Toyota Hilux MK5 Restoration And UZ Swap.

[Siena]

My 2nd Hilux Surf carpet turned up today, much quicker than I anticipated. I ordered it just yesterday.

I laid it out, and gave it a good hot shampoo, then laid it out on the roof of our old Nissan Micra. Not much hope of it drying in the next couple of days, as it began to snow 20 minutes ago.

For the first time since Apple Candy came out of the shop, I gave her a good wash, the tyres got scrubbed and dressed, they came up pretty good too.

I have fitted the windshield washer jets, and new Bosch wiper blade on refurbished arms. My concern though is despite what I believe are the correct blade sizes - 17" passenger's side, and 20" driver's, there is a fairly large half-moon between both blades, at the base of the screen. As in there is a large gap between the leading edge of the driver's side blade, and the trailing edge of the passenger's. The driver's side blade is pretty close to the top of the screen, and the passenger's side is close to the end of the screen in it's parked position.

Can anyone post pictures of their '99 - 2003 Tacoma wipers? It's possible I need a longer blade on the passenger's side, with the extra length towards the driver's side blade, as opposed to the end of the screen.

[Siena]

Some random shots post-wash:

[Siena]

Today I moved onto the interior.

For starters, it needed a damn good clean, there was white dust everywhere, one of the legacies of the bodyshop, that did not deem it fit to cover the dash and other areas. The original seats were soggy, and no good to man or beast. I would have been pretty mad if I planned to re-use them.

I fitted the 3rd gen. Hilux Surf carpet, and I must say it's transformed the interior. The rear fabric below the screen, I had initially removed and washed, I was now able to refit it, along with all the grey plastic trim and centre consoles, which I had prepared, and painted in Rover Applejack Green.

I originally planned to dye the carpet and headlining black, but I think the grey contrasts nicely with the green trim. I still need to sort out the door cards, the centre area will remain grey, albeit refreshed, while the outer area will be Rover Applejack.

I was leaving the door cards off for the time being, as I wanted to install the electric window, mirrors and central locking harnesses first, but since I am using as much of the donor Lexus as possible, it would hardly matter. I will still need to splice the Lexus harness' to the MK5 electric window motors and mirrors, the only direct plug-ins will be the central locking actuators and electric window switches, as these will be from the Lexus.

I will be fitting a pair of 7th gen. Toyota Celica front seats. They are from a T Sport, in black and grey leather. I may retrim them, but I'll fit them first, and see how they look against my current colour scheme.

The dash, I'm leaving alone. It would be pretty hard to graft not just the Lexus instruments in, and have it looking OEM, but the switchgear, climate control panel etc. The MK5 dash will be junked come summer, in favour of another...

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Some pictures of the interior, as she currently is. The seat bolts are in their threaded holes:

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I ordered a MK4 single-piece propshaft yesterday from RoughTrax, it should be with me by Monday, or Tuesday. I'll fit it, using new bolts which I picked up from my local Toyota dealership.

I might be just in time for snow, which is forecast.

[Siena]

I prepared the door cards, and laid down 2 coats of plastic primer. I'm out of Rover Applejack, so I'll pick some up tomorrow. The door cards are in my improvised "oven" - a large cardboard box, with a hole cut in to accept my hot air-gun, where they'll sit for half an hour.

[Siena]

Some high-resolution pictures. I thought iPhone photographs were pretty good, until I compared them to images produced by a real camera:

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I need to figure out how to get the seat belts clean, or replace them if there's no way to get them looking decent. This was a proper working truck, and it shows.

[Siena]

My 1-piece propshaft arrived today (thanks to RoughTrax). It looked pretty good, and of course I bolted it straight onto my truck.

I pulled my seats out of the garage, and began the task of making them fit the MK5. This involved grinding off the steel rivets that hold the mounting feet to the subframe runners, and drilling out the spot welds too.

I then cut the entire runners off the Hilux, which will be welded to the now legless Celica runners. I opted to use the entire Hilux runners, as the Celica seats are pretty low, and I'm not exactly that short. This will give some added height. I'll take some pictures of this process later to better describe what I mean.

[Siena]

Toyota Celica T-Sport leather seats:

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Bust MK5 2-piece propshaft vs MK4 1-piece replacement. The MK5 shaft is pretty heavy too:

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At last, I can actually drive my truck.

I installed the driver's Celica T Sport seat, after modifying the base to fit. I was going to weld the Hilux's subframe runner to that of the Celica, after cutting off the Celica's mounting feet. In the end, I went with high-tensile 13mm / M10 bolts, with matching spring washers and nuts.

I'm a bit concerned with welding the subframes. The seats have the seat belts bolted to the inner frames, so absolute anchorage is important, the consequences of the seats breaking free in the event of a crash doesn't bear thinking about. I lost a good friend of mine back in 2001, when the welded seat subframe in his immaculate Ford Escort RS Turbo S1 broke free, throwing him through the windshield.

He was in the passenger side with a laptop hooked up to the ECU, while his friend was driving. When the car was examined, the passenger' seat subframe had become brittle where it had been welded, and broke free. The driver's subframe had stress cracks, though the seat had not broken completely free, as the driver instinctively braced himself against the wheel just before impact.

The Celica seats are perfect for the Hilux, and once the driver's one had been bolted in, have the correct height ratio for a truck. The driver's seat is height adjustable, I have it on the lowest setting, and it's still more than high enough for me. The Celica seatbelt buckle is also compatible with the Hilux's seatbelt tongue. I was concerned I might have to get the Celica's seatbelt, as replacing the buckle with that of the Nilux would not have been an option, the Celica item has seatbelt warning, which I will need later.

I'll take some photographs later.

[Siena]

Both seats are now fitted, and I located the passenger's door locking knob, which I thought was missing, so I was able to fit it, as well as the door card.

I'm going to post pictures showing the modifications to the Celica seats, which makes them a bolt-in affair in a MK4/5.

[Siena]

The Celica mounting tabs are spot welded to the runners, and also employ a steel rivet on each tab, the front rivets also double as locating pegs. There is just one spot weld per tab. These are all ground off, these are the redundant tabs:



The Hilux runners are carefully cut off at the lower areas on both the inside and outside. You'll then end up with this:







And end up with busted Hilux seats that look like this:





Make sure you don't mix the runners up, they are handed, and unique to driver's and passenger's seats. Inners and outlets are also different.. Using your grinder, remove rough edges and burrs. There are 2 raised dimples on on each of the runners, these need to be ground flat.

The good news is, the measurements between the runners on both the Celica and Hilux are the same, at 46.5mm. Handy, as the cut and trimmed Hilux runners need to be bolted to the Celica ones.

The rivets that partially secure the Hilux mounting tabs to the runners need to be ground completely flat, enough to allow them to be knocked out. I used a blunt punch and hammer. The same must be done to the Celica runners. The holes left are then made larger, I used a 10mm drill bit.

Starting from the front, I bolted the Hilux runners to the Celica seats. They are in exactly the same orientation, from front to back. The bolt heads need to be cut with a thin cutting disc, to end up with a hammer-head bolt, regular bolt heads won't go through the seat tracks. The heads need to be flat enough to allow the seats to slide in their tracks. You could cut the bolt heads down with a Dremel or similar, I used a thin cutting disc on an angle grinder.

The rear bolt holes on the Hilux runners don't line up with those on the Celica, so with the fronts bolted up loosely, swivel the runners so they are perfectly in line with those of the Celica, then using the existing holes on the Hilux runners as a pilot, drill the Celica runners. This must be done with the runners extended fully to the rear of the seats (seats slid fully forwards) to avoid the drill bit damaging the sliders.

Once they are all bolted firmly in place (I torqued them up to 45Nm), you'll end up with this:





Ready to bolt into your MK4 or 5, looking like this: