I learned many a thing while working on my car, most important, I believe was DO NOT try to install a transmission in the dark, it just leads to lots of swearing at your helper.
The engine (4A) was a piece of cake, take it apart (LABEL EVERYTHING), have the head rebuilt, get new pistons, rings, a whole rebuild kit basically, put it back together, get the engine back in, hook everything back up and start it up. It was really simple, fun and enjoyable, however I learned a valuable lesson in this was if you have the engine out, check the tranny while you are at it. I took the car for its test drive and the tranny locked up.
Took the trans apart and found it was fubar all the clutch gears were slag, I think the easiest way to do a quick check on it is to remove the front differential carrier, really simple too, drain fluid, remove a bunch of bolts, and press the carrier and the transaxle apart. Having now looked at 2 blown trans I noticed that when I turned the input shaft, the other gears sticking out the front turned smoothly, and on the blown ones it either would not turn or was really noisy. I would either rebuild the trans yourself or take it to a trusted rebuilder. I bought a rebuilt one from a company in California, and the first one they sent was defective. It took them a month to send me another one, and while it works, it arrived looking like crap, bolts were rusted, sealant oozing from where the gaskets would be, it was painted over all the dirt and oil left on it.
I did learn that there's a difference in differential gears, too late though, but I still learned it. This site has the Toyota axle codes, the ones for my 87 and the 84 in the yard were correct, <a href='http://www.toysport.com/Technical%20Inf ... ations.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.toysport.com/Technical%20Inf ... ons.htm</a> , the ones for my 87 (4.10) and the 84 (3.73) in the yard were correct, I didn't learn this until after I stuck the 3.73 in the front and left the 4.10 in the rear. And yes bad things did happen with that combo, it wrecked the 4.10 and I only got 15 mpg. The third member was simple, only took me 20 min to swap them in and out.
Finally the carb. No mincing words here, it was hell. It took about 5-8 hrs to tear it apart, clean it, and reassemble it. Then I realised the float wasn't set right. I tear the air horn assembly off, adjust the float and put it back together, and I couldn't drive it. KEEP TRACK OF ALL THE PARTS, I lost a spring, stupid me, thats why it wouldn't work. I bought another rebuild kit, took the carb apart and tried to remove the jets and one of them just strips out. Oops no more carb, since the machine shop can't fix that. Lucky me, I had the carb from the '84 rolla that I got the 4A out of, the rebuild kit was the same, and it only had on extra vacuum port, which I plugged. Another thing I should point out with the carb, is pay attention to detail, double check 3 times if you have to, the drawings in the factory manual are really vague, so check everything for smooth operation, and that its on right. Good news for us cheap suckers, the 4A carb gave me so much more power than the 3A carb, I can spin the tires with the 3.73 ratios.
The 4A carb has a longer secondary venturi, and I'm assuming different jets too. Also when I was at the junk yard the carb on the 4A-F looked like it might fit too, so it could be a cheap power boost. I'll get to a camera here in a few days and post some pics.
