Thanks for comments. Yes, that very good advice to check the timing light. In fact, should have done first since its from harbor-freight. I don't have easy access to another one, but I can shoot one of my other vehicles to see behavior. All was not wasted on tearing down...found a coolant leak somewhere near the water pump and outlet. I've seen the small drip/puddle on driveway for the past year but was too lazy to even investigate. I can't tell yet if it is the thermostat housing, hose, or the gasket on the water pump. And, gotta do those valve cover gaskets again (3rd time) as oil is just covering the sides of the motor. I laugh at myself for wasting time on this but having the vehicle for almost 20years, its sort of fun keeping it going. I ran my 90 celica for over 300K before giving it away and was hoping to get 300K out of the 4runner.

 

Thanks for comments. Yes, that very good advice to check the timing light. In fact, should have done first since its from harbor-freight. I don't have easy access to another one, but I can shoot one of my other vehicles to see behavior. All was not wasted on tearing down...found a coolant leak somewhere near the water pump and outlet. I've seen the small drip/puddle on driveway for the past year but was too lazy to even investigate. I can't tell yet if it is the thermostat housing, hose, or the gasket on the water pump. And, gotta do those valve cover gaskets again (3rd time) as oil is just covering the sides of the motor. I laugh at myself for wasting time on this but having the vehicle for almost 20years, its sort of fun keeping it going. I ran my 90 celica for over 300K before giving it away and was hoping to get 300K out of the 4runner.

 

I have seen similar complaints, in one case it turned out that the user didn't know that the light had and adjustable advance where you could dial in what you wanted for advance and set the mark as you see it on zero. Another time the user was connected to the wrong cylinder.
Just make sure you know what you have and how to use it.

 

Im from australia, i dont really know a great deal about harbour freight, but judging on what ppl say online, i would suspect alot of the tools are cheaper alternatives. Similar to what im constantly buying on ebay from china. Its very possible the light is just simply wrong.
Yeh cheaper plan would be to test the light on a car whose timing u already know is set at factory. Rather than going buying one :p

 

Solved - It was the timing light. Feel a bit stupid. Timing is spot on. Not all wasted time...fixed the water leak and replaced TB which had 50K on it. So - Back now to solving my rough idle........

 

Do you feel like sharing the details on what kind of timing light u had. Its great to know which ones to avoid!
For your rough idle, id be concentrating on trying to find a vacuum leak.
Thats usually the case.
If it was a fuel issue, it would either be lean which would give performance problems, or rich at idle which would blacken your spark plugs wiht dry sooty carbon whihc would eventualy cause the rough idle to worsen due to missfires.
So if ur not realy experiencing either of those 2 things, then really try as hard as u can to find any vacuum leaks.

 

The timing light was harbor freight. I blame myself for not playing around with it more. The light had the advance knob on the back and the scale on the knob was loose / misleading so I was reading it wrong.

Also - I have a compression tester from harbor freight and when I checked all cylinders they were between 120 -125 psi. (low) But, after googling, I found a lot of similar complaints with low pressure reading on the gauge. One guy tore his small engine apart for no reason.

Solved the rough idle! I was also having minor intermittent electrical issues and decided to redo the body ground. As I was looking for the engine ground noticed that the vacuum hose on my power steering idle-up valve was loose/cracked. As soon as I repaired the connection the idle smoothed out. Been driving two days and the motor is perfect. ( I thought I had already checked all of my vacuum lines but I somehow missed this or checked it at the wrong location.) This forum has extensive threads about vacuum leaks but my eye (and unlit torch) never found this one since it was buried under the PS pump. Thanks to all for the great advice. Just took the rig for a drive in this snow-storm we are having....lots of fun.