Since it seems like everyone has there own project thread, I decided to make 1 too.

Well, she failled smog today. Not terribly failed.

Idle speed CO. 5.53% greater than 2.00%
High speed CO. 4.66% greater than 2.00%

Smog guy may be full of ****, but he said he see's this in motorhomes that have not been run for awhile. So since it did sit for 6 months, I'll drive it around and get some fresh gas and get some heat in the old girl. He may be right, who knows, I still have to check all my vacum lines and some other stuff.

If she fails again, I'll just do what I did on my 74 Ford Grand Torino, 351 Cleveland. Ran a high flow cat to pass even though it did not come w/ a cat.

So if the yota fails again, I'll just upgrade my piping run a cat and call it a day. Btw, that exhaust piping is really small.

Today, I got the uncomfortable bench seat out, and started moking up my recaro's. It looks like a simple set up. My rail lines up w/ the rear stock hole and the front, looks like 3/4 block. So that is simple, weld the block down, drill my hole, 2 grade 8 bolts, lock washer and over size washer, and a nut and another jam nut just for the hell of it. Should be good to go.

Then I gotta work on the outside, build me a bed cover and and then start on the body work or maybe the front end. Which ever catches my attention first. I'll get some more pics up in a little bit

 

nice. this is the green one from the other thread? whats the emission cutoff year for vegas? do they do visual underhood inspections on old stuff or just a tailpipe sniffer? i wanna move there sometime within the next few months if i can afford it.

 

They do underhood looks. Not really inspections I would say. I think the cut off is the same as 75 or so. But all they do on the pre obd1 cars is just a sniff.

And I say they do look under the hood because on my 78 T/A, 400 poncho w/ 2 stages of nitrious, selonoids and everything sitting under the hood, the guy just looked and closed the hood, ran my car through the sniffer. a couple mins later I was driving away w/ the paperwork. I passed


Drove the truck to work last night. I got a lot of suspension work ahead of me. At 55 the truck did okay, really big vague spot and wallowed around. At 60 it sounded and felt like my front end was going to come out the truck. Bangs and clangs going on and could not get it to track at all.

This morning people were pissed at the construction that cut us down to 1 lane and they were stuck behind me. Only able to do 50 or so. When the lane finally split into 2, I got a couple honks, a finger and a hombre yelled something in spanish to me. I just smilled and gave them the 1 finger wave.

I also found out I got some wiring issies to work out. No left blinker, and the tail lights, running lights are on a toggle switch. Turn on the head lights and only the head lights turn on, to get the tails, and running lights u have to flip the toggle. Interesting, I'll figure out why they did that and fix that.

Oh and the charge light comes on at 50 and gets brighter as you go faster. That 1 may take me a minute to figure out, but it is definatly interesting Oh and no dash lights.

So the truck has some little quirks, a few wrinkles to iron out. Nothing major so far, she starts 1st twist of the key. Solid idle, says the smog comp and shifts fine. For $800.00 I am not complaining yet

 

so my ramcharger i swapped to a carb from TBI would probably bomb that quick visual eh?

 

I don't know. If I get nitrious to pass I think you got a chance. If not I can point u in the direction to who to ask for a special smog.

On topic, any ideas about my suspension, any one hasve similar issius??

 

I want to see what you've got planned for the bed cover.

 

for the suspension i would start by checking the stabilizer, all the tie rods/balljoints/ect, and the wheel bearings. if it makes noise and is super floaty, something is worn out. idler and pitman too. not sure if your year has lash adjustment in the steering box. probably. id start with checking that stuff out.

 

my truck failed smog after sitting for 6 months, i just dumped some alcohol in the tank mixed with premium and sprayed the carb with cleaner and it passed

 

alcohol helps if it suddenly gets really cold while youre driving too. we had the lines on our van freeze once in our parking lot. few jugs of alcohol helped clear it up. but 360 dodge motors will burn anything. so the water in the lines didnt matter much. lol.

thats a good tip though, try it out.

 

I'll try it out if I fail again. Good thing about Nevada is you can fail as many times as you want. My 3000GT VR4 failed 10 times. Passed on the 11th try.

I'll go try again today as I got fresh gas and took it up and down the freeway a couple times.

 

Just a simple fiberglass cover. Flush mounted. Made 1 for a friend before and it worked great.

Really simple idea: Get a flat sheet of ply wood, cut it so it just fits in between the bed rails, since fiberglass does not seperate from wood to good, use thin plastic sheeting to cover the board. throw it on a flat floor, cut your mat to size, roll out the resign, let it set up, do another layer. You can thicken it up more in the middle after it is fully set up. We waited till it was completely dry, flipped it over and thickened the underside. Mounting is extremely simple, just 2 L channels, bolted to the inside bed side, used small bolts and notches so we had adjustability. Once it is to the correct height, 2 small hinges to the front end of the bed, ( cab side ) bolted the top to the cover and there you go. Get some foam for the channel. Seals it nice. To secure it, we used to of those gate thingys, I forget what they are called, dead bolt things, anyways, 2 of those for the rear side, drilled 2 holes, so you had to open the tail gate, undo the dead bolt things and lift it up.

It doesn't weigh nearly as much as you would think. For added support a aluminum shower rod, cut to length, smash the ends flat, so they sit nice in the channel, held in place by pressure, stops bow in and since it is supported by the channel, it can't really flex. Best part is it is removeable by 1 person. Undo 4 bolts, lift it up and out. Sand the top nice, paint it and roll on. The 1 I did for my friends truck is still holding strong after 3 years.

He put the little covers over the bolts to give it a more finished look and it looks really good. Btw the wood is just for the shape, also no waste as the plywood was cut and used for his garage shelves.

We are enviro modding. lol HAHA Where are those tree hugging hippies. I got to go to bed, Good Night

 

I failed smog again today. This time my hc's were out of wack and my co has not dropped. I am going to go get a high flow cat and some piping tomorow. I can whip up a exhaust, simple side exit, no need for a muffler as the cat does a pretty good job at quieting it down enough. Enough for the test anyways, then when this damn heat goes down I can make a proper exhaust

 

have you tried overinflating the rear tires slightly, and really driving it hard before the test?
overinflation eases load on the dyno, and driving hard gets the cat nice and hot.
oh, also, run a good brand 87 octane (shell, chevron, etc).

 

I am not trying to dick with it. I like simple solutions. Besides redoing a little exhaust is nothing. And a side benefit is I can add a bung for the wbo2, makes carb tuning so much easier. Just want it to pass for now, I want to drive it around for a lil bit before I take it down. Knowing me and how one thing turns into another. When I do take it down, it will not see day light for at least a year.

I am trying to avoid looking at it. If I don't see it, it will not bother me

 

I did my smog exhaust today. Added a cat from a Mustang 2.3 liter, good size cat, fit a foot length of pipe and a 90* bend. I'll take a pic of it later as it makes me laugh. All held together w/ clamps. Just the cat and piping gives it a nice deep tone. If I pass then I'll take it off and weld it up and probably add another piece to make it a little longer. Pics to come later

Oh and the total cost was $93.00, $70.00 for just the cat, the rest was the pipe and clamps and taxes. Mustang cat was the cheapest cat that is available and it is a pretty good fit

 

I passed smog!!!




Just the addition of the cat took my 5.53% down to a 1.5%
Took the 4.66 down to a 1.8%
Dropped my H.G.'s way down

I had the smog guy amazed as much as me. Said now he knows how to get all the old pre cat cars to pass. Shove a cat in there and you are good to go. After I weld up my exhaust, it looks like hell right now, clamps everywhere and a coat hanger for support. I'll get that pic, or if you guys wanna see it all ghetto.
I am still amazed it dropped my #'s by over half.

 

I had a positive and a negative today. Got plates on my truck. The negative was while on the way home, my ghetto fabolouis exhast got ripped off my truck. Bounced under neath my truck and landed in the street. I had to pull over and go rescue my exhaust from the street. Dam thing was burning hot, used my shirt to get it in the truck.

 

Definitly an interesting colour choice there.

 

wow. that is ghetto

 

If I can get that same green the truck is going to get repainted. I love the 70's green.

And yeah, it is ghetto, but it passed smog with out breaking a sweat.

Here is a pic of my 74' Ford Grand Torino, 70's green

http://toyotaminis.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1174&stc=1&d=1251329116