Embarrissing moment when showing off your Rig.

[SpidermanGeek]

Embarrassing moment when showing off your Rig.

I kinda lol'd yesterday when I had the opportunity to show my Rig off to my dad for the first time since I bought it back in January.

Little backstory on the situation..

I don't DD my rig, so it gets taken out maybe once or twice per week for little errands. I bought it back in January and have been babying it while I'm learning it and fixing little things here and there (added B&M 70268 bypass, Trans Temp Gauge, Voltmeter, lubed the driveshafts and OTREs, fixed the rear liftgate (wouldn't open), fixed the door and liftgate keyholes (seized/gunked), shampood the interior carpets and did a general indepth cleaning of the entire thing, remounted my 33's to fix slow leaks due to corrosion on the stock alloy lip/seams, etc...). I still have a list of major things to do, but those can wait while I gather funds to tackle them.

At some point during the winter, I noticed that power would just cut out. Ran fine, but when I'd go to start it, zap.. no power. I quickly determined it was because of loose positive terminal clamp on the aftermarket battery. There's a fair bit of corrosion there as well. I was able to just twist the clamp a bit and it hadn't given me a problem since.

Anywho, fast forward to yesterday. I take the truck out to go to a dentist appointment, run some errands and then meet up with my wife at her work so we can go to lunch together. As we hopped in.. I get the same "zap..no power". Wife gives me a look..lol. "No worries" I say, I know what the problem is. I pop the hood, wiggle the terminal clamp a bit and we're good to go. So we go for lunch and then the same thing happens. Crap.. I quickly notice that the clamp is getting more and more loose and the bolt for it is so corroded/rusted, that I couldn't tighten it with the tools I had on hand. So I jam a screwdriver in the clamp to hold contact while I start the truck. I have to do this everytime I start the truck.

Bring the wife back to work and then I had to leave immediately to meet up with my dad at the movie theatre as we were going to see Mad Max: Fury Road.

After the movie I show him my truck and with an embarrassed grin, I pull out the screw driver, pop the hood, jam the thing in and then start'er up. I'm like.."I swear it's reliable, lol.".

Anywho, I thought it was just one of those little embarrassing moments that goes against how much we regard our 3rd gens as being these tanks that go one forever, lol. "Problem free.. has never left me stranded..blah, blah."

On the plus side, I'm getting a brand new AGM battery and terminal clamps. Gonna do the Big 3 as well.

Cliff Notes version: Showed my rig to my dad, embarrassed about how I needed to jam a screw driver in the positive terminal clamp to get it started as a made claims of the truck's reliability.

Has your T4R ever embarrassed you in a similar fashion? lol.

 

[IBallEngineer]

Has your T4R ever embarrassed you in a similar fashion? lol.

The truck didn't embarrass you, you embarrassed the truck by not fixing that cable a long time ago. Right now your 4runner is posting on stupidhumans.org about how careless her owner is! LOL

 

[LittleCaesar]

Uh no, when I know problems are present I address them first and then if I have leftover funds I will go and see a movie. I haven't seen a movie in a theatre in years, thus I always am tackling a lot of problems, or it seems that way.

My uncle did carry a rubber mallet with him in his old Chevy truck to hit the fuel tank to energize the fuel pump. It worked for all of six months for him before it gave up the ghost.

 

[SpidermanGeek]

lol.. it was like -40 in February the first time it happened. Too damn cold to fix it properly and then I kinda just forgot about it.

I fixed it for now (cleaned up the terminals, changed the bolt on the clamp), but it has prompted me to permanently fix it and do the big 3.

My wife is still giving me dirty looks though since I convinced her that this was a good buy because these trucks go on forever and are reliable, but everytime I pop the hood or do some maintenance on it she gives me crap for it, lol.

"Doesn't look very reliable to me if you have to throw money at it it and fix something on it every weekend."

"but.. it's mainetnance!"

"Same difference."

:crazy:

 

[SpidermanGeek]

Uh no, when I know problems are present I address them first and then if I have leftover funds I will go and see a movie. I haven't seen a movie in a theatre in years, thus I always am tackling a lot of problems, or it seems that way.

Again.. it's hard to tout these vehicles' reliability if you have to constantly address issues to keep it running forever. It goes against the very nature of the "throw away" society we're now all a part of.

Buy a new car, drive until warranty's over, trade it in and get new car.

In my wife's (and other people's opinion), I would have been better off buying a newer truck for 10-15K as opposed to paying 5k for an older truck and have to invest 5K in repairs and maintenance.

 

[cashmoney]

Spent $2200 on maintenance and tune up items, tires, springs and shocks, drive it for a week, heater core goes out and dumps all of my brand new coolant on the floor board. My wife is needless to say not to happy but hey, it's got 218k on it. It was bound to go out eventually.

 

[KidVermicious]

I kinda lol'd yesterday when I had the opportunity to show my Rig off to my dad for the first time since I bought it back in January.

Little backstory on the situation..

I don't DD my rig, so it gets taken out maybe once or twice per week for little errands. I bought it back in January and have been babying it while I'm learning it and fixing little things here and there (added B&M 70268 bypass, Trans Temp Gauge, Voltmeter, lubed the driveshafts and OTREs, fixed the rear liftgate (wouldn't open), fixed the door and liftgate keyholes (seized/gunked), shampood the interior carpets and did a general indepth cleaning of the entire thing, remounted my 33's to fix slow leaks due to corrosion on the stock alloy lip/seams, etc...). I still have a list of major things to do, but those can wait while I gather funds to tackle them.

At some point during the winter, I noticed that power would just cut out. Ran fine, but when I'd go to start it, zap.. no power. I quickly determined it was because of loose positive terminal clamp on the aftermarket battery. There's a fair bit of corrosion there as well. I was able to just twist the clamp a bit and it hadn't given me a problem since.

Anywho, fast forward to yesterday. I take the truck out to go to a dentist appointment, run some errands and then meet up with my wife at her work so we can go to lunch together. As we hopped in.. I get the same "zap..no power". Wife gives me a look..lol. "No worries" I say, I know what the problem is. I pop the hood, wiggle the terminal clamp a bit and we're good to go. So we go for lunch and then the same thing happens. Crap.. I quickly notice that the clamp is getting more and more loose and the bolt for it is so corroded/rusted, that I couldn't tighten it with the tools I had on hand. So I jam a screwdriver in the clamp to hold contact while I start the truck. I have to do this everytime I start the truck.

Bring the wife back to work and then I had to leave immediately to meet up with my dad at the movie theatre as we were going to see Mad Max: Fury Road.

After the movie I show him my truck and with an embarrassed grin, I pull out the screw driver, pop the hood, jam the thing in and then start'er up. I'm like.."I swear it's reliable, lol.".

Anywho, I thought it was just one of those little embarrassing moments that goes against how much we regard our 3rd gens as being these tanks that go one forever, lol. "Problem free.. has never left me stranded..blah, blah."

On the plus side, I'm getting a brand new AGM battery and terminal clamps. Gonna do the Big 3 as well.

Cliff Notes version: Showed my rig to my dad, embarrassed about how I needed to jam a screw driver in the positive terminal clamp to get it started as a made claims of the truck's reliability.

Has your T4R ever embarrassed you in a similar fashion? lol.

My first 4Runner was an '86, had the dreaded ignition/starter trouble that every first gen owner learns about sooner or later, except I hadn't learned about it yet. I had a long piece of speaker wire permanently attached to the starter solenoid and any time the truck wouldn't start I'd pop the hood and touch the wire to the battery and it'd fire right up and off I'd go, drove around for about a year like that. I used to pray for it to happen on a date so I could show the girl what a McGyver I was. :hatsoff:

 

[KidVermicious]

In my wife's (and other people's opinion), I would have been better off buying a newer truck for 10-15K as opposed to paying 5k for an older truck and have to invest 5K in repairs and maintenance.

Spend 5k, invest 5k, drive it for another 20 years, or spend 10-15k every three or four years? Some people cannot math. Sounds like your wife might be one of them.

 

[SpidermanGeek]

Spend 5k, invest 5k, drive it for another 20 years, or spend 10-15k every three or four years? Some people cannot math. Sounds like your wife might be one of them.

I get it... but logical math has no place in the mind of a woman who thinks your time would be better spent with her as opposed to with your truck.

 

[LookAtThatDog]

I feel you on this one. I still haven't got around to fixing my starter contacts, so when new people see that it takes 2 or 3 tries to start it, the questions about buying a new truck start rolling in... :lalala:

 

[MTD]

I get it... but logical math has no place in the mind of a woman who thinks your time would be better spent with her as opposed to with your truck.

Don't tell mine that... She is in a PHD program for applied mathematics. She could out math all of us in her sleep haha, and she gets the truck thing :becky:

 

[LittleCaesar]

I used to explain to the ex wife that I worked on them old cars so that not only could they get me to work but it would allow her to have a bigger shoe budget. I swear I saw the light bulb come on above her head, albeit it being pretty dim.

Explain to your wife in terms of having the 4runner that she understands as well as if not better than you. Quality time, not quantity time makes for a happy couple.

 

[MTD]

Explain to your wife in terms of having the 4runner that she understands as well as if not better than you. Quality time, not quantity time makes for a happy couple.

Even though is this an excuse to work on our projects, it really is true.

 

[farmerjon]

I can really understand this - my truck used to give me starting issues for a while, and it was the battery contacts working their way loose, but I didn't know this haha. So it would give me starting issues once in a while, it was embarrassing when someone tightened them up at a T4R.org meetup.

Later on, about a year later, the battery contacts got lose again, and I didn't have the socket to tighten them up on hand, so for a while, I would jiggle the contact like you did, and it would start. It got to the point where I would pop the hood, hold the contact, and hit the remote start, and it looked weird to bystanders that I would start the truck with me in the engine compartment and not in the cab.

I thought of it as a "thief deterrent", not a reliability issue, since I knew what was wrong and it was easily fixed haha. I was worried that every time I popped the hood, I was ruining Toyota's reliability reputation.

 

[Unner]

Again.. it's hard to tout these vehicles' reliability if you have to constantly address issues to keep it running forever. It goes against the very nature of the "throw away" society we're now all a part of.

Buy a new car, drive until warranty's over, trade it in and get new car.

In my wife's (and other people's opinion), I would have been better off buying a newer truck for 10-15K as opposed to paying 5k for an older truck and have to invest 5K in repairs and maintenance.

A 10-15k truck is still gonna need maintenance. The only truck that doesn't need maintenance is a brand new one, at $30k+, and even then depending on the brand, it may still need maintenance from the get go...