First Gen Toyota 4quoia with a (2uz-fe) v8 (start up post 230)

6 of 10 body to frame mounts now welded in. The front mounts at the radiator core support is the original frame hacked off. I notched it out another 1/4 of an inch so it sits deeper in the tacoma frame. here it is.


The tacoma frame horns stick out past the front bumper mounts.


They obviously need to go


Then I needed to mount the 98 front skid plate. The original one that was on the frame was bent it had to go. The one I mounted was cut from a 96 t4r. I trimmed it slightly and tacked it in.


I need to clean it up a bit. I mounted the front bumper and lower valence to take a look. It looks pretty good really. I thought it may look a little thick with the tacoma skid plate, but I will be able to live with it and move on.


Not to bad at all!

 

from the front


and one from the side

 

Not much to report really. Needing to work on the last 4 of 10 body to frame mounts, I have been rummaging through my toyota parts. I think I may have tossed the two firewall mounts from the 98 tacoma frame. I do not like to throw out parts, but It is easy to loos focus when I do not have it all in order.

I did put back in the stock brake lines that run from the firewall to the rear axle.

I listed the first gen blue bommer for sale on cl if it doesn't sell in 30 days, I'm taking all the better parts for the 4quoia. Then I could lower the price to 2,500.00. I have been driving it. It has a bad release bearing that is driving me mad. It buzzes along good, but it will not idol at first before warming up and it has a valve sucking back. So I am parking it to repair the release bearing and look into the valve. I know It is a bad time to sell it, but I don't need it.

 

I have finished the fire wall-steering shaft area. I have put in the sound deadener on the fire wall. It was crazy. It was like putting together a jig saw puzzle but I didn't have a photo and I had to trim each piece as I went. I feel cross eyed now! Hear it is.

 

Awesome build!

Really enjoy following along. Keep up the great work!

 

Thanks for following along.

It is taking forever!!! When I did my first swap from the 06 tundra into the 03 tacoma, the tacoma was my main daily driver and it took two months. It seems that I am all over the place with this build. Wait for a part work on this and that kind of thing.

So working on the firewall again today. The black rubber mat that covered the firewall had jute padding that I scraped off. I used 9/16 closed cell foam in its place. I did not place any above the wire harness line as to leave room for larger wire harness. I still do not know how this part will play out. I will not be using the air bag systems, ac, power sun roof, along with some others. I may need to hit the books and study to find what systems may fail if I cut others out.

I guess I deleted the photo of the closed cell foam, but here are 2 pictures of the rubber mat over the top.

 

I mounted the brake booster from the sequoia. It has a plate that sits between the booster and the firewall.



Since it had this spacer and it was not able to be removed, the rod was short to the brake peddle connection. I grabbed an end off another booster I cut it off at the pin hole connection spun it 45 degrees and welded it together. This makes me a little nervous so I am going to keep an eye on it.



Here is how it turned out. I am able to adjust in and out. I will have to install lines before I will be able to test it.

 

This is the shift lever for the first 4.7 v8 build I did.



Since I have made one before, I did not spend any time on making a one for the 4quoia. I did spent half a day digging bolts looking for the brake booster to peddle pin. That was a giant pain. I just measured the distance from the trans to the shift lever. Then cut it out of the rod. I had two shift linkage rods so if I made a mistake, it was not a problem. Here it is.



Here is park



here is L



It feels nice. I sat in the truck and ran through the gears a few times. The shift lock will be fun for wiring, but I have done it before.

 

I got these today.



They are for a 98 tacoma. They lift the truck 2.25, but for some reason the center pin is one inch farther forward than the springs I have set in the truck now. They also seem shorter.



I went ahead and put them in to see how they would sit with weight on them.



I did not like it. The rear end has moved forward. It looks like a second gen 4runner with a lift. If I had not moved the front leaf spring saddles forward, they may have looked ok. I'm not moving the saddles again. I glued them on good. I will post an update tomorrow with my solution. I am beat.

 

You could swap in a 4-link set-up out of a later model. It's probably a pain in the ass, but it might be pretty awesome.

 

When I was researching frames I could use, I thought of using the 3rd gen frame but it was 2 inches longer at the wheel base. That may have been a lot of stuff to move.

 

here is what I did with the old man EMU leaf springs. The center pins were an inch forward and the length was shorter. After all that cut and past bull I have done on this one-off build I decided to use my old top 2 springs. I did not want to send the new springs back. So I ripped them all apart and made them my way. I now have frankensprings just like all the rest of this build. Would I really have it any other way? I then added the 3 inch lift back into the front. It still sits a bit lower in the front.

So here it sits as stock as I could get it


this is with the old man emu springs in tact.

look how close the rear wheels are to the front of the rear fender.

Here it is with my take on the old man emu and the 3 inch front strut lift.


another look at the rear wheel well with the emu springs intact.


and now after being redesigned by yours truly.


now a look at the front for good measure.

 

First look at dash wiring laid out in cab.



kinda scary huh?
I may need to do a little weed eating.

 

That should keep you busy for awhile.

 

That would scare the shit out of me.

 

I have definitely been here before,(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_E95YNXVp8). This was scary, but I got through it. This time is a little different though. The years between trucks is greater.

 

That's awesome!

I had a 1991 Ford Ranger that I always wanted to do a 5.0L V8 conversion on, but ultimately I decided not to because Ford.....

 

Gonna be a sweet ride when you get her done, i like the lift.

 

Just spent the morning digging in the passenger kick panel to tail light wire harness. I cut out rear door power windows, locks, rear heater and all air bag tom foolery.


The harness is still long, but may still be altered later. here it is wrapped around the wires cut out. Notice the 3 light bulbs at the end.

 

been sidetracked for 2 days. I moved the 4quoia over so I could get into the garage. I had to put in the dash support and steering column. I pulled it onto the road and got another look at it.

Here is my mess with the column.


here is a side by side of stock 4runner and 4quioa

 

Yeah, she’s up there.

 

in the rear, its around 7 inches higher than the stock one. The stock truck sits low in the rear and the 4quoia sits high with the rake. I can hardly wait to drive it.

 

Put in some 9/16 closed cell foam on the drivers inner bed side today. I messed around with the wiring a little, grounded the ground points. I couldn't help it, I put in the gauge cluster and hooked up the battery. The engine cranks with the key, head lights, dash lights, ALARM (LOL), shift lights, battery gauge, and 4wd system all work.

I did not realize i had a multi mode transfer case. There was no center diff lock switch in the sequoia. With the transfer case in H, I can push the 4wd button and the 4 wheels will light up in the gauge cluster. While in 4h, if I shift into L gear, the center diff locks automatically and the light in the middle of the 4 wheels lights up. Of if in 4wd shift from H to L in any gear, the center diff locks. Huh, I have to figure out how to lock the center diff in 4H.

 

Some more small victory's as today comes to a close. With the kick panel to tail light wiring set in place, I worked on the tail lights. I cut the sequoia light bulbs from the wire loom and soldered the plug end for the first gen t4r to the plug end of the sequoia. Here it is.



The left plug is the sequoia and the right is the 4runner. This allows the sequoia wiring to plug and play into the 4runner tail lights.
And now I have working tail, brake, back up, and blinkers at the rear.
I know that this is not as important as some other things I need to do to get her running, but when she is running, I'm going to want to drive her not work on the darn lights. LOL.

 

I had to stop everything and upload this. It's so cool, I can't stand it, LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9i1LnZk_ss

I also could not stand the noise at the start of the video. So I made another.

 

Friday was a little wired, lol. I was working on wiring the first gen rear wiper into the back door ecu of the 01 sequoia. I did get it to work the wiper, but it would not go into off position. The wiper would hang over the window in 2 places. I spent some time trying to work it out, but I fried my brain, crossed my wires, and when I gave up, the rear window would no longer roll down only up. I was pissed I thought I fried the ecu. On Saturday, I went and picked up a back door ecu from a 06 4runner. It did end up having a different part number, but had the same 2 plug ends. Before pulling the ecu from the 4quoia, I hooked up the battery and tried the back window one more time. It worked! I was so relieved. I was about to go into a rabbit hole I did not want to visit. FFFFEEEEEWWWWW!!!!

So now the plan is to work the first gen rear wiper relay wiring into the 01 sequoia on off switch. The final back up plan to use the old switches to work the old system and the old style wiper motor.

I have now moved into robbing and stealing parts from the blue first gen. The rear tail gate glass came loos from the channel at the bottom. I did not want to mess with it, so I changed tail gates. Man that was a bitch. The spring at the bottom fights to win. I ended up braking both tail gate support retaining clips. The ones that stop the rattling when driving.

On some lighter news, I got some SPC adjustable upper control arms. I just wanted all option I could have to align the front end and even move the front wheels forward a pinch.



And back to mechanical work for some hard rest for the wiring brain.

 

So I have been working on the engine bay wiring. I will now use the sequoia a/c fan wiring for the 16 inch electric fan on the inside of the radiator. I will be using a duel fan relay wiring for the two 11 inch fans on the outside of the radiator.

Since I got the 4quoia, I have changed the fenders 3 times, so why not one more. I did not sell the blue first gen t4r and I already swapped the tail gate so why not the front end. I do not like the brown. Having the 4 fenders off, I really got a look at how bad the 4quoia radiator core support is. The hood did not pop up and did not like to latch. It was bumped up and slightly bent out of shape. I also cut a notch into it for placement of the radiator at an attempt to make more room. I did not need to do that. It made it weaker. Also nearly all the front grill clip holders were bent being pushed in. There was also damage to the passenger side front mount causing a slight dip.

I have to add that the inner conflict regarding plundering the nice first gen blue 4runner is on my mind. I explain to my self that my goal is to finish my 4quoia project. As good quality parts are hard to find and pricey, I move forward knowing that when I am done, the brown and blue 4runner will be complete. It will still be a nice project for whatever someone wants to do with it.

 

Here is a fun fact that made one part of this swap stupid easy.
regular 88 4runner windshild wiper motor.


2001 toyota sequoia motor installed into the first gen 4quoia

Absolutely no modification, same bolt pattern, same throw on the motor arm, same ball size, I had no Idea. Since I'm using the sequoia wiring, plug an play easy peasy wipin squeegee. If it all went like this Id be on my 6th swap not the 2nd.

 

I wired up the corner marker lights. I got some inexpensive knock off corner light for the hilux for the year. I knew I had wires to play with and I wanted options. This is what I now have.

lights off.


running lights on.


running light (clear) and blinker (amber) flashing on for a snap shot.

I would like to figure out how to alternate blinker flashes from corner to bumper and back.

 

Front bumper lights.
I wanted a 3 wire bulb. A 1157 or similar. I wanted running lights and blinker in one bulb. I looked at all the bulbs being sold, looked at the local wreaking yard, and searched options for replacement lenses. The only one I could find for the year was a hilux 2x4 witch is an inch shorter. So my options were not there.

I have 3 or 4 sets of first gen 4runner bumper lights, so I dug around and found some first gen tacoma bumper housings. They were larger in size, but had the same bulb socket housing as the 01 sequoia. They also were the same height as the first gen ones. I got a dremel and a multi saw and went to work.

This is what I got.

On the left is a stock first gen blinker.
The middle is first gen taco with 88 lens and the ends that were cut off the right lense
On the right is my first attempt at making a hybrid.
basically I set the 88 lens over the taco housing and cut and shaped it to fit.
I still need to seal the lense to the housing, but it is a start.





I had to use longer screws to get it to mount. It does not look to bad. I also had to trim one of the 4 pin locks on the bulb socket to get the 01 sequoia bulb to set in the taco housing.

The best part is it does work as I had wanted.