Well.. Long story short, My trusty 3rd Gen is basically taking a dump on me. I guarantee what you are about to see, you have never seen before. My family friend who has been a mechanic and working on cars and Toyotas for over 20yrs has never seen anything like this on a running motor. The previous owner must have ran the same oil for the life of the car or something. We are baffled how this even happened and how it still runs fine.
I bought the truck a year ago with 143,000 miles. 2002 4Runner SR5. The guy bought it used from a dealership and had it a for a number of years and i bought it from him off craigslist.. The car runs great. Literally never had a problem with it, Never broke down on me or anything. Ive done all Full synthetic oil changes myself every 6k depending how much I've been driving. Kept up all maintenance, and taken great care of it. Its my first car and my baby/money trap. Im hitting 154k and figured it was time to do the water pump, timing belt, seals and other stuff too. and i would start smoking sometimes when i would first fire it up (burning oil not head gasket) Well as the picture shows. Its a lot worse. i was leaking oil out of my intake. The vacuum lines weren't working because everything was so clogged. Causing oil to blow through my intake. The car runs fine though.. which is very odd. So I'm in quite the oicle as of now and need some advice from all you intelligent 4runner enthusiasts. My mechanic friend who is doing all the work on it says he won't start cleaning that gunk out because if he does with the motor in, all that will fall down into the bottom of the motor and clog that up, and ill lose oil pressure and blow my motor by the time i get it home. So i have a few shitty options.
1. Have him Pull the motor out completely so he can tilt it over and clean all that out without worrying about it falling down into the motor. Put it back together and call it that. Mind you, everything else is in the motor is good and we would replace a couple parts in there too. But both sides of the valves are like that and chances are the entire motor is Gunked up the same. And longevity are in question
2. Just throw a new motor in it.. Maybe v8 or just a newer better v6
3. Just cut ties with the truck. and get a new car. Tough because I've put a lot of money into it and love the car.
Anyways sorry for the long post, Just in a tough spot with making a decision. All are pretty pricy which sucks because I'm about to be moving and transferring to Cal Poly in December. Need some help!
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