new guy with a few questions

[dobierunner]

new to the forum and 4runners in general. have owned a few toyota's: 88' truck w22RE, awesome motor, and an 08' Tacoma, miss that truck. any way just bought my first 4runner (94 SR5, 3.0 V6 auto, 4x4 187,000). guy claimed motor was rebuilt and has 20k on rebuild. my first question is how reliable are the oil gauges in these things? shows VERY low pressure. was going to replace sending unit and see if that helps. engine sounds good, has the usual "toyota tick" but nothing horrible.
other question i have is the tranny will not shift into 4 or O/D sometimes. if i pull over shut the vehicle off, restart it usually will then shift properly and smoothly. any ideas?? i just had tranny flushed and all new oil added and changed the engine oil. last thing to mention is the truck had not been driven for about a year or so before i bought it. sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Stunner4Runner]

I have a 95 4runner 3.0 vz-e and from everything that I have experienced and read it is not one of the better engines of Toyota. Regardless of that my engine oil pressure is kinda low as well I think that its a natural thing for these engines. I changed my sending unit about 3000 miles ago and it never made a difference. It might work for you but I am having the head replaced now so I will let you know if that made a difference when I get it back in about a month or so if you want.