Hi, been reading and searching for awhile, but wanted to hear all your thoughts.

My truck: 88 Pickup ex cab v6 4x4 5spd SR5 226k, no maintenance history- No mods really.

The problems began one night when I was driving home, about a 60mile trip. While climbing up a long steep hill on the highway, the truck really started to bog down, no power at all. I pulled over at the top of the hill and the oil was below the low mark (about 2k miles since last oil change). I put a quart in and drive it home. Gets a little better but still low power.

Next morning, I have more than usual amount of black oil on the floor around engine all the way to tranny. The whole bottom is coated at this point. I trace it down to a the valve cover, driver side nearest firewall.

I top of the oil and drive it around for a few weeks monitoring it. I have no smoke and it seems to run okay but feels weaker than usual.

Take it to my mechanic and he replaces the valve cover gasket and spark plugs which he said were really bad. One was covered in oil (driver side, nearest firewall). After he finishes the passenger side one, he decides to check compression on the other half before finishing. Finds that the cyclinder with the bad plug had very low compression and allot of oil. The other 2 were low, but acceptable. The engine is also missing and had an exhaust leak which he fixed.

He said it is the piston rings and that he should have checked compression first cause if he had known, he wouldnt have changed the valve cover gaskets. Pretty much states that I should get a rebuilt engine, about $1700 and he would charge around 500 to install it.

I asked if it was okay to drive like this and he said its probably been like this for awhile since before I bought it (about 6k miles ago) and that it would probably be okay, just slow.

My question is.... What do you all think I should do? I was planning on just driving it till it died on me and not take any long trips in the truck till then unless I ran into some spare cash. Im worried though that itll ruin other parts of the truck, namely the cat. I dont need to smog around here but I hear gutting the cat sacrafice some power. I wish I could have saved the money from the valve cover job but he didnt charge me much (400 including front brakes/rotors, spark plugs and valve cover gasket) and the truck does drive allot better than before. No comment on the leak, but he said its gone.

The truck sputters a little on start but settles down after it warms up. No problems if I start the car and its warm. No smoke out tail pipe. Passed emissions with flying colors when I bought it.

I was also wondering if its okay to drive, is there anything I can do to extend the life of it? I was thinking of using synthetic the next oil change to try and clean it up a little. I am weary about doing a seafoam treatment, but I was interested in doing technron in the fuel at the very least.

Thanks guys! Sorry for the long post.

 

The sad fact is if you need to pay labor to work on these trucks it gets very expensive fast.

Your mechanic did not offer to put a hotter spark plug in the cylinder burning oil ??

Only you can decide what to do.

There are those that love the 3.0 then those that hate it just as much.

If this is a daily driver you need something that gets you to work.

If you can park this till you have the extra money

So you would have another $2,200.00 just for a rebuilt engine and the swap you then have to figure all the hoses ,belts fluids .

Perhaps a Clutch if it is a 5 speed since the engine is out.

Then what else needs to be done to keep up with neglected maintenance ???

Some look at the cost of a newer vehicle and figure if they put $ 6,000.00 into what they have they come out ahead.

It all comes down to if you want to keep this Truck for whatever reason I myself have been guilty of this spending way to much $$$$ on a 92 4Runner

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll try suggesting a hotter plug to see if that helps.

I hate to get rid of the truck, I do love it. The fact that it drives so nice and is so clean and hard to find, I want to fix it. The rest of the car is pretty solid and the transmission is very smooth. I've owned tacomas and this one has driven the nicest and has been the most fun. Everyone who's borrowed it (everyone knows when you own a truck) has loved it too. I'm lucky I have a second car but I do use it to drive stuff to my house from town allot and that's 60 miles of big hills. I don't do it allot, just once a month or so. Just trying to drive it till it dies so I can save more money to finish everything else like alternator and all hoses. The way I see it, if I get that engine and work, ill have a pretty solid car for a long time, which is way cheaper than a car payment. I've been known to throw money at cars... I love older cars and they're cheap enough to beat up and have fun with.

 

Give a try to oil treatment.