Bluebear01

We've set ourselves the goal of having this run under it's own steam before Christmas, only time will tell if that's realistic. 21 head studs and 35 years of rain, not a great combo. We had the engine crane hooked to the head almost lifting the front wheels off the ground before she shifted! Minimal bore damage from what I can see. The valves aren't pretty, but what is on this so far. We'll keep tearing this down and drop the bare block to the reconditioners for closer inspection and start a parts hunt.

Next up is the fan controller. I got a 2 speed controller from Davies Craig, if the temp doesn't drop enough after 10 seconds of the first fan it kicks in the second fan. Also has an A/C trigger for when I get to that. I've seen a few of these mounted under bonnet but it isn't advertised as water resistant so I wired it up under the dash. That way I can have radiator temp while driving if needed. Once I mocked up length it's all been tucked under the guard with the rest of the loom. The early 1uz doesn't have a Te2 pin on the under bonnet diagnostic connector to trigger live data output, but it does have one on the ECU. I've gone and wired in a standard Toyota connector under the dash with Te2 for live data with the hope of getting a Toyobd1 Bluetooth dongle at some stage. They are hand made by a cool Canadian bloke so take some time to become available. Next up is Tach. Keen to keep the stock look inside so I swapped in the guts of a RX60 4cyl Cressida tach hoping that would give me an accurate reading. It did for about 5 minutes but then died. Swapping in the original 6cyl tach did the same thing. Maybe they didn't like the trigger signal from the ignition module? The newer style of tach from a 90's Corolla has the same bolt spacing for the card. I just needed to drill out the needle 0.5mm and fit a needle stop, the newer style has no internal limit to rotation other than the clock spring. Beautiful. I quite like the font on these older dashes the more I look at them. Next up is sorting the check engine light and possibly stealing a speed signal off the rear of the cluster for the ECU to avoid a pesky fault code.

Hi all. I recently managed to get the engine, chassis & body factory shop manuals for the MS112/RS110/LS110 Crowns from a top bloke in Aus. I have been looking for wiring diagrams etc for mine for a while now so I thought it might be helpful to share. Let me know what section you're after & I'll scan it in. If there is enough interest I'll get the whole lot converted to PDF. Cheers.

Love this man, such a tidy job! And that stance is awesome.

My options were Ali Express special at $60, genuine new for $470 or get some guy in Aus to rebuild it for $600. I wasn’t going to risk second guessing my diagnosis with a cheap part, but also keen to save some coin where I can. I wasn’t going to make it any worse, so it’s worth a shot to see if I can fix it. Lifting the board off and cutting open the main section reveals the tiny reflective metal diaphragm that two diodes stare at to work out air flow. Nothing appears broken, but the diaphragm is a bit sticky and stained. I polished it up and cleaned everything as carefully as I could, then put it all back together. I popped it back in and fully expected to have killed it, but I now have a perfect signal from idle! It runs smooth as silk and the o2 sensors are reading a nice lean mix at idle. Stoked with that.

I didn’t think so, but I have been wrong before.

Thanks man, likewise. Id love to have a classic coal range, but not really an option in the city these days.

I needed to install the oven I fixed up from a few pages back. Kitchen Tax is real though, people talking about spending all sorts of silly figures on kitchen reno's. I decided to throw it in myself, bar the gas plumbing. I quite like the old cabinetry so I just built up a new cabinet to match the old, save replacing the lot. I also uprated the range plug & switch & shifted the outlets to suit the new benches. A bit of tiling and edging to finish off, but now we can get stuck in to cooking up a few feasts!

So all back together with the new injectors, running much better but not perfect. It’s still got a stumble off idle and still seems a bit rich. The o2 sensors for both banks are reading a constant rich 0.9v at idle, then start a healthy 0.8v-0.2v cycle after 2500rpm. That’s about where it starts running really sweet too. I knew the injectors, leads, plugs and TPS were all spot on at this stage, but I had no reason to trust the air flow meter other than it runs rubbish without it. So I plugged in the scope and had a look. At first I thought I had a bad connection, but after triple checking everything this is the signal at idle. Nothing at all! After revving up past 2500rpm she starts running sweet, leans out and at the same time pops out this signal... Gotcha! It all makes sense now. Time to hunt out another air flow meter. That raises the question, secondhand or chinesium? I can’t imagine it would be easy to make a reliable Chinese Karmen Vortex on the cheap? But it’s got to be getting hard to trust a 30 year old part too... Anyone have any experience with new aftermarket afm’s for the 1uz? Cheers for reading!

I’ve chopped up a factory 5M-E air filter housing to take a afm adapter and changed the mounts to bring the afm in line with the intake hose. It’s a tight fit, but just snugs in nicely between the fuse box and coolant overflow. It’s nice and solid, and changing the filter is nice and easy.

Rebuilt stock injectors from the States, including all seals. A bargain at $160 to my door. I’ve just about finished sorting out the air filter, then the engine can go back together and we’ll see how it runs.

I had the old radiator re-cored by Burnside Radiators a couple of years ago, so no issues there. The 1uz came with the viscus hub fan, but it would be a pain to get a cowling to fit & I'm not keen for it to sound like a van. In keeping with the shoe-string budget I went climbing through the local wreckers with a tape measure & found a pretty bloody close fit. It almost looks like it was made for it! I'll do some minor trimming to fit it on, then wire it in.

It's the little things in life (that I seem to put off). The heater tap works thank goodness, doesn't look like an easy one to source. Wiper motor also good, just in need of a clean, re-grease & paint. A combination of Z hoses & random bits from Super Cheap 's hose bin got the heater core connected up. Next up will be the air filter. I'd like to avoid a pod filter, I'll see if the factory 5M-E filter housing might be usable.

Wow, this got buried quick! Everyone is working hard on their projects obviously. Relay loom is done & working well, although I'm getting a code for speed sensor if I rev it too much. I might see if I can trigger the ECU neutral wire or feed the speed signal from the dash speed output before I put it in permanently. I've calibrated the throttle plate & TPS. The TPS had a fluctuating resistance curve off idle, after pulling it apart & cleaning it came up like new. The hesitation around 1500rpm is gone now, but it is still running rich and feels like it's running on 7. The leads had a few that were open circuit which doesn't help and the plugs were fairly old. Miles Toyota had the cheapest lead set I could find and it came with a lot of the plastic guides, sweet! Even better, but still running rich and a hairy idle. Maybe the compressed air and brake clean wasn't the best method for cleaning the injectors. After pulling them and pressurising the rail - yup, most are leaking a bit. A refurbished genuine set off eBay was half the price of cleaning locally, so they are on the way for next month. While I'm waiting I'll get the radiator fan sorted & try and make up some kind of air filter/cold air intake setup. All these small details feel like wading through mud! I guess that's why most projects end up getting "95%" complete.

Yikes, what a mad rush the end of that year was! I only got the smallest of windows to plug away at this, starting with finalising the wiring. I'm trying to wire this as close to the factory 1uz diagram as I can, while keeping it looking like Mr Toyota did the work back in 1983. I tried the Narva fuse blocks, but they have a really nasty loose feel to them. I grabbed a fuse box from a diesel Corona which carries 3 relays & a fuse which is perfect. It feels & looks better, not that anyone else will ever see it mind you. I've finished a test fit of all the relays, it runs well now with the idle speed controller receiving power 5 seconds after shutdown for reset and the fuel pump relay running from the ECU. Next I'll tidy it all up & test the air flometer, it seems to be running a bit rich. The TPS might need an adjustment to, there is a hunting issue around 1500rpm.

I wanted to upgrade our oven for the wife’s 30th, but there seems to be some kind of kitchen tax on nice ranges. I had no idea you could spend so much on a glorified indoor BBQ! So I got a ratty old one of Trademe that was supposedly a good brand and got stuck in. It was in a poor state, looked like it had never been cleaned a day in its life! I found most parts needed replacing and there were a few mouse nests inside... Friends and family were keen to help out which was great. After a few weeks of scrubbing and some parts hunting I could put it back together. I lucked out with a UK crowd that were dirt cheap on shipping and had most parts I needed. I had to get some bits locally, like some lengths of towel rails for the handles. It came out mint, and a fraction of the cost of a new one! Now I’ve just got to shoe horn it into our small kitchen!

Cab off and away last night for wood rot repair. We are thinking of not painting the cab until after it's re-registered so the chassis tag & WOF sticker etc are undisturbed to make the process as smooth as possible. Now that it's short enough it can fit in the garage and we can hoist the engine out & get the chassis cleaned up. Keen to do some laps in its current state!

Front end back together after a year and a half. Now she's out in the sun all the body issues are painfully obvious! I've got some rust to fix over the R/R wheel and in the boot, and the clear is coming off in sheets, but it drives sooo nice. It's like night and day from the old 5M, and definitely glad I went manual. I've still got a long list of small stuff to tick off before cert, but I feel I'm on the home stretch now.

The exhaust front section is pretty much done, I’ll just hook it up to the old system for now and finish the rest on a hoist.

Another long stretch with no progress! I've been trying to find someone Id be happy with to run the exhaust, but as with most things on this build I've decided to give it a crack myself. I can only blame myself if it turns out bad. A big part of the motivation for this swap is the V8 sound, so I'm going to try 2 inch into 2.5 after the box with a decent muffler towards the back. I might change it around later if it doesn't sound right, definitely not keen on a high speed drone. Anyway here's the beginnings of my efforts.

Moving on with our leisurely pace, we removed the rear deck and lifted the cab off. So much wood in the body! It will make rot repairs easy, but I really hope we have no issues re-registering it. From memory if we can prove it was on nz roads long ago enough a wooden body will be fine?

Love the crown! You’ve got me thinking of digital dashes now, so rad! I had no idea they had them that early in the crowns.

Cheers for that. Yea, super satisfying. You never know if the engine you're pouring hours into is a dud or not till you hear it bark. I'm pretty sure the main reason for doing the swap in the first place was for the noise.

My oldest was super excited, he's done quite a bit on it over the last 2 years. Stoked to finally get it moving! There is still quite a bit to do before it's on the road, but the motivation is very helpful!

Small update - got the rear brakes rebuilt & bled the system, first time I've had a brake pedal in 12 months. I also had the fuel bulkhead terminal arrive so I got the fuel pump all done & fitted. So nice & quiet in the tank! I did manage to make it move this weekend too! I'll try and get a video up some time...