Hi all,

It's been a long time since I've posted. Believe it or not, I've got the same darn 4runner I was asking about 7 years ago. And it's finally giving up the ghost (or whatever people say).

1995 4runner with 3vze, a340h (4x4 auto), just under 290k miles. I left my house one day, and after a while I started noticing the power to the wheels was getting weaker. I had to put a lot more gas to get it going. When I left my destination to return home, I noticed a sound (something like a metal rod being put in a pencil sharpener maybe?) that I hadn't heard before. I had to drive it roughly 30 miles home, and by the time I got there it was struggling to go over 30mph. It was difficult for me to analyze because the engine was having trouble revving up, but it felt more like a resistance from the driveline.

Weeks later, I came back to see if I could determine whether it was an engine, transmission, or differential issue. I left it in park and started the engine. Revving in park and in neutral, it sounds relatively normal. It can hold a sustained throttle without bogging. As soon as it's put into gear, it starts to fight again. Imagine pushing the throttle pedal and the engine slowly starts to catch up, maybe bogging or hiccupping a little. At an idle it rolls perfectly fine, even at slow speeds.

Since then, I've been reluctant to do any serious diagnostics. I'm not ready to invest too much time into tearing this thing apart since I'm in the middle of a 3.4 swap on my 94

What are your thoughts on this problem? I would greatly appreciate any tips or questions.
Are there other simple tests I can run to further narrow down the issue?


Thanks for reading, greatly appreciate the wisdom in these threads over the years.
-Alex