rezrunner92

Ok guys my name is Dave and I run a transmission shop with/for my dad depending on what season it is, shrimping, oyster, final four etc. I recently found this site while searching for rear coil spring prices. I bought a 1992 Runner 3 years ago to make into an all purpose vehicle for me and my wife. She has a 2005 Camry, she drove a 1997 Tercel through college and the salad years. I have a 1992 reg cab truck I drive to work and at work and at play. I had done most of the oil changes and a couple of tune ups for a friend on this Runner and then a local used car dealer sent it to me to check out. I called him back and said it had some problems either timing related or distributor but the trans seemed ok. We are mainly a trans shop so he was going to send it somewhere for an estimate on the motor work. Instead in a fit of passion I offered him $2500 for it and he hadn't even had it cleaned up so he said I tell you what give me just $2000. I bought it and parked it.

I noticed that the mechanical fan had been replaced since I had last seen under the hood. I just thought he had done a mod. After I got the title and really got under the hood myself, (I had had my cousin check over the vehicle), I saw that the fan was wired straight to the power wire on the two wire plug at the back of the coil. I fixed that by getting some 50amp wire and a 50 amp toggle switch and wiring it up so I could drive it a little and check it out. It would be running great but sometimes would bog down and lose powere on acceleration. I cleaned the fuel rails and changed the fuel filter. Same thing but it would come and go sometimes the truck would work fine sometimes not. It was not even a reproducable symptom it would come and go at will no matter the weather, load, etc. The former owner pulls two month to 4 month tours out of country at his current job so I parked the vehicle until he came in town. I had him get in touch with me and he told me that the mechanical fan had failed and it was running crazy. He had gotten a couple of estimates and wired that fan up quick and traded it.

I parked it for a couple of months. When I finally tore down the front end I found a couple of balls out of the fan bearing. So I thought hmmmmm maybe they are bouncing around in there and screwing with the timing. Turns out they were falling to the bottom sometimes and wedging the crank pulley! I removed it and the slot where the woodruff key rides in the gear was almost halfway around the inside diameter allowing the gear to float on the crank sometimes. How this thing ran at all I will never know and I had driven it on a couple of hundred mile road trips! I had done some pretty severe 4 wheeling too trying to break it before I started fixing it. On the way back from the beach one day it bogged down and wouldn't level back out so that is when I finally started tearing it apart.

The fix was to get rid of the balls and slap a new timing belt on it and see what happens. I didn't replace the bottom timing gear, I just turned it around because the key rides halfway in but the slot is all the way through. Cost of the fix $30 for a new timing belt. That was just about 7,000 miles ago, I made it a daily after that and sold my last Volvo, I had 5 of those and number six might be a 2001 cross country all wheel drive this weekend. I guess this week I will put in some plugs and wires. The Runner seems to be running great now. Guess it's time to tear the front back down and do all the seals and replace that gear. Didn't want to the first time because I wasn't sure if I was going to be buying a motor.

Now if anyone is still reading where is the limiter switch to the rear window wiper and how can I most easily by-pass it? Pretty please.

eric-the-red

The switch should be on or near the motor, inside the panel on the roof right at the back. Looking at the wiring diagram it seems that the switch grounds one of 2 wires, probably to park or reverse the wiper. The rest of the relays etc for the wiper are behind the driver side rear panel, in a blue (I think) box, with the controls for the rear window.

Here's a copy of the wiring diagram

rezrunner92

Thanks, I will be getting around to this when I replace the rear speakers. Thanks a lot for the diagram.