i had to also remove that from the 2000’s main harness. None of the wiring was difficult whatsoever, it was just sitting down and making sense of it (without the use of a wiring diagram). It was intuitive to rewire though.

It took a while, but i did get the 2000 4wd extension assembled and installed back inside the 2004 main harness.

I’m just going to post up a few pics. I’ll let you guys figure out what all is going on...

 

more pics. The best description of the pics is that i spent about 6 hours figuring out what needed to be done, doing it, then reinstalling my modifications back inside the loom.

 

As soon as i had the loom all connected to the engine, i reinstalled it back into the truck. It only took about 15 minutes...max.

The transmission went in next. It went in pretty smoothly. The most difficult part was owning up to the fact that i’m not strong enough to simply do it without a tranny jack. There just isn’t enough room under the truck to fulcrum the tranny by hand into place. Once i had the tranny on the jack and underneath the truck, it took about 10-15 minutes to jiggle it all together with just a little bit of finessing. It actually went much smoother and quicker than i thought would go. I purposely didn’t install the front differential yet so that i had full access to torquing down the flex plate bolts to the torque converter.

 

Installing the ADD differential WAS definitely challenging! There’s VERY little room to get that little critter back into place. I ended up laying on my back and bench pressing back into place...and it took about a full hour to get it wedged back to where the bolts would line back up!


pic of where i installed the 2000 4wd connector into the 2004 harness



looks like i made my 4wd harness extension the correct length!



my finger is pointing at the front diff vent hoses where they both attach to the frame

 

I also drained the rest of the fuel out of the gas tank in the wrecked 2000 truck. I got close to 5 gallons out of it. I ended up disconnecting the main fuel outlet line from the sending unit, pushed on a standard rubber hose that was connected to an exterior fuel pump.


in this pic I disconnected the red outlet line and pushed on a rubber hose.

 

It was finally getting time to work on the knuckles last night...at around 9:30pm. Since i had already unseated all the tapered joints in the knuckles (on both trucks) last week, when it came down to removing finally removing the LBJs, UBJs, tie rod ends, and brake calipers, it literally only took me a total of 5 minutes to remove the knuckles from the truck...on BOTH sides.

I really wanted to see what all the rumpus was about removing the wheel bearings from the knuckles (i’m being serious about that too). Well, let me tell you, the whole process definitely required a LOT of patience!

I started working on the 2004 2wd knuckles first. What i didn’t realize was that the 2wd hub required a special 4 pin spanner socket to remove a very large spanner nut. I didn’t have one, nor did i want to buy one since i don’t plan on using a 2wd hub ever. So i tried making my own socket tool...and it failed quickly...

 

I was definitely bummed that my socket tool didn’t work, but i had zero expectations that it was going to work in the first place (the nut is torqued to 200+ ft.lbs). I wasn’t going to give up easily though! I figured that since i won’t be using those 2wd specific nuts again, there was no reason for me to salvage them. So there was no holds barred for the rest of the late night (now it’s 10:30 pm) fight!

I found a short chunk of 1/4” square tube steel in my metal pile (i think is was 2.5”) and i welded directly to the face of the nut. I then slipped a 24” pipe wrench over the top of the nut...then slipped a cheater bar over the end of the pipe wrench...and it was still VERY difficult to get that nut to turn. I was fighting it to the very last thread. It turned out that the threads were stripping out the whole time! It took about 10 minutes of reefing on the end of the cheater bar to get that nut off!

For the other knuckle’s hub nut, I simply flipped the square 2.5” square tube over and welded that to the nut as well.

 

a couple more pics...

And FYI, the second nut came unthreaded MUCH, MUCH easier! Keep in mind that it’s now about 11:30pm.

 

I got the hubs pressed out of all 4 knuckles last night before i called it quits (1:30am). I used a 20 ton harbor freight hydro press. The press didn’t have any issues, the greatest challenge by far was setting up spacers and blocks to support the knuckle while pressing!


Notice the difference between the 2wd and the 4wd hub. Turns out they both use the same wheel bearing. I’m sure that’s common knowledge here at this forum, but it wasn’t for me earlier in the evening.

 

I got the bearings pressed out of the knuckles today. That was even more of a challenge than removing the hub from the bearings! Of course the bearings, clips, and seals were all damaged during the process. BUT, i did manage to salvage enough wheel bearing bits back together and reinstalled them in the (smaller LBJ) 2000 knuckles and then pressed the 2wd hubs back into the bearings! This will allow me to push the wrecked 2000 truck around in my property!!

I will now need to order up new bearings, retaining clips, and 4wd seals.

 

I'm surprised all the hubs dont have splines. My 2wd titans front hubs have splines.

 

Still from yesterday, but at around 7pm, two friends came over and helped me lift the bed off the truck. The reason being is that the bulkhead on the bed was bent and grinding against the back of the cab. The best way for me to fix that was just remove the bed entirely. It literally took me 60 seconds to unscrew all 6 of the large torx head bed bolts! Man, it feels soooo good to not live in the rust belt!

 

I can only assume that it didn’t make financial sense (at the time) for toyota to do that on the 1st gen 2wd trucks? No doubt it costs more to manufacture a splined hole that a smooth bore hole.

 

This is where the bed was rubbing on the cab.

 

A rubber mallet, hammer, and dolly were used to straighten up the bulkhead close to spec. I’m thinking about getting a custom made aluminum bulkhead reinforcement panel folded up. I’m thinking 3/16” or even possibly 1/4” thick aluminum diamond plate? i’d like to use a 6061 alloy, but 5052 will bend easier (better).

Here’s a pic of what i’d kinda like my bulkhead to look like. I would just use a bunch of fender washers on the backside and through bolt it in to the bed.

 

Does anyone want to see a 100% rust free 1st gen frame?

 

At this point i’m pretty much at a stopping point for a bit. I can now make my final parts list and get everything ordered up...and it’s a loooong list! Hopefully i can figure out all the part numbers and a supplier ASAP. Pretty soon it will be raining full time here in oregon, and i want this project buttoned up 100% before that happens.

 

mine is warped like that from toting a motorcycle.

 

I plan on hauling dirtbikes as well in this truck. Back when there was a contractor canopy on this truck, i was using a Versahaul moto carrier on the rear hitch. The truck drove just fine with a KTM dirtbike hanging on back there.

 

I spent about 3 hours today making a $1300 list of parts. Does anyone have any experience ordering stuff from this place? https://www.oemgenuineparts.com/

EDIT: it's Midlands Toyota

 

There’s no going back to ABS now...at least in my 2004 spindles/knuckles.

Rather than cut up my good ABS wheel sensors and use them as dummy plugs, i decided to just weld the sensor holes shut. The other bonus is that i won’t have to rely on the sensor O ring as a seal. I’ll have a 1000% water tight seal now!

I cut up an old 5/8” bolt that was laying around in my shop. There’s a slight step in the spindle for the sensor. That step is around a 9/16” diameter. My short 5/8” slugs that i cut sit right on it. The main portion of the sensor hole (i’m guessing) is around 11/16” diameter?

The pics should speak for themselves. It was a pretty fun little quick project that involved very little labor.

I used a propane torch to heat up the spindle hot enough for my spit to sizzle. I then laid down the welds with my 220V Esab.

 

At this point, i think i’m pretty much done with swiping parts of the wrecked 2000 truck, so my sister gave me a hand finagling the truck around to spot where it won’t be in the way until next spring/summer. I want to drive around this 2004 truck all fall and winter to make sure i won’t need any more parts off of it...which reminds me that i should swap the speedometers between the two trucks so that the mileage is correct for the engine, tranny, and transfer case!

 

I swapped the speedometers between the two trucks last night...actually it was only the little LCD displays that got swapped. It turns out the back side of the speedometer units have a little bit different printed board on the back. All four of the plug connectors are the same, but i guess a few of wires go to different spots. When i plugged the 2000 speedo into the 2004 harness, there was some higher pitch beeping noise emanating from the dash (or maybe speedo?). I haven’t heard that particular sounding beep before from my 2000 truck. It also immediately blew the fuse for the dash lights.

I quickly resorted to Plan A (i tried Plan B first). I simply “ejected” the LCD screen cartridge from both speedos and swap them with each other. While i was in there i removed the clear plastic cover and cleaned all the dust that was behind it. It looks MUCH cleaner now. There’s nothing like a clean speedo face to make a vehicle feel like new. I suppose it’s the same way when we wash our own faces too?...refreshing and clean!

While i was in there i remove the ABS light from the speedo as well. I have no desire to stare at it all the time!

And before anyone call the FBI on me for swapping the mileage, i should get less than 5 years with good behavior. The 2004 truck had about 240K miles on it with a blown engine. My good 2000 engine has 218k miles on it. Not much difference, but i’d like to keep the mileage dead accurate to the actual heart beat (engine, tranny, T case) of the truck.


I had to unclip these black connectors with a small flat blade screwdriver.


The LCD screen assembly literally pulls out like a cassette.

 

Kinda surprised that worked. A buddy of mine fiddled with his electronic odo on a furd & got an error code.

 

That was my main concern before i started!

 

I currently have the 2004 driver side kick panel removed and i’m very curious what these connectors could have been used for. Does anyone have any idea?..towing?...alarm? I wouldn’t think towing because there’s already the factory tow connector plug that’s hanging down. And speaking of tow connector plug, does anyone know where to get the plug and harness (aka, service connector harness) that connects to it? Because I eventually plan to put a brake controller in my truck.

FYI, at one point there was a camper in the bed of the truck.

EDIT: it looks like the OEM connector harness is less than desirable. A Tekonsha 3040-P harness would be plug and play.