Hello there everyone, I've been using this forum for a while now soaking up all the available information you all provide for the taking. I recently picked up a gem of a 4runner that has great potential to be something great, but it needs a fair amount of work to get there. It's a 2000 Black Highlander/Sport Edition. It won't be my DD so I'll be able to take my time and document the progress hopefully pretty thoroughly, and add info to the pot.
A little bit about my self first. I'm a 20 year old college student, working full time, and going to school in Fort Collins Colorado to get either a mechanical engineering degree or a business degree (I'm torn between the two haha). In my spare time I fix and build up 4runners. I've currently now owned 4 of them, 2 first gens (both 86's), and now 2 third gens (a 97 sr5 and this 2000 highlander). The 97 is my daily driver with 276,6XX and is my baby. I've owned the truck for almost 2 years now and I love it to death.
As for this 2000; It has 276,637 miles on it (exact same as my other truck). Was owned by a college girl just out side of Fort Collins. She used it to travel back and forth from Colorado, to Kansas, and Nebraska. I think this is why it has so many miles for a 2000. Her family had owned it since 2004. Even though it had been in their possession for about 13 years they had no receipts, and very little to say on the maintenance of the truck. It's a good thing that these truck as so reliable otherwise these people would've been out of luck a long time ago. But this meant some not so good stuff for me. The truck had been neglected for longer than it should've. But since it needs so much done to it I was able to score it for $1500
It has the Diff lock,, sunroof, keyless entry, and everything!! I felt a little bad that I practically stole the truck from this girl, but one man's trash is another man's treasure as they say!
Here's a few pictures because that was a lot of reading. Threads are useless with out pictures!
The night I brought it home and stuck it in the garage where it will be for a while.
They obviously cared about the truck at one point because the seat covers are custom made to fit the truck's seats. They were made by a local shop in Fort Collin, The seats underneath look brand new. The seat covers fit great!
Next to my 97
The truck currently has no power steering. The girl's mom tried to explain to me where it was leaking but I couldn't understand what she was trying to explain for the life of me. So it will either need a new pump, rack, both, or just some lines or seals replaced. We'll find out! The Oil was very dark and looked like it hasn't been changed in 10,000 miles or so that sucks. The radiator when looked in, you couldn't see any visible coolant, and the overflow tank has coolant in it that appears to be mixed green and orange. It'll be getting a full coolant flush. And I don't know if the timing belt has ever been changed in the history of the truck
so that will for sure be getting done. But out of all the bad the good is that everything works! The truck runs fine, all lights, buttons, switches, windows, ect. work flawlessly. The truck just needs some love and a good cleaning and I think I'll have a great truck to drive around or to pass onto someone else who loves these trucks!
Thanks for stopping by and reading. I'm very excited to be documenting this revival and for the challenges to come. I'll post updates as they appear!
Thanks, Austin
It seems to me that the girl I bought it from never actually changed it, she just added some more.
The filter was filthy and was on so tight I was worried that I wasn't going to get it off.
Linear Mode
