donkeyhoatie
New member
Just wanted to give some thanks to a ton of different people here on the list. I don't have a 4Runner any more, but my buddy does. A little over a year ago, he told me that his radiator was leaking. Since then I tried to convince him to come over and we'd fix it, but he was hesitant. Turns out he'd received a quote from the dealership to the tune of roughly $800 to fix it and he wasn't sure he wanted to sink that much into an 11-year-old truck. When I found out it was price that was making him hesitate, I pointed him to the Koyo radiator on Amazon. When he realized we could swap it out in an afternoon for roughly $150 total (including new hoses and clamps, ATF, coolant, etc.), he was on board.
Last Friday, we spent about 4 hours or so swapping it out. We could have had it done a lot faster, but we were taking our time, making sure we didn't screw anything up. The only thing we messed up was breaking 2 of the grille clips. Other than that, for the price of about 2 tanks of gas, he got a brand-new radiator set up. As he put it, "Dude, I didn't realize it was going to be this easy, and now I've got a good idea of how this part of the engine works."
Neither one of us is a wrencher at all. But, he and I did a spark plug change on his rig after he had a misfire on #3 and a CEL. While we were at it, we cleaned the MAF, the throttle body, and now the radiator and hoses. He's got 130K on the engine and hasn't done the timing belt/water pump change, but we'll get to that soon enough. He wasn't sure he wanted to sink money into this thing, but now that he realizes he can easily get another 100K out of it, just by keeping it maintained, he's all on board. He's nervous about the TB/WP, but as I pointed out, sinking roughly a grand into that project is about 3-4 new car payments. Nobody likes to spend money, but I'd rather spend it wisely, and in my mind, keeping a perfectly good 4Runner running well is spending money wisely.
To be honest, I don't think we would have attempted any of this stuff if it hadn't been for the great write-ups and information from folks on this site. As a couple of old geezers who never worked on cars before, this site is a huge help.
Thanks to everyone.
Last Friday, we spent about 4 hours or so swapping it out. We could have had it done a lot faster, but we were taking our time, making sure we didn't screw anything up. The only thing we messed up was breaking 2 of the grille clips. Other than that, for the price of about 2 tanks of gas, he got a brand-new radiator set up. As he put it, "Dude, I didn't realize it was going to be this easy, and now I've got a good idea of how this part of the engine works."
Neither one of us is a wrencher at all. But, he and I did a spark plug change on his rig after he had a misfire on #3 and a CEL. While we were at it, we cleaned the MAF, the throttle body, and now the radiator and hoses. He's got 130K on the engine and hasn't done the timing belt/water pump change, but we'll get to that soon enough. He wasn't sure he wanted to sink money into this thing, but now that he realizes he can easily get another 100K out of it, just by keeping it maintained, he's all on board. He's nervous about the TB/WP, but as I pointed out, sinking roughly a grand into that project is about 3-4 new car payments. Nobody likes to spend money, but I'd rather spend it wisely, and in my mind, keeping a perfectly good 4Runner running well is spending money wisely.
To be honest, I don't think we would have attempted any of this stuff if it hadn't been for the great write-ups and information from folks on this site. As a couple of old geezers who never worked on cars before, this site is a huge help.
Thanks to everyone.
