D Farms 82 Build Thread

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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

D Farms 82 Build Thread

Post by D Farms »

Thought I ought to start a build thread here to document my maintenance, mods and experiments.

List of modifications:
Morimoto Headlights
Scion XB Seats
Wheels and Tires
Modified honda ridgeline Struts and adjustable coilovers
Tundra Long travel CV Shafts with tercel stubs
Fox 8in monotube rear shocks
3A-SU Head with 4AC Block
Mismatched diffs
Last edited by D Farms on Tue Aug 24, 2021 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Morimoto headlights

Post by D Farms »

I got a pair of these from the retrofit source for about $75. they arent as good as something like a d2s 5.0, but they are DOT and several magnitudes better than the stock headlights. The issue I have with them is they only have 3 wires going in to allow the high or low beam, using a common ground. Toyota uses common positive, so currently they are low beam only, and when i need high beams in a pinch(offroad) I just shove the high beam positive to the low beam positive. I think they have a new version now, the ones i got were on clearance at the time, i got some for my 82 pickup too.
tercel headlights.jpg
sealed 5.jpg
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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Scion XB Seats

Post by D Farms »

Apparently didnt take any pictures when I put the seat in. Basically I used the bolt on rails from my 82 pickup's bucket seats, then removed the sub frame from the scion xb seat, welded the rails in the correct spot and slapped it in. The seat sits low without the subframe, and is extremely comfortable, and very easy to find in a yard.
D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Wheels and Tires

Post by D Farms »

I searched for a long time for the best wheel and tire combo. I looked at all terrains at first, but I didnt want something that was massive and heavy considering the tercels drivetrain is known to not handle large tires etc. the smallest all terrains currently are bfg k02 215/65/r16(27/8.5r16), which wasnt an available size when I had searched, and may be viable. I ended up finding what I think is the best offroad tire and wheel combo for the tercel. 140/90-16(26/5.5b16) kenda big block dual sport motorcycle tires mounted on 1st gen scion xb spare wheels. The tires and wheels are very light weight, have massive grip, and the round narrow profile means no rubbing. They make a ton of noise, humming etc, but they grip very hard on rocks, and perform very well offroad. overall very happy. Oh and they look great.
tires and wheel unmounted.jpg
tire mounted.jpg
tire on tercel.jpg
tercel tires front view.jpg
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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Struts

Post by D Farms »

I searched rock auto trying to see what the longest strut was. I found honda ridgeline's have an 8in travel strut. the tercel stock strut is 5.5in. Ill elaborate more on this later but basically I cut the buckets off of the ridgeline struts, bored out a coilover sleeve kit to slide over the strut, then calculated the correct rate, and length of eibach springs, turned some adapters for the top hats, to allow them to work with the strut, then cutoff the tercel's mounted bracket and welded it onto the ridgeline struts.
ridgeline vs tercel stock.jpg
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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Long travel cv shafts

Post by D Farms »

I had been aware of ball spline cv shafts for quite some time, yet they remained basically unobtainable. I then came upon them while searching orielly's website. there are several different joints used for half shafts. for the outers you can use u joints, fixed tripod(never seen one until the tercel haha), rzeppa joints, and a few others. for the inner joint typically you cant use a fixed joint as there needs to be plunge in the axle, so normally you would run a sliding tripod joint, or a rzeppa joint with a straight groove bell(landcruiser 100, 1st gen tundra). sliding joints are a tradeoff, you limit down travel, and compromise on the boot range. the trakmotive joints i found use an 8 ball rzeppa cv joint on each end, and a ball spline to allow for smooth plunging and increase travel. I measured the stock inner joint to be capable of 18 degrees of droop, vs the 8 ball rzeppa's 45+. granted in a steering axle setup you would be limited to about 37 degrees before limiting steering angle(compound angles dont add directly). All this being said a tripod with good geometry is actually capable of 27 degrees, but the mouth of the bell needs to be modified, which is actually doable with a grinder, I plan to try that later to see if thats "good enough". anyways, I cut the stubs off the stock axle and welded the outer on directly, the inner I made a bolt flange on the trakmotive joint, and another matching flange on the tercel inner stub. The trakmotive axles I modified come from a 2nd gen tundra, the smallest spline is 28, vs the tercel's wimpy 20 on the inner, so its way overkill. they also plunge 2.5in vs 1in, which is good. no binding is good.
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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Fox 8in rear shocks

Post by D Farms »

The stock tercel rear shocks are surprisingly long, longer than a 5th gen 4runner actually, even most of the lift kits. I had a pair of fox 8in emulsion monotube shocks laying around, so I ordered up a pair of eyelet to stud adapters and bolted them in. the eyelet adapter probably makes it a bit too long when compressed, and being an idiot, I mount the emulsion shocks body up, so they arent working great right now. I have another set of 6in fox's with a stud top, and reservoir with a compression adjuster I can rebuild to work better than what I have, when I have time ill be adressing that.
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6in fox shock.JPG
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D Farms
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Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

The first 4AC engine I bought

Post by D Farms »

I bought a 4ac long block from a guy I know. It supposedly had 90k miles on, and was pulled and garage kept. The short block wasnt horrible, but the head was unuseable. the bearing surfaces for the cam were destroyed, the bearing caps actually fell apart upon removal. I actually realized afterwards I bought the wavy head gasket set on accident.... foreshadowing.....
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D Farms
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Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

3A-SU Head on a 4AC block

Post by D Farms »

I went back to the guy, and he was nice and gave me another engine, although this one had been sitting outside. he said it was a wavy head 4ac. I check the cam bearings before taking it home. I started tearing into it with my buddy, and found something strange. The wavy head 4ac's had these unmachined boss's above the intake ports, and online no one knew why, but the head I was taking apart had something in those spots. after some more digging, I found the head on the motor was the JDM only 3A-SU head, the strange actuators restrict the flow to the port under low vacuum, increasing low end torque. Sweet! unfortunately the short block was full of water, and the valve seats were badly pitted. I took the head to a local guy, short block charlie, had him skim cut it, and recut all the valve seats, 3 angle. I ordered new valves from toyota, and they finally came in last week, so I can now cc the chambers and determine how much I need to have charlie deck it to get a 10.5 compression ratio, as per Petros recommendation.
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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Mismatched diffs

Post by D Farms »

When I first bought it I went down a dirt road, and put it in 4wd, I noticed it felt weird, and then I couldnt get it out. the PO reversed it, and got it out of 4wd. Shortly after putting on the tires, my buddy and I took it for a spin up near lake pleasant. it ripped through the trail, but when I tried the 4wd it behaved like a truck with locked diff trying to make a turn, only going in a straight line. I put some tape on the wheels and had my buddy watch. sure enough the front tires spun faster than the rear. someone had swapeed something at some point, and not bothered to match the ratios. I contacted petros, who had a spare front diff with a ratio to match the 4.10 rear axle. once the engine is built, ill swap it in at the same time. should make it feel a bit more zippy(not complaining at all actually).
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D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Piston slap and Motor Honey

Post by D Farms »

The engine has been clapped since I bought it. It clattered on acceleration, leaked, smoked, barely idled. I bought a bottle of motor honey, and dumped it in, and let me tell you. That shit worked, at least to stop the clatter, it still smokes oil(probably valve seals), and leaks from somewhere on the bottom end. I also wonder if it has one of those schneider cams in it, it barely barely idles, and has way more power than what seems reasonable.
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Toyotise
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My tercel:: 1983 4WD DLX. 1986 4WD SR5
Location: Arizona

Re: D Farms 82 Build Thread

Post by Toyotise »

Ball spline cv shafts. Learn something new everyday. Sparing no expense on that beat down little turcel. Looks like fun! Thanks for sharing with the rest of us. Might be able to do a nice little side hustle welding for sale stubs on said ball spline axles for the “how I lift it?” crowd on the Facebook group. I like those dirtbike tires on the scion space savers. Are you curious to hear down the line what kind of mileage you get out of them. Cost to mileage ratio. I currently run road tires to keep wear rates reasonable economical. I’d like to find an aggressive tread/off-road tire for off road use, but only if they don’t get chewed to pieces at an unreasonable rate on pavement driving.
Keep it Stock; Live Long.
D Farms
Newbie
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 11:45 pm
My tercel:: 1983

Re: D Farms 82 Build Thread

Post by D Farms »

Toyotise wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:39 am Ball spline cv shafts. Learn something new everyday. Sparing no expense on that beat down little turcel. Looks like fun! Thanks for sharing with the rest of us. Might be able to do a nice little side hustle welding for sale stubs on said ball spline axles for the “how I lift it?” crowd on the Facebook group. I like those dirtbike tires on the scion space savers. Are you curious to hear down the line what kind of mileage you get out of them. Cost to mileage ratio. I currently run road tires to keep wear rates reasonable economical. I’d like to find an aggressive tread/off-road tire for off road use, but only if they don’t get chewed to pieces at an unreasonable rate on pavement driving.
I have so many projects of my own, I really wouldnt have time to work on projects for others, plus I already have a full time job.

I suspect ill get less than 10k miles from the tires, that being said they do have proper speed and weight rating that exceeds the tercels requirements, and are tubeless DOT rated tires. I dont drive mine too much, so I figure ill have dry rot before I need to replace the tires due to mileage. so far almost no wear at all, but ive probably only put about 200 miles on them or less.
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dlb
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My tercel:: '87 sr5, '83 dlx parts car
Location: bc, canada

Re: D Farms 82 Build Thread

Post by dlb »

This is an impressive thread. Interesting stuff, and nice work, D Farms.
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Petros
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My tercel:: '84 Tercel4wd w/extensive mods
Location: Arlington WA USA

Re: D Farms 82 Build Thread

Post by Petros »

looks like for some reason that head was oil starved and it wrecked the cam bearings, the cam journals, and who knows what else. I have seen that before on an oil starved engine, it seems the head/cam shaft takes the worst of it. the connecting rod bearings give up next, starting with #3 and 4, that typically get fried next. the main bearings will go a remarkably long time without oil before they get trashed as well.

are those rear shocks costly? right now it seems the best deal is the KYB rear shock, with much more costly adjustable high performance shocks available.
'87 Tercel 4wd SR5 (current engine swap project)
'84 Tercel 4wd (daily driver, with on going mods)
'92 Mazda MPV 4wd (wife's daily driver)
'85 Tercel 4wd DLX auto(daughter's daily driver)
'01 Honda Civic (other daughter's daily driver)
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