JBurt's 97 Build Thread

[JBurt]

So I finally got something done on my 4runner. It's seen very little love or miles lately. I've still got the stuff to do the valve covers, and that really really needs to get done, so that obviously meant it was time for an upholstery project. This was done for practice for an seat reupholster on my wife's car.

The seat back on my drivers seat had seen better days, and a looong time ago I bought a whole donor seat for a whopping $10. As anyone with the moonmist interior knows, it's obviously not the same color as what's in my rig, and the seat bottom on mine was in better shape. I decided to swap the backs. I got hog ring pliers from HF and some rings from the vet section from Tractor Supply (I'd order automotive upholstery for next time though). I didn't take any before pictures, but here is the seat out, and the upholstery off of the back, and hence the need for the replacement. It wasn't very comfortable.

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Here is the same shot of the donor seat, with much better foam
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And back together. The reassembly required only 2 hog rings, which wasn't hard, but I needed both hands, so no pictures.
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While I had the cover off I soaked it in a bucket of oxyclean. That water was nasty.

Anyone need a seat frame?
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The side plastics on mine had a few issues so I thought I'd try something new on these. They were both broken where the tab slides into the front.
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I first superglued these back into place, but that definitely wouldn't be strong enough for the force they see. So once the CA glue was dry, I put some clear JB 5 minute epoxy over them, then laid down strips of old tshirt and pressed it down into the epoxy, and put more epoxy on top. I figured it would serve as a scaffolding for the epoxy life fiberglass matt. It worked great.
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Encouraged by this success I decided to try and fix this hole where an attachment screw goes
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I just put a large square of tshirt over it, zip tied it down, epoxied, then added a total of 3 layers of t shirt, and drilled a hole in the middle. Worked fantastic.
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I also took one of the headrest clips from the donor seat, but painted it to match. It's not perfect, but it works.
Before:
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After:
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[phattyduck]

Since you have a '97 (no passenger seat occupancy sensor), swap the front seat bottoms left to right... Get some nice butt support back!

When I swapped over to sport seats, I use oxyclean then a fully laundry cycle to clean the upholstery. My seat backs were still good enough to keep on their same sides.

-Charlie

 

[5VZ-FE]

Since you have a '97 (no passenger seat occupancy sensor), swap the front seat bottoms left to right... Get some nice butt support back!

When I swapped over to sport seats, I use oxyclean then a fully laundry cycle to clean the upholstery. My seat backs were still good enough to keep on their same sides.

-Charlie

I second that. It makes a world of difference in drivability.

 

[JBurt]

Thanks guys. I swapped the bottoms a couple years ago. It helped a lot. So much so that it convinced me to do the backs. I'm glad I went this route, as my other option was PRP's or something similar. I like the ones I've sat in, but if the seats sit any higher than stock, I'd be totally out of headroom.

 

[habanero]

Very nice work and it looks good too.

 

[JBurt]

Well crap. Not the 4runner, but I have an 05 Sequoia

My wife was driving home last night and the car died on the freeway and would not start. P0335, crankshaft position sensor. After looking at it I found the culprit


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The wire had come loose of the retaining clips (probably from a shop when they did the timing belt a few months ago) and the drive belt chewed into it.



I know the CPS wires are shielded. None of the wires are broken, but if the wires inside were touching the shield it would have ground out the whole circuit. What's the best way to fix shielded wire? I can't find much online, other than saying to replaced the whole wire all the way to the ECU, which I really don't want to do. I can toss some heat shrink on the wires and put the remaining shielding on as best I can. You can see where the shielding stops, as the damage is pretty close to the end of the wire and the connector. Would it be fine with just 3 inches less of sheilding? Thoughts?



Here's a picture after I pulled it all out of the loom


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[phattyduck]

Would it be fine with just 3 inches less of sheilding? Thoughts?

Almost guaranteed to work. Insulate each wire/shield from each other and loom it back up. It is sensitive, but the shielding is more for when the wires are near the injector and coil wiring up in the main portion of the harness.

-Charlie

 

[JBurt]

Thanks Charlie! Do you have any recommendations for vinyl tape that doesn't turn into a slimy mess?

 

[phattyduck]

Thanks Charlie! Do you have any recommendations for vinyl tape that doesn't turn into a slimy mess?

I generally use the 3M 33+ tape, but I can't guarantee it will be perfect. One of the secrets would be to do the last wrap 'loose' (no tension) so that it doesn't pull back nearly as much with time. I also put a small zip tie at the end to hold it from unravelling if I'm worried about it.

I have also recently been using the cloth-type (also from 3M) "friction tape" in some cases. I don't have enough time on this type to comment.

Liquid electrical tape also is a good option - no adhesive to get gooey! This is what I use to protect wire when I 'tap' and solder a connection without cutting the original wire, like this:

(ignore notes on image, the closest I could quickly find on the googles)

-Charlie

 

[sleepydad]

Thanks Charlie! Do you have any recommendations for vinyl tape that doesn't turn into a slimy mess?

if you can find just one roll for cheaper, I got a pack of 5 years ago, I really like this stuff now

5 Rolls Tesa's Most Advanced High Heat Harness Tape 51036 Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

 

[JBurt]

That Tesa's stuff looks great. I couldn't find any locally and wanted the car back up soon so I just went with 3m 33. That liquid electrical tape was pretty cool. Thanks for the tip Charlie.

Loom and wires repaired.

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I couldn't find any clips that the loom was supposed to go into, so it is now ziptied to the oil line. Not a lot of clearance for the belt, but it should work.

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Thanks for all the advice. It's running like a champ again.

 

[JBurt]

Good old valve covers!

So I finally got around to replacing my horrendously bad valve cover gaskets. They've probably leaked since I bought the car, but not bad.

Well, several 10's of thousands of 'not bad' miles adds up and everything was covered in oil residue. Free rust proofing right?

The job wasn't that bad. I went through a few write ups and also Tim's excellent video. I finally got the wood shop stuff moved around to get the 4runner in the air conditioned garage (it's already in the 90's here). It's been several years since a car's been in there.
2023-04-24_04-39-12 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

Everything looks okay. Not fantastic, but for 284k I'm okay with it. No real sludge to speak of. Not the cleanest, but also far from the dirtiest. I guess I can run some cleaner. My normal OCI is 5000 miles with Mobil 1 or Castrol full synthetic. I'm embarrassed by how much dirty oil is everywhere.

2023-04-24_04-01-58 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

The only hiccup was the wiring harness crumbling to dust. I followed tim's suggestion by wraping it in ducting tape, but there was too much oil for it to stick to anything. I was able to degrease it pretty easy, but it broke some in the process. Then when I removed the valve cover it really just disintegrated. I guess the desert heat is extra hard on those? Who knows. The bad part was plastic bits falling into the valve train. I think I got all of them except 1, which fell down below the exhaust cam gear on the drivers side. Couldn't get it to focus, but I circled the plastic bit in red.

2023-04-24_04-01-42 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

I think I need to remove the cam to get it out. Ugh. I think since it's the exhaust cam, and not connected to the timing belt, I can just undo 8 bolts and take it out, making sure to mark which teeth are engaged to the intake cam. Any thoughts on this problem?

Should I just suck it up and remove both cams and do the timing belt too? That job should probably be done too, but If I can avoid doing both at the same time, I wouldn't mind.

Thanks everyone.

 

[brillo_76]

It's valve checking adjustment time, too. 250k to 300k miles.

Sent from my SM-A536V using Tapatalk

 

[JBurt]

They're out!

Ear forceps are apparently a thing, and they worked great!

I tried lots of different things, but the only thing that fit was a drinking straw (diameter of ~7mm). I taped one into the shop vac but it didn't have enough suction to get it out. Enter the ear forceps.

2023-05-02_10-29-27 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

My cheap amazon boroscope showed there was one more piece

2023-05-02_10-29-54 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

But the forceps got that too! $15 well spent.

2023-05-02_10-30-12 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr


I couldn't tell if there was one more very tiny piece, so I used the straw/shopvac and then it looked pretty clean. If there is anything else, I can't see it, and it has fallen down the passage, hopefully to the pan, and hopefully it'll come out on the next oil change.

Now I can move on with the other parts of the job.

 

[JBurt]

I just went over the whole process for checking valve clearance. I wish I hadn't seen that. I guess its time to pull out the feeler gauges.

 

[habanero]

Nice work on the plastic bits. C'mon good valve clearance numbers :thumb:

 

[JBurt]

Finally rolling again

The 4runner was down for about a month, but it's working great now.

Valve clearances were not too bad. I forgot to take a picture of where I wrote them down, but all intake valves were in spec, and only one exhaust valve was in spec, and the worst was .019 inches. I used Timmy's video and spreadsheet, got a micrometer, figured out what shims I needed and ordered 8 of them. $12 a piece, but they worked. The rest I could rearrange. I spend all that effort getting forceps to not remove the exhaust cams and wound up removing them anyways. Oh well.

The old spark tube seals were definitely shot
2023-07-03_11-09-31 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

I put in new plugs and wires. The old ones didn't look too bad
2023-07-21_10-47-07 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

Everything was a gross oily mess. It took a long time to clean everything, and I didn't get it perfect, but much better.

Before:
2023-07-03_11-06-48 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

After:
2023-07-03_11-07-58 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

New valves in.
2023-08-14_11-03-11 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr


My wiring harness plastic completely disintegrated when touched, even with tape on it. I removed it completely and wrapped the wires in silicone rescue tape and then in a loom. I found the procedure in this thread. I used black tape though. I've got a Prius, and orange to me means high voltage wires.

Solution to Brittle Wiring Harness Cover Under Plenum

It turned out okay.
2023-07-03_11-09-45 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

2023-07-03_11-09-56 by Jeff Burt, on Flickr

Then I replaced as many vacuum hoses as I could find. Put in a new PCV valve and hose, stuck a new air tube on it, new air filter and changed the oil an filter.

After being down for 6ish weeks it fired right up and drove on a 300 mile trip.

However, I was still throwing codes for misfires on cylinders 1 and 2, which were the super oily ones. I wasn't too happy. I thought maybe the injectors were bad, so I ran some lucas through the system and the codes went away.

I'm almost due for a timing belt, so I can send the injectors in when I take it apart for that.

 

[ibob4tacoz]

Man, I thought the weeping VCG in my BMW was bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much build-up in my life lol