New Hiace owner, Richmond VA USA

Hey y’all- I just bought a ‘95 Hiace Living Saloon EX and am just joining the forum- excited to join! Some newbie questions to start with: 1) stereo swap- from what I’ve read, the wiring harness should match the same year for a 4Runner. Curious if anyone has done it/could confirm 2) replacing sunroof/moonroof motors- has anyone done it? 3) hitch installation- is it possible and any recommendations? 4) what’s your favorite/most important upgrade/modification that you’ve done to your Hiace? Know I just rifled off a bunch, but I’m excited to join and anxious to go on some longer trips here in the near future. Cheers!

Hello and welcome to the forum! Lots of great info and people here to help out a new SC owner. Have you utilized the search yet? I think your first three topics have been covered to some extent. I've replaced the rear sunroof motor/actuator assembly in my van, which I think there are a few posts about on the forum.

For me, most important upgrade was suspension lift/all-terrain tires (I've posted about this as well), gives the van a nice stance and a nice bump in ground clearance/off-road capability.

Here's to all your new adventures, these vans are great fun!

Even if you don't want to lift it, I'd recommend replacing the oem (25 year old) shocks. Didnt realize how bad mine were until I replaced them while doing the lift. Big improvement in handling and stability on windy days on the high way. Congrats on the new ride!!

If I could only fine NOS replacements for my TEMS shocks!

If your van came in from Japan (as did mine 3 years ago, with 123,00kms) it would pay to give the cooling system a good flush and clean out. Many of these vans sit in warehouses for years, corroding away. The local importers here in NZ flush them as a standard practice.
These are great vans, reliable and comfortable for long drives.
We use ours in preference to the car generally, you will love it.

PS.....as a nosey.
How much do you pay for them in US?
Mine is exactly the same colour and year as yours but is called a 'Super Custom'.
Electric curtains, Refridgerator, Coffee heater, Sun roof and 2 Moonroofs.
A nice feature is the swing arm semi independent rear suspension.
I've had 6 commercial Hi Aces with live rear axle and this rear handles way better.

holidayboy wrote:

PS.....as a nosey.
How much do you pay for them in US?
Mine is exactly the same colour and year as yours but is called a 'Super Custom'.
Electric curtains, Refridgerator, Coffee heater, Sun roof and 2 Moonroofs.
A nice feature is the swing arm semi independent rear suspension.
I've had 6 commercial Hi Aces with live rear axle and this rear handles way better.

I paid $10,995 for my '95 SC with ~124,000 km's on it. It was in good but not perfect shape. From a dealer who does the importing themselves, gets all service up to date, but definitely not a full resto. Prices seem to have gone up a bit since when I got mine in May 2020. West coast places seem to sell similar vans starting around $15k USD at the very bottom end. They may put more work into them though.

Thanks for that info.
Don't they hold their value well?
That's about the same numbers as we pay in NZ.
We still see many of them on the roads here.

holidayboy wrote:

Thanks for that info.
Don't they hold their value well?
That's about the same numbers as we pay in NZ.
We still see many of them on the roads here.

I expect mine to at least hold its value, if not appreciate over the next few years. I even had somebody on the street offer me $15k for mine a few weeks ago! Lockdown measures in the US have gotten a lot of people buying these, delica's, and the like. Never a better time to drive off into the woods! There's also just a big novelty factor in that we only ever got very watered down toyota minivans in the US market.

My HiAce (2004) has a definite problem with rust… but only for rear half of the van. Front part is sort of “acceptable” for 16 yrs old “lady”. I do not have any sensible explanation of why rusting was bad on rear half only. Maybe it’s unique to my van (I doubt)!

You might want to consider taking out fuel tank and inspecting if fuel tank has rusted on top and also van’s floor above fuel tank for rust. My fuel tank actually developed a pinhole fuel leak and I took it out to fix it and found out that the bottom of van was all covered in rust, so was top of fuel tank. That rust can not be seen with fuel tank in it’s place. Perhaps you can try some sort of endoscope type of cam.

I would also recommend to do a good inspection of mounting points for arm in which rear suspension springs are situated in. In my case the mounting points were completely wasted away and were holding together by paint. I had to fully restore the mounting bracket. I would attribute the problem for rust damage to extra set of holes for mounting the arm in case one wanted to lower the van an inch or so. From factory those holes were not closed and gradually water got in between two pieces of metal comprising the mounting bracket. When I rebuilt the bracket I only made one set of mounting holes and thus eliminated the source of problem. If you do not have the rust problem yet, then you might want to think of a way of how to seal up those unused mounting holes. In pictures one can clearly see how rust progressed forward with the flow of the water. I would guesstimate that I was few months away from a major issue.

I will attach few pics here for better visuals.

Restoring outer part of bracket


...

Making inner part and final result...

The brackets holding rear heater’s control valve was also rusted away and held together by paint I did not had a desire to replace them with OEM parts, so I made my own… out of stainless steel. This is not structural part, so stainless was my preferred choice.

Before:

After:

Hi and welcome fellow SC owner
There are two toyota ISO stereo wiring harnesses for Hiace models so you need to make sure you get the right one.
When I did my 95 super custom limited here is Australia it took some research but eventually I found what was needed.
You should be able to find this in the US somewhere but if not you can get them on ebay.
The part number for both the Toyota kits are Aerpro APP0140 and APP0141.
I'm pretty sure it was APP0141 that I used but pain meds are playing with my memory slighty so just take a photo of your plug.
Cost was about $15

Aerpro APP0141 Toyota iso connector
Part No. APP0141       APP0141 eBay
I hope this is of some use for you and may you have many adventures in your SC van  

 
                                  APP0141                                                          APP0140

holidayboy, there are no 4x4 supercustoms in CHCH, NZ. We bought our '95 manual in Feb 2002 with 94,000km on the clock for NZ$14k. Took months to find one, then we suddenly had the choice of two manuals, the other one only had 54,000km on it for the same price. I've been driving and or owned Hiaces since getting my license in '80, starting with the original 1600 petrol model. This thing has hauled some loads on the trailer.

gadgetman wrote:

holidayboy, there are no 4x4 supercustoms in CHCH, NZ. We bought our '95 manual in Feb 2002 with 94,000km on the clock for NZ$14k. Took months to find one, then we suddenly had the choice of two manuals, the other one only had 54,000km on it for the same price. I've been driving and or owned Hiaces since getting my license in '80, starting with the original 1600 petrol model. This thing has hauled some loads on the trailer.

You could be right, mine is 2wd.
I saw a 4wd on the Brighton ramp last night 'For Sale' signs on the windows, yours for $10990

holidayboy wrote:

gadgetman wrote:

holidayboy, there are no 4x4 supercustoms in CHCH, NZ. We bought our '95 manual in Feb 2002 with 94,000km on the clock for NZ$14k. Took months to find one, then we suddenly had the choice of two manuals, the other one only had 54,000km on it for the same price. I've been driving and or owned Hiaces since getting my license in '80, starting with the original 1600 petrol model. This thing has hauled some loads on the trailer.

You could be right, mine is 2wd.
I saw a 4wd on the Brighton ramp last night 'For Sale' signs on the windows, yours for $10990

The AWD manual is definitely low geared, which makes it good for towing. The auto versions are running much lower revs at the open road limit so they get better mileage.

holidayboy wrote:

PS.....as a nosey.
How much do you pay for them in US?
Mine is exactly the same colour and year as yours but is called a 'Super Custom'.
Electric curtains, Refridgerator, Coffee heater, Sun roof and 2 Moonroofs.
A nice feature is the swing arm semi independent rear suspension.
I've had 6 commercial Hi Aces with live rear axle and this rear handles way better.

Howdy! All good! So after a solid year of research and going down some serious rabbit holes (to the point that I was on Japanese auction sites and google-translating the pages, as I don't know the language), I bought mine from an import dealership based out of my home city in Richmond, VA called Japanese Classics (www.japaneseclassics.com ig: japaneseclassics). They were in fact that ones that got me super into Japanese imports from the start, having stumbled across their Instagram a couple years ago.

They post two super clean imports a day, and they're completely random- it could be a Nissan President, a Hilux, or a...semi truck (it's cool as hell and I think it's still listed). But every once in awhile a van would pop up, and that's when the seed was planted that I wanted to save up and eventually pull the trigger on one. I subscribed to their email and provided my vehicle preference. Quickly I found out that people moved quickly on the vans (I wanna say there were three separate instances that vans were bought out before I could- including a Hiace that I called in, about fifteen minutes after being posted on IG, and it had already been purchased). So to answer someone else's question- they're becoming super popular in the US and seem to be selling like hotcakes- my guess is with Covid and increased car-camping/travel contained within the US.

Not having the best luck with them, that's when I started opening up my search to craigslist, marketplace, ebay, bring a trailer, and eventually Japanese auction sites. Prices were all pretty comparable to the ones posted on Japanese Classics, the $8-15 range. I found that the Japanese auction route was typically the cheapest, but it also felt super risky for me particularly. I also found out about Duncan Imports which is based out of Christiansburg, Virginia and Nashville, Tennessee (if you get a chance check them out as well- they have a truly insane inventory).

So with all of these resources considered, eventually I lucked out and the exact Hiace that I was looking for (~100k miles, 3.0L, 4WD) with Japanese Classics, and I bought it for $13. It was the outlier for what I ultimately wanted to pay, but with it only being 15 minutes from me, the vetting process that they do before listing vehicles, testing them, and doing a standard/routine fluids flush, new tires, state inspection etc., I was willing to pay a bit more. That said (and granted I'm only a month in during ownership), I'm happy having gone with them. They also have technicians that specialize with imports, so that also provided some peace of mind for complex issues that could come up.

I apologize in hindsight for how long this is, but just wanted to give some context for my reasoning/rationale. I'm curious how the buying process went for ya'll, what route you went with, etc. Thanks again for all of your responses!

Hey there.  I just recently acquired my Hiace via the Japan auction and import route.  I currently have the van in my garage in the process of a full sound system upgrade.  Metra 70-1761 wiring harness (Crutchfield or Amazon) fits my vehicle exactly (1993 KZH106G).  I went down the deep rabbit hole and am fitting 6.5" speakers to the doors with a bunch of careful modding.  Let me know what you find on fitting a hitch mount.  While my goal is to keep two mountain bikes with wheels on in the vehicle most of the time there are other times I will want to load the van up with people for a shuttle run and a hitch mount is key.

Jellybeanofavehicle I got pretty lucky with mine although it did take me a while to find the one I wanted. I ended up with one that I originally crossed off my search list as it was advertised for 13k and was fitted with a wheelchair hoist which I didn't mind. I just took it out and stored it in the garage.
What had me concerned was the advert said there was a oil leak that needed to be repaired so I didn't bother for a few weeks and then by the time I decided to go and have a look at it, the eBay listing had finished. Luckily I had saved it t my watch list and the sellers phone number was on the listing so I called on the off chance it didn't sell. I arranged to go look at it (only 30 mins from home) The moment I test drove it I fell in love lol but the oil leak looked like it was
dripping from the bell housing

Told the guy I was really concerned that it was the rear main seal could be costly since I can't manage to do it myself anymore. My back is stuffed so I'd have to pay to have it fixed.
So asked him what his absolute best price was and we went from 13k to 9k! I tried not to show too much excitement and after a short pause I said ummmmmmm....yeah OK deal Got it home and had a quick look in the engine bay....... Ah Ha!!! the oil filter was loose by 2 turns fixed cleaned up and no more oil leak.

I'm in Melbournes SE and like you I had some trouble finding the one I wanted especially in the state of Victoria.....Quite a few other models though