firepilot

Hi Guys,

Been reading the board ever since I started l looking at a 4runner on Craigslist for my son. Have had Toyota's for years now. Everything from Tacomas to Tundras and FJ's as well.

We picked a 1994 4Runner over the weekend from up the road. It was advertised as needing engine work so I figured a good project. I want to teach my son a bit about how things work and such. It is a nice rig in my opinion. New tires pretty much all original no rust, no mods and original paint the just needs a good waxing. Currently the truck has 123,000 miles it is the 3.slowww with an automatic.

I was able to get a FSM for it to supplement the Haynes manual that came with it. All in all for $1,200 it seemed to be a fair deal. I have been reading lots of threads on the forum about the engine and finding a bunch of great information. We have enough set aside to get a new long block for it or I have been reading up on the 3.4 swap.

I was able to do a compression test tonight and found some interesting things, Cylinders 1,2,and 3 were reading 150 PSI and this was cold. Cylinder 4 was at 30 psi and 6 was reading 60. I added oil to number 4 and 6 and 4 was unchanged and 6 bumped up to 90 psi.

I have removed the tube from the throttle body to the air cleaner and found oil in it. Also the rear part of the 2,4,6 cylinder bank valve cover has some oil residue on it. I have a friend coming over tomorrow and we are going to do a leak down test on 4 and 6. I wasn't able to get to cylinder number 5 to test the compression. I figure the problem seems to be on the drivers side.

I figure after the leak down test I will be pulling the intake and then checking the valve clearances. I hope it is something in the head but we will see.

If anyone has seen this type of issue I am all ears. My son and I will have some time to tear into it this weekend. Be nice to home in on the issue, and get some parts ordered or otherwise form a game plan.

I have a receipt from the previous owner for a pre purchase inspection. It was just less than 10,000 miles ago. It says the engine was replaced at around 114,000 miles but the truck sat for quite a while, that the gas smelled bad. Other wise it said performance was normal. The truck on the PPI had minor issues and there was a note about aftermarket plug wires, which are crap. One pulled apart getting the wires off. I'll be ordering a set of Toyota wires tomorrow. The heads and block do look clean and the freeze plugs in the block that I could see looked good as well.

There was a note it had a slight roughness at Idle and it may have been the fuel.

Thanks for reading if you got this far. Like I said eager to learn about the truck, have the tools and mechanical skill to do about whatever. Thanks for any suggestions.

Phil

firepilot

I also forgot to mention the check engine light is on and it is code 25.

Thanks

Phil

mbomberz1

You sound like you are on the right track. Do the leak down like you are planning, that should tell you a lot. Checking the valves is a good idea.

firepilot

Did the leak down test today. Its the bottom end for sure. Got it to TDC on the compression stroke and pressurized the cylinder and had all the air coming out the oil cap and breather tube hole on the valve cover.

Looks like this weekend will be an engine pull. Curious to see what the deal is. Contemplated pulling the head and figured if needed I could get the piston out from underneath... read a few threads on that and sounds like pulling the engine now is about as easy as anything.

Not sure if there is any value in pulling the intake and head tomorrow night just to take a look or rip the bandaid off and pull the engine straight away.

Any thoughts?

Thank you

Phil

firepilot

Ended up just pulling the engine yesterday. After I got the engine on the stand I got the head off and the valves looked ok. The cylinder bore was another matter. The walls were pretty heavily scored. I rolled the engine over and after I got the F...kin oil pickup off. Who's idea was that anyway?? I pushed the #4 piston out and the problem was clear. The top ring was missing about 30% of the radius. The second ring was missing more and the skirt in between was gone as well. Lots of metal in the pan, mostly chunks of rings.

The groves in the cylinder are fairly deep and I don't have a good way to measure the depth. I don't know how badly they can be scored and be able to bore the cylinder. The block had a paint jog on it and looked pretty clean.

Now the debate as to what to do. $1800-$1900 for a remanufactured block.

Buy a master engine kit and send the block to the machine shop.

I see engines on CL for $400-700 even a few 3.4 for $700 to $1400. Most of these are in the 150-170K mile range.

There is a guy in town that has a 3.0 engine I can hear run and do a compression test. The truck has 170K on it. Not wanting to end up back where I started.

Not sure if starting with an engine with 170K gets me any further.

What have others done? Its a first car for a high school kid.

Thanks

Phil

Janos01

If you have the time & $$, and given the current condition, I would recommend you send your short block to the machine shop so they can examine/X-Ray the block. As long as the cylinder walls don't have deep trenches or cavity's in them, they should be able to bore/hone out the cylinders and rebuild the block.

I would also recommend if the heads are worn, to have those rebuilt as well. It is not recommended to have one part of the engine rebuilt as if the other part fails or has an issue, you will be back to square one.

A used engine in my opinion, is the luck of the draw. It will either work or have issues later down the road depending on how well it was cared for.

Also as some here have mentioned, doing a 3.4 swap is not 100% and you will spend more on that then rebuilding your 3.0.

firepilot

Thanks for the replies,

I talked with the machine shop this am, and told them of my findings. There was a 1.00 on the piston and .25 on the rods. The local shop said that the number signified the block was already bored over .40 and that was the limit on the block. No value as a core.

So I am looking this afternoon at a used engine in town I can hear run. I can go from there. I also see some long blocks in the Tacoma, Wa area for around $1600, and an engine shop in Springfield Oregon that has them for about the same price. Both are plus core charge. Short blocks don't seem much less.

I'm located about 2 hrs south of Spokane. If anyone has had good experiences with shops I am all ears. Not opposed to a used engine also if it has some history. I can drive to Seattle, Portland, Missoula, or Boise pretty easy and have a truck.

Thanks again

Phil