After searching on/off for a few years, I found an 1985 4runner posted for sale on Craigslist. I decided to purchase it for my son Christian and we could slowly restore/build it together and have it ready to drive when he turned 17. That was 2018!! So, here we are almost 4 years later and we finally got it on the road. (Like everything else, life got busy!) I did take some pix over the years to document the process. So hopefully over the next few weeks I can upload pictures up to the present time.

Purchased the vehicle from two brothers who listed it on Craigslist in Baltimore .MD for $1800 but we settled on $1500. It hadn't run for at least 5 years (maybe longer)

Where we found it on Craigslist April 2018

Some rust, but all together

 

When I first called the seller I asked how bad the rust was. The sellers brother offered to get underneith and poke the frame with a screw driver before I drove the 2.5 hours down to Balitmore. He said that in his opinion the frame was good but there was definitely some body panel rust.
I drove down that day and crawled under to check the frame for rust. To my surprise it had a lot of surface rust but nothing too scary. I think these are honest guys that selling it.

 

The previous owner (Jan) and his brother (Ted) had a bit of a car/truck collection on their city property. . They ran into some trouble with Baltimore officials and had to start clearing up their yard. Jan really had plans to restore this 4runner for himself, but his brother Ted claimed he would never get it to it,

Jan & Ted getting ready to pull the 4runner from its resting (rusting) place.

My son Christian got to steer it while Ted pulled it from the spot.

Pulled it up on a Tow dolly, disconnected the drive shaft and prayed the old (cracked) rear tires would make the 100mi trip back to PA.

 

85 parked next to my 95 daily driver

Towed it home, no problem and rolled it into the garage. First step will be to drain the fuel tank which is more the half full.

 

One of the first tasks was to hear the engine run. The previous owner said that it ran great when parked, that the timing belt was replaced and he wasn't sure about the clutch. Unfortunately, the gas tank was more the half full. So we had to dain it. We drained more then 10 gals of fowl smelling gas out, drained the fuel lines and gave it a go.

Nothing...Shot some ether into the intake and it coughed and sputtered a bit but still not running.

Opened up the fuel rail and there was no fuel pressure. Decided to remove the cover under the back seat. GREAT!! there is access. My 95 had just enough to frustrate me. This looks rather easy

Well I'd say this fuel pump is toast. The varnish is not only on the pump/intake but on all of the gas tank components.

IT may even be the factory original pump.

Looking into the tank with phone,...not a pretty picture.

Float guage is also gummed up

 

The whole sending unit needed to be carefully cleaned as well as the fuel lines. I had done my 95 and the cap-screws stripped and broke upon removal. In this case, I soaked for a few days with penetrating oil, but still snapped two and had to drill out and re-tap.

Fuel lines to/from tank were toast, so we ended up cutting out the bad sections and replacing with high pressure fuel hose.

Cleaned up the sending unit and installed a new fuel pump from RockAuto. I think we ended up getting a Bosch listed as daily driver


The high pressure fuel hose is pretty expensive, but easier then metal lines. We had a flaring tool so we flared the old line connections, overlapped by 2-3 inches and used two hose clamps.