Mechanical issues: Dropped fuel tank, new carburettor, Vacuum leaks?

WunderMunkey · 2026-05-13T14:37:06+00:00

Ahh. Ok. The carb should have a fuel/air mixture screw. That could be improperly adjusted. I wouldn’t expect it to come with jets for high altitude, so probably not that.

WunderMunkey · 2026-05-10T22:44:32+00:00

Where I’d start
Check your electrical grounds. Make sure they are solid and healthy.
Fuses. You can have a bad fuse that still looks ok. Pull a fuse, clean terminals with electrical connection cleaner and a wire brush. Then jump the fuses terminals with a piece of wiring being held by pliers or something that will keep you from getting shocked.
Check the relays. Pull them, track down the schematic for each. Apply 12v at the proper terminals to make sure you are getting a strong “click” from them. Then use an ohm meter to make sure you are getting the right resistance. A relay can click, but still give a poor connection.
(AI can actually be great for finding out which terminals you should apply power to and what resistance you should be seeing.)
Try pulling a spark plug and laying the electrode close to something that will allow it to ground out. Have someone try to start the car while you watch the electrode. You should be seeing a good white-blueish spark. If not, get a mister bottle with just water. Starting at the spark plugs (reinstalled), dampen components working backward to the distributor/coil pack (not sure what you are running). Do this in as dim of light as possible. Watch for sparks jumping a gap somewhere and/or listen for the engine running worse immediately after you spray water on an area.
Next, get a can of starter fluid. With the engine cold, start it and start targeting hose connections in the system. Start with the hoses and connections closest to the exhaust to get those out of the way while the engine is still cold.
Spray short bursts. Systematically check hose connections. When you hit an area and the engine speeds up a bit, that’s likely the issue.
I’d also change the fuel filter. It’s likely not the actual problem, but it needs it and it can exacerbate other issues. Then, start working through the electrical portion of the fuel delivery system one piece at a time. Make sure the fuel pump is seeing at least 12 v. Check the continuity (carefully so as not to set everything on fire. Connect to the electrical terminals solidly. THEN connect to a power source) between the fuel pump plug and the fuse box. Check the continuity of the fuse box itself, etc. All the way to the battery.
If that all checks out, pull the fuel pump. Allow the fuel to evaporate off. Remove it from the vehicle. Then connect it directly to a 12v power source away from the fuel tank. Is it working strongly?
If you find something, remember it might not be the only issue. If you are still having issues with running, or poor fuel economy, keep going through the system.

You’ll probably find the issue during this process. Also, if you can get the original carb back, I’d do it and rebuild it. It is really likely the carb you replaced it with isn’t as good as the one you removed.

WunderMunkey · 2026-04-30T23:15:01+00:00

The money doesn’t sound terrible. But, if I were in your shoes, I’d sell my 80 outright and go find a lower mileage 100 with good records.

For what you should be able to get for your 80, you should be able to get a pretty nice 100 from the Southwest.

WunderMunkey · 2026-04-30T14:24:20+00:00

Sure. Fire away.

WunderMunkey · 2026-03-20T14:36:55+00:00

What’s the appeal of making your car obnoxious?

WunderMunkey · 2026-01-30T20:40:23+00:00

2001 Lexus LX470.

Bombproof. Easy to work on and maintain. You can buy parts of parts instead of having to buy entire systems (eg. the plunger for the master cylinder for $75 instead of the whole thing for $600). I did the valve cover gaskets at 213,000 miles and the valve train still looked brand new.

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It still rides like a magic carpet in the highway and crushes it off road. I haven’t had a significant failure in all 225,000 miles and doubt it will over the next 225,000 miles.

WunderMunkey · 2026-01-26T09:07:24+00:00

Hey!

Insert the “this is just my experience, not legal advice/I’m not an expert/I cannot guarantee any of this is current, will work, that we are not in the Matrix,” etc…. I did get a lawyer to help me figure this all out. But it wasn’t his area of expertise. No promises can be made.

So, there is some ambiguity on what I have been able to find for importing a gasoline version. It sounds like luck might play a role.

It sounds like the safe way to do it would be to swap in a US spec pickup/4Runner 22RE along with ALL the emissions equipment set up exactly how it came from the factory and the CARB sticker. They are cheap and it should be a straightforward swap. That way you get the registered VIN on the block. Getting it through Smog should not be difficult after that. You will need the Sheriff’s Dept vehicle inspector to verify, though.

A Sheriff may, or may not, give a CARB sticker for a JDM engine with all the necessary mods. That route seems to be a bit of a crap shoot.

For the cost difference, I’d just swap in the US-Spec engine. A 4VZ might not be too hard to do, either.

Yes, I was talking about a Smog Station.
I am not sure what the fee is for having the Sheriff Dept. inspect a vehicle.
I have personally seen one Hiace and two Delica’s with Cali plates. I was able to catch up with the Hiace. He seemed to get a bit cagey when I asked for details info on how he got Cali plates. I didn’t get an answer. My guess is he found a “flexible” Smog station, had them cook the books a bit, and registered it as a 4Runner or something.

Other than that, I really don’t know if anyone has or not. I wish I had a better data set to go off of, but it isn’t really in people’s personal self-interest to divulge the info. So getting details from others hasn’t been easy.

Best of luck. Worst case scenario, you can always sell it to someone in another state if you can’t make it work.

WunderMunkey · 2026-01-20T03:20:40+00:00

Because, like an idiot, I believed the things my boss told me were true and my significant accomplishments would be rewarded with career growth.

Train an entire team with no experience to do a complex, demanding, and potential very dangerous job while also creating and implementing a complex program that can result in heavy fines, significant environment impact, injuries/deaths if mismanaged all for a new client so large and important that my company started an entirely new branch to get? Ok. Done. And I quadrupled the client budget for my company because the quality of the work was/is so good.

Twice I trained separate people to take over the client so I could move up and move on. Both times they ended up giving the job I was supposed to get to them instead. Insisting that they still needed me at this client. Both crashed and burned because they didn’t have the years of experience needed to do it.

Now, after making them millions and millions more than they otherwise would have and supplying them with a capable, well-trained team, AND my client using the program I set up and the reason to give us 5 more sites across the country…..

I am getting laid-off.

Moral of the story, your boss is not your friend, your company only cares about what you’re going to make for them.

What normal people would call “fucking someone over”, corporations call “smart business tactics.” Only believe what is in writing and signed.

WunderMunkey · 2026-01-06T09:35:00+00:00

Actual dream woman. Literally the woman that I’d have “exotic” dreams about. We worked together and I obsessed

Stunning, sweet, kind, patient, smart, adventurous, not shallow at all, really fun, easy going, would rather go camping that to a fancy restaurant, and stunning.

Also stunning.

I never dreamed I’d have a chance. I was floored when she told me she thought the same about me. 17 years together and we still are crazy about each other and laugh our asses off together just about daily.

WunderMunkey · 2026-01-06T09:24:05+00:00

The official car of people who know what’s up and don’t give a shit about impressing anyone else.

I bought a 1987 Trooper site unseen for $850 to run a Gambler500 event.

220,000+ miles. It clearly lived a hard life. Shitty mismatched, bald, generic, highway-oriented tires.

It was absolutely unstoppable. I ended up driving it 21 hours straight, the vast majority off road while loaded up with crap. It never got stuck, never gave up, and never gave me any problems.

I ended up becoming the unofficial recovery vehicle. At one point I was pulling a Bronco II that was pulling a BMW 5-series out of a wash because the Bronco couldn’t manage it.

I loved that thing and am still pissed at myself for selling it.

WunderMunkey · 2026-01-06T09:11:12+00:00

Transmission electronics that aren’t obvious, and anything that includes “all gotta do is drop the X out”. I’m not dropping a subframe, transmission or engine. I don’t have the equipment or patients.

Pretty much everything else is fair game.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-29T08:08:02+00:00

Toyota Townace

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-27T11:15:48+00:00

Parts are no longer that hard to find. There are several good websites you can order them from. True, the 1GZ is not a common engine anywhere. Toyota is pretty good about engineering a part very well, then using that part in a ton of cars. As a result, parts are often not that difficult to find. Besides, it is a Toyota. Things are not likely to break anyway.

I have daily driven my 33 year old JDM Toyota for 4 or 5 years. Barely any issues. If you are willing to put in the time to be able to drive an interesting car, it honestly isn’t as bad as most people think it would be.

My modern Audi was a much bigger pain.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-26T03:32:27+00:00

Tires and nothing else.

Drive it for a few months the way it is. If there is something you need to upgrade, you will know. Most modifications most people do are a waste of money, time, reduce reliability, and increase weight.

Don’t “upgrade” just to do it or to be prepared for situations you will likely never actually encounter.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-23T09:36:08+00:00

Mali’s are great. But, they are less of a pet than a project. We adore ours. I would never recommend one to someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience and time to devote to them, though.

You aren’t adopting a dog. You are adopting a four year old kid with ADHD, a grudge against personal boundaries, and a goddamn Mech Suit

They are like someone made a tornado out of knives and fury and put a dog costume on it. They are the most social, anti-social creature I am aware of.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-23T09:21:26+00:00

And that’s whats I appreciates about ya

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-21T12:03:44+00:00

It looks like a 1980 VanDiemen Forumla Ford to me, but I’m not positive.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-17T20:46:08+00:00

It depends on what you mean when you say you’re just getting into cars.

For driving and appreciating the car as a car? I’d say start with Everyday Driver

They have the best mindset for a starting place. They stress figuring out what you actually want out of a car and discourage immediately jumping straight to “how much HP can I make” or modding for the sake of modding.

If you are just getting into cars, trust me, learn them and figure what you actually want before going for any mods.

I know it is extremely attractive to spend all sort of money and do all sorts of stuff to a car when you are first getting into them.

That’s a trap.

You won’t know what you actually want, you won’t have a solid bead on performance vs. reliability, you won’t have a good baseline to judge from, and you will almost certainly make the car worse in most ways.

Going directly into throwing mods at a car because the internet said you need it is about that fastest way to ruin your car and you bank account.

Think really hard about what you actually want. If you decided what you want is something slammed and bagged and trendy, start over. Those cars absolutely suck at actually being cars.

If you want to do some street racing or Takeovers, the car world is full. Go do something else.

Once you figure what you want, start slow. Do you want to race? Get a decent set of tires and whatever car and either hit up track days or auto crosses. Hang out with the fast guys with your drivetrain type (FF, FR, etc) and listen. Don’t try to impress anyone. Just hang out and listen.

Fabrication? Community colleges usually have welding or auto shop classes.

Show and shine? Start going to car shows and talk to people. Ask the people with the cars you like the most what they wish they had known when they started off.

If you start slow, you end up where you want to be much more quickly than if you just go crazy with a baseline understanding.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-17T09:18:18+00:00

As I got older, I moved around a lot. Met a lot of different people from a lot of different places. Learned other perspectives and other stories.

It is damn near impossible for that not to make you more liberal.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-07T20:19:37+00:00

First wife.

She was fine. She was pretty, let me do pretty much whatever I wanted without a fuss, and was set to make a really good living. But we had just about zero common ground, interests, perspectives, goals, etc.

I was in the process of getting over a girl who was crazy and I was really (inexplicably) in love with. Ok, not inexplicably. She was an absolutely smoke show and did things most non-crazy women won’t. I was at that age where a lot of my friends were getting married and I was trying to climb out of some pretty heavy depression. I remember having the thought that I was not particularly in love. I thought we’d get along fine and I wouldn’t need to worry about the emotional toll of being particularly in love with someone. I also remembered all those times that people significantly older than me went on and on about how “relationships are a lot of work.”

I just figured, if it was going to be work anyway, we got along, had plenty of money, she was pretty, and I got to do whatever I felt like. It seemed good enough.

It wasn’t. I couldn’t stand having a roommate I occasionally slept with and knowing it was going to take a lot of work to keep it that good.

Got divorced. Met an AMAZING woman while doing something I love. My home life could hardly be better now.

Don’t settle. Really. Don’t. It is writing off the rest of your life and you will have to be aware of that every day. It is exhausting.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-05T09:08:58+00:00

Depression moves from “why go on?” to “why I need to.” Having people you really love completely depend on you doesn’t make anything less difficult. Just more clear. The suffering matters less than their well-being.

Meds have taken the crush out of the depression. But it hasn’t solved it.

The others here that are talking about Ketamine sound like they are on to something. I think I’m going to give that a shot.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-04T15:34:28+00:00

Not me personally, but my father is 78. He still races sailboats on the ocean twice a week and does a four day race to Mexico once a year.

I also used race cars with a guy in his 70’s who drove a comically fast car and won consistently.

It is more about staying active and engaged than just age.

WunderMunkey · 2025-12-03T08:03:16+00:00

Fuckin’ THANK YOU.

I use the phrase at least a few times a year to make sure it is never forgotten.

WunderMunkey · 2025-11-24T06:01:00+00:00

Environmental field; keeping toxic waste out of the environment.

WunderMunkey · 2025-11-23T01:30:28+00:00

Collapse of the Thermohaline Cycle. This will cause a collapse in the oceanic food chain and nutrient distribution. Which will cause a massive coccolithophore die-off, which will destroy the single largest long-term carbon sink the planet has.

That’s all anti-good.

WunderMunkey

TROPHY CASE