Just found your site and thought I would say howdy. name is Mike and I used to be a Mercedes and Ford tech and now I am a computer support engineer. Live in CT. and love to fish. That is the short bio but glad to have found the site. Seems pretty informative and I hope some of you more familiar with the 4Runner can assist me some. I bought a used 2002 Sport 4Runner 2 months ago. It has 188K on it but is in pristine condition and was never really offroaded if at all. In any event it has a couple of nagging issues I thought I would ask about. The first one is the engine cooling fan clutch seems to always be engaged. It never seems to clutch out and free spin. I have not gotten my hands dirty on it yet as my wife is the one who drives it but i drove it tonight and it really annoyed me listening to the constant roar of the fan. Is this common and is it a simple R&R of the clutch?

The second issue is a little more involved and will probably need money spent. The transmission doesn't want to up shift when the vehicle is cold. It takes about a mile or two of driving it before it finally decides it wants to upshift from 2nd to 3rd gear. Once it gets about 1-2 miles from home (warmed up) it starts shifting normally and you don't notice any more abnormal shifting. Is this something that is common? I plan on bringing it to a tranny place to have them diag it but figured i would ask first as these forums will always root out something before going to talk to the "experts". I was never a tranny guy just did many R&R's but never got into tranny tear down and rebuilding so this one will have to get fixed by a tranny expert not me. Thanks again for a great forum and i hope to come by often and hopefully contribute if i can.

 

Welcome

 

It is normal for the transmission to hold the 2-3 shift when cold. It is just the engine/tranny trying to warm themselves up quicker. Don't waste your money having someone check it out. Unless it is really warm out you shouldn't be hearing the fan all the time so it is probably time for a new fan clutch.