I have been looking for a way to lower my car payment from a 2019 Ram 1500, so a past generation 4runner made sense, the 4th generation caught my eye due to the v8 and prices I saw in my area.

Fast forward to last month, I found a 2005 v8 with 160k miles, It looked better than expected for a 17 year old vehicle. I looked it over pretty good, saw some minor rust on the side of the frame. I called my dad before making a deal and send him some photos, he owns a body shop in south Georgia but is originally from Ohio so he has seen rust before. He said buy it and bring it to the shop one Saturday and we can knock that rust down and do a rust conversion and undercoat it more as a preventative. So I purchased it.

Fast forward a week, I take it to a local mechanic just wanting the timing belt done and also any other preventative maintenance he saw that needed done. They had it for an hour and gave me a call and ask me to come look at it on the lift. I got there and they ask me what I owed on this, I would take it to a title pawn as soon as possible and scrap this thing, it is all rusted out. My stomach dropped. I got under the car with them and he was showing me the rust that I thought was minor. The worst is the Rad support but that seems common from what I have seen on the forum. He said he would not touch the car. Put fluid back in it and had no issue charging me $100 haha.

I take it home and get under the car with a hammer start hitting around on the frame, everything is solid. The car was up north for some of its life so some rust makes sense. It looks like someone sprayed undercoating on rust years ago and that undercoat is starting to flake off really bad. Once I scrape it off the metal underneath is solid. I plan on doing a full rust conversion treatment just to be safe in the next couple weeks. But I am unsure what to do about the timing belt. I'm wondering if all mechanics in the south are going to freak out over rust, if that is the case I won't be able to get any of the modifications done I am trying to.

Is working with rust really that bad? What should I do to get my timing belt done, this thing runs like a champ and I know it will keep going for many years if I can get this work done.

Rust photos added

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terrible. i'll give you $200 for it!

It’s definitely not scrap time. There is more flaking in that area than I would expect. On my vehicles that gas tank skid is the first thing to get rusted out and the bolts seized so I’m surprised yours looks relatively good. You’re right that radiator support is the first thing. The rear bumper also can get nasty and check out your spare tire winch

If your dad will work on it, just keep an eye on that area

I also get frustrated with shops and their expertise in rust. They vary wildly and I’d be mad as well. If you plan to use that shop again hopefully you can get the manager to give you a $100 credit on future work

It looks bad, especially for those who're not used to such sight.
But once you clean it up, the picture may improve... or not. It really depends what's beneath all this flaking.

The biggest caveat is that unless you strip everything down to bare metal and properly recoat, the rust won't stop, and eventually you'll have to deal with holes, pieces replacements, etc.

As a side mechanic myself, the frame rust is minor and for him not working on the car is because if the frame looks like that, every nuts and bolts is the same. Meaning a simple 1-2 hour job can be a nightmare, stuck seized bolt breaking, extracting , and so forth.
Example:My last work on my 4R was installing new front shocks, remove and install both side was 2 hour. Removing rusted/seized top hat= A day, because i gave up and had to think up some new strategy 😂

My frame looks much worse than that, and still got top marks for structural integrity from a rust restoration shop. Guy's under the truck looking at it, smacking it with his hammer during the inspection, and he hands me a piece of my f*cking frame and says "here, that's metal, you'll wanna keep that, it's important"

Regardless, there's plenty that can be done to the frame while it's still on the truck... but all those things are a GIANT pain in the keister.

Said resto shop is going to power wash the inside & outside of the frame, beadblast it with glass, then use various chemicals and close it up with epoxy paint. It's not a perfect solution, but since I've got plenty of metal left, there's no reason to pull the body off.

Bottom line is to find a specialist and see what they can do for it, talk is cheap. Toyota isn't likely to come around and do a recall before our 4Runners are dust. If they haven't already, they're not going to.

Agree, I think they got their hands on the vehicle and saw the amount of seized fasteners/hassle they'd have to deal with and used rust as an excuse to avoid what would surely become a headache. Find another mechanic if you can.

Find another mechanic LOL

They call that rusty? They should try working up here for awhile. The biggest thing is cleaning the inside of the frame and treating it. All my rust holes came from the inside out. As for the TB, rusted fasteners shouldn't affect that job as every engine bolt I have removed on mine has come out easily except for the exhaust manifold nuts. Find a new mechanic.

Personally I would dump that and find a cleaner one. But, I HATE rust, and you’ll be needing some hardlines done sooner rather than later.

It’s structurally fine, but you’ll hate life working on it.

Get Kroil and lots of small torches.

I mean I have certainty seen worse rust on customer's vehicles, but usually that's out of state guys who live on the East Coast where they like to rot your vehicles out.

That being said, the frame isn't that structurally compromised, it's mostly just flaking and such. I would certainty try and get it taken care of if you can.

I will say that if you came through my shop I'd have a note on the RO that says "due to rust/corrosion, any/all work performed may require additional parts and labor." More than likely any/all bolts attached to that frame are going to break when you try to remove them, in some cases you can get lucky and re-drill, tap, and install a new bolt and move on with the job. In other cases you can't get to the bolt to drill it out without removing way too much stuff, or the bolts are specialized crap you have to special order, and/or now you have to make the decision of whether or not you want to be liable for that repair (it may come to bite you in the ass even though you did your best.)

I have had some stupidly crusty timing belt jobs and have ended up having to quote out an hour or two additional labor to drill out just about every damn bolt I touched (even after rust penetrant) and then order new idler pulley brackets and such because not only did the head break off the bolt, but it broke off in the bracket and the block.

~

Anyways, not trying to scare you out of your car; I am just giving you my perspective of the issue, the vehicle isn't totaled by any means, but any work you do yourself or get done may become a can of worms or it may not. It's just a dice roll that you'll have to budget for and I'd encourage you to not get too steamed up if they come back and say, "hey we did what we could but shit broke and now you need new parts and we gotta drill X & Y out." Make sure they aren't lying to you and trying to pull one over on you, but also accept that is the nature of rusty cars.

I would also consider a new mechanic, if they aren't confident working on the vehicle then there isn't any reason for you to do business with them. Nothing against being honest about what your limits are, just like there's nothing wrong with you taking it to someone who feels more confident they can work on the vehicle even if it goes sideways.

Just my two cents.