Black Bart; Wifey-Mobile Extraordinaire

[Red October]

Occasionally deals find me. It is very rare, so when they do one must strike while the iron is hot, as the saying goes. Such was the case with Black Bart, my wife's new ride!

A couple of years ago one of my coworkers who had been having major trouble with his 4Runner threw up his hands in defeat and offered to sell it to me as a project. Mostly his wife wanted it out of their yard, and he couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. After looking it over I offered him $1200. After all it had at least one blown head gasket, torn leather seats and was in general disrepair. I suspected that it would not be overly cheap to fix, but it had good bones, no rust and was a 1999 Limited, so it had a locker and all the bells and whistles. He said no. His wife's instructions were, "don't let that guy take advantage of you, the lowest you can take is $1500!" I wasn't willing to go that high because of the afore-mentioned problems. He wouldn't come down. So no deal.

6 months later he offered it to me again, this time for $800. But he had driven it more, and only made the problems worse during that time. The stars just weren't lined up at that point, not to mention my wife thought it was a bad idea, and I told him I wasn't interested.

6 more months went by, and he offered it to me again, $600. His wife was begging him to get rid of it, and I was the only Toyota guy he knew. I jokingly mentioned it to my wife, saying that I could part it out and keep the locker for my own ride. Much to my amazement she said, why dont we buy it so I can have a 4x4 again? SOLD! I called the guy right then and told him I would take it!

So this truck followed me home. And got acquainted with its stable-mate.

 

[Red October]

Right as I bought it, my job got a little crazy, I started traveling for work and it just sat, right under that carport for about 8 months. But then I quit! Haha, that job sucked anyway, plus it kept me from doing anything really, and I got a cool new job to replace it with. Best part was I could get back to things I prefer, like beat down old Toyota's!

First things first I pulled out the engine.

The truck had 198,000 miles. For me there was not much point in just re-gasketing and crossing my fingers. Full rebuild on this one. I know most people just go the JDM route with this, but I tend to be a horse of a different color on a lot of things. I also happen to enjoy building engines and things as a semi-pro hobby type deal on the side for people I know and for my own projects. I had never been inside of a 5VZ-FE before, so why not?

New Nippon Pistons 0.5mm over bore.

Perfect shiny and new. Direct from the machine shop.

Shiny silver paint, because black engine bays are boring!

Perfect clean and flat cylinder heads, with new valve guides, valve seats, springs, etc. Basically new stock parts, except castings.

Short block.

Valve covers ended up red. I buggered the silver paint, and ended up making a snap decision

Looks pretty good I think.

 

[Red October]

While the engine was out being machined, I scrubbed down the frame, for rust protection purposes re-coated and assessed the suspension situation. I found a killer classifieds deal of some Toytec HD rear springs. I already liked the Land Cruiser black Tokiko shocks I was running in Red, so I found a deal on a pair of them as well.

Sometimes you hafta get persuasive with 20 year old parts!

All new bushings cams and ball joints, and tie rod ends plus shiny paint and some slightly used Billie 5100s with OME 881's. Mostly the Billies are place holders until I get things a little more buttoned up and get the engine broken in.

Stock 4th gen wheels rubbed everything, even with stock tires, so Wifey picked out some black ProComp 7069's. When they showed up they were "too black" lol, so they got painted sparkly black (actually more of a dark graphite). They actually look pretty good in person, even with the gold cladding. But, I have other plans... Shhhh.... she doesn't know....

 

[Red October]

I also wanted to address the age of the transmission, which was actually in reasonably good shape considering age, miles, and the state of the rest of the truck. The previous owner had left a leaky mess after attempting to change the filter. After an initial investigation I chose to install a shift kit, and rebuild the valve body, instead of a complete rebuild of the trans. I replaced the Boost valve and the Lockup Relay valve with upgrade parts from Sonnax. The shift kit I chose was from TransGo, I used medium shifts, it is my wife driving and its not a sports car. I also installed an in pan temp sensor and mounted the gauge next to the shifter.

Overall, I am super happy with this upgrade now that I have it up and driving. The trans holds gears all the way up to 5000 rpm, if you get down on the loud pedal, and you absolutely know when it does shift. But just cruising the shift is just firm enough to let you know the trans stepped a gear. Smooth when you want and aggressive enough when you want.

New gauge for trans monitoring.

 

[Red October]

Bart is in the process of an interior update. Eventually this will include newer front leather, refreshed steering wheel, and some lighting upgrades.

The Limited psuedo wood grain is kinda gross, and wifey didnt want it. Plus the radio bezel was busted up pretty bad. We got a new black one, and needed to make them all the same. So we shot some new color onto all the trim bits. It turned out pretty nice, it's kind of a bronzy-black. Looks like it could almost be a stock color.

At the same time we refreshed all of the electronic controls, and added matchy-matchy red LEDs all over the place, as well as some aux switches for future goodies, and a bluetooth stereo for hands free convenience! Honestly it's one of my favorite features. Also built some snazzy Ram Ball mounts for phone holding duties.

Check it.

 

[Red October]

One of the things that really made me shake my head about this truck was the exhaust system. It was cobbled together, a couple of times, no joints and mismatched pipe sizes. And one really gross adapter that took the stock pipe size and shrunk it down to about 1.75" to go into a tiny muffler. It made no sense.

I ended up having to remove all of it, with a sawzall, and throw it in the trash.

But it did dive me a reason to run a true 2.5" system all the way from the collector to a nice Magnaflow. Which sounded great, and my wife hated it. It was kinda loud in her defense. So the Magnaflow came out and we went to a more stock style muffler to which I added appropriate sized inlet/outlets, still lots more flow than before, but less decibels, and a happier spouse. Happy wife happy life... :whip2:

Lots more air moving thru this

 

[Nicknasty]

This is bad ass

 

[plcfcng]

I have a question how much do you have into the cost of the Engine. I am with you doing a JDM can be crap shoot for me I did one on a Accord for my daughter it only a fair engine. I did a rebuild on my 3.4 Heads went to the Machine shop did a re ring replaced a couple of pistons it end up turn out great.:artist:

 

[Red October]

JDMs are just a bit of a crap shoot IMHO. I prefer to know what is actually going on in there and what parts were used, etc.

So as an estimate (These are close to the prices I actually paid, obviously not to the penny, but close);
- $800-ish in machine work. Which includes, fitting new pistons, decked block, all head work, cleaning, etc.
- $180 for Nippon ( OE supplier ) pistons and rings
- $150 for Main, Rod and Thrust Bearings ( Taiho OE supplier)
- $150 for OE Toyota head gasket kit.
- $180 Gates timing kit (included Aisin water pump).
- $65 Aisin oil pump.
- $35 OE knock sensor harness.
- $15 Toyota FIPGK
- $50 new OE shims (as needed, each engine will vary)
- add another $150 for incidentals and things that didnt come in various kits

$1775 grand ball-park total. That is of course with me doing all fitting and assembly, installing, etc. (except pistons, which must be fit at time of machining)

As you can see, I did a fair amount of work to find OE supplier replacement, and Toyota parts. This did probably cost a little more up front, but a whole lot less than doing it over again in a few miles.

 

[eddielasvegas]

Good thread and info here.

I was wondering what your total investment was. Is $1,700 the total so far or just the engine?

Do you have a max you want to spend? Me thinks you'll have a damn fine T4R for under 5 grand, right?


Eddie

 

[Red October]

The estimate above is just for what I put into the engine rebuild, by far the most expensive part of the entire project.

Before I really dug into this thing, (read as, my wife gave a specific allowance) I set a budget that I thought would be reasonable, and recoverable if things didn't go as planned. Right now I am into the truck, including purchase price, engine rebuild, trans parts, wheels and tires, and various other small items, about $3500 total investment. I figure I could sell the truck for at least that much. My total budget was around $4500, and I have a few more things I am wanting to do before its complete.

 

[JLTD]

Sweet; nice job!

I looked at that generation but sadly didn't fit inside.

 

[Dieselchessy]

JDMs are just a bit of a crap shoot IMHO. I prefer to know what is actually going on in there and what parts were used, etc.

So as an estimate (These are close to the prices I actually paid, obviously not to the penny, but close);
- $800-ish in machine work. Which includes, fitting new pistons, decked block, all head work, cleaning, etc.
- $180 for Nippon ( OE supplier ) pistons and rings
- $150 for Main, Rod and Thrust Bearings ( Taiho OE supplier)
- $150 for OE Toyota head gasket kit.
- $180 Gates timing kit (included Aisin water pump).
- $65 Aisin oil pump.
- $35 OE knock sensor harness.
- $15 Toyota FIPGK
- $50 new OE shims (as needed, each engine will vary)
- add another $150 for incidentals and things that didnt come in various kits

$1775 grand ball-park total. That is of course with me doing all fitting and assembly, installing, etc. (except pistons, which must be fit at time of machining)

As you can see, I did a fair amount of work to find OE supplier replacement, and Toyota parts. This did probably cost a little more up front, but a whole lot less than doing it over again in a few miles.

Your pictures don't appear to be of an Aisin water pump. At least it don't look like any one I've ever seen. Just an FYI.

 

[Red October]

Your pictures don't appear to be of an Aisin water pump. At least it don't look like any one I've ever seen. Just an FYI.

...I could be wrong I guess...

 

[TWJLee]

Paint type

What type and brand paint did you use for the plenums and VC -
What do you expect out of them other than looking good for awhile?

Im going to do it also on next vcg job and would like to know the best to use.

Thanks

 

[VernySanders]

Your pictures don't appear to be of an Aisin water pump. At least it don't look like any one I've ever seen. Just an FYI.

It is, I just did my timing job last year and had the same one. Aisin.

 

[Red October]

What type and brand paint did you use for the plenums and VC -
What do you expect out of them other than looking good for awhile?

Im going to do it also on next vcg job and would like to know the best to use.

Thanks

I used VHT high temp engine paint. Mostly its just for looks. But it does clean up easier than the cast aluminum. I also painted the block and brackets with a cast iron color, to keep them from rusting as quickly.