I bought a '92 Pickup with the 3VZE V6 and 4x4 drivetrain a little over a week ago. I have found this forum to be extremely useful. On here I found out why one of my hubs would not move to "locked", how to adjust the excessive freeplay in the accelerator, how to increase seat belt tension, and several other more trivial things.

However, I still have a few questions. Hopefully these are pretty simple, just beyond the intimate knowledge of a former Honda junkie.

Is the radio supposed to stay on when I turn off the ignition? Both the 12v and ignition wires on the radio harness have power with the ignition off and on. The radio also stayed on when I completely unplugged the ignition switch connector, which led to me to conclude that the switch is not defective. If the radio is NOT supposed to stay on, is the 12V cigarette lighter socket supposed to? Mine is on at all times.

I know that folks say the AC is supposed to have "no freon loss unless there is a leak." However, my perception is that manufacturers' recommendations for their vehicles are for 6-year time spans, not 20 years. My AC is not really working, but I can see some movement going on in the sight glass and the pressure is high enough that the compressor kicks on just fine. I am somewhat of an environmentalist, so I do not want to release a bunch of R12 into the atmosphere on a whim, but I suspect that this system would be just fine with a few ounces of R12 and some stopleak. If there really was a significant leak, how would any liquid refrigerant be left in the system?

How worrisome is the ticking that appears to come from the #4 or #6 cylinder area? The frequency varies only with engine speed and sounds a lot like a loose valve. I have read that the injectors can be loud on this engine, but after unplugging a few of those while it was running, I am almost certain that is not what I am hearing. When I change the timing belt I am planning to adjust the valve clearances as well. I only wish Toyota had choosen a more user-friendly valve setup. At the moment I am running some Marvel's Mystery Oil in it for the heck of it and plan to change the oil out to Rotella 15 W40 in a few more miles. The previous owner had 5 W30 in it for some reason.

Lastly, what actions on my part could lead to early timing belt destruction? The engine bay has a sticker stating that the timing belt was changed in 1997 at 87,000 miles. I hope against hope that somebody has changed it since then, but just in case I want to make sure I do not cause it to break free in the next two weeks until I move into my new place and have a place to tear the front of the engine down to replace the belt and other associated parts.

Thanks in advance for any answers. This truck has been occupying enough of my thoughts over the past week that it has already formed a tangible wedge between my fiancee' and me. I figure that after fixing everything on it that I could figure out (lock cylinders, distributor cap and rotor, spark plugs and wires, passenger side mirror, front speakers, etc) it is time to ask the experts' advice. FWIW, the engine starts right up and I am getting at least 20 MPG fuel economy, so I think that the engine internals are doing pretty good.

I have to admit, between hub rebuilds, wheel bearings, shocks, lifts, steering gear, cold air intakes, headers, ball joint spacers, add a leafs, tires, sway bar discos, and 54mm sockets, I have no idea how you guys find time to sleep at night. Those are just the things that have been keeping me up the past week, and I LOVE sleeping! It is small wonder that I have hardly seen any posts about audio systems or HID lighting on this board!

 

LOL~

The ticking is MOST likely the fuel pressure regulator:

 

The radio should go off with the key as well as the lighter. Someone has made some changes.

Radio will have constant power to save memory of stored stations. A second powered wire from ignition switch turns it on or off with key.

Good Luck Hans

 

Radio should power up on accessory not constant. Rewire.

Some swear by the sight glass others say black it over with a Sharpie. A 20 year old system needs maintenance. Easy enough to find a leak with some dye and gauges.

Impossible to diagnose noises without hearing them. Your tick might sound normal to others. Think the dealer recommended is 5w30 or 10w30.

Timing belts are a 90-120k maintenance item. Since you don't give mileage now who knows.

Welcome to Yotatech.

:wabbit2:

 

About the radio, are you sure your key is completely in the off position?

sometimes really old keys tend to be worn down enough that they can be pulled out when the lock cylinder is in any position. I know I've mistakenly thought "Hey, my radio is on all the time", but in reality I would turn the key to the accessory position (the lowest position it would turn without hitting the key lock on top of the steering column), and then pull it out. Took me a few weeks to realize there's actually another click lower on the cylinder.

 

As far as the HID and stereo threads..............keep searching you seem to be delirious from no sleep

 

Thanks for the advice. FWIW, the truck has 177K miles on it. I've read elsewhere that the timing belt is a 60K replacement item, which has me a bit worried that it might be running closer to 90K and 15 years (compared to the 48 months that Toyota suggests). I forgot to mention that the radio in it right now is a fairly crappy Pioneer unit.

I decided to bite the bullet and made an appointment with a real mechanic to get the AC evaluated.

I forgot to mention that I'm getting a code 71 CEL. I pulled the EGR valve and temp. sensor and did not see any obvious problems. The CEL only comes on at highway speeds, and I'm planning to troubleshoot a bit farther to find out if the EGR valve might be stuck.

The tie rod ends on the passenger side are pretty loose. While I'm in there changing them, are there any other bits in the steering system that should be swapped out before an alignment? I'm not really familiar with steering idler arms and dampers and such.

I'm planning to swap in some new shocks too. The rear bounces five or six times when I do the bounce test. The Bilstein HD have pretty good reviews, but I cannot afford to spend that kind of money if they are only going to last for a couple years. With only minor offroading, can those shocks be expected to last very long?

 

Bilsteins last longer tha ANY shock I've ever used. I put 130,000 miles on my last set & they still had life in them, certainly WAAAAY more than 5 or 6 bounce test would indicate. Do you have Bilstein on there now??

You can get Bilstein from Advance (Autozone?) for about $68 each.

 

The recommended service interval for the timing belt in severe service is 60k miles. In regular service there is no specified interval.

At 177k you're in terra incognito as far as service intervals, so swap the belt when you get a chance. But don't lose sleep. There's nothing in particular that you can do or not do over the next 10k miles that will make it fail quicker.

Get the core of a roll of paper towels and use that as a stethoscope to localize your "tick." (Or a piece of fuel hose, ...)

Instead of getting your service information from stuff you read "elsewhere," may I introduce you to the FSM: http://www.ncttora.com/fsm/1990-1995...es/repair.html

 

TNRabbit, I just bought this truck last week. Judging by the state of maintenance on the other systems that I have checked, I would not be at all surprised to learn that the current shocks are the ones that were in installed back in April of 1992. On a related note, I'm always surprised at how well an engine can run even when the spark plug gap is more than double that specified.

Scope, thanks for the link to the FSM. I'll be using that to troubleshoot the CEL code I'm getting from the EGR system. Hopefully it is something simple. In terms of "severe service," it is possible that this truck qualifies for that. My understanding is that the first owner only drove it a few miles a day to work and back. The rusted away tailpipe end would corroborate that, I believe.