mckennar
New member
This is going to be the rebuild thread for the black '98 4Runner I just acquired. But first, if I may, I'd like to pour one out for the rig this is replacing.
1998 Limited, Desert dune metallic / silver over oak leather. 183k miles. Killed by drunk brother in law (brother in law survived the accident uninjured). I'm no photographer, and these were all taken with my cellphone so I apologize to those who actually know what they're doing behind a lens.
First trip (of many) to the high desert, CA.
Aftermath of finding a single mud puddle at the tail end of a trail in Santa Barbara, CA.
Otay Mountain Truck Trail, CA.
Close up of previous picture.
What she looked like the day we shipped it to my brother in law at Camp Lejeune.
Aaaand what she looked like 6 months later when I drove 24hrs straight (round trip) to bail it out of police impound.
Pulled all of the body parts off to expose a frame sway/twist that no body shops locally will touch.
So I immediately went off in search of a replacement under $2500 with no rust, while the '98 sat dormant in my garage waiting for a recipient for all of it's salvageable parts (183k well maintained miles on the engine/trans/t-case/rear end). A tall order.
Meanwhile...
The family expanded. Wife's (she's 5' on a good day, those running boards are there for as long as it takes me to install rock sliders).
Suddenly...
A recipient appears! FWIW on the drive from Kansas City to my house, averaging 65mph while towing that trailer, the red 4Runner managed a respectable 13 MPG.
The following is copied/pasted primarily from my Off Topic "crap shoot" thread.
1998 Toyota 4Runner Limited, black over oak interior with "gold package" emblems.
Purchased 7.2.2016.
4 previous owners.
340,411 miles on the odometer (recent auto trans and t-belt, engine is smooth as butter, no leaks, no smoke).
Zero rust to speak of on the body or frame, a product of 99% of its miles occurring in no-salt states.
Elephant in the room: conical crankshaft snout, destroyed woodruff keyway on crank. Root cause: failure to torque harmonic balancer pulley to 217 ft/lbs after timing belt inspection by previous owner's "mechanic". I did most of the repairs (below) before I realized the extent of this.
Repairs / fixes so far:
1. PS bracket was backwards - the part with the slit in it that bolts to the false water pump was shimmed with washers. The part of the PS bracket that bolts to the bottom of the PS pump itself was on the back side of the aforementioned bracket vs. The front side. The PS belt was on the alt, the alt belt was on the PS pump.
2. The ac compressor was shimmed so that the pulley was angled towards the drivers side. The lower ac idler was finger tight, bunch of bolts backed out / not torqued.
3. Pushing the hazards while the lights were on blew the tail fuse and the blinkers didn't work (neither did the clock). Popped the center stack bezel... The clock plug was jammed into the hazard button, the hazard plug was coiled and zip tied, and the rear defrost plug was connected to the clock with speaker wire. I don't even know what was happening there.
4. The trans dipstick tube was zip tied to the maf harness, and the maf was clocked way wrong. Which means the maf to tb hose is chewed up.
5. The harness that has a bracket that sandwiches on a stud coming from the thermostat outlet was zip tied to the alternator and chewed up.
6. The alternator was so badly out of adjustment on its bracket that I'm shocked the thing stayed running.
7. As a result of #6 and the thrashed keyway issue the brand new alt belt was stripped clean of grooves (looked fine when I inspected it - so in 10 miles it ate itself).
8. Aforementioned (prev. Post) Toyota red coolant swap was incomplete - as I ran the engine it turned a greenish brown indicating an incomplete flush of the green. It drained reddish brown... Almost like dirty atf.
9. Auto trans drain plug installed without washer/gasket.
10. Rear diff fill plug was torqued to 3 ft/lbs. Same with drain plug. If I were a betting man, I'd say someone used a inch-lbs torque wrench on this thing.
11. Shifter bushings and perhaps the springs inside the park sensor were so thrashed that in order to get the key out of the ignition you had to push the shift lever "down" (not pull towards you like going from P to R and so on) then wiggle it side to side, then pull up and push towards the passenger side. Said F it and grabbed the full shift assembly from the parts truck and swapped them. Crap part is that I need to be able to shift the parts truck into neutral... so I had to put it back together on the other side.
12. Then the brake booster / MC combo. After doing the trans shift assembly, I moved the truck and there was a puddle of brake fluid under where the truck was previously sitting. Sure enough, followed the trail up to the joint between the MC and booster. When I broke them apart there was a bunch of RTV crammed in there. I even found a receipt for this "repair" from a shop dated April 2016. Awesome.
13. Previous "mechanic" cross threaded and stripped out threading on brake hard line at the MC connection.
14. Previous "mechanic" forgot to retorque pretty much every single bolt or nut they touched. Everywhere.
15. Previous "mechanic" forgot to re-attach every bracket (hose/harness routing) that mounts on a stud that they came across.
Modifications so far:
285/75/16's
99 Tall springs from my old truck
Tacoma whip
Husky rear area liner.
Soon to have:
Rock sliders from old 4Runner
ARB bumper and Tuff Stuff 12,500lb waterproof winch w/synthetic rope from storage that I'd ordered before my bro-in-law wrecked the old 4Runner
140a alternator from old 4Runner
Engine*, rear locker from old 4Runner
*Maybe. Part of me wants to pull the crank from the old engine and replace it with a new part (with bearings, etc etc) vs. having to pull 2 engines and install 1.
Wish list:
New rear shocks
New LBJs and LCAs (I'd just finished this bastard of a job on the old truck before I shipped it to the bro-in-law, not looking forward to doing it again).
MTF (more to follow). Feel free to correct any deficiencies you notice.
1998 Limited, Desert dune metallic / silver over oak leather. 183k miles. Killed by drunk brother in law (brother in law survived the accident uninjured). I'm no photographer, and these were all taken with my cellphone so I apologize to those who actually know what they're doing behind a lens.
First trip (of many) to the high desert, CA.
Aftermath of finding a single mud puddle at the tail end of a trail in Santa Barbara, CA.
Otay Mountain Truck Trail, CA.
Close up of previous picture.
What she looked like the day we shipped it to my brother in law at Camp Lejeune.
Aaaand what she looked like 6 months later when I drove 24hrs straight (round trip) to bail it out of police impound.
Pulled all of the body parts off to expose a frame sway/twist that no body shops locally will touch.
So I immediately went off in search of a replacement under $2500 with no rust, while the '98 sat dormant in my garage waiting for a recipient for all of it's salvageable parts (183k well maintained miles on the engine/trans/t-case/rear end). A tall order.
Meanwhile...
The family expanded. Wife's (she's 5' on a good day, those running boards are there for as long as it takes me to install rock sliders).
Suddenly...
A recipient appears! FWIW on the drive from Kansas City to my house, averaging 65mph while towing that trailer, the red 4Runner managed a respectable 13 MPG.
The following is copied/pasted primarily from my Off Topic "crap shoot" thread.
1998 Toyota 4Runner Limited, black over oak interior with "gold package" emblems.
Purchased 7.2.2016.
4 previous owners.
340,411 miles on the odometer (recent auto trans and t-belt, engine is smooth as butter, no leaks, no smoke).
Zero rust to speak of on the body or frame, a product of 99% of its miles occurring in no-salt states.
Elephant in the room: conical crankshaft snout, destroyed woodruff keyway on crank. Root cause: failure to torque harmonic balancer pulley to 217 ft/lbs after timing belt inspection by previous owner's "mechanic". I did most of the repairs (below) before I realized the extent of this.
Repairs / fixes so far:
1. PS bracket was backwards - the part with the slit in it that bolts to the false water pump was shimmed with washers. The part of the PS bracket that bolts to the bottom of the PS pump itself was on the back side of the aforementioned bracket vs. The front side. The PS belt was on the alt, the alt belt was on the PS pump.
2. The ac compressor was shimmed so that the pulley was angled towards the drivers side. The lower ac idler was finger tight, bunch of bolts backed out / not torqued.
3. Pushing the hazards while the lights were on blew the tail fuse and the blinkers didn't work (neither did the clock). Popped the center stack bezel... The clock plug was jammed into the hazard button, the hazard plug was coiled and zip tied, and the rear defrost plug was connected to the clock with speaker wire. I don't even know what was happening there.
4. The trans dipstick tube was zip tied to the maf harness, and the maf was clocked way wrong. Which means the maf to tb hose is chewed up.
5. The harness that has a bracket that sandwiches on a stud coming from the thermostat outlet was zip tied to the alternator and chewed up.
6. The alternator was so badly out of adjustment on its bracket that I'm shocked the thing stayed running.
7. As a result of #6 and the thrashed keyway issue the brand new alt belt was stripped clean of grooves (looked fine when I inspected it - so in 10 miles it ate itself).
8. Aforementioned (prev. Post) Toyota red coolant swap was incomplete - as I ran the engine it turned a greenish brown indicating an incomplete flush of the green. It drained reddish brown... Almost like dirty atf.
9. Auto trans drain plug installed without washer/gasket.
10. Rear diff fill plug was torqued to 3 ft/lbs. Same with drain plug. If I were a betting man, I'd say someone used a inch-lbs torque wrench on this thing.
11. Shifter bushings and perhaps the springs inside the park sensor were so thrashed that in order to get the key out of the ignition you had to push the shift lever "down" (not pull towards you like going from P to R and so on) then wiggle it side to side, then pull up and push towards the passenger side. Said F it and grabbed the full shift assembly from the parts truck and swapped them. Crap part is that I need to be able to shift the parts truck into neutral... so I had to put it back together on the other side.
12. Then the brake booster / MC combo. After doing the trans shift assembly, I moved the truck and there was a puddle of brake fluid under where the truck was previously sitting. Sure enough, followed the trail up to the joint between the MC and booster. When I broke them apart there was a bunch of RTV crammed in there. I even found a receipt for this "repair" from a shop dated April 2016. Awesome.
13. Previous "mechanic" cross threaded and stripped out threading on brake hard line at the MC connection.
14. Previous "mechanic" forgot to retorque pretty much every single bolt or nut they touched. Everywhere.
15. Previous "mechanic" forgot to re-attach every bracket (hose/harness routing) that mounts on a stud that they came across.
Modifications so far:
285/75/16's
99 Tall springs from my old truck
Tacoma whip
Husky rear area liner.
Soon to have:
Rock sliders from old 4Runner
ARB bumper and Tuff Stuff 12,500lb waterproof winch w/synthetic rope from storage that I'd ordered before my bro-in-law wrecked the old 4Runner
140a alternator from old 4Runner
Engine*, rear locker from old 4Runner
*Maybe. Part of me wants to pull the crank from the old engine and replace it with a new part (with bearings, etc etc) vs. having to pull 2 engines and install 1.
Wish list:
New rear shocks
New LBJs and LCAs (I'd just finished this bastard of a job on the old truck before I shipped it to the bro-in-law, not looking forward to doing it again).
MTF (more to follow). Feel free to correct any deficiencies you notice.
