actaully the truck was on non op for 2 years before i bought it, and im sure it had sat before that too.
if it is stuck open, once i take out the thermostat, do i have to replace it or could i work it for a bit till it moves.

 

I would buy a new one from toyota! There not much money

 

o wow i just checked and they are under $10 i didnt realize they were that cheap.
looks like tomorrow after work im gonna go get one of thoes and put it in, see if that does the trick

 

so i went by the toyota dealership today and got the thermostat and gasket, along with some sealant. drained the radiator some and took off the top for the thermostat and i look in and there wasnt anything there!!! just a gasket, so it looks like someone decided to take out the thermostat all together. so i put the new one in after scraping old gasket off and everything, put the radiator fluid back in and all that stuff.
i fired up the truck and it all went fine for a bit then it was reving kinda high (i dont have a tack so i dont know how high) and then it would drop down to a lower rpm randomly then pop back up to the high one stay there for a bit then pop down and back up to the high rpm. after the engine warmed up this stopped. so i dont know what caused that, or if it is bad.
but back to the thermostat the temp gauge settled (after about 20 min of driving) at 1/3 the way to hot.
does anyone else out there have a yota that hangs below half on the temp gauge? cause my other one ran right at half.
does this mean my truck just runs cool?
so i guess i fixed the temp gauge problem, there wasnt a thermostat installed in the truck

 

mine runs a little bit below half. you must have air in the system if the truck randomly revs up then goes down randomly

 

I wouldn't have thought someone actually removed itafter looking at the pics and how untouched it looks, but I guess so.

I'd bleed the air out some more and maybe pull the EFI fuse so reset things. It might have gotten used to running at the old cool temp. A reset will allow it to learn the new operating temp. Takes 15 seconds and it's worth a shot anyways.

 

You got a great deal on that truck, it's one of the cleanest I've seen

 

Ya i wouldnt have thought someone would have removed it either but who knows what the guy was thinking, i bought it from a pretty shady guy.

how would you bleed out the air more?
I wouldnt have thought of that, i will pull the EFI fuse and see what happens.
is there any way that the air will bleed itself out??

 

When I bought my truck the thermostat was removed because the fan clutch was bad and I guess the guy who had the truck before me didn't want the truck to run hot anymore.

 

hahaha i guess he was thinking if he cant see it, it aint happening

 

someone removed the thermostat to make the truck run "decent" in order to sell. Would you have bought it for $3300 if it idled erratically? Its not that hard of a fix. Is it low on coolant?

 

actually it has been idling a bit off since i put the thermo. back in. well it is not low on coolant any more cause i just filled it up. it isnt that hard to fix? what do i do? or what is actually wrong?

 

I agree with Gary, air in the coolant. I know I need a stat, mine usually runs just above the cool line. when it does come up it does run better.

I have a 92, mine has the knock sensor, it is located behind the oil filter, you should have one as well. I believe you are seeing the AC plug...That is too far forward to be a knock sensor. Let me see if I can find some picts.

 

The first one is where the knock sensor is...between the oil filter and the fuel filter. (the fram was there when I got it and it is no longer) In the middle of the pic.




This is showing the same little bunch of wires you have in the front of the motor all taped up nice. I believe this is for the non-existent AC. Personally I would not worry about this plug. At the bottom of the pic

 

ya that first pic is not the plug and i will check to see if it is on my truck, but the second pic is defiantly the plug, just an un used ac plug. thats good there is no need to worry.

so since it seems that there is air in my coolant system. so how do i bleed the air?

 

Well, when I had mine apart I didn't drain the entire thing (block). When I did get it all back together: When I was filling the rad I would squeeze the top rad hose to keep the coolant flowing as I filled it, kinda like burping the system. Then I started it and kept the cap off and kept burping it and filling. Took it for a ride and let it cool and repeated. This is how I have always done this when changing rads, draining, coolant, anything of the such...I may be just getting lucky, I'm not sure if this is the proper way or not.

 

well i did the burping of the hose and all and i could tell some bubbles came up, i also took out the EFI fuse to reset the system, then the truck purred right along seemed to have worked so far. thanks for all the help guys. i will keep you all posted on wheeling or stuff im gonna be doing to the truck

 

i did a body lift and took out the rad. when i put it back together and had tons of air. i had to totally remove the thermostat and run it without it for like 10 mins to get the air out. then i put it back in. grabbing the hoses didnt work for me

 

o wow ya mine wasnt that bad, fortunately squeezing the hoses worked for me

 

i thought that was an ac plug..


thanks for the reassurance lumpy!