Fahrenheit 451

Lou Gehrig, then me! Over the weekend, I had a little time to try and do a bit of maintenance on both my '85 4Runner and my '93 4Runner.
First, I learned how to disassemble some of the steering wheel housing and lower dash on the '93 so I could switch out the wiper switch for one with intermittent wipers (my version of BLING! ). I learned that A: Canadian 4Runners were wired differently to begin with and B: things changed from a 1993 plain jane 4Runner to a 1995 with more options.
After learning this, I took the switch I had bought and put it back in a box for my son to play with. He loves anything he can take a screwdriver too
Having accomplished nothing, I moved on to my '85 which needed some love in the thermostat and housing dept. I had put a replacement thermostat in and had to go with a standard version since the dealership didn't have a two stage in stock. To get around the normal problem with the plain version I ripped out the jiggle valve and put it all back together. It leaked. I figured I had pinched the gasket. When I had the chance, I pulled the housing off. One bolt felt a bit odd, but nothing really noticeable. I made sure the thermostat and gasket were in the right place and reinstalled them. Again, one bolt seemed a little odd, like it snugged down too soon.
I might add that the process was slowed down somewhat by having first broken the wire going to the sensor in the housing. This should have clued me in to how things were going to go after that point. I got it pulled apart, spliced, soldered, heat wrapped an extra bit of wire in and put it back together.
I then took the truck for a drive on the Monument. Temp gauge does its thing ok. Take the truck home and I have a fluid leak again. Being the sort of dumb that thinks tighter is always better, I snugged the bolts and promptly proceeded to snap one off. I parked the truck in the garage and walked away. It's Christmas and I don't need the kind of mood that goes along with broken off bolts hidden in the recesses of a 22re motor.
The "luckiest man..." part? I got home from work today and with visions of broken easy outs, stripping off the intake and plenum, and ludicrous mechanic/machine shop bills swimming in my head, I went to the garage, pulled the housing and sitting in the hole was a bolt just long enough to grab with a pair of vice grips. Not more than 5 minutes and I had it out. I checked the housing with a straight edge and although it had some scale on it, it was nice and flat. The threads in the bolt hole seem ok and by all rights I may very well get out of this for the price of two metric bolts (assuming I can find some). Belated, but this may have been the best Christmas present I got this year

jimbo74

um, that doens'y quite sound proper

anyways, i dont nkow if you have the more specialized hardware stores up there, but iget all my metric bolts at ACE hardware