Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto.
Today, in the studio, we have a first-generation Toyota Tundra.
We want to go over some of the top problems that we've come to find.
So, let's get started.
Now, for our first problem, we're going to talk about exhaust manifolds.
Now, two of the things that could happen with this exhaust manifold could come down to either
the mounting hardware that holds the manifold to the actual engine itself or maybe the manifold
itself has an issue where maybe it has a crack along one of the seams or even along one of
the curves.
Now, this is the six-cylinder engine, so, of course, the manifold is going to look a
little bit different than the eight-cylinder engine.
The eight-cylinder engine is the one that actually typically has this problem more often.
This right along here is the manifold, and then these studs with the nuts on them are
the mounting hardware.
It's very common for these to actually rot and then potentially break off.
And the reason why that might potentially happen would be because, well, the manifold
is going to get very hot and then cool down.
So, of course, every time the engine is running, this is going to heat up.
Every time it's off or even you splash in some puddles or do anything fun, it's going
to start cooling off.
Since this happens very frequently, what can potentially happen is the metal inside here
tends to deteriorate and even break away.
Overall, it pretty much just rusts or even rots away.
It could potentially look like this in the end.
Now, symptoms that you're probably going to find if you're having an issue with the manifold
or even the hardware is probably a ticking noise during initial startup, or at least
within the first 30 seconds to a minute of a startup.
After that, of course, the engine and the exhaust is starting to warm up a little bit,
so the ticking noise is going to go away.
So, of course, when the metal's cold, either the crack itself is going to be a little bit
larger or even the separation between the manifold and the engine itself is going to
be a little bit larger.
When this happens, the pressure from the exhaust is going to get forced out of that crack or
even gap, and, of course, that's going to make the ticking noise.
Once everything heats up, it starts to expand.
And then that little crack seems like it almost disappears.
Now, for fixes for this, what you're going to want to do is take a peek at both of your
manifolds.
You want to see if you have any broken hardware.
If you don't see any broken hardware, the next thing that you're going to want to do
is go ahead and remove that manifold.
Once you remove the manifold, you're going to go ahead and look at it and see if you
see any discrepancies that look as though they're a crack or even just a fine line that
kind of comes down the metal.
If you see a fine line, it's probably a crack.
If you happen to see that there's an issue with the manifold itself, you're going to
have to go ahead and replace the manifold.
There really isn't much else you can do for a fix for this.
But when you replace the manifolds, you're probably either going to break some studs
or mounting hardware, or you should really just replace it anyway.
So, if you're replacing the manifold, replace the hardware, the studs, and the nuts at the
same time, and, of course, the gasket.
Now, for our second problem, we're going to talk about a secondary air pump issue.
Firstly, what is a secondary air pump?
Well, it's part of your emission system.
Essentially what it's supposed to do is go ahead and pump air down to your actual catalytic
converter during the initial startup of your car, basically for the first minute of the
startup.
The reason why the secondary air pump is important is because it's going to help heat up that
catalytic converter faster, in which case, you're going to be more efficient overall
and, of course, put less pollution up into the atmosphere.
A couple of things that I want to mention real quick is that the secondary air pump
is actually also considered a smog pump.
So, if somebody says you need a smog pump, it's the same thing, secondary air injection
pump.
Also, I want to mention that this particular issue is going to be more prominent on the
V8 4.7-liter engine.
For that engine, it would actually be located underneath your intake system.
So this is the V6, so it looks a little bit different, but overall, if you were to go
ahead and take apart the top part of your engine, you're going to find your air intake.
It's going to be like a nice plastic intake.
You're going to have to go ahead and remove that.
There's going to be a whole bunch of other things.
Once you get that out of the way, down along the belly of the engine, you're going to be
able to find where that smog pump is.
Some of the symptoms you might happen to find if you're having an issue with your secondary
air pump might potentially be a loud wearing noise or humming noise coming from your secondary
air pump.
A couple of other things, you're probably going to find that you have a check engine
light comes on.
Of course, if you were to go ahead and pull that code, it's going to tell you that you're
having an issue with that secondary air injection pump.
Other than that, you might happen to notice a small decrease in fuel economy.
The reason for that is because the car's computer is going to be trying to make up for the lack
of air getting down to that catalytic converter to heat it up, and it's going to end up running
a little bit richer or essentially pumping a little bit more fuel into the mixture.
That way there, it can make its way out and into the exhaust to the catalytic converter
and help heat it up faster.
So, now, it's going to be time to talk about fixes for this.
Of course, you're going to want to be able to locate that secondary injection pump.
You're going to want to test it, see if it's getting power and ground getting to where
it needs to be.
You also wanna, of course, make sure that all the hoses and everything like that that
are going to go to it and from it aren't restricted in any way.
Aside from that, it's basically going to come down to you have to go ahead and replace that
smog pump.
Now, for our third problem, we're going to talk about internal radiator issues.
Now, this is going to be specific to the trucks with the automatic transmission.
The reason why this is going to happen is because the automatic transmission is going
to need a cooler of some sort.
Typically, these cooler lines are going to go from the transmission into the radiator.
Some of these vehicles are actually going to have a secondary cooler as well, but the
actual issue at this point is actually the radiator.
So, where the lines go into the radiator, there's going to be a tank.
And inside that tank, there's going to be a little cooler area that's supposed to house
the transmission fluid.
That, of course, can be located inside of the engine's coolant as well, because it's
all inside the same tank, but they're definitely separated.
What can happen with this is that internally the radiator can rupture.
And so the hot coolant that's being pressurized is going to force its way into the transmission
system.
Now, what you might happen to find if you're having this issue with your radiator might
potentially be slipping coming from your transmission.
You go ahead and you try to step on that gas pedal and the RPMs or engine speed goes up,
but the vehicle speed does not.
That's because the transmission's slipping inside.
Something else that you might happen to notice if you were to go ahead and open up your radiator
cap or even inside of your overflow or check your transmission dipstick tube, you might
happen to find that you have a pink milkshake inside there.
That's due to the fact that the coolant and the transmission fluid have been mixing around
and they made this frothy milkshake.
And it's really bad.
Now, fixes for this are going to go something like this, fingers crossed.
Essentially, what you're gonna want to do is you're going to have to replace the radiator.
At the same time, you're going to want to make sure you flush out your cooling system.
Most importantly though is your transmission.
For the transmission itself, typically, if you have this issue and you caught it soon
enough, you might be fine.
You're going to have to go ahead and flush out that system and make sure you get out
every bit of the fluid that's inside there because any little bit of coolant that's inside
could potentially cause this issue again.
Other than that, usually what happens though, if you go a little bit too long, because maybe
you weren't paying attention or maybe you just thought it was just a little bit of a
slip and what does it really matter, you could have potentially caused detrimental damage
to the internal transmission parts, in which case, you're either going to have to rebuild
your transmission or replace it.
Now, for our fourth problem, we made our way underneath the truck because I want to talk
about O2 sensors.
Now, the job of the O2 sensor is to calculate the efficiency of your engine.
Essentially, the air/exhaust that's coming out of your engine after the combustion chamber
is going to go through your exhaust.
It's going to run right by these O2 sensors, and they're going to take a measurement to
see exactly how much fuel/air mixture is coming through.
If it finds that there's too much fuel or too much air, it's going to go ahead and talk
to the computer and say, "Hey, this is what's going on.
Make some adjustments."
If you're having an issue with any of your O2 sensors, which you have four of them on
your particular truck, you're going to notice a check engine light come on on your dash.
You might also notice a difference in your fuel efficiency.
Essentially, maybe you're just hitting the gas pump a little bit more often.
And you might happen to notice black smoke coming from your exhaust.
If you happen to see that, that means that your O2 sensor isn't doing its job and your
engine's running too rich or with too much fuel to the amount of air that it's burning
up.
A couple of things that might make your O2 sensors go bad faster might be contaminants
inside your exhaust system.
Well, how might you get contaminants inside of your exhaust system?
Maybe it comes down to an internal engine leak.
Maybe you have a coolant leak that's making its way down into the combustion chamber and
then, of course, blowing out through the exhaust.
Or as far as internal engine leaks, you might potentially have oil making its way past those
piston seals.
If that's happening, once again, oil is going to be making its way into the combustion chamber
and then, of course, getting blown out through the exhaust.
And, of course, it's going to start accumulating on things such as your O2 sensor.
Now, your truck's going to have two banks, meaning by that you're going to have two rows
of cylinders on it.
Each one of those rows of cylinders is going to have a manifold with a catalytic converter.
Each bank is going to have two O2 sensors, an upstream O2 sensor, which is above the
catalytic converter closer to the manifold, and then a downstream O2 sensor.
That one's going to be behind or after the catalytic converter.
Now, as far as fixes for the O2 sensor issue, of course, you're going to want to diagnose
the issue first.
Go ahead and grab yourself a scanner and pull the code.
If it tells you bank 1 sensor 1, then you know you have an upstream O2 sensor that needs
to be replaced.
It might say bank 1 sensor 2 or even bank 2 sensor 1 or even 2.
Either way, you're going to want to go ahead and replace that corresponding O2 sensor.
There really isn't much else you can do about it though.
Quick food for thought.
If you have an exhaust leak before the O2 sensors or closer to the engine than the O2
sensors, you're probably going to get a lean code.
Other than that, if you have an issue with your catalytic converter being clogged up
or broken inside, you're going to have an issue as well.
Now, for our fifth problem, we're going to talk about ball joint issues.
Now, your truck's going to have four ball joints.
It's going to have a lower ball joint and an upper ball joint on each side of the truck.
What can commonly happen with ball joints is, of course, it's going to have the joint
right here, and then it's going to have the ball that sits inside the center of it.
That needs to be able to pivot around.
That's going to be very important.
Well, if for some reason the ball inside of the socket starts to get a little bit of movement,
that's going to be the most common.
You start feeling a little bit of movement.
Usually, if you're grabbing the wheel at 12 and 6, poom, poom, poom, poom, you get a little
bit of movement.
On these particular ball joints, what can tend to happen though is after it gets to
that point, and maybe you didn't pay attention to it, the ball joint separates completely,
whether it's the ball from the socket popping right out of there or even the stud of the
ball joint itself breaks right apart.
Symptoms that you're going to feel if you have a bad or failing ball joint could potentially
be loose or squirrely feeling steering.
Essentially, it just doesn't feel as tight and as stable as it should, especially when
you're going around corners or over bumps.
Other than that, when you're going over those bumps, you might hear a poom, poom, poom,
poom, clunking and banging noise coming from your front end.
The reason for that is because the ball and socket just kind of pounding around inside
there, and they don't have the lubricity that they're supposed to.
Or if all the lubricity came out of that ball joint, you might end up getting binding.
And when you have that, typically when you come to steering, [vocalization] you're going
to hear a creaking or a squeaking noise coming from your front end.
And that's going to be coming more than likely from either your lower or your upper ball
joint.
Stay with me now.
I got a bonus problem for you.
On Toyota's, especially on the Toyota Tacomas and the Tundras, what you're going to find
is your e-brake has an issue.
Common reasons why you might have e-brake issues essentially is because they get seized
up.
So, what's the purpose of the e-brake pivots?
Well, if you go ahead and put on your emergency brake, it's going to pull on that e-brake
cable.
It's going to come all the way down to the back right here where you have a pivot point.
This point right here is, of course, one of the areas that could potentially go bad, but
essentially assuming it worked, it would go ahead and pull on this and then pull on both
of these e-brake pivots back here.
Symptoms that you might find if you're having an issue with your e-brake cables or even
pivots might be the fact that your e-brake just doesn't work the way that you want it
to.
You go ahead and you put it on, and the truck either starts rolling away, or maybe you take
it off, and the truck doesn't move at all.
You go ahead and put it in drive.
You try accelerating [vocalization].
It seems like it's really being held back by something, and you definitely notice that
you're losing out on your fuel economy.
And another symptom that you're going to find if you're having an issue with e-brake pivots
being stuck in the on position might be brake pulsations or even noises coming from the
rear brakes.
Now, why might this potentially happen?
Well, there's going to be a couple of different things.
Maybe you don't use your emergency brake or parking brake as often as you should.
You know how the term goes.
If you don't use it, you're going to lose it, which, of course, would be very common
with people with automatic transmission because really who uses their parking brake when you
have an automatic transmission?
I do, but not everybody.
And the second common reason why this might potentially happen, which kind of goes with
the first one, would be moisture.
If moisture makes its way into or even stays on metal parts, it's gonna, of course, have
an issue.
So, along the backside of your backing plate here, you have a nice boot that's supposed
to be where the e-brake pivot is.
That's supposed to help keep moisture and debris from getting inside there.
Well, if moisture makes its way in between, it's going to sit right inside this boot.
And as it sits there, it's going to build up all this rust and debris that you see along
this area right there.
Along with the pivots down at the backing plates, you might also find that you have
an issue with the pivot right along this area here.
If that's the case, you go ahead and you pull on your e-brake, it's not going to be able
to move this, which in turn is going to make it so, well, these cables aren't going to
pull on the pivots like they're supposed to.
So, now we need to talk about fixes for this because obviously it's a very big issue and
it's something you want to be able to take care of.
It's not the hardest thing to do.
What you're going to want to do is you're going to want to remove both of your wheels.
We're going to remove the brake drums and then, of course, the brake shoes.
We want to be able to access this pivot area from the inside of the brakes.
After you've done that, you're going to go ahead and disassemble it and then remove this
from the actual backing plate itself.
Once you have all that apart, what you're going to want to do is take apart the pivot
point and then clean it all up.
You want to get out any of that corrosion, rust, or debris that's inside there.
Make sure you relubricate it and then put it all back together.
While you have the breaks apart, it really only makes sense to take a look at those shoes.
You want to make sure that your brake shoes have plenty of meat on them, and you also
want to inspect the drums.
If it looks as though the drums have been overheated or they have a whole bunch of little
spots on them, that's probably due to overheating, and it's going to cause a brake pulsation.
In either case, you're going to want to replace your brake shoes and your drums.
Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what I've got for you for top problems on a first-generation
Toyota Tundra.
Like we always say, every car has its own problems.
Maybe you have a car of your own with problems of its own.
If you do, and you want to talk about it, leave it in the comment section below because
I always love to hear from you.
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Thanks.