BJ60 Clutch Saga Pt.1: A Lost Hope

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Holy shit it’s difficult to find parts you’d think would be very common.

Last week, it was -35° Celsius here in good old YYC. Naturally, I set the Webasto (my 12v diesel coolant preheater) to warm up the engine before I got outside that morning. Stupid me, however, forgot that the other fluids would still have the viscosity of molasses, and upon pushing the clutch in to start the engine, I triggered a set of events that have caused me irritation and pain for the past week now.


I went to select first gear, but the clutch went all the way to the floor with no hesitation. Okay, annoying. Maybe it’s just cold. I drove all the way to school that morning, and all the way back, with no clutch. That evening, I called my local auto parts store and ordered in a new clutch master cylinder. It would be here the next day.

Indeed it was. But it was the wrong one; in April of 1985 Toyota added a vacuum booster to the BJ60, thus requiring an entirely different sort of reservoir. Guess what exact month my particular 60 was made.

The nearest supposedly compatible proper cylinder was in Coquitlam BC, and would take a week to arrive. Today, it came in, and was also the wrong one. Granted, it was closer to correct this time, but still completely wrong; that one was meant for the non-boosted LC. After the (very helpful) folks at Bowness Auto looked through every supplier they could, they suggested I find the stock part number. I called Stampede Toyota, to be met with news that a new part from them would be…. $350. And Bowness still didn’t have any luck finding anything. Either I get one from FJParts or I call Steve at EBI and see if he’s got something. Fingers crossed. Or, maybe I try to rebuild the old one…?


More to come when I figure more out, but for now – if you have a vacuum boosted Canadian BJ60 built after April of 1985, you need this part number:

 

31401-60022-J

PART TWO

3B Oil Change – 21/06/2018

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Oil Change – 256,131 KM

~ 6,000 KM since the last oil change

6.7 Litres Drain & Refill w/ new filter

Auto Value 16th Ave NW

-WIX 51515MP Oil Filter – $6.23

-5L Rotella T4 10W-30 Oil – $24.47

-2x1qt “                             “ – $11.76

Net Total – $44.82

Grand Total$47.06

How I’ve made this site what it is

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Nobody gives a damn, probably, but this can at least be used for my own personal abilities to refer back to.  

The computers I edit this site with are:

2011 Mac Mini 5,1 – 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD + 4TB external storage, MacOS 10.13.3

2012 Mac Mini 6,1 – 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD + 4TB external storage, macOS 10.14

2015 MacBook Pro 15” – 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD + 500GB external SSD, 2.2GHz i7, MacOS 10.14

Both Computers, Currently on High Sierra, run iWeb 3.0.4. Refer to my other blog post on iWeb tips & tricks to know how I sync the iWeb document across computers. This site uses the “White” theme. Font for most things is Helvetica Neue Light, or Regular.

iWeb Advice

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Syncing iWeb files across Macs

It probably is no secret that I use Apple’s 6 year discontinued software iWeb to create this website, but that has created some issues for my modern needs. I use this site for hosting of many things, but one of them is recording all the ridiculous quotes that my friends say. 

This means I need to have access to the site from anywhere, even though I started out creating this on my Mac Mini server at my house.

Instead of trying to use Back to My Mac to screen share the Mac Mini, I set out to find a way of syncing the Domain.sites2 file.

There are a lot of tutorials out there that recommend just dragging the file to the Dropbox folder, and double clicking that to open the site. That doesn’t work, because iWeb will only read the file from it’s native directory.

There is an app, called MacDropAny, which supposedly creates symbolic links and allows you to sync files with any cloud source, but it seemed to only recognize them as an alias, and couldn’t sync the files back. 

In the end, my solution was a bit of terminal work. First, on the source computer where the original file resides, create a symbolic link of the .sites2 file to iCloud drive. (Or whatever hosting solution is best for you.) Paste this command into the Terminal app (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)

ln -s ~/Library/Application\ Support/iWeb/Domain.sites2 ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/iWeb/Domain.sites2

Then, on the other computer(s) that you would like to access the file from, create a symbolic link from iCloud Drive to your local iWeb folder. (make sure there is not already a file with the same name in the local iWeb folder.) Paste this command into the Terminal app (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)

ln -s ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/iWeb/Domain.sites2 ~/Library/Application\ Support/iWeb/Domain.sites2

Caution:

Do not use this for collaboration, or attempt to work on this from two computers at the same time. This could severely corrupt your entire Domain.sites2 file. Make sure that you make regular backups, as well. I am not responsible for if your multimillion dollar corporation’s site crashes, or if you have a severe breakdown because you couldn’t blog the latest gluten-free, vegan, free-range, organic kale salad that you just ate. 

3B Oil Change – 26/01/2018

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~ 6,000 KM since the last oil change

6.7 Litres Drain & Refill w/ new filter

Auto Value 16th Ave NW

-WIX 51515MP Oil Filter – $6.23

-5L Rotella T4 10W-30 Oil – $24.47

-2x1qt “                             “ – $11.76

Net Total – $44.82

Grand Total$47.06