Hey all,


It has been a while since I posted and this only the 3rd or so post I have put on the forum. I will apologize in advance for the long read but the background info is necessary for the rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say. Anyway, I wanted to share this info with you all because it was such a shock to me. About 5 years ago I purchased a 91 4-Runner with a 3VZE. It has always been kind of doggy and I just wrote it off as a being a typical 3.Slow. Over the years I did a few things to it such as body lift and 33 X 12.50 tires and other minor things. About a year after I got it I had to take it in for an emissions inspection so I could renew my license plates. It failed so I started to tweak it a little and ended backing the timing way off in order to get it to pass and it did. But then it had a pinging problem. Long story short I ended up breaking a ring on the #4 cylinder. So I replaced the engine because the block was damaged badly by the pieces on metal that gouged up the cylinder wall. Well the new engine had the same issue with being doggy and weak and still had the same hesitation problems. Leading me to believe it must be an electrical thing since most of the mechanical stuff was all new (well new to me - the engine was a used one with about 54000 miles on it). Anyway I started replacing things and tuning up the vehicle. New plugs, wires, cap, rotor etc. I also tested the TPS and that was bad so I replaced it also. I had done everything I could think of to help with the hesitation and weak performance including removing the intake silencer and even different exhaust all with minimal results. However about a week ago I was driving home from the golf course after my daily round of golf and I hear some horrible howling coming from under the hood. My truck was getting sick and when I pulled up in the driveway it threw up a slimy green substance all over the ground. The water pump had failed. So I front of the engine apart and I found that the timing belt was showing some signs of wear and while it may have been fine or another 20k I figure why not replace while I am this close. So I did. Originally I was just going not touch anything. Just slip the old belt off and slip the new one back on. But my better judgment said "don't do that dummy." So I got out my electronic manual (downloaded from yotatech.com!!) and follow the procedure exactly and made sure the timing belt was installed correctly. It was a bit tricky because the one cam wanted to keep jumping past the mark and I finally got it right and then checked it to verify (2 full revolutions blah blah blah) and it was off just a hair like maybe half a tooth on each cam gear. Just like it was when I put the replacement engine in. I figured this was normal as I couldn't seem to get that half of a tooth no matter how hard I tried. Well I figured I would give it one more try. So I set the cam gears just about a half a tooth in the direction I needed (advanced) and the reinstalled the belt and turned the engine to verify. To my amazement everything lined up perfectly!!! So I put everything back together and went to take it for a test drive. I backed it out of the drive way and notice immediately I didn't need to feather the throttle like I normally did to get the RPMs up to take off. But I stepped on it and gave it a little extra like I always did and let the clutch out to take off and lo and behold I heard this strange squealing sound coming from the rear tires. My 3.Slow that could barely pull itself into a 10 miles per hour head wind (literally top speed was about 55 in a head wind and I had completely given up on using 5th gear) was now spinning the tires on take off. SO I took it out on the highway and the next thing I know I'm tooling down the road at 85 in a headwind of about 10mph in fifth gear and when I stepped the throttle to the floor instead of it falling on its face and actually losing speed the truck began to speed up. This is truly a miracle. In all honesty before this the truck would literally lose speed if you put the pedal on the floor. You kind of had to feather it to find the right spot to where it would actually accelerate. Anyway to make a long story longer the moral of the story is this if you are having problems with hesitation and weak performance one thing you may want to check is the timing belt. Because even the pros can get it wrong this truck did this from the beginning and the belt had been replaced just a few months before I purchased it.

Well thanks for taking the time to read my rambling. Let me know what you all think or if you have any thoughts to add.


Pastor Brad

 

ever heard of a paragraph break?

my head hurts now!

 

Could not quite keep up. Got lost couple times, but I am guessing things worked out and it is running better. Congratz

 

you probably should have just replaced the 3.0L with the 3.4 or 4.0 the first time rather than putting in a similar engine.

 

well congrats!

 

Sorry about the atrocious writing.

I was excited about the improvement in performance and it got the better of me. Bottom line is this - truck runs better than it ever has, all because of the timing belt being set properly!

 

Good on yah man Just a tip, you should change that green coolant to the toyota red stuff. It will help prevent corrosion and electrolises (Did I spell that right?)