Official Bay Area MOD/MEET/GREET Thread

Hey Y'all [MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] and I are going to tackle a valve cover gasket replacement on his truck. It will include replacing the cam plugs, resealing the half moons and replacing the spark plug tube grommets. We plan on videoing the job so we can share it with other DIY mechanics working on Toyota 3.4 liter V6 engines.

We plan on starting at 9am. If you're interested in joining in, PM me and I'll give you my address. I live in San Jose near Campbell. We'll have some beers and take a lunch break at some point. This will be a good learning experience for anyone wanting to tackle this job on their own truck. It is a weekday, so we don't expect many will be able to make it. Hopefully our video footage is good and we will have a more comprehensive tutorial for people to follow.

Did you guys finished this already?

I'm down for the next meet...
 
Dang, I really need to do the valve cover gaskets and various related seals on my Runner as well. I honestly feel like I should check valve clearances while I'm at it, as I feel they may be a bit out of spec. Unfortunately, living in SF I don't have access to a garage, or even a dedicated parking space for that matter.
 
Did you guys finished this already?

I'm down for the next meet...

[MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] parts aren't going to arrive until Thursday so we're moving the job to Friday. If this change of plans allows any of you to attend now, PM me and I'll give you my address so you can join in.

Checking valve clearances would be ideal, but looking at the FSM, it looks fairly complicated and would add lots of time to this job. We're just going to concentrate on doing the valve cover gaskets, replacing cam plugs, resealing the 4 half moons, replacing the spark plug tube seals and we'll be throwing in a cleaning of the throttle body and MAF sensor. [MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] also wants to paint his valve covers, so we're going to do that as well.
 
[MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] and I have another repair day scheduled. It's very short notice and a weekday but we figured we'd throw it out there anyway to see if anyone would like to join us.

Sean's steering rack bushing are beyond shot. We're going to remove the old bushings and replace them with the Energy Suspension polyurethane ones. He has a differential drop, so we'll have to remove that first so we can clear one of the bolts.

We're going to do it this coming Tuesday, Feb 23rd @9am. PM me if you'd like to join in. We plan on video documenting the repair too if that interests you. And of course, there will be good beer.
 
[MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] and I have another repair day scheduled. It's very short notice and a weekday but we figured we'd throw it out there anyway to see if anyone would like to join us.

Sean's steering rack bushing are beyond shot. We're going to remove the old bushings and replace them with the Energy Suspension polyurethane ones. He has a differential drop, so we'll have to remove that first so we can clear one of the bolts.

We're going to do it this coming Tuesday, Feb 23rd @9am. PM me if you'd like to join in. We plan on video documenting the repair too if that interests you. And of course, there will be good beer.

I might be able to stop by on tuesday. I would definitely love to watch the video and hopefully you guys can do a write up on this if it hasnt already been done. I bought ES steering rack bushings but have yet to replace mine.
 
I might be able to stop by on tuesday. I would definitely love to watch the video and hopefully you guys can do a write up on this if it hasnt already been done. I bought ES steering rack bushings but have yet to replace mine.

If you can make it, just PM me and I'll give you my address. We plan on video documenting all the repairs we do so we can share them. Write-ups with lots of pictures are great but I think a well-done video usually does a better job of showing the process of doing a repair or modification. So, I don't think we're going to do both. However, we'll definitely answer questions on anything in the video that isn't clear to someone wanting to do the job themselves.
 
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It was another good day at Timmy's Garage. We got some new Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings installed on [MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] steering rack. He now has a slop-free steering rack. It wasn't a really hard job. It definitely helped to have an extra set of hands at times.

To get the bushings out, we used a ball joint press and adapters that we rented from O'Reilly Auto Parts.

We did video the job and will be posting it soon. We unfortunately lost part of the documentation because we weren't videoing at one point when we thought we were.

We did have a another Bay Area 3rd Gen Enthusiast join us for part of the day. [MENTION=119152]jmsdad[/MENTION] (aka Tom) joined us for a few hours and was helpful. Thanks Tom and we hope you join us again.
 
Ok Dudes,

Now it's my turn to get some new bushings installed on my front sway bar and steering rack. I'll also be installing the polyurethane bushings from Energy Suspension.
[MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] and I will be performing this repair on Tuesday March 1st starting at 9am. I will get the necessary ball joint c-press and adapter rental in advance so we can complete the job with no interruptions. I'll also get the truck up on jacks in advance and the front wheels off so we can jump right into the meat of the repair. This should only take us a few hours since we've done it once before and know all the tools we'll need to get it done.

If you'd like to join us, just PM me and I'll give you my address. We will have beer and will most likely go to lunch afterwards.
 
Ok Dudes,

Now it's my turn to get some new bushings installed on my front sway bar and steering rack. I'll also be installing the polyurethane bushings from Energy Suspension.

[MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] and I will be performing this repair on Tuesday March 1st starting at 9am. I will get the necessary ball joint c-press and adapter rental in advance so we can complete the job with no interruptions. I'll also get the truck up on jacks in advance and the front wheels off so we can jump right into the meat of the repair. This should only take us a few hours since we've done it once before and know all the tools we'll need to get it done.

If you'd like to join us, just PM me and I'll give you my address. We will have beer and will most likely go to lunch afterwards.

Just giving the thread a bump. Any Bay Area 3rd Genners interested in joining us for this repair?
 
Ok Dudes,

Now it's my turn to get some new bushings installed on my front sway bar and steering rack. I'll also be installing the polyurethane bushings from Energy Suspension.

[MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] and I will be performing this repair on Tuesday March 1st starting at 9am. I will get the necessary ball joint c-press and adapter rental in advance so we can complete the job with no interruptions. I'll also get the truck up on jacks in advance and the front wheels off so we can jump right into the meat of the repair. This should only take us a few hours since we've done it once before and know all the tools we'll need to get it done.

If you'd like to join us, just PM me and I'll give you my address. We will have beer and will most likely go to lunch afterwards.

Figured I'd give this one final bump to see if any Bay Area folks would like to be part of this meet-up repair. If you'd like to join us, just PM me and I'll give you my address.
 
It was another good day at Timmy's Garage. I've now got Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings for my steering rack and Prothane polyurethane bushings for my front sway bar and end links. There is an issue with the Prothane end link bushings though. The hole for the bushings is much larger than OEM so there's a lot of side to side slop when it's on the end link. When it's tightened down, the bushings squeeze out a little past the washer because of the excessive play. I called Energy Suspension and they're going to get me the right ones. I measured the old bushing, and the hole in the middle is 3/8". The ones I got in the kit had a hole diameter at least a 1/2" but probably more.

Even though my steering rack bushings weren't worn that bad, I can tell my steering is more responsive now. Polyurethane bushings are a nice affordable upgrade.

We videotaped the whole process and [MENTION=102606]infamousRNR[/MENTION] will work his magic editing the video to a finely polished product. We'll probably have it posted by this coming weekend.

Peace out!
 
Throwback to a meet we had a while back


[MENTION=80668]Loud Runner[/MENTION]
[MENTION=53337]SCRunner12[/MENTION]
[MENTION=47554]t4r4life[/MENTION]
[MENTION=76627]nor_cal51501[/MENTION]




<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JQj2T0M0BAc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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