It Had To Be Done, The Final Part! // 2UZ VVT-i Celica

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hello people of the world watching internet videos that have to do with cars. Welcome to this 1974 RE21 Toyota Celica ST, which I've spent over the past 2 and 1/2 years restoring for my dad. If you're new here or you clicked on this video by accident and you're immediately regretting your life choices, up above my head is a link to the playlist that contains all the videos on to get this car to this point.

[00:00:22]But now finish this thing up. Smart person would have inspected this before starting filming the video. Check. Of course, I'm going to use brand new hardware. What do you think I am, a savage? Every last one of them. Use the correct stuff. Inside that box is a coomons that go with these guys right here. 0506 Toyota Tundra 2 VVTi cam phaser. The reason why I'm replacing these is because the ones that are on there are the original ones from my dad's truck, which had 191,000 m on it before smashing into a moose.

[00:00:56]>> I sure like surprises. The engine was rebuilt, but these things were not because they're essentially just replace them if they go bad type of component.

[00:01:04]There's little plastic swledges inside here that separate the chambers for the oil pressure. And once those start to wear out, you look at a cutaway of the BBTI system functioning on the 2Z FE. You can see the inner portion I'm referring to, how it has the ability to shift back and forth via oil pressure coming from the oil control valve, which then will allow you to control when the intake valves open and close independently from the rest of the cycle of the engine.

[00:01:32]Verifying. I'm sorry you can't see this cuz my hair is in the way. Last four.

[00:01:36]520. Last four. 521 because it's been super seated. Correct. Uh I definitely got to drop coolant to do this.

[00:01:49]Bumper's got to come off to get this off, which I have to take this off to get this off.

[00:01:56]Maybe, just maybe, I can make this easier than it has to be.

[00:02:02]Even though I got 90% of this hardware memorized, I'm still going to label it just in case.

[00:02:12]I was hoping that wouldn't happen. Got it. There's nothing worse than disassembling a car you just spent two plus years putting together and you really don't want to take it apart. But wait, but there is something worse. Not having full range of control over your BBTI system because the it's all kaput.

[00:02:31]Oh, you stupid. Where's the other bracket?

[00:02:35]Come on. There you go. Intake out. Well, that's always a pleasant discovery.

[00:02:40]There's no oil in here. In theory, I should be able to just pull the radiator straight out the top without disassembling the grill, the bumper, anything. I think I I think I got enough clearance.

[00:02:57]I definitely don't want coolant everywhere. So, trash bag trick works with oil. I'll see if it works with coolant. In theory, I will make far less of a mess. Theory is only in theory when it's in theory. I want it to all come to a a central point. This might be the stupidest and smartest thing I've ever done. I put this like that and the coolant has to follow the path of least resistance, which would be out that shoot. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to see at all what I'm doing. Literally no clue what I'm doing. Ouch. My arm stuck.

[00:03:31]Ouch. [ __ ] it.

[00:03:35]There's one thing I will never claim to be, and that is good at sports. But can we not appreciate how I just caught that flashlight with my left hand? All right.

[00:03:44]See if that works. Spoiler. It doesn't because I suck at shapes.

[00:03:48]>> Is it working? Sweet. Let me open the radiator cap.

[00:03:51]>> That was really going to gush out. Oh [ __ ] Where did that shoot?

[00:03:58]All right. It's kind of doing what I wanted it to. Oh, it's it's kind of It's peeing like it's drunk. Oh no. Oh, that's not working like I wanted it to.

[00:04:12]Well, good thing it's just liquid. I was trying to save as much of that coolant as I could so I can reuse it. So, I'm putting it in a brand new bucket.

[00:04:22]Could you at least pee consistently?

[00:04:25]Because of the nature of this job and the fact that I just want to get this car done so I can get it to my dad so he can enjoy it. I'm not trying to take multiple days doing this job. So, Charlie just got back from the Arctic Circle. He was up there fixing some penguins for work and I asked him to come by and that way we can just knock this thing out as fast as possible.

[00:04:46]Man, if I can take just the fans off, then I might not be able to actually have to.

[00:04:55]The most timeconsuming part of this job is going to be taking apart and putting together all this stuff up here. Allow me to spare you the hassle and get straight to the point. Success. You've seen this get removed and installed probably 10 different times in various videos on this channel. There's no point in filming everything. And remove. In theory, that would have been a good little finger snap thing, but sometimes working on this car is not what a finger snap is. My vocabulary is broken. Also, Charlie's here now, and him and I just worked from either side of the car and tore all that apart and only took like 2 hours. Had I filmed all that, every little step along the way like I usually do in all these videos, that would have took an entire day. Also having this apart, realized that there is a bolt on the water pump that goes into a coolant jacket that requires some sealant and it didn't have that. So it it seeped and leaked should be everything for the valve cover and remove just like that. So that locks that in place.

[00:06:01]Okay, so cam caps order of them. Sorry if you're not filming everything. This is just This is more important than this. That is so many bolts.

[00:06:11]>> 22 bolts incremental turns at a time.

[00:06:13]Go. While I would admit that these project cars would not exist if it wasn't for these YouTube videos, I will admit that I wouldn't exist if it wasn't for my parents. So, you can see why I'm choosing the work over filming. So, dot just above, two dots, single dot, single dot, all above the surface of the head just barely. That's how you line them up.

[00:06:35]Okay, exhaust cam's out.

[00:06:40]It's amazing how much progress I can make when I'm focusing on the work first and the camera second. That excellent progress yesterday. And this is the source of why this is all happening.

[00:06:52]These actually didn't even come off of my dad's engine originally. I forgot these came from a junkyard engine. clean seal and cam gear like so. These don't have Loctite on them, but I'm going to They're hardware in an engine. So, reassemble in accordance with the factory Toyota service manual. 66 inb.

[00:07:16]And while not required, I did use all brand new genuine Toyota hardware just as an added extra piece of security.

[00:07:23]Feels good. There is a specific spot to attach a wrench. This is not going on a cam lobe. So, that goes up top. Align the cam shaft knock pin with the knock pin groove of the timing tube and push the timing tube by hand until it touches the bottom.

[00:07:40]78 nm meters according to the tech data.

[00:07:42]I'm not using pound feet cuz this is a Japanese engine. So, there we go. These are brand new OEM Toyota ones. No point putting an old one on there. Put a little bit of lube on there.

[00:07:58]This one is ready. Well, I got one down, one more to go. Assembly is the same as disassembly, but in opposite direction.

[00:08:06]Oh boy.

[00:08:09]I'm not even joking. Cleaning all the RTV off this stuff just took like 2 hours. Charlie's getting his side together. So, this part you definitely got to follow the tech data because it's different than the lefth hand bank. the little dots. You do the single dots on the right hand side at a 10 degree angle. The outside has the double dot.

[00:08:28]There's a picture in the tech data. So, it's kind of idiot proof if you follow your to. And this thing that looks like a miniature bug zapper is actually BBTI oil screens. That's to make sure there's no schmut in the oil before it goes into the oil control valve, which is what controls those timing tubes that I just replaced on the cams. Those are the outer ones are 21 and 22 or the outer little guy. 66 in lb.

[00:08:54]>> Thanks to a little bit of teamwork and torque specs, the engine is reassembled.

[00:08:58]>> Oh, okay. I got the exhaust ones right here.

[00:09:05]It is a day and a significant amount of hours later. I normally never do this in videos, but for the sake of this fact this car is not mine and I need to get it done so I can get this thing to my dad since it is for him. I just wanted to get the work done and I didn't want to have to worry about cameras cuz I don't think a lot of you realize how much work it actually is for me to be constantly thinking about shots and moving cameras around, making sure I'm talking to the camera. It's a lot. So, the meat and potatoes, as far as I'm concerned, is done. The new cam phasers are on. All the cams are back in the engine. It is all lubed, cleaned, reassembled, torqued. Timing, brand new timing belt is on. If you wanted to see that type of stuff, when I first started this project, I tore apart two different 2Z engines. So, I didn't see the point in filming all that type of stuff.

[00:09:50]Again, it's the same crap, but what is not is this. This is considered a non-serviceable part from Toyota. That's why it has the fiveointed bits.

[00:10:01]There we go.

[00:10:04]So, my theory is that the little spring or the teflon blocks are what wore out.

[00:10:09]Watch it be something completely different than the inside.

[00:10:17]It's not exactly the way I thought it would be. You can see the inside of it.

[00:10:21]It's a little different than how I was envisioning. I thought there were little plastic teflon things of springs. It's slightly different design. The broken spina cobbler shall investigate. What do you think? Like they look deformed. You can see the wear on the inside of the >> I can see what you're talking about.

[00:10:35]It's like It's like chatter.

[00:10:36]>> Yeah, it's got wear marks in the aluminum, but those little brass bars or whatever these are made out of. Oh, yeah. [ __ ] loads of springs just fell out.

[00:10:43]>> Yeah, they're like little loose leaf springs, right? Yeah. It looks like it's like chatter marks in the wear like it was catching like like it was getting hung up or catching or something.

[00:10:52]>> See, this is the left side which was working. The right side is the one that wasn't controlling the cam. I think they were off of a unknown mileage junkyard engine. You know what I mean?

[00:11:02]>> Yeah. The oil screens would have prevented any stuff from getting in there though.

[00:11:05]>> Well, yeah. If you get any kind of piece of grit in here in this Teflon, it'll just wear a groove in this thing and it'll never work. This one's got significantly shorter wear marks than this one does. It was only losing control of the cam at high RPM, like right at the top of the run where it's got the most force on it. So, it was probably just bleeding by some of these Teflon wipers.

[00:11:24]>> Uh, one out of 10. How how fun of a job is that?

[00:11:27]>> One, >> it's miserable, right?

[00:11:29]>> Yeah. It would have been tough in a Tundra just cuz of the amount of stuff that's got to come apart, but shoehorned in that car with not a lot of room and like bent over at the waist the whole time.

[00:11:38]>> The back of my knees and my spine hurt.

[00:11:39]And I know yours is probably worse now.

[00:11:40]>> Wasn't any fun.

[00:11:41]>> Putting this radiator back in is going to suck royally cuz I had it adjusted just right so it wouldn't hit the hood even though it hit the hood. So, this for sure would have took two videos at least had I done all this work by myself. So, I am very thankful for the help. They make sure there's nothing inside the spoiler.

[00:11:59]Oh, there's coolant inside there. Part of me wants to put drain holes down inside this chin spoiler cuz liquid gets stuck in here really easy. There's a nut. This is the upper coolant neck where the thermostat lives. And while I had it off, the spaceship fabricator stopped by off camera and did some magic welds and blocked off the end of this pipe, which I had a rubber cap on here.

[00:12:22]This used to go to the original Tundra oil cooler for the automatic transmission. I no longer need it and I didn't want that rubber cap to be on there cuz eventually it would dry out and leak. And rather than completely cut that pipe off and weld up the aluminium, didn't want to take a chance at anything warping up in this area. So, I figured that was the best solution since you don't see this anyway.

[00:12:43]Wire neck. At least this side doesn't have a groove in it. It's a lot easier to scrape. A little bit of brake cleaner.

[00:12:50]Toyota sealant. RTV is on. 19 Newton meters torque spec. That's torqued. The upside of my design is that you can easily access everything on the accessory drive through the front of the car when the radiator is out. And taking the radiator out is not that hard. It's like the equivalency of ripping your fingernails off with pliers.

[00:13:13]Okay, that's tight. Good. Good. Good.

[00:13:15]Everything else look good. Tensioner. Oh [ __ ] >> No, it's not on all the way down there.

[00:13:21]That feels like it's on. I don't know why I hate doing a radiator so much on this car. I just It's not It's not one of my favorites. Drop that down.

[00:13:31]Stay.

[00:13:33]That was close. I'm not a fan of this job.

[00:13:38]Sorry. Pretty sure those just slide in at an angle. I think is how I did it.

[00:13:43]Love it when I do stuff like this.

[00:13:45]Timesaver. This is not enjoyable.

[00:13:52]I got it. That took a half hour and I made it take 8 seconds for you in that video. You're welcome. The challenge is the way I have the radiator mounted, in case you forgot, is the top and bottom rides on these threaded bodies and then I have spacers that allow me to adjust the angle just perfectly. So that way it clears the top of the hood and bypasses the belts. So it gives an adjustable range of angle for the radiator, which is kind of neat that it's adjustable.

[00:14:18]But I have to try to get these things up inside there along with nut on the back side. And then there's another there's three nuts total on it. It's like total recall. But never mind. I remember now the way I did this is by using a magnet to hold it down inside there while I thread the the shindig into the hootenheiser. You know what my favorite thing to not do that I do a lot when working on cars is? Let my camera run for 30 minutes on 4K and fill up an SD card of literally almost nothing that I'm going to use in the video. That's love. Love it. I'd like to be able to start this thing in this video, but I'm cutting it close on time now. Ah, I had a coolant leak right there. That was not tight enough. Well, at least now I know.

[00:15:01]Get that right where I want it. But remember, I had to twist this at a weird angle so that way it would clear.

[00:15:08]Aside from the airbox, this is the last piece of the engine that needs to go on all in one video. This was not easy to pull off and film.

[00:15:20]It's a couple days later and this is a little bit unrelated from the primary purpose of this video, but I'm pretty sure all of you watching right now will be happy to see this. In case you missed out on the first part of this little side quest, about a month ago, I dropped off my 87 Ford Ranger at a friend shop here in Tucson, Vintage Metal Services, where they specialize in restoring classic Volvos and European cars, mainly with a few other things sprinkled into the mix. Like for instance, this little guy. Man, it looks so good. They really went above and beyond knocking out all the dents and stuff. That color is super pretty, too. All the wonky body work that was down here is now all gone. It looks so much better. Put a new back window in it so that way it would have new weather stripping. It's got brand new windshield. That was so worth doing.

[00:16:07]The paint job cost as much as the truck did, but it was worth saving this little thing. I miss driving this little rig.

[00:16:14]It's been gone for about a month and a half.

[00:16:25]Now, I just got this thing back to the shop after running out of gas because the fuel sending unit doesn't work in this thing. And I like to live dangerously and guess how much fuel I actually have in it. That's something I'm going to fix. All right, there's about $6,000 worth of fuel. Um, and as you can see, the bumper is in the bed of the truck. I asked Matt not to have the guys put the bumpers back on it because I'm going to do a little mini build series on this thing here in a couple months. I wanted to get the truck though in the shop so you can see it under different lighting. Look how laser straight that hood came out. Before I had this truck painted, it was about 10 different colors of tan and it was full of all kinds of wonky dents and body work. And look at that. That is so so straight compared to how it was. I told them it's not a show car. So I wasn't looking for perfection. I'm just looking for good little old truck. And because it's the original color, I had them soft edge it into the door jambs. And the door jambs are the original paint still on this truck. Does have all new weather stripping everywhere. So, no more crazy wind noise. But like I said, I'm going to do a little mini build series on this truck. So, I got some NOS Ford parts coming for it, including a new grill since this one's unfortunately cracked and they don't make them anymore, nor can you get aftermarket ones anymore.

[00:17:33]Those are even discontinued. The next video will be on the Celica again cuz I'm going to get that thing fired up.

[00:17:39]And I got a couple more little things left to iron out so I can say that it's done and get it out to my dad. And yes, I will film a car review on it before it goes. And then get this thing in paint as well. So, thank you guys for watching. I'll see you soon with another video. Bye.