Finally someone else who can empathize with my pain! I've seen a few different fixes for it. Adding brackets, changing out springs, etc. I've owned manuals my entire life and it seems like a ridiculous oversight by Toyota not engineering a better solution. More of a rant than anything else. Nice to see someone else here who likes to row their own canoe.

i ripped mine out as well and put in a small coil spring. i got one pack from HD, and that turned out to be too firm, so i went to napa and got one that wasn't so heavy-duty and it works much better. i then wanted the bushing to stop its wretched groaning, so i ordered some new ones and upon attempting to install them, realized that they were the right *kind* of bushing but too small and simply were not going to work, so i cleaned and greased the old and that's been just fine and it's quiet. the spring gets strummed a bit like opening an old screen door, but oh well. it's far better than the alarming clatter and poor return.

Any chance you remember what length spring worked the best?

I'm going to call out a great analogy when I see it. I can imagine perfectly how it would sound. Memories of my grandparents house in Montana came roaring back. Thanks for taking me back in time a bit and putting a smile on my face.

hehe no problem. that's exactly the place i heard that same spring strumming: grandparents' house, minnesota, with mosquitos streaming through the door as younger cousins stood there holding it open for no reason, trying to process why we were yelling at them to close the door.

in terms of length, the spring i ended up with is about 3-1/2" long and about 3/8" coil diameter. i wish i had the PN but i do recall they had a couple available as kind of off-the-shelf all-purpose springs, and this one had the lower rating (as in pounds to pull). the ones i got from home despot were 40 lb, and that is way too much. if you get up under the dash with a good floody light, you can probably spot a body panel that has a convenient hole stamped in it. i used that, but its alignment with the pin on the pedal isn't ideal, which is why the strumming. it grazes another bit of body panel. you can measure the distance from that hole to the pin. the first springs (the HD ones) i got were shorter and stout, and i ended up making a linkage out of some round mild steel rod. the second (current) spring was a little longer, which is good, and i could shorten the linkage quite a bit.

if you go to napa or a hardware store to find a spring, one test of fitness for purpose is that you can hold it at the end and bend it somewhat with one finger. if it's too stiff to do that, it's too stiff for this use case. if it's really bendy and you can easily bend it 90°, that's too soft.

my wife drove the 4R today to work, or i'd have taken a photo of it for you. i can get you one later if you'd like.

here's the first spring i tried (home depot purchase), the one that was too stout.

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Perfect! Again, I remember reading through posts before talking about grabbing random springs and shovin' up in there only to have to try a couple before it worked out. I think that's how babies are made, not sure. Anyway, this is the first time I recall anyone providing more constructive advice than trial and error. Really appreciate it! I'm on a roll solving long tolerated 4Runner probs. Without you and the rest of the folks here, I'd be in a tough spot. Thanks again!

Annnnnnnnd after I get this sorted I am going to tackle deferred maintenance on my 300zx. Pray for my soul.

glad to help. here's the new spring in place. this entirely replaces the U-shaped torsion bar spring that's normally in there; follow other instructions for full removal of it. might add some fashionable duct tape like this to keep the strumming to a dull roar. you can see the difference in wire diameter compared to the first one. this is ~half of the first try. see what your local parts store has. this one was long enough that i could take out the hook i used for the other one. i had to remind myself all it has to do is pull the pedal back up to the up position.

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