Hey Everyone

I am not very good at build threads but I decided to make one for my 1993 4runner! I picked up the car last week for 1900 dollars! it is a 5spd 4x4 with only 114xxx miles! I bought this car as a daily driver and because my friends started getting into trucks.

I test drove the car and it ran really choppy. It had a small misfire on 2nd and 3rd gear, but even with the mis fire I bought the car thinking it just needed a small tune up, and sure enough thats all it needed. I changed the distributor, rotor, and spark plugs and it ran good as new! Later in the day i found out that my tail gate and rear tail light didn't work so I bought a new tail light from the junk shop and opened up my rear panel and fixed the rear hatch! My AC didn't work so I took it to a shop to get it fixed! All in all I spent about 2200 dollars for an awesome truck!

Now that I have an awesome daily! I told myself I'd keep it stock but i'm sure the mod bug will hit me because thats the reason why I have a daily lol, the mod bug hit me to hard for my other car.

Well I'll try to post in here regularly and show everyone whats new with my truck but so far i only have 2 pictures! I'm sure i'll start taking a lot more shortly!




Another reason I got a truck was because my dad has one. He has a 04 sequoia limited 4x4! Here is a pic of that as well with our quads!


And here's my other car and the reason why I have a daily lol. It's an 04 350z

 

Hey everyone,

I know I didn't keep this build thread updated, but i'm sitting here at 2:30 AM of the new year and can't seem to fall asleep so I guess i'll updated it.

Sadly my truck blew a head gasket about a month into owning, approximately the 1st week of December. I was hoping it was just a bad radiator since I saw it leaking like crazy but that wasn't the case.

I decided to bring it to a shop once it over heated. I am not much of a mechanic so they told me they tested my block with a block test and it came out negative (I later found out that the test is impossible to do with a cracked radiator) so they told me it was overheating because of the radiator and water pump, so I forwarded them my money and they replaced the parts. I got the truck back the following day, and while driving it home the motor started to run funny.

I got home and a huge puff of white smoke was coming out of the exhaust and my oil cap looked like coffee. I called the shop and they told me it blew while I was driving it home and that it would be 1500 to repair, so I said screw them.

Now I decided on doing the head gasket myself with my cousin who is a mechanic. I've been doing a lot of research on this site and I found out that engnbldr makes some of the best gaskets so I bought a set from them and my cousin and I will hopefully start this project some time next week. We weren't able to start on it earlier because he is only free on weekends and the past couple of weekends have been packed with family parties and holiday parties, but with that all away now hopefully we can get it done relatively quickly.

Now here is the other pickle I am in. I have been reading so many bad things about this 3.0 v6 motor that I am kind of on the fence in selling my truck once I get it running again. I bought it for 1900 and have put close to 1300 on repairs and I feel like more things may break down the road, especially when I start putting harder stress on the motor when I go wheelin with my dad or friends.

So now I am asking you yotatech. Should I keep my truck and start building it into a nice trail rig or should I sell it and pick up a 3rd gen 4runner. I hear a lot of better things with that model and that the 3.4motor is literally bullet proof. I also know this because my aunt has one with over 200k in it and she still use's it to haul around her 4000lbs boat to pyramid lake with out a problem.

I feel like the 3rd gen would be less of a headache for me motor wise, newer and nicer, and I can also spend more of my money on making it into a nice trail rig. I really just want bigger tires, rear locker, and subtle lift.

Thanks for reading if anyone does and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

3.4 swap!

 

I think its to much money for me. I rather save that money and use it as a down to finance a cheap 3rd gen runner.

 

Save money, cheap and project don't go real well together. 3.0's aren't all bad, fix it and wheel it if you aren't into swapping stuff keep it stock. Its all good.

 

The 3.0 is reliable. Its just not as reliable as a lot of Toyota's other options. I think you should keep it for now and just swap in a different engine when the time comes.

 

If you repair the headgasket properly you should be ok for the next 100000 miles with the motor. With proper maintenance they dont tend to have many problems. Read through this and see what you think your ready for.

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116...k-3vze-187741/

 

Thanks for that tip! I am going to bookmark that on my computer! That is a lot of helpful information!

 

it looks like I have decided to keep the truck once it gets running again!

On a side note I finally moved it from my house to my cousins house, where he has all the tools to take the head gasket off. I was going to call AAA to get it towed but my policy only has 7 free miles and after that it was going to be 10 dollars a mile (my cousin lives 24 miles away). So I opted out of that option and decided to rent a uhaul trailer and pull it with my dads sequioa.

Hopefully my cousin and I can get started on it this weekend and hopefully have it running by the end of the month!

Are there any major things that we have to be concerned about while doing the job?
And does anyone know if the heads are prone to cracking on this car?
Any help would be appreciated!

I thought it was pretty cool that my dads sequioa was pulling my truck so I snapped a quick pic of it at the gas station. Here it is!

 

Glad you are keeping it. Ive got 255k the previous owner put new heads on last year so its possible ill see another 200k, it is possible for the heads to warp but unlikely to crack they are aluminum. Besides the lack of power and mileage im very happy with mine. Good luck keep us updated.

 

Thanks for the info! Awesome I am praying they are just warped and not cracked cause if they are, I have no idea what I am going to do!

 

You could find a cheap set on craigslist, or get them resurfaced. Maybe search see if any other heads are interchangeable.

 

Also ive read that usually after the first set of head gaskets the problem never comes up again. Just take care of your coolant system and if you ever get some spare cash look into headers.

 

Unfortunately that isn't the case for me. I called toyota to see if the recall for the head gasket was done on my truck, and they told me that it was, so this will be my second replacement for my HG. Hopefully this time it will last me a while lol.

My cousin did tell me one reason this may have happened was because the truck sat for too long, so I don't know.

And thanks for the advice on the cracked head i'll look into those things just incase mine are cracked, which again i'm hoping they aren't!

 

Hey Everyone,

So my cousin started working on my truck this past weekend! Unfortunately I wasn't able to help him on the first day he started working on it due to my work schedule, but he took of almost all the things necessary to take the cylinder heads out!

I went over to his house today and we took of the last part that needed to be removed which was the exhaust manifold and boy that was a PITA!

Hopefully I can get my truck running within the next couple of weeks! for now here are some pics my cousin took when he got done working on it on friday!

I can see myself driving my truck once again!






We didn't take any pics of the cylinder heads tonight, but i'll probably take some tomorrow before I bring it to the machine shop!

 

Hey everyone!

I just got my cylinder heads back from Steve's Machine shop in Covina Ca. They mostly work on Vdubs but it seems like they know what they are doing with all the different motors and heads they have in front of their store! They also have 4 out of 5 stars on yelp and 5 out of 5 on google.

I would highly suggest anyone to go there! They are extremely friendly and answer any questions that you have for them! Hopefully the heads turn out great when I put them back into the truck!

Hopefully I get it back up and running within the next week! for now here is a quick pic I took of one of the cylinder heads!

 

Hey everyone,

A little update here, My cousin and I finally started working on putting the heads back on. We got the heads back on but we still have to tackle a plethora of things! Hopefully we get it running this weekend!

For now here is a pic of the newly machined heads back on!

 

Great news guys! My truck is back and running like a dream!!

 

Congrats. After tearing apart your own vehicle and then finally hearing it run again, it's the best feeling.

 

good deal!!