Flash

Thanks for the extra detail fellas. Much appreciated. I'll start hunting.

Thanks fellas. The engine I want to put it behind is a Toyota 3Y out of a mid '80s HiAce van. According to some info I found on The Google it looks like these vans were equipped with either a A44DL or a A45DL. The box was top hung in the vans. @Spencer I seem to recall that you are Brissy based - correct em if I'm wrong. If you know of any available units in the Brissy area, please let me know. Ta

Thanks for that. Would it be possible to put a A series auto box behind an engine that previously ran a G series manual gearbox ?

I know that a lot of the older manual Toyota gearboxes like the W and G series have bell housings that can be swapped out to suit a particular Toyota engine. Do the auto gearboxes like the A43D and A44DL have the same ability ?

With everything in place I gave it a quick whirl. Success ! The action is nice and smooth now, but there is one last issue that I need to resolve. The original 4 speed Thames gearbox only had two gate selections with reverse selected using a "pull - push down and rotate" action on the handle. The factory Thames column shift defaults to the gear 3 and 4 plane when in neutral with a pull up on the handle for gears 1 and 2. This is achieved by a spring in the column that pushes the mechanism fully down at rest. The Toyota 5 speed obviously has 3 gate selections and on the HiAce the neutral position is controlled by springs contained in the side casing on the gearbox. But now with the HiAce gearbox connected to the Thames column the setup defaults to the gear 5 and reverse plane when at rest. This is not ideal. Best scenario would be for the selector to default to the gear 3 and 4 position at rest with a pull up on the handle for 1 and 2 and a push down for 5 and reverse So I'm thinking that if I remove the spring in the Thames column, with a little bit of luck the springs in the HiAce gearbox may take over control of the neutral position. It's worth a go I reckon. Well now that I've put you all to sleep with all of this useless detail, all that remains is to show you a schematic of the Thames column and the offending spring that I intend to banish from the land tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

So that brings us up to this morning when I tackled the issue with renewed vigor. Overnight I'd come up with an idea that would involve bending the arm upwards so that it would run between the gearbox housing and the chassis leg, the theory being that a straight arm would give me maximum leverage on the swivel pin. Climbing under the van this morning their appeared to be just enough space to accommodate a straight lever, so armed with the spare lever off the 4 speed I strolled down the street to my mate Lane's place and we used his oxy acetylene setup to heat and shape the arm. Comparison shot of new and old together and then a shot of the modified arm in place with cables temporarily attached.

The sliding ends on my new cable are a bit longer than the Mitsi Express cables, so I'll need to fabricate new permanent holding brackets, but in the mean time I just clamped my older holding brackets in place. I'm using the new cable for the gear selector and one of the Mitsi cables for the gate selector.The Mitsi cable is just slightly too short and although it will work for now I plan to get another made up. So with both cables attached using temporarily holding brackets I put the combined shifter through its paces. Initial result was not good. The gear selector portion works nicely, but the gate selector was jamming up. After a bit of fault finding I traced the issue to the gate selector lever on the gearbox. This is the lever that I originally had to reshape to clear the strut brace mounting plate. As the lever is pulled forward or pushed back it rotates the pin which lifts or drops the gate. Now that the lever is more horizontal than factory, I suspect that the force that has to be applied to get it to move is just too much for the cable. So at that point I called it quits for the day, thinking I'd give it some more thought overnight.

A few months back during the "mock up phase" of this build I was able to more or less prove the concept of converting the HiAce 5 speed side loader gearbox to cable shift. I say more or less as up to now I have never been in a position to test both the gate and gear shift movements simultaneously. But now that I have completed the fabrication on the combined steering / gearshift column setup I've now reached the moment of truth. So yesterday I grabbed my new "push pull" cable that I had made up late last year. It's nice and long as it needs to attach to the gearbox arm from the rear and then takes a lazy loop before heading towards the front of the van. It's also been made with what they call a bolt fitting on either end rather than the cir-clip arrangement on the factory cables out of the Express van. Much easier to attach to my fabricated brackets and allows for some adjustment too. First order of business was to poke a hole through the bottom of the gear selector column so that I can bolt the bobbin/arm combo that I have harvested from the Starwagon gear shift. I have to be able to remove this part to separate the shift column from my mounting plate in future, so welding wasn't an option. The bolt is a dodgy temporary one for now. I'll pickup something stronger on my next town run.

Okay, so with that option blown out of the water I thought I'd have another go at removing the levers from the 5 speed selector casing. I clamped the casing in my vice and took to both pins with a hammer and punch. The pin for the upper lever eventually came free, but the bottom one wouldn't budge. I didn't want to get too boisterous with the hammer for fear of damaging the casing, so eventually resorted to fitting the casing back on my mock up gearbox that is currently languishing in the back of HiAce Donor Two and then used a small socket and my ball joint puller to bully the lower selector arm off. Sadly the original gasket hadn't survived so I had to make up a new gasket from some gasket paper that I had lying around, lubed up the cotter pins and remounted everything. I'm now ready to chuck on the selector cables, so that will be the next step. Thanks for reading.

Back when I was about to fit the engine and gearbox I suddenly remembered that I needed to remove the gearbox selector arms in order to get the gearbox into its final position. At the time I tried tapping out the cotter pins for both levers, but they wouldn't budge. Not wanting to damage anything in my haste I ended up pulling off the selector casing complete with levers. Today I thought I'd refit the casing and my first thought was to fit the one from my mock up gearbox as I knew that both pins were already loose. I sat the two casings side by side and there are noticeable differences in the internal mechanism. The one on the right is for the 5 speed and is equipped with an extra push lever and return spring, so clearly I was being naive in thinking they were interchangeable.

So with the engine and gearbox back in the hole I've been chipping away at some of the smaller things. The suspension beam is installed but hasn't been painted and detailed yet as the chassis mounting plates are currently only tacked to the beam. I don't want to fully weld them until the van has been on an alignment machine and has been declared straight and true. The inner bushes on the lower control arms look fairly knackered so I've been on the hunt for some replacements. Although rubber units are available for the newer L300s, I haven't been able to track down a set for the pre '86 vans, so have decided to go with nolathane or noltec or whatever it's called these days. I had them in the Bedford and didn't really notice the harsher ride that some folk reckon the aftermarket stuff causes. Anyhoo I've got a set of Whitelines on their way, so decided it was time to remove the original bushes. At first I thought there might be two bushes pushed in from either side, but on closer inspection I discovered that the metal inner sleeve is a single piece all the way through. What had me puzzled was the way that the ends of the inner sleeve were crimped over the outer washers and that's what made me suspect a two piece setup. After dithering about for a bit I eventually figured the best approach was a frontal attack so I clamped the arm in the vice and used a chisel to knock the crimp off. Sure enough the end washer came loose, but the rubber wouldn't budge. As much as any self respecting petrol head loves the smell of burning rubber I didn't fancy breathing in copious amounts of fumes, so resorted to breaking the rubber up with my drill. Worked pretty well. I'll give the arms a lick of paint so I can crack straight into the assembly when the new bushes arrive.

Much success in a very short time this morning. I ended up moving the engine and gearbox further back and raising it a bit more on the re-purposed trolley, but it now works like a charm. Thought I'd document the steps so I can refer to them later when needed: Slide the trolley in under the front bumper which it just clears. Line everything up between the chassis legs and push the trolley backwards until the gearbox mount lines up with the chassis cross brace. Position the trolley jack under the flat portion of the gearbox tail housing and lift until the gearbox mount touches the cross brace. Line up and chuck in the 4 mounting bolts. Gearbox is now fixed in place and can rotate on the gearbox mount through bolt. Position engine crane through driver's door, hookup lifting chain and lift engine until bell housing hits firewall. Remove trolley, load front suspension beam onto trolley and push under the van. Lift beam into position using trolley jack, line up and bolt up to chassis. Install rubber engine mounts on engine. Lower engine using crane until engine mounts engage with mounts on suspension beam. Took me just shy of 30 minutes from go to whoa so I'm very happy with that. The final mods to the trolley look rough as guts as they were done on the fly, but I'll tidy it up and make them permanent as I'm sure I'll be using it a good few times in the future. Thanks for reading.

This weekend I spent a bit of time helping a neighbor of mine who is stripping an Aristo for its 2JZ and gearbox, but in between all of that I managed to chuck in the clutch release bearing and mate the engine and gearbox so its now ready to throw in the hole. Now back in the day I built a little trolley that was designed to fit a 911 engine and gearbox. Worked well as the trolley fitted nicely between the splayed legs of my engine crane when lifting the combo from the rear of the car. Sadly the trolley in it's current format fails for the Thames as the engine crane needs to go through the driver's door which means the crane legs clash with the side braces on the trolley. Since it would be naive of me to think that fitting the Thames engine and gearbox is going to be a one off event I figured the answer was to modify the trolley somehow. After a bit of puzzling I decided to flip the trolley casters over and then put an additional spacer between the side and cross braces to create extra room. A bit of drilling and some wood carving and I ended up with something that looks a bit rough, but works like a charm. The 3Y now rests nicely on its mounts with the sump hanging in space and the crane legs slide underneath perfectly. So with a bit of luck I should be able to get it installed tomorrow. Pics for your viewing pleasure.

And then the Postie pitched up and spirits were lifted once again ..... yep I know .... its a pretty sad life I lead. In truth tho I've been waiting a long time for the UK vendor to get out of Covid lock down so that he could send me these body gaskets for my new front door handles. At least now I can crack on and fit the new handles when I next get a chance.

In other news my replacement thrust bearing turned up early this morning. So after morning smoko I fitted it up and bolted the engine and gearbox together. I was just about to drag the combo under the Thames to lift it into position when something made me stop to fit the two dog leg braces that run from the engine block to the gearbox. The right one bolted up perfectly but when I came to bolt on the left hand side one I discovered that one of the bolts has been snapped off in the thread on the bell housing. Bugger ! On the bright side at least I found it now. I quickly separated the engine and gearbox again to give me better access, drilled a centre hole and chucked in an "easy out" but the bastard just won't budge. Looks like I may have to drill it out completely. So that's the plan for tomorrow. I was too miffed to take some pics, but I know how everyone hates a picture less update so here is a shot of my replacement thrust bearing. Yep I know ... it's a pretty sad substitute.

Today was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of work and results. Today was the day that HiAce Donor One made its final trip to the happy hunting ground where all good HiAces go to die. In order to acknowledge the sacrifices it made so that our Thames can live on I thought it only fitting that I immortalise it in this post. Farewell old friend.

I'm still in a bit of a holding pattern awaiting the arrival of my replacement thrust bearing, so I decided that I'd spend a bit of time trying to thin down the donor herd. I've now stripped HiAce donor one down to the bone and I'll get whats left picked up by the scrappy over the next day or two.

Chatted to the supplier of my clutch kit this morning and he is sending me the correct thrust bearing so although this is delaying the installation of the engine and gearbox, I've still got plenty f other small bits and pieces to keep me occupied. This morning I completed separating the wiring bits that I need from the HiAce wiring loom. Turns out the HiAce alternator has an external voltage regulator. The Thames already has an external voltage regulator, but it was originally running a generator rather than an alternator and I don't know enough about lectrix to know whether the old Thames regulator will still work with a new style alternator. Anyone able to confirm ? I had also assumed that the wires feeding the Aisan carby were just for the electric choke, but on closer inspection there are also some wires from the carb connector that connect through to a little electrical box that is marked emission control. This emission control box also has a wire that connects to a little bulkhead mounted gubbins that looks like it used to have some kind of air pipe on it. From the look of things the pipe has been missing for ages, but I'm guessing it would have originally been plumbed up to one of the small outlets / inlets on the carby. I'm not sure if it's worth installing this emission control stuff in the Thames. All that my Certifier has asked for is a crank case breather plumbed back into the inlet and a carbon filter on the fuel tank vent. I might just post the question on the tech forum. Thanks for reading.

Thanks again for the replies @kprand @BlownCorona. Thought I'd provide some feedback after chatting to the clutch kit supplier this morning. Turns out that I have been supplied with a kit from a Cressida. The clutch and pressure plates are the same, but the thrust and pilot bearings differ to the ones I need. The supplier is posting me the correct bits, so I'm very chuffed.

The original plan for this weekend was to get the engine and gearbox back in the hole, but I hit a snag yesterday when I discovered that I have been supplied with the wrong clutch kit, so I've had to change tack until I can get that sorted out. One of the jobs on the "to do" list was to strip the wiring loom out donor HiAce number one so that I can reuse the plastics plugs that match the Toyota alternator, distributor and starter motor. Its a real dirty and time consuming job, so I've been putting it off for a while, but this morning I thought I'd bite the bullet and get it done. So after stripping out the rest of the dash and grovelling around under the dirty old HiAce I have managed to pull out the entire wiring harness intact. While I was on a roll I stripped the wrapping off the loom so that every wire is now exposed and easy to trace. Tomorrow I'll start harvesting the specific wires and plugs that I need. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the replies fellas. The clutch plate does fit the gearbox input shaft and the pressure plate seems to match my original in appearance at least. The old thrust bearing pictured in my original post is the one I removed when I split the engine from the gearbox, but the van was a non runner when I bought it with the engine and gearbox just slapped in the hole, so it's quite possible that someone has fitted the incorrect thrust bearing somewhere along the line. Having said this I've put a vernier on the ID of the pilot bearing on both my 3Y and 4Y engines and also on the input shaft of both my 4 and 5 speed gearboxes and the pilot bearing and spigot locating tool provided in the kit are definitely not the right size.

I'm seeking some guidance from the Toyota brains trust again. I've just opened up the box containing my new clutch kit and the thrust bearing included in the kit looks nothing like my original. Now I'm wondering whether I'm missing a trick here. Like for instance maybe I have to use the original housing and somehow just replace the inner bearing. Another clue that they may have supplied me with the wrong kit is the fact that the small crankshaft pilot bearing supplied in the kit is a 15mm o/d unit instead of the existing 12mm o/d unit fitted to my engine. Similarly the plastic clutch plate locating tool provided in the kit is also the wrong diameter. Since I'm amongst friends I'd rather ask the silly question here than get egg on my face when I contact the supplier on Monday. Thanks in advance fellas.

Just after New Year I decided it was time to start selling parts off my donor vans, so I chucked a few listings up on Gumtree and I can't believe the responses I have received. Looks like the older Jap vans still have a following and I've even shipped a quad headlight setup including matching front grill to a HiAce fan in New Zealand. It's taken quite a bit of my spare time, so progress on the Thames has slowed a bit, but I have managed to do a bit more assembly on the 3Y engine which is now at a point where it is ready to go back in the hole. Talking about the 3Y I'm trying to puzzle out some of the engine plumbing particularly the various breather pipes. With reference to the pics below can anyone advise me what gets attached to the various numbered and lettered inlet and outlet pipes. There is also a smaller pipe on the air intake hat for the carby. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Spent the morning giving the dirty old 3Y a tickle with an old toothbrush and some stale fuel and then declared it ready for a rattle can reco. Figured satin black would help it blend into the background as I don't really want to advertise the fact that I've slapped a Toyota heart into the old girl. Will let it dry overnight and then I'll strip off the masking tape and plastic garbage bags to reveal it in it's true glory.

I've started preparing the gearbox for final installation. The gearbox paintwork looks fairly fresh so I'm not going to bother with a repaint. Just gave the exterior a good clean. Next thing was to locate the missing speedo drive, so I groveled around under HiAce donor 2 and discovered that whoever had done the 5 speed swap from donor 2 to donor 1 had pulled the drive out and left it attached to the speedo cable for some reason. Luckily the little nylon gear was still there too. Gave it a clean and chucked it in the side of the box, then put my battery drill on the main input shaft and hey presto the cable spins so looks like the drive still works. I'm sure I'm going to face calibration issues as I'll be using the original Thames speedo, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Turned my attention to the clutch fork. I have two of them. The one that was on the 5 speed has the little two pronged riveted retaining spring that holds the arm on the pivot. Sadly one prong is long gone. Although it still seems to hold with only one prong I've decided to use the other arm which came off the 4 speed and has the looped spring wire instead of the two prongs. For some reason the chosen fork doesn't have the little lug for the slave cylinder return spring so I fashioned one out of a little steel off cut and glued it on. Gave it a lick of paint and its good to go. While I had my grinder out I also fashioned a chassis re-enforcing plate to strengthen the chassis leg where I had to open up the elongated hole for the gear selector lever. This is something that my Certifier requested when he did the first inspection. I'll only drill the holes and bolt it in place once the gear selector movement has been confirmed for the final time. Last thing I did today was pull the drain plug and I'll let the old oil drain overnight. Thanks for reading.