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Hey guys I’m new to the forum however I have been referencing this site frequently for information to help me rebuilt my 4runner I bought at the beginning of the year. There is a lot of good info on this site and it has helped me figure out multiple problems and hang ups. Anyway, on to the build. A friend told me of a first gen 85 4runner that a shop was trying to sell for a customer. I always wanted a first gen 4runner so I went to have a look and see what kind of condition it was in. When I first saw it sitting at the shop I immediately wanted to buy it. At first glance it looked REALLY clean for a 31 year old truck: It was completely stock with only a few dings on the front fenders, the paint wasn’t that faded, there was hardly any rust on it, and the interior was complete with all the plastic trim. I then walked around to the back of the 4runner and my heart sank a little as it had been rear ended pretty hard. The tailgate was punched in a good 4 inches however the rear glass didn’t break and the frame was still straight. After talking with the shop and listening to it run I decided it would still probably be a good project. I knew from listening to it run that it was going to need a new timing chain, maybe a full rebuild. After a little negotiation I picked it up for $1200. Here are a couple pics from the day I drove it home.
After I got it home I started to clean up the interior and see if the previous owner left me anything useful. I wasn’t disappointed as I found a brand new fuel filter, some exhaust manifold studs, a couple fuses and relays, and some transmission stop slip. After I was finished cleaning it out, I wanted to see if I could save the rear window from the smashed in tailgate. Just out of curiosity I hit the rear window switch to see if the regulator still worked. I was pleasantly surprised when the window started rolling down without much difficulty. It didn’t go all the way down inside the tailgate obviously due to the large dents, however this gave me hope that I might be able to pop enough of the dent out that the window would retract enough so that I could open and close the tailgate. So I went to work deciding how I wanted to go about popping the dent out. I ended up using the factory bottle jack from the truck and two pieces of 4x4 braced off the interior roll bar to slowly push the dent out from inside the truck.
It worked pretty well as I was able to roll the window down almost all the way except for the last few inches. This was enough for me to actually get the tailgate open which will allow me to pull the glass and unbolt the tailgate so I can replace it. I also removed most of the dash to see if the truck had the wiring harnesses for a tachometer, oil pressure, clock and a few other things. I also wanted to see if I could fix my climate control(the cable that connects the heater knob to the water valve in the engine compartment had broken). I was able to take a small piece of guitar string and solder it onto the end of the cable and then tied it to the heater control knob. works perfect now.
I also took this opportunity to fix my shifter for the automatic transmission as it was REALLY loose and left like it was going to change gear on me if I hit a speed bump too fast. The rubber bushings were completely destroyed and the only evidence that they were ever there was this yellow powder that coated the bottom of the shifter. I bought some new bushings from Toyota for a small fortune and had my shifter fixed that afternoon
After I finished going through the interior and the parts that I ordered came in, I moved up front to the engine. It was clearly having some issues as on the way back home, I couldn’t get the truck to accelerate normally as when I leaned into the gas pedal it would rev up and immediately slow back to idle and then rev back up again. It was stuck in this endless loop. I assumed this was probably due to the TPS sensor. Also, when listening to it run, all that can be heard is a loud ticking/knocking that gets louder and angrier sounding the higher the RPM. I believed that this noise was the infamous 22RE broken timing chain guide so I removed the valve cover to take a look at the chain/guides. Sure enough I can see the driver side guide has the top chipped off of it and a piece missing from the upper bolt hole which allowed it to pivot on the lower mount causing the ticking noise. I had ordered up a timing chain kit from ENGNBLDR which had the steel backed guide and genuine OSK Japanese tensioner.
I went to work pulling the front of the motor apart but got stuck when it came time to remove the crank pulley bolt. I spent almost a week trying to get that bolt out as it didn’t want to move AT ALL. I tried an impact gun, a 2 foot breaker bar, the starter bump method, it didn’t want to move. My issue was trying to get the engine to not turn over when I tried to turn the pulley bolt. I ended up making a tool from scrap to hold the pulley while I tried to break the bolt free. I took my breaker bar, put it over the bolt and jammed the end of the breaker bar between the frame and the leaf spring. Then I bolted on my home made tool and used that to turn the pulley with the bolt stationary. Success! I was able to get the bolt out and fully disassemble the front of the motor.
Once I had everything pulled off it was just a case of cleaning up some parts, bolting on the new ones, and then re-assembly.
The motor went back together fairly easily and soon it was time to fire it up. Well, it fired up first time and I set the timing to factory spec. The ticking noise that I was hearing at idle was pretty much gone, however the knocking noise was still there. This was a bit of a setback for me as I was at a loss as to what was causing the noise. I knew in the back of my head that I was probably going to have to pull the cylinder head in order to try to figure out this mystery noise. My fear was that I had a bad bearing on the crankshaft or a connecting rod which would mean its probably time for a full rebuild.
Well, I pulled the cylinder head to see how bad the internals looked and to figure out the source of the knocking noise which was getting louder and louder each time I ran the engine. Disassembly went smoothly as I was lucky and didn’t snap the head bolts when I was removing them. I was kind of shocked at how much oil the motor was burning judging off the combustion chambers, pistons, and the lower intake runners. When I was doing all the prep work to pull the head I discovered that all four of my intake runners had large pools of oil in them. I first though this might be bad valve stem seals, but am now thinking that It was caused by a bad PCV valve. Once I had the head off it became quite clear where the knocking was coming from. When I pulled the head off I tipped it on its side so the oil could drain out and one of the bolts holding the bearing cap on my camshaft FELL OUT. The bolt had completely stripped the threads out of the cylinder head and was just rattling around in the bore. I unbolted the other 2 bearing caps so I could pull the cam and see how badly worn the bearing surfaces were. They were pretty badly scored and kind of burnt looking. It was at this point that I knew I needed a whole new cylinder head because Toyota didn’t design the cam bearings to be replaceable.
As of now I'm keeping a close eye on the inventory of the local scrap yard, waiting for them to get a Pickup or 4runner with the 22re that I could take the head off of.
Well, I’m still waiting for a cylinder head to show up at the scrap yard. If I can’t find a decent one with low miles soon I’m probably just going to get a new casting from ENGBLDR. Anyway, until I can figure out what route I want to go, here is an overview of when I rebuilt the front axle a few months back.
The inner axle seals had given up their useful life a long time ago, and were allowing the diff oil to mix with the axle grease and run all down the inside of the tire. I started by trying to scrape the worst of the dirt and grime off the knuckle studs and hit them with some PB Blaster. After I let the studs soak for a full 24 hours, I rolled the air compressor over and hit them with an impact. I was relieved when all the nuts came off without sticking and backing the whole stud out of the knuckle.
One of the more annoying issues I had to deal with consisted of trying to remove the old brass spindle bushings. I was able to get one side out by bending the lip up and twisting it slowly back and forth, however the other side refused to budge and I ended up having to make a relief cut and then crush the bushing to get it out. The old knuckle bearing races were a little stubborn but eventually came out with the persuasion of a large hammer and some PB Blaster. Once I had all the old bearings and seals removed, it was time to hammer in all the new seals and bearing races. I ordered up a knuckle rebuild kit from Marlin Crawler and a knuckle stud kit, a knuckle pre-load scale and the spindle bushings from lowrangeoffroad.
While I had the axle this far apart I decided to pull the axle shafts and 3rd member to see how they looked. The gears still looked close to brand new with hardly any wear, making me think the previous owner probably never used the 4WD. Good news for me, as I was half expecting that I was going to need a new gear set. I also separated the birfields from the inner axles to properly clean them.
After everything was cleaned up and I got my hubs back from the machine shop with brand new rotors pressed on, it was time for re-assembly.
All that was left to do was refurbish the brake calipers and system, but I'll get to that in the next post.
Thank you. So far I’ve been working on this 4runner for 7months, replacing parts as time and money allows. Can’t wait till I finish and I can actually drive this thing!
Thanks guys for the comments.Next up was trying to fix my brakes. I needed to rebuild the front calipers as the dust cover boots had disintegrated, the seals were starting to weep and the pistons were covered in rust. I pulled everything apart and flushed the bores and passageways of the calipers with brake clean. Then I sanded the rust off the face of the pistons and started swapping in the new seals.
I bolted the calipers back on, hooked the lines up and proceeded to bleed the system. This is where I ran into a bunch of issues that ended up taking me almost 2 weeks trying to solve them. I could not bleed the brake system. No matter how many times I tried, my pedal still felt like a sponge and couldn’t even develop enough pressure to take up the slack in the rear drum springs. After some research I figured it was the load sensing brake proportioning valve that was giving me issues. I was pretty sure the valve was sticking and I had air trapped in the 3rd brake line coming off the valve back to the front of the truck. I crawled under to take a look and discovered that when the truck was rear ended in its past life the impact damaged the valve. The spare tire punched a “U”shape into the rod that connects the valve to the axle and broke the plastic tab coming out of the valve itself.
I decided to delete the LSPV and just install a manual adjustable proportioning Valve. I ordered a valve from amazon and went to the local scrap yard to source some brake fittings. After I plumbed everything in I went to bleed the brakes and now I was getting pressure to the front brakes but no pressure to the rear brakes. I was so confused as to what was going on with the system as I knew the master cylinder was good, the wheel cylinders were good, and the proportioning valve was open all the way. After several days of trying to troubleshoot the issue, I decided to buy another proportioning valve from a well know company to see if maybe I just got some crappy Chinese made part. Success! It was a bad valve after all. With the new valve installed I finally was able to get the rear brakes to work and restore brake pedal feel to the truck.
Well I started getting impatient waiting for my buddy to bring his engine crane over, so I decided to take a peek at the connecting rod bearings. Dam, they were destroyed. After I pulled all the rod bearing caps and inspected them I knew at that moment that the motor was due for a full rebuild. I ended up popping all the pistons out so I could inspect the rest of the rotating assembly and the upper rod bearings. I soon discovered that this motor had never been rebuilt; it still had the original Japanese bearings in it from 1985. 248,238 miles on 31 year old bearings? Pretty dam impressive if I do say so myself. I’m kind of curious to know how destroyed the main bearings are now, but I have to wait till the engine is pulled before I can look at those.
Judging off the wear marks on the #1 rod bearings and the piston itself, I’m pretty sure I was developing some piston slap which could explain the lower compression numbers in that cylinder. I’m also thinking that maybe it was the rod bearings that where making the knocking noise that I have been chasing since day 1, not the cam bearings.
Gotta love toyota huh! You ever thinking about a manual swap btw?
Seriously! That’s why I like the little 22re, assuming you keep up with oil changes and basic maintenance they will keep right on running. And yeah I have been researching the auto to manual swap and its something I want to do once the auto transmission starts to slip or give me issues. I would much rather have the 5 speed than the gutless, power robbing auto tranny. Its only perk is that the auto has a better low range. However, for right now I’m just trying to get the motor to run reliably.
Chrishf12, thanks man. I started to read through your build thread and saw the condition of the rod bearings on your motor. Dam, I thought mine where bad!
Chrishf12, thanks man. I started to read through your build thread and saw the condition of the rod bearings on your motor. Dam, I thought mine where bad!
Seeing yours actually is what made me realize how bad mine were. And the motor still ran fine aside from the "chatter" of the rod bearings.
Go for the manual swap, I am doing one with a buddy right now. Easiest to run the clutch slave cyl line while you have the motor out!
Chrishf12, yeah I should try to at least run the clutch line and maybe mount up a clutch master cylinder as its definitely going to be easier to do that with the motor out. What year truck are you and your friend doing the swap on?
As far as the build goes I’ve started the process of cleaning out the intake manifold of 240,000+ miles of oil and carbon buildup (joy!). It took me several days of scrubbing the runners with a brass brush and 3 cans of aerosol carb cleaner to get the lower intake halfway clean. I really wish I had a parts washer right about now. I also went and tested all the electrical sensors as I removed them from the intake to verify they all still worked properly. I almost snapped the 2 bolts holding the thermostat housing on trying to remove them as they had rusted into place. Thankfully I was able to get the bolts out with the help of a 2 foot breaker bar. I decided that I am going to have to use a different approach to clean the upper intake plenum due to its shape and limited access. I think I’m going to try letting it soak in some foaming oven cleaner and then pressure wash it out. I have seen people use this method and it seems to work reasonably well.
Be careful using the foaming oven cleaner- many of them are not safe to use on aluminum!
I had luck using foaming degreaser, carb & choke cleaner and a power washer down at the car wash. Brake cleaner worked well, too. And lots of elbow grease, of course.
Be careful using the foaming oven cleaner- many of them are not safe to use on aluminum!
I had luck using foaming degreaser, carb & choke cleaner and a power washer down at the car wash. Brake cleaner worked well, too. And lots of elbow grease, of course.
Thank you for the warning about the oven cleaner, I did a little more research on it and found that almost all oven cleaners have one chemical or another that eats aluminum. Its kinda of a pain to find a good cleaner that will dissolve carbon deposits and old oil, but won't destroy aluminum. I'm thinking about letting the upper intake soak in mineral spirits or kerosene, then scrub the heck out of it. Once the heavy deposits are gone I'll probably use some carb clean and a pressure washer to get the rest of the goo out.
A mechanic buddy of mine gave me a can of stuff called Mighty VS7 engine degreaser. It's a foaming engine cleaner/degreaser and it worked really well. Not sure that you can get it at the retail shops, but check it out here: https://www.mightyautoparts.com/web/...system-cleaner
10-21-2016, 05:34 PM
