Found my 3rd Gen 4R

Finally getting around to doing a few things this weekend including:

B&M 70268 Trans Cooler & Transmission Flush
JVC Bluetooth Headunit
LED Reverse & Dome Lights

Also just placed an order for a set of NGK plugs and wires so I know those are good to go.
 
Couple of thoughts:

1) That looks like a really clean 3rd gen. Really clean.
2) Guarantee you that truck did not live its life on the east coast. It came from like where I live. East coast frames are Swiss cheese by 200K miles.
3) Don't worry about the control arms if the were just replaced, If they were done at a place like Midas they are probably Moog or a comparable service replacement. Not an urgent item to attend to.
4) What you do want to think about is the pink milkshake and it sounds like you might have tackled that.
5) Timing belt (not sure if you mentioned that and it's late and I don't want to go back and search this thread).

I owned a 2002 Sport that I traded in on my 2015 Trail Edition. The 2002 is arguably one of the finest 4Runners in history. The 3.4 is (taken care of) pretty much bulletproof, they are solid and will run pretty much forever if you show them some love.

Looks like yours has had a lot of love. Keep up that tradition. ;-)
 
Blitzkrieg said:
Couple of thoughts:

1) That looks like a really clean 3rd gen. Really clean.
2) Guarantee you that truck did not live its life on the east coast. It came from like where I live. East coast frames are Swiss cheese by 200K miles.
3) Don't worry about the control arms if the were just replaced, If they were done at a place like Midas they are probably Moog or a comparable service replacement. Not an urgent item to attend to.
4) What you do want to think about is the pink milkshake and it sounds like you might have tackled that.
5) Timing belt (not sure if you mentioned that and it's late and I don't want to go back and search this thread).

I owned a 2002 Sport that I traded in on my 2015 Trail Edition. The 2002 is arguably one of the finest 4Runners in history. The 3.4 is (taken care of) pretty much bulletproof, they are solid and will run pretty much forever if you show them some love.

Looks like yours has had a lot of love. Keep up that tradition. ;-)
Click to expand...


I appreciate the kind words! I actually have the Carfax, and the truck lived it's entire life in New Jersey believe it or not. A hammer and a look underneath though and you'd never know.

As far as the pink milkshake goes, yeah that's the first thing I'm taking care of this weekend with a B&M cooler.

The timing belt was replaced 5 years ago at just under 100k, so I'm good to go on that for a while.
 
I found mine the same time you found yours. There are a fair amount of them over here in Oregon that are super clean. You pay a premium for them. My seats aren't as nice as yours. Congrats!
 
Looks like you know what to look for.

Check the life of the belts, fluids, brake pads, rotors. (or what they were replaced with) . might want to do all the fluids just because its cheap

Brake fluid. You can tell how a car was treated based on brake fluid. an uncommon one, so if its fresh, then they probably baby'ed it.

confirm those lower ball joints if they were aftermarket toss them.

check if the rad was changed, if it looks rusty by the connections then you know it didn't have a pink milkshake. well less likely...

Looks pretty clean though, what are they asking?

also that hole is plastic as far as i remember. mine is ripped too no idea why.

edit look at valve covers, take a napkin and go around the entire thing. look for fresh gold amber fluid.
 
Nice find. Invest in some Eastwood internal frame coating. And coat the inside frame, and body holes such as rocker panels. Then invest in Fluid film. And coat the whole underside and inside body holes. Again such as rocker panels. And you'll be golden. Especially for NJ.
 
trailbikerider said:
Thanks for the suggestion! I am actually moving to Phoenix at the beginning of January so I won't have to worry about rust. :becky:
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give the under body a good scrub down to remove any traces of salt.

monitor the fluid temps as best as you can. i hear the heat is crazy there.

enjoy the car for life now....
 
I got the headunit installed today as well as a few miscellaneous LEDs I picked up installed. I did find a pretty well rusted part of the truck, which appears to be the license plate lamp housing bolts and the bracket that bolts it to the tailgate. Both had rust crumbling off of them when I went to replace the lights.

I grabbed a few photos of the underside of the doors while I was removing the tar from the wheel wells just to show how clean it actually is.

Before:





After:



Door photos:







 
So it's not quite as clean as I originally thought, though still not bad. I finally got some time to put it on the lift today, and while installing the B&M transmission cooler and doing other various things, I inspected the underside of it. There's no holes or soft spots (as far as I can tell), but the upper shock mounts out back are pretty rusty. I took a large flat blade screwdriver and a hammer and knocked around but wasn't able to put it through anything thankfully.

Along with the trans cooler and drain & refill today I also installed LED license plate bulbs and a new fuel filter, exciting stuff I know.

Looking at everything else, either they had all Toyota replacement parts put on it, or they never replaced anything. The fuel filter I replaced today was a Toyota filter...so I'm really hoping it's not original with 145k..... All three belts are Denso belts too which is also scary. Needless to say I'm going to be doing a bunch of maintenance in the not too distant future so that I feel comfortable with it.




Also, is it possible that valve cover gaskets could be leaking so long that they coat the oil pan/transmission skid plate in a layer of gunk? While I had it off for the cooler install today I scraped off, no joking, probably a 1/8" thick layer of gunk off of it.... I know the gaskets are leaking and it's another thing on my to-do list.
 
Last edited:
trailbikerider said:
Thanks for the suggestion! I am actually moving to Phoenix at the beginning of January so I won't have to worry about rust. :becky:
Click to expand...

You don't want to drive through the salt to get to Phoenix and have it stuck underneath for a year until it rains in Phoenix and you can drive it and wash it off. I'd do a very thorough cleaning after the drive.
 
Mark_BC said:
You don't want to drive through the salt to get to Phoenix and have it stuck underneath for a year until it rains in Phoenix and you can drive it and wash it off. I'd do a very thorough cleaning after the drive.
Click to expand...

That's true, I'll run it through a good underbody wash when I get south of the rust belt.
 
Wasn't really planning on it, but I'm going to be replacing the valve cover gaskets here in the next week or two. They're not leaking terribly, but I can tell they've been leaking for a long while as there is dried (and even some fresh) oil down the sides of the engine.

That and I'm losing my place to wrench when I move, so might as well do that difficult stuff while I still have a place to work.
 
The fuel filter is a lifetime item. It should be fine at 145,xxx miles. Change at 200,000 for piece of mind.
 
Got the majority of the valve cover gasket job done this evening, and will probably wrap it up tomorrow. The engine looks pretty good for the miles! I found it interesting when I took the plugs out that the passenger side of the engine (the easy side to replace) had NGK plugs, while the driver's side had Denso plugs. Either way, they were definitely past their prime and I'm sure the truck will run so much better with the new set of NGK plugs and wires.









These were the NGKs, the Densos looked even worse.

 
I think those might be the original spark plugs.

I might have read somewhere they came from the factory with 2 different brands? But typing that seems crazy, I am probably mis-remembering...
 
7echo said:
I think those might be the original spark plugs.

I might have read somewhere they came from the factory with 2 different brands? But typing that seems crazy, I am probably mis-remembering...
Click to expand...

That would definitely be odd. I attributed it to it being easier to replace the passenger side plugs.
 
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