1993 4Runner - Daily driver with a sense of adventure

[thestig99]

Hi, all.

I thought I would share my DD 4Runner. This definitely won't be a crazy build, likely more of a "Things I do WITH my truck" than a "Things I do TO my truck" kind of deal. As well all know "Leave well enough alone" is always subject to change, though, so who knows what the future will bring

It's been a fairly rocky road since I bought it back in May, mostly due to non-vehicle related events, so the timeline got pretty stretched out and it has felt like it's fought me more than it probably really has. I'm going to get up to date by copy/pasting my progress from another forum, so bear with me for a bit...

6/4/17

"Picked this up a few weeks ago to be my new DD. 1993, 115k, 3VZE V6, 4WD, automatic.

Currently out of commission with (per the PO) head gasket issues, burning coolant pretty significantly. Supposedly they have already been replaced twice so there may be deeper issues. The inspection expired in August of 2015, so it's been sitting for a while so who knows what else we'll find.

My original intentions were to do just cut to the chase and do a 3.4 swap but life has thrown me a couple major curve balls since I bought it. As as result I will likely be either fixing this engine or finding a replacement 3.0. The only progress I have made at all has been washing it and getting the dent in the leading edge of the hood PDR'd.

Probably going to be a bit before I get anything of significance done, but I'm excited for this one."

The interior is a freaking time capsule :Wow1: Note that all I have done is give it a quick vacuum and wipe the dust off.

6/21/17

You don't get to choose your parents but maybe, if you're really really lucky, you might end up with ones as awesome as mine.

While I have been dealing with life things, my dad made arrangements to get the 4Runner towed from my work to their house. The next time I was there I was confused to not see it parked in the yard. I eventually found it parked in the garage. This is about the time my dad informs me that he has found the radiator is split wide open and that he has ordered a new one, :Wow1: which he as since installed. The motor has good compression and the cooling system holds pressure now, which is good. On the not so good side we pressurized the cooling system with the plugs out and got to observe a stream of coolant running out of cylinder #6, and the oil has gone from clean to milkshake.

The PO was assuming there was an issue on the mounting surface of the block that caused the HG failure, now we are wondering if overheating was the culprit.

Hopefully in a couple weeks I will finally be able to devote some energy to diving into this thing, but that's the update for now.

9/12/17

... and it sat.

To quote the wise Mazdeuce, it still hasn't finished itself despite my ongoing experiment in abandonment based project completion. The past several months have been a monumental disaster for me but things are finally starting to settle back down, both mentally and fiscally. The days are getting cooler and shorter here in VT, too, so it's probably time to make things happen on this thing!

Step 1: drain this out of the crankcase

This is where we (my dad and I) left off after evening #1:

Glad I was already planning on replacing the timing belt while it was apart :Wow1:

Pretty boring update, but most of it was spent like this:

Lots of pictures, lots of labeling to try to keep all the vac lines straight. And it sure has plenty of them!

Downloaded a factory service manual, and hope to make some more progress on it tomorrow.

9/13/17


Hopefully I won't need to dig that deep into these heads but I will keep that offer in mind if I do, thanks!

Made some progress tonight...

Guess which one is burning coolant?

Gasket:

Head:

 

[thestig99]

10/5/17

Well, on the block I made the determination to use copper gasket sealant on the HG's and cross my fingers. The point of diminshing returns on fixing a 3VZE vs swapping in a 5VZE 3.4 seems to be pretty low and, quite frankly, I lack both time and money to tear this bottom end apart. There is even worse pitting elsewhere on both deck surfaces and the rest of it was sealing fine. So, wish me luck there :sombrero:
I did buy a "freshly rebuilt" head on eBay from a junkyard to replace the one above.

It arrived looking like this:

Notice all the scratches on the mounting surface. Great.

Took that head and my original RH one to a machine shop to be cleaned and resurfaced. Got a call shortly thereafter "Your reman head is junk. It's already below minimum thickness". Greeeaaat. Decided to bring the original, damaged, head by to see what they thought of it. They decided that, as it is not in the fire ring, it's no big deal and a couple hours later I left with both my original heads looking like this:

Here is what remains of that blemish:

The pile of parts keeps growing. For some reason the head bolts seem to have disappeared from my RockAuto order but, other than that, hopefully I have everything! Now to try to get a refund on my paperweight rebuilt head...

In other news, floor mats.

10/7/17

Went up today to drop off the good heads and put the bad one back together to return it. My dad is away for the weekend so I skipped trivial tasks like starting to put the engine back together and, instead, focused on more important things like lubricating the rear window tracks, installing the roof rack, and thinking about how to mount my Hella 500's.

Window works smoother now, rack is on, probably going to end up just mounting the lights directly to the bumper.

Baby steps.

10/23/17

Check valve lash clearance. Torquing the RH cam down to 12 ft-lb resulted in this.

...back to the machine shop! $43 later its as good as new with a heli-coil.

Did some math, ordered some shims.

Time passed.

Pushed it back inside. The next time this truck moves it'll be under its own power. I hope.

Took it the rest of the way apart

Then started turning bolts rightey tightey!

Did math correctly. Valve clearances all within spec.

Left off here:

Starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I have tomorrow off, hoping to pick away at it some more.

10/25/17

I suck at stopping to take pictures when I have momentum, but I picked away at some things yesterday...

Still some little stuff and tidying up to do, BUT...

10/26/17

Had a short day at work yesterday so in the afternoon I wrapped up a few things on the 4Runner. Re mounted the fan, properly assembled the intake, re-routed the spark plug wires to the passenger side, installed the coolant overflow tank, battery tie down, checked driveline fluids, changed the oil, put the skid plate on, then drove it 45 miles home

 

[thestig99]

10/27/27

Took a wrong turn on my way home from work yesterday...

Still sorting things out It had been a total dog - struggling to maintain speed, let alone achieve it. Played with the timing a bit tonight and it is much, MUCH happier now. Hopefully this also improves on the 9.5MPG it returned on the first tank :Wow1:

Other than that, though, it drives great. Suspension feels good, no clunks, no rattles, no weird noises, shifts well, 4WD works, most everything inside works... I am a happy camper!

10/28/17

No big plans for this one. Keep it reliable, bad weather daily driver, and adventure smiley

My truck decided it wanted to be the Exxon Valdez for Halloween and put its costume on early. Not sure what the deal is, but the oil filter just would not seal and it's been PUKING oil. Finally got a chance to throw another filter on, which seems to have remedied that issue. Went to the car wash with a can of Gunk to pressure wash off the residual and, since I had to put in 5 minutes worth of quarters to do so, gave it a quick wash.

I hate the aftermarket headunit for a few reasons, and I can't wait to replace it and set fire to it. In the meantime, though, one of the reasons I hate it is because the aux input is located on the rear. So plugging my phone in, a five second process, looked like this:

As a bonus, though, the factory clock works now that it's plugged in.

10/29/17

I might already like this thing a little too much.

10/31/17

"Hey, do you want a big Thule roof box for free?"

Um, yes.

11/5/17

Did a little exploring today in the Green Mountain National Forest and brought along my camera...

A cloudy day in "stick season" isn't exactly as picturesque as Vermont gets but it could still be worse...

11/13/17

When I left off I was still having trouble getting the ignition timing correct. While mucking around under the hood we noticed that the plug wires were dated. And when I say dated...

https://i.imgur.com/cSbgkGb.jpg

:Wow1:

Needless to say I went ahead and threw a set of plug wires and a distributor cap and rotor at it.

Happy to report that, with that, I was finally able to set the timing to the correct 10*BTDC and it is running better than ever.

Timely, too, because snow is falling as I type this and we are committed now!

11/18/17

When working on things, always make sure you actually tighten your crank pulley bolt. Ask me how I know.

Crank sprocket moved forward causing the timing belt to rub on something, crank bolt MIA, pulley gouged out. Ordered those three things and crossing my fingers the crankshaft isn't berked. Will know more when I get it apart later in the week.

Yay.

 

[thestig99]

11/24/17

Supplies. (Not pictured: bolt)

Timing gear moved so far forward on the crankshaft I couldn't find the keyway and thought it was stripped. Adult language was used. Thankully the keyway was perfectly fine.

Did quite a number on the 1500 mile old timing belt, though.

Old pulley:

New pulley:

I forget exact numbers but almost 1mm of material got reamed out of it.

New pulley, bolt, timing belt, and alternator belt (another casualty) and we are back on the road.

I didn't forget to torque that bolt this time 180ft-lb. With Loctite.

11/26/17

Thanks! Sounds like a good time.

The biggest problem with this thing is I can't seem to take a direct route from point A to point B...

11/27/17

Thanks! More on the Thule box later.

For my own memory and organization, this is the list of maintenance and repairs that this truck has seen in the past 2000 miles.

-Head gasket replacement including cleaning and surfacing heads, new head bolts, and replacing every gasket and seal along the way (Intake, valve covers, exhaust manifold and crossover pipe, cam seals, etc

-Timing belt replacement including water pump, tensioner, and all pulleys

-Replaced radiator

-Replaced Alternator, PS, and A/C belts

-Replaced spark plugs, wires, distributor cap and rotor

-Replaced air and fuel filters

-Oil change x2

-Check all driveline fluids, found all to be clean and at appropriate levels

-Replaced harmonic balancer... + t-belt and alt belt again. Whoops.

-Clean and lubricate sliding rear window mechanism

-Wiper blades

Issues still present:

-Still seeing 10-11 MPG. Consulting the internet gave me about a 60/40 mix of "I get 15-16+" and "That's all it'll do". CEL is off but, when I jump the pins in the diagnostics box, flashes code 25 - system lean. That, combined with the amount of moisture that was in the exhaust, makes me suspect a bad O2 sensor.

-Rear shocks leaking, need replacement

-Brake warning light illuminated. Suspect this is related to the fairly seized e-brake.

-No sound from rear speakers

 

[thestig99]

And finally, current day!

12/3/17

More pictures! Needed to disconnect for a while, so I headed into the Green Mountain National Forest for the night.

Needless to say I came back feeling quite restored. The truck turned out to be just about the perfect size for a twin size air mattress and it never missed a beat, but I fount out my crappy sleeping bag is not up to the task of December in Vermont! Good to know. This was my first time ever intentionally camping out of a vehicle so it was a good trial run to figure out what to do differently in the future. Some kind of organization would be helpful in that regard.

 

[Crenshaw]

Man that thing is in killer shape! Envious of the interior.

Nice job reviving the 3.0- I personally feel like they get a bad rap for being a pretty decent motor.

 

[bkg]

Man that thing is in killer shape! Envious of the interior.

Nice job reviving the 3.0- I personally feel like they get a bad rap for being a pretty decent motor.

Agreed. Did some head porting on my ex-wife’s 94 4Runner. Ran very nice after that. Just a bad head/crossover design that could be remedied. Personally wouldn’t do it again, even though I think the 3.0 runs much smoother than the 3.4.

 

[Crenshaw]

Definitely replace the o2 sensor and see where your mileage goes. I had a 93 4runner that would regularly get high teens, and one summer it shot down to like 11-12. Replaced the o2 and it was good to go. But also keep in mind the winter blend gas (at least in CO) has a huge effect on economy also. I feel like I regularly lose about 10% in the winter around here.

Make sure the cat isn't clogged too- the old 3.0 in my pickup was losing power and efficiency slowly and it turned out the cat was completely plugged.

Don't let anyone tell you that 12-13mpg is ok. 15-18 should be normal for a decent running 3.0 in my opinion, and I've had a few of them.

 

[calicamper]

I really enjoyed my 91. Though Toyota put new heads on it and tore down the block and sent it out for machining. I was in a Camry loaner for 4 weeks. Then 10 months later it popped again. They told me the wrong / old HG gaskets were used. The first job was 8 pages long and the bill back to HQ was $8100! The second time I asked them to put me in a Miata. Two weeks later, again new heads block was ok. But at that point they nearly had to send someone after me to get the Miata back. 1 month after getting back I traded it in got $7000 for it at 150,000miles mainly due to the new engine. I drove away in a zero mile 5spd Legacy GT Limited sedan. That was Nov 2001. I upsized the Legacy in 2010 should have kept it fantastic car! Towed racing sailboats all over the west coast and did lots of Snow Ski trips. It was pushing 180,000. When I picked up a new larger Subaru Ouback.

I had a 93 J80 from 2004 -2011. Then sold that for what I bought it for, and picked up a low mileage 05 Sequoia. I still like Toyota trucks bought used but that first 3L v6 was terrible.

 

[v_man]

Nice truck and report, I had a 3.0 in my 90' and I swapped it our for the 22re. Love the blue as well...Also FWIW, here is a list of mods on my 90' if the mod bug bites you...

http://www.toyota-4runner.org/classic-t4rs/233656-mod-madness-my-archive-2nd-gen-mods.html

 

[94-RUNNER]

Great looking 4 Runner. I love mine. At 230000 miles mine also gets in the mid teens for fuel mileage easily. Continue to keep us posted on your progress. There is a lot of 2nd generation love out there:coffeedrink:

 

[Arktikos]

Nice job keeping it alive. I haven't seen fender flares like that on this generation before. Hopefully not hiding rust?

MPG should be 15-18, as someone else mentioned.

 

[TheCascadeKid]

Is 15-18 expected in the auto as this one is? I had a 94 3.0 4Runner with a 5spd that was in the upper end of that range, but I think the automatics do considerably worse.

 

[nismo4x4]

I had a 92 truck for a short time. It had a plugged car when I got it...previous owner never addressed it...by the time I fixed it cylinder 6 decided to drop a valve. It was a nightmare! The block and head even had hot spots on the metal behind crossover pipe.

 

[Arktikos]

Is 15-18 expected in the auto as this one is? I had a 94 3.0 4Runner with a 5spd that was in the upper end of that range, but I think the automatics do considerably worse.

That's what my V6/auto gets, last time I checked. Around 155K miles on it.