Why is my 4runner falling apart?

Pyral

Pyral

Member
I drove my 4runner through the night last night, 14 hours. I won't say it was easy on the car, hours of going 70 80 or 90 mph, I also did a lot of braking in the hilly I5 Shasta area.

I was doing work on my car today, and I noticed some extremely concerning developments. My water pump had 2 bolts basically hanging out, one was held in with the belt the other was literally dangling.

The other was my rubber brake lines, each side had one end of the hose seeping fluid. I checked my brake fluid, I had marked it with a sharpie when changed it, so I can say it hasn't dropped at all.

I replaced both of these 3 months ago (water pump, brake lines), I used the Toyota branded part and I used a torque wrench on all the bolts. If I did everything by the book why am I having problems?
 
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Well that is unfortunate. Many things can cause bolts to back out. The treads could be very dirty or water could have been in the hole and not let the bolt tighten down correctly. Even if you torqued it. IIRC it's only torqued to 13 or 15 ftlbs so not much.

Another thing, human error, crap happens and you could have missed torquing them down. It happens, so don't beat yourself up over it. I once had forgotten to install a c-clip on my wheel bearing once after I just pressed the hub on. Sigh.

I'd pull them out, clean the threads good and reinstall. As for the brake hoses, it could be a faulty manufacturing.

It's just bad timing when they all happened together.
 
2TH4IST said:
Well that is unfortunate. Many things can cause bolts to back out. The treads could be very dirty or water could have been in the hole and not let the bolt tighten down correctly. Even if you torqued it. IIRC it's only torqued to 13 or 15 ftlbs so not much.

Another thing, human error, crap happens and you could have missed torquing them down. It happens, so don't beat yourself up over it. I once had forgotten to install a c-clip on my wheel bearing once after I just pressed the hub on. Sigh.

I'd pull them out, clean the threads good and reinstall. As for the brake hoses, it could be a faulty manufacturing.

It's just bad timing when they all happened together.
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I put a tiny bit of red loctite on the bolt, I'd rather hate myself in 10 years when they put up a fight then in 10 days if they destroy the engine after doing it again.

It appears to be leaking out of the flare, not the metal collar that goes over the rubber. Should I try snugging it up with a line wrench?
 
I wouldn't say that your 4Runner is "falling apart" because two items YOU recently worked on had problems.
 
Are you sure you got every bolt torqued on the water pump? If so very your torque wrench is in spec. Kinda sounds like you missed a few and they were only finger tight. Especially, if the all the other water pump bolts were still tight. That would explain that issue.

Just like when you are torquing the bolts. Check every one 2 to 3 times as it only takes a min and you triple verified all bolts are correct.. :-)


Are your rubber brake lines connection tight enough? That's a very common thing not to get tight enough. Just see if they can snug slightly more and if the seep stops.


Both of these issues are minor. :-) Its how people learn as mostly people remember the slight boo boos more then the successes.
 
brillo_76 said:
Are you sure you got every bolt torqued on the water pump? If so very your torque wrench is in spec. Kinda sounds like you missed a few and they were only finger tight. Especially, if the all the other water pump bolts were still tight. That would explain that issue.

Just like when you are torquing the bolts. Check every one 2 to 3 times as it only takes a min and you triple verified all bolts are correct.. :-)


Are your rubber brake lines connection tight enough? That's a very common thing not to get tight enough. Just see if they can snug slightly more and if the seep stops.


Both of these issues are minor. :-) Its how people learn as mostly people remember the slight boo boos more then the successes.
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It's scary how close I got to disaster, those photos show the bolts in the state I found in, I hadn't touched them. I'm not so full of myself that I wont say that I couldn't have missed one, but I do remember going around with a torque wrench double checking. If they were loose they weren't hanging out because I was in that area a lot trouble shooting squeaking belts and power steering pump soon after.

Should I loosen the brake hose all the way and make sure the fitting is clean (which would require rebleeding). I'll snug them up first, I don't know how much force I should put into these fittings. I took a photo of the leaking hoses, the other hose is leaking on the other fitting coming from the brake line.

I hope I didn't cross thread the fitting, that would royally suck. The 1st photo is a photo of a photo I took on my other phone.
 

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WHOA! Dude buy a lottery ticket you lucky SOB!

Ive never had bolts back out like that. I was going to suggest a TQ wrench, but you had one.
 
Like I said before, probably accidentally skip over them, while torquing. Sh it happens and luckily you caught it in time. I'd say worse that could have happened was throwing a belt. Probably just bounce off the pulley and end up on the road.

I'd tighten down those brake fittings. Clean with brake cleaner or water and let dry. Drive a bit, and recheck.

I've seen lots of loose/falling out bolts. Heck on one of our rally cars (Evo 6.5) we had to safety wire darn near every external bolt we could. That was fun drilling all those holes.

Don't beat yourself up. And no your 4runner isn't falling apart. Just bad timing.
 
I wasn’t exaggerating when I said hanging out. I’m very glad they stuck around just long enough for me to see them.

I tightened down the left brake hose and it started leaking even worse. I removed it and the outside of the flare had some sort of paint flaking off. Like some sort of coating. I don’t know what it’s for.

Will this be a useable fitting once I clean it up? What should I do about it?

I haven’t even started on the other side. Brake hoses aren’t one time use things right? If I have to remove one I can put it back on.

Im doing my LBJ so it’s an ideal time to address these front brake hoses
 

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Hmm they flair looks a bit roasted. Its paint is that grayish brown coating on the brake line. How does the rubber hose's inverted flair look like?
 
The hose looks okay, but I tried retightening them both, one is now working for now, but the one in the photo is still dripping brake fluid.

Do I have to replace it?
 
Pyral said:
The hose looks okay, but I tried retightening them both, one is now working for now, but the one in the photo is still dripping brake fluid.

Do I have to replace it?
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Have to replace it or re-flare it..As its is not sealing properly.
 
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