Did it rise above 1/2, and then drop down to normal running area, like 3/8, or 1/4 or wherever the gauge runs when the engine is fully warmed up and cruisin' down the freeway, OR did it rise above 1/2 and stay there? Mine has been known to go almost to the upper limit of the white, normal, range, on the gauge, then drop down. It can get a little stressful, if you don't understand what's going on.

Toyota's, at least the 22R and 22RE engines have a small problem where they rise way up, then, after the thermostat opens, drop down to their normal running area. It's because of the routing of the heater core return line. It dumps the cold water return from the heater core in just before the thermostat. This holds the thermostat closed until the engine temp get's high enough to overcome the cold from the heater core.
The trick I use is to move the temp control all the way to cold as the temp gauge starts to go up. This allows the hot water from the engine to pop the thermostat open, and once the temp goes down to normal, I can run the heater's temp where I want it.

The famous two-stage thermostat is supposed to solve this little issue, but I'm cheap..err...frugal, yeah, frugal, so I haven't gotten one in yet. I just get a little cold for a few minutes until things settle down.

Just so you know, yes, my water level rises as the truck heats up, and there is a small flow through the radiator, IF the heater is set to warm/hot. Again, this is caused by the routing from the core. With the two-stage I've been told the flow in the radiator is more noticable, due to the small colder temp stage that opens up first.

Good luck to you!
Pat☺

 

Ray - sorry I was sick for a few days and could not even respond to this. I just pulled off my radiator cap and checked. As others have said, the level in the radiator rises and engine warms up, but mine never did that splashing and jumping that yours showed in the video. I don't know if the splashing means that your headgasket is going bad though.

As the post above from Pat explains (thanks for that explanation Pat), I have experienced a case once or twice (I don't often use the heater here in FL), but where I put the heat on in the truck and the temperature gauge almost went to the high end of "normal" range, which scared me because normally you put the heater on to help cool the engine and this seemed to have the opposite effect.

As for changing the water pump, yes that is pretty easy to do with the radiator in place, I went slow and was very careful not to smack anything into the radiator. You could probably get the front main seal changed with the radiator in, but I feel like you'd be much happier removing the radiator. You have to get that big nut off the harmonic balancer, and get the harmonic pulley off, and then you have to remove that main seal and tap a new one into place. All of those things would be much easier without the radiator.

 

Yes you can. I've done it more than a few times, both my pickup and 4Runner. Also, Yes, it's MUCH easier to with the radiator off

As to getting the big nut off the harmonic balancer, there is a little trick to that. Put on the right size socket on it, 1/2 drive, an impact socket works best because they're very strong, with a decent sized 1/2 drive breaker bar on it. Push the breaker bar up against the nearest frame member, I think my 2 foot breaker bar fits that perfectly. Make sure it's on the correct side so that when you crank the engine, and you will, it presses the breaker bar against the frame member. I am pretty sure that means the passenger side of the frame, but I haven't had to do this in a while now, and I'm not certain. Just think about it carefully, and you'll figure it out.
Take both ends of the center conductor off the distributor, one off the distributor, and the other off the coil, and, while holding the breaker bar, carefully, with an OPEN hand, up against the frame member, have a helper bump the key to just barely make the engine turn. When it does, the engine turns the correct way to break the nut loose. Once it's loose, you can usually just spin it off with your fingers. It's a very easy way to break the toque on the nut, which is pretty tight, without having to try and make the engine not spin while you're cranking on the nut. Which is a royal b#$%^, if you see what I mean.
Make sure the helper knows to just BUMP the key to the start position, not HOLD it there like you were going to start it. Just a touch is usually all it takes. If once doesn't do the job, do it again, but again, only a bump..
Make sure, when you pull the balancer off the shaft that you don't loose the keyway guide. Little piece of metal that holds the balancer in the right orientation on the shaft. I've had to replace one twice. If it falls out, it seems to vanish, like a magic act. Of course, I always find it right after I've gone and bought, and installed, a new one.

Good luck!
Pat☺

 

Thanks, Cory and Pat for the accessibility tips
Pat, thanks for your service, OORAAH! I Was Navy on U.S.S. Tripoli when an Iraqi mine interrupted my beauty rest during Op Desert Storm -
Yes, I'm aware of of the t-stat slamming closed when heater control is moved to hot, hitting the t-stat with cold coolant. My temp stayed around 3/4 up in the safe (white) zone, and I've had the the two-stage t-stat since Dec 2016.
My Overheat Troubleshooting Thread is here.

 

Saw 5fists thread where he changed his steering stabilizer and made me think of doing my own. I ordered the KYB from Rock auto, pretty easy to change, no magic to it. My old one I'm guessing was original and it has no damping to it at all anymore. Also I wire brushed and degreased the relay rod and tie rod adjusters and hit then with some black spray paint.

 

Put in an order for a few little nut bits and pieces from Toyota. One item was the tailgate strap stoppers. All 4 of mine have been busted since I've had the truck, pried what was left of old ones out with a trim tool, popped new ones right in. This is such a simple thing but boy it makes a huge difference not hearing those straps rattle around over every bump in the road.

EDIT: Adding written part numbers for tailgate stoppers: 65778-89104

 

Continuing on my quest to occupy my free time, I finally installed the cowl opening screens that I harvested from the only first gen 4runner I've ever seen at the u pull it down here. As part of that Toyota order, I bought some new cowl clips, 2 are needed, because mine were already broken. The cowl is held in by a plastic trim clip on each end, then 3 Phillips screws across the middle, which you need a stubby screwdriver to get out.

EDIT: Adding written cowl clip part number: 90467-06005, you need 2 of them.


I think these covers came on SR5s and I'm sure do a good job of keeping debris out of there. I keep the 4runner in the garage, so there wasn't much down in there, but I shoved the shop vac down in there and sucked out some leaves and twigs.

 

Thank you for posting part numbers!

 

No thanks needed, I got the tailgate stopper part numbers I know from keycw's thread, but can't have too many threads showing the numbers.

 

Hey cory, I'm trying to get my stock handle working similar to what you did, but I'm having some trouble. So the two brackets hold the cable sleeve, and then the cable ends hook through your piece of flat bar that is moved by the push rod, correct? Did you have to shorten your cables at all? It seems like mine are way too long to get the tension they'll need to actually pull to unlatch. The plastic ends on my cable sleeves, on the latch sides are both broken, so it doesn't clip into the little tab, could that have something to do with it? I can post pics if needed. Sorry for cluttering up your build thread.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

5Fists - Ok, let me try and describe this from memory.

Those 2 sortof L shaped brackets you see there are are bolted to the tailgate shell, and they have a hole in them with a slot so I could slide the cable in there. Pulling up on the plastic tailgate handle actually pushes down on that flat bar, which pulls the inner cable, the sheath of the cable is stopped by the L bracket, so just the inner cable moves and unlatches.

I did not modify the cables at all. I'd guess the inner dimension of that L bracket is maybe 3 to 3.5 inches. How much cable is sticking out at reset on yours? I don't think the handle moves the flatbar very far to release the tailgate latches.

 

Thanks cory, I've decided to make myself some new cables since I have some aircraft cable. Will be using your basic design but altered slightly. I'll post up some info in my maintenance/build thread when I'm done.

 

Ok, let me know if you need me to get inside there and take any measurements, should not be a big deal to open up the tailgate panel to get some measurements and\or photos. Your metal work skills are much better than mine, so it will be cool to see what you come up with. On that note, one of my other plans was to make a tailgate panel that opens so i could store stuff in my now empty tailgate shell. Still haven't gotten to that yet, a member on here was making me a panel that would open out of sheet metal, but he has disappeared. I have been looking at using boat hatches, haven't really settled on any specific one yet, but that's what I'm thinking now.

 

Thanks for the kind words cory

Here's what I came up with today

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f199...16/index7.html,

I also plan to make a hinged panel for storage in the tail gate, I haven't decided on a design yet though. Still letting it float around in the back of my head until some clicks

 

Continuing to find ways to occupy my time during this crisis, I cleaned up an extra valve cover that I've had stashed away for several years. I degreased it, wire brushed it, degreased it some more, then hit it with brake cleaner and finally painted it with some Rust-Oleum oil based paint. I happened to have a new 22re valve cover sticker, and ordered a new pcv valve and grommet. Paint has been dry for a few days, so today I installed it on truck.




Want to get some new vacuum lines here soon. Might go silicone.

 

Been working on my AC, started off accumulating parts, and I removed my soft lines and ended up sending them to business called coldhose.com and they re-made the lines with all new metal ends and rubber hose, they did have to re-use one end that was sortof ? shaped.

Here's a shot of what my original hoses looked like:


And here's kindof what my original compressor looked like down in there, interesting that different years have slightly different manifold connections on top of the compressor.



Once I got the new hoses made, I started ordering parts. I ordered the UAC Compressor kit from Rock Auto, came with compressor, drier, o-rings, expansion valve and PAG oil. I also ordered the 4Seasons Evaporator, a set of new AC valve cores.

And, because of the issues this guy (https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/how...unner.1210923/) had with a non-Denso exansion valve I also ordered the Denso expansion valve.

Notice my compressor already had R134a fittings, I thought I would need all new ones, but turns out I just put new valve cores in them and o-rings up inside them.

RockAuto was out of stock on the Denso Condenser (only option for my 4Runner), so I ended up ordering it from SummitRacing, but guess what, turns out it is being shipped from manufacturer and it is on some kind of backorder, so I'm currently still waiting for the condenser, Summit says it will ship on July 30...ugh.

So first up, my soft lines were removed and sent off to coldhose to be remade. Meanwhile I ordered all the above stuff, and then started some dis-assembly. I removed the compressor from the truck, 4 12mm bolts holding it on there. Then I started the evaporator removal. You have to pull the glove box and then you can get the evaporator box out fairly easily.

Here's mine sitting on the bench. You can see all the sealing foam has disintegrated, so I'll be replacing that.



Didn't take long for my RockAuto stuff to show up, here's my new evaporator sitting next to the old one. Note that the hardline with the pressure switch in it is not in the right position, I had just installed everything here and set it inside the evaporator box and noticed something wasn't right. The small hard line needs go BEHIND the larger evaporator line.

Couple of points I'll make here:

1) I dipped ALL orings in PAG oil before installing.
2) The little coil on the end of the copper line from the expansion valve, I followed the advice from the ih8mud thread listed above and I put heatshrink on it before attaching it to the evaporator line.
3) I cleaned out the empty evaporator box with degreaser, a brush, and the water hose and let it dry overnight. I also scraped all the remaining old foam off the edges of the evaporator box in preparation to put new foam on.



So with new evaporator all hooked up properly and that little hardline BEHIND the large evaporator line, I put some pieces of foam tape on each flat side of the evaporator to match the original. Then put it inside the freshly cleaned evap box. Got the little temperature probe thingy in place on the other side of the evaporator, which you'll see in the 2nd pic below.




This pic shows the foam tape that I used, I cut it into thin strips to fit on the edge of the evap box.



So with evaporator box all ready to go, I simply shoved it right back into position in the truck. I kindof aimed it where it needed to go, met a little resistance because it's hard to line up the holes in the firewall when you can't see them, so I went around under the hood and used my fingers to guide the evaporator lines and then went back inside truck and pushed, and it went right in.

Then I turned my attention to the compressor. It was VERY hard to free the manifold bolts on the original, but I soaked them in WD40 overnight and tried again with just a big allen key, and they broke loose...turns out I do not own a set of allen sockets.

Cleaned up the manifolds and then went to install them on the new compressor, fresh o-rings dipped in PAG oil, installed them, and then I tipped the compressor on its side accidentally and a bunch of PAG oil poured out of it. I did not realize it came filled with oil...my bad. Since I didn't really know how much poured out, and they shipped me a fresh container of it anyway, I just dumped all of it out into a container. I think used a syringe to squirt about 45mL into the suction side, 10mL at a time b/c it was a 10mL syringe, while slowly turning the compressor clutch. I plan to put another 40mL into the drier.

Cleaned up the R134 conversion fittings that were already on there, removed the valve cores, and put in a fresh o-ring where it seats onto the R12 fitting and then a fresh valve core. I dipped the valve cores in the PAG oil as well.

With that all done, I cleaned up the 4 compressor bolts with a wire wheel and installed the compressor and hooked up my new softlines.



It was about this time I noticed that the darn AC clutch wire was too short to reach...wish I had noticed that before I installed it. So I cut the connector off the compressor side, added in a section of black wire, and re-soldered the connector, now it reaches.




This kindof brings me up to current state...which is waiting on the condenser to ship from Denso. Meanwhile, old condenser is out, and I have sprayed brake cleaner and compressed air through all of hard lines that I will be re-using. The hardline that goes from the evaporator to the condenser is long and has several twists and turns in it, I could not for the life of me snake it OUT of there, it has to go through a hole in the front brace and I just could not see a way to get it out...so that line I cleaned in place and blew brake cleaner through both ends of it, then compressed air, the smaller lines I was able to fully remove and clean away from the truck.



Some other misc things that I bought to replace while I'm doing this are a new AC belt, a new AC idler puller from Toyota, and a new grille from eBay because mine was beat up.

Once I get the condenser, I'll be following this thread from scope103 as far as charging the system https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...-r134a-284801/, I've done it before, but it's been a while and I'm certainly not good at it. I do have a vac pump at my disposal, but I'll need to buy or loan the gauge set.

 

Long saga on the condenser, Denso is on some kind of major backorder, so after waiting weeks I was going crazy trying to figure out another option. I made a separate post here and on mud trying to get some advice, what I finally ended up doing was buying the Pacific Best condenser. I saw it on eBay, almost dismissed it immediately because it did not have the extra condenser section that the Denso has. But it looked like the fittings were in the right place, so I went to PacificBest website to read more about it. Turns out it is parallel flow. Found it online for $71 shipped and figured I'd take the chance.

Here it is next to my OEM. I'm no AC expert, but the PBI one has 26 freon passages where the OEM has only 17. I hope that means it will be more effective.



I installed it, fit nicely. Tightened all connections, and then grabbed the loaner gauge set from auto store. I vacd it for over an hour, and then let it sit for another hour and no leaks.

 

Long saga on the condenser, Denso is on some kind of major backorder, so after waiting weeks I was going crazy trying to figure out another option. I made a separate post here and on mud trying to get some advice, what I finally ended up doing was buying the Pacific Best condenser. I saw it on eBay, almost dismissed it immediately because it did not have the extra condenser section that the Denso has. But it looked like the fittings were in the right place, so I went to PacificBest website to read more about it. Turns out it is parallel flow. Found it online for $71 shipped and figured I'd take the chance.

Here it is next to my OEM. I'm no AC expert, but the PBI one has 26 freon passages where the OEM has only 17. I hope that means it will be more effective.



I installed it, fit nicely. Tightened all connections, and then grabbed the loaner gauge set from auto store. I vacd it for over an hour, and then let it sit for another hour and no leaks.

 

Looking good so far. Are you using the old pressure switch? I was thinking about replacing mines but not sure what brand to go with. As far as the condenser, I too gave up on Denso and just got a Spectra from amazon for 120, parallel flow as well. Let us know if your AC works.

 

I reused my original pressure switch. I did not see an aftermarket one available, so it might be a dealer only item, not sure.

I did not know that the Spectra condenser was parallel flow, but then again I did not see a Spectra one listed for the 4Runner, only the truck.

So after the vacuum, I filled the system. I put it 2 cans or about 680grams. Technically it needs 700grams, but I was watching pressures and I did not want to overfill. After filling, I left it overnight since it was late by this point.

Next day, I checked pressures again, I was getting around 35 to 40 on low side and 185 to 195 on high side. It was 80 ish, maybe 85 degrees in the morning inside my garage.

I set the ac idle up to about 1200, then I put fan shroud back on, which had not been on in years (still missing bottom lip of shroud) and then I test drove the truck.

AC is cold, my temp probe on my multimeter is not working so I don't know exactly how cold yet my vent temps are, but I'd say comfortable. My windows are not tinted, and it got up into low 90s with 70 percent humidity and after a few minutes of driving it was getting comfortable in truck.

I want to get that fan shroud bottom lip on there because when stopped in traffic, air is slightly less cold. While moving it feels good.

Also, I'm no AC expert.... The Toyota TSB says to put in 700grams, I've only put in 680, but my pressures seem ok. From what I've read, low pressures are a sign of low charge, but my pressures don't really seem low.

I could always add a bit more refrigerant, and I might still do that, but I need to get a gram scale so I can monitor how much I've added.

For now, it is working and I'm thrilled. I can actually drive this thing with the windows closed. Might even look into getting my windows tinted.




All buttoned up, freshly painted grille.