22re engine swap

My engine was old and tired when I bought the truck, and the carburetor ran horribly when tilted or on rough terrain. I considered dropping in something more powerful than the 22r series (like the 3RZ), but decided I didn't want to spend months making it all work, so I got a 22RE out of an '88 2wd pickup. The oil pans are a little different, so I had to use the one from the carbureted engine. I had the full wiring harness from the donor truck, and it turned out to be easiest just to use that harness and make little changes where the trucks differed (the A/C, the 4wd indicator light, and some other small details I can't recall.) The carbureted trucks have almost all the mounting locations ready for the fuel injected hardware, but I had to drill a few holes and weld nuts on where things were missing (computer mounting, air filter box mounting). I used a 2" hole saw to pass the wires through the firewall to by the passenger's feet. I tried finding a fuel injected fuel tank that would fit, but it was too difficult, so I just ran a generic external fuel pump. The new engine is still on the slow side, and vibrates near 4000 rpm, but now the truck gets up to 24 mpg instead of about 14 mpg, and is always smooth off road.

front suspension coil-over conversion

The truck came with stiff 3" lift springs in front, and add-a-leafs in back. I took the extra leaf out of the rear and it was fine, but the front was more difficult. I wanted the steering to have a drag link running to the opposite side of the axle instead of the stock Toyota setup, so I could get more articulation. I bought Marlin Crawler steering arms to run the drag link above the leaf springs, but this resulted in many problems. I needed a lot lift now to keep the drag link from smashing into the oil pan, and the driver's side leaf spring from hitting the pitman arm. I looked at different ways to change things, and decided the leaf-spring crossover steering setup would never meet my desires - little lift, lots of articulation, proper steering geometry, reasonable upward travel. So I decided to go for a radius arm and panhard bar style suspension, with coil over springs and shocks. I was planning to drive across the US, so I had a deadline for the whole project, which was far more involved than I had anticipated. I had to do the design, make the purchases, machine the parts, and grind and weld the frame. After a month of 12 hour days, I had it together just in time, and it was trial by fire in a drive from LA to New York, with stops to fourwheel in Utah and Colorado. Luckily, the performance was almost as good as I had hoped, and on budget ($2000). CAD model of axle, frame rails, and control links Left side of front axle Right side of front axle Radius arm frame mount Steering box relocation and shock tower Flexing the truck

lockers

I bought a Detroit Soft-Locker and ran it in the rear for a while, but the road manners were less than ideal. Then I got a Toyota electric locker, available on the new Tacomas, and modified the rear axle housing to accept it (drilling and tapping new holes, welding to fill in the old ones, and grinding for clearance a bit). With about $10 worth of Radio Shack parts, I made a switch and LED display for the rear locker, and put the Detroit in front. This setup feels like stock on the road and is perfect off road, aside from a little steering pull when you're in 4wd.

bumper

I made a simple rectangular tubing bumper for the rear, with a receiver for towing stuff recessed where it can't catch on the ground. I cut notches in the body so the bumper could attach straight to the frame rails. It works well, although 3/16" wall is a bit over-kill.

tires

Some 33x12.5 Super Swamper Radial TSLs on steel rims add lift where it counts - between the axle and the ground. I didn't want to run larger because the fuel economy would go to crap and axleshafts and birfield joints would start breaking. They're quite a bit heavier than the 30" tires I ran before, but have much more tread and have thicker rubber, so you can run lower tire pressure without worrying about a puncture.