Here we go. It's almost 3 months late, but it is mostly done. Behold the slant six powered Toyota 1 ton ex rental stock. I bought it on ebay in 2008 for $2200 and put 100k on the crappy Toyota engine, wasting perhaps $1500 in repairs along the way. If I had a time machine, I would have done this swap a long time ago.
I learned a LOT along the way, and honed my meager fabrication chops. I should point out that the ENTIRE project was done THE WRONG WAY. No assistance and few tools. I borrowed a welder but it didn't work, so I used a clever combination of saws-all, bench vise, stepper drill bits, vice grips, a plastic caliper gauge, a turkey baster, an 1 decent cobalt piloting bit. I learned that you can cut sheet metal with a vice grip and metal fatigue - fold it enough and it will break nicely.
I'll skip most of the dirty details and get right to the pics. Here's Day 1:
I know a few of you have Toyotas like this. The key to the whole magilla was a 3" body lift, and moving the front bumper out along with the grille. Then I used some all-thread to extend the headlights. I made the passenger side mount with some box tubing bolted to the stock mounting holes in the block, and it mates to the frame with a thru bolt and a big rubber biscuit. The driver's side uses the stock motor mount, which mates to a spring shackle bolted to the frame. The tranny mount is the stock Toyota pad turned upside down, mated to some scrap steel and secured with a 4" U-bolt. Mid-project, I realized the motor mounts would probably not hold up to engine torque, so I made a second set of mounts that grab the engine on both sides and essentially strap it to the frame. The engine is suspended on rubber so it can vibrate a tiny bit, but it can't heel over under torque. Works pretty well.
The key to the whole swap, and the biggest problem by far, was the clutch. The Toyota has a 5/8" hydraulic master cylinder stock. This truck was an automatic, so I went to the junkyard and got the pedal assembly and a new master. After much headscratching, it turns out that 5/8" was just not big enough to move the 833OD clutch, so I spent $77 on a universal 1 1/8" master from Summit. The slave cylinder was the big issue. At first I tried the stock Toyota slave. No go. Then I doubled it up and ended up with this:
Still no good. It barely worked, but it didn't matter because when I went to put it in it hit the frame. Dang. After MUCH headscratching and teeth gnashing, I stumbled on this:
That's a concentric throwout bearing for a 93 Jeep Wrangler. It didn't quite fit over the input bearing retainer of the trans, so I got a grinding wheel and took .005 off the IBR. I also shimmed it out from the trans with some spacers I made. It was almost impossible to get this silly thing bled, but eventually I did. It works, but I'm unsure how long it will last. The throwout bearing face rides on the clutch fingers all the time, but that's the way it was designed.
The hood scoop is a 15" speaker frame, which fits the 12" air cleaner nicely.
I spent a lot of time on the gauge cluster. Basically, I got a junkyard one, hogged it out, made an aluminum plate, cut my gauge holes, and installed a bunch of gauges I had lying around. I am particularly proud of the working turn signal and high beam indicators. In this pic, you see where the shifter happens to fall. You'll notice that YES, the parking brake "captures" the shifter so you can never drive off with the brake on - a safety feature! And YES, when you put it in reverse the shift knob hits the key and shuts the engine off and YES when you shift into second the shifter bangs into the steering wheel. The answer will be to bend the shifter, though I'm not sure how I'll do that.
As we stand, it starts fine and seems to run ok. I could be wrong but the slant seems a LOT lighter than the Toyota engine and trans. Haven't done a 4 wheel burnout yet, but I will soon. I need to replace the Home Depot plumbing that is the upper radiator hose. I need to tweak the timing some more. I need to hook up the EGR. But I've driven it around the block extensively and pulled some steep hills with it. Seems a little weak but that's probably the timing. I'm going to replace the headlights with something a little sturdier, and I'll replace the silly stock grille at the same time. I happen to have a grille from a 70 Newport that looks pretty good on there. I'll extend the hood out with sheet metal to cover up the gaps.
I'll post more as I get this stuff done.
but then I was raised around farm machinery and we weren't the sort of farm folks who had the money to go buy big shiney new tractors. We had to make due with what was around most of the time.