Hello Yotatechies!

This is my first post on these forums, but I have been lurking for about a week and I really like the community, so I decided to start a thread about my new (new to me) 1989 4runner.

First, I'd like to say that this is my very first 4x4. I have been a driver of compact cars my whole life. My first car was a 1985 tercel... Old blue as my brother and I used to call it. My current car is an '04 vw GTI, so as you can see I'm a little out of my element.

A few years ago I took my gti up to Tahoe for a snowboarding trip and decided I'm never taking her to the snow again. Wide tires and fwd don't mix with snow well. Ever since I have been dreaming of a 4runner since I know their legendary reliability and off road prowess.

I'm also an amateur astronomer and live in the silicon valley where we have tons of light pollution, so my secondary reason for wanting a 4x4 is camping far from civilization and it's lights with my girl and telescopes.
My being a poor college student had kept me from persuing my dream unil recently. I graduated last winter and landed a decent job, so last Friday I finally made my little dream come true.

After scouring craigslist for 3 months and checking out a few runners, and almost getting scammed into buying a 4runner with a missing front axle, I finally found one that captured my heart. She's a gunmetal grey 1989 4runner with a very well taken care of 3.0 v6 and 5 speed.

She's ugly. Dents and dings all over, paint beyond salvage and a little rust to boot, but the engine and drivetrain don't portray the 261k miles she's travelled. The engine is clean except for a small seepage of oil from the back of the driver's side valve cover gasket and a little seepage f power steering fluid from the tank or hoses directly under it. It looks like all hoses have been replaced relatively recently, along with the starter, alternator, and battery. She runs like she's new. Even the AC works!

The interior is a bit beat up, and the side panels in the trunk are missing. I can't roll down the tailgate window, and one of the backmost windows on the top is missing.

The rear diff was seeping a bit from the gasket, but a little tightening of the nuts on that side seems to have stopped it. The oil is new, the coolant is new, I checked the back diff's oil and it was full, but the fill plug on the front diff is stripped and I can't check it . I haven't put her in 4x4 because I don't want to risk it without first checking the oil.

My goal or this beast is to trust her to take me to Tahoe or camping and back without having a second thought. I doubt I'll go wheeling for the sake of wheeling, but I may try it once or twice.

I'm on my phone so I can't post pics at this moment, but I promise to do so either tonight or tomorrow at the latest.

I called this thread not quite a build because I don't plan on doing anything crazy to her except for making her reliable and a little prettier on the inside at least.

So far I topped off the oil, flushed the coolant even tho I didn't need to (it was new), sanded most of the rusty spots and sprayed them with what I thought was grey but turned out to be silver rustoleum, got her smogged and regged

 

Welcome!

I started out like you, just wanting a minor wheeler, but mine turned into more! Looking forward to seeing how far this takes you.

 

Dude, I spent all evening last night reading your buildup. I'm at page 37 of the thread I think... Awesome stuff. I love it. Unfortunately I was on my phone and accidentally skipped to the end ahead of time... It looks gorgeous. Gotta say, I love the yellow!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776726@N02/6265677700/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776726@N02/6265147507/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776726@N02/6265677484/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776726@N02/6265147265/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776726@N02/6265677254/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67776726@N02/6265677170/

I don't know if i'm doing it correctly, but I couldn't get them down to below 43kb even though they are from my phone... so I had to put them up on flickr... hope it works.

 

I guess I haven't gotten to the part in your build where you decide to keep the top white... you kept saying it's gonna be black, it's gonna be black I like the white though.

 

Wow, thanks man! And I have decided to just find myself a black top, It will be black!! haha

Anyway, this is your build thread so lets keep it on you

4Runner looks good! But you will have some work cut out for ya. Can't wait to see her all finished.

If you have any questions about anything, no matter how silly or dumb you think they are feel free to ask me. I'll do my best to answer.

 

And as far as uploading pics, you need to get the [IMG] [IMG] link to post them up here. I like to use Photobucket but that's just me.

 

I tried the [img] thing, but I guess flickr doesn't like it because they all came up as little red x's so I went back and just put the links... I'll probably make a photobucket account if that works.

I don't know if I will repaint it. I think there may simply be too many dens and dings to justify new paint, but you never know down the road... First I need to make her reliable and watertight. About half the bolts holding the top are missing and the PO used tie wraps lol. I'm going to try checking out some of the junk yards in the area and find me a window, a passenger side rear view mirror and some interior panels... The rearview mirror is held on by tape...

My bro is gonna be here this weekend and he's a lot handier with cars than me. I'm going to conscript him and see if together we can figure out why the tailgate window won't roll down. Not having access to my trunk is really bumming me out .

I also have to get two new tires for the back. They have some tread left on them but not enough for snow and my gf's parents have a cabin 10 minutes from a ski resort that we're hoping to get a lot of use out of this winter.

Any tips on removing one of the large windows that curve along the roof of the top? Assuming I find a 4runner that still has it's driver side one at the junk yard, I don't want to shatter it while trying to get it off...

 

Ok, one silly question... Is it normal that my 3.slow with 31s and 261k miles runs like a beast? It starts cold on the first turn, faster than my 1.8l turbo with 0-40 oil in it. On the freeway, at 70 I'm a bit under 3k rpm. I'm still on my first tank (I put seafoam when full) so I'm not sure about the mileage, but driving in the city and letting it idle a bit to warm up, I have 135mi and a hair over a quarter tank left.

I did buy this car because the engine was essentually dry other than what I mentioned, but from everything I'm reading on here, it should be trying to kill itself by now. I don't know if the headgaskets have ever been changed, but they sure aren't leaking from what I can see. I'm worried that it's too good to be true... I need this car to be reliable.

On a completely unrelated note... The mobile version of yotatech sucks very very badly.

 

Flicker blows...photobucket is free and rocks...

 

So... Before I head out to the picknpull tomorrow:

Any tips for removing the large curved window on the removable top? Will a box cutter be a good tool? Like I said, I don't want to find one only to shatter it while trying to get it off.

 

looks good man, better condition than my 86 pickup when i first got it, what are your plans for this?

 

Plans are not ambitious for the time being. Just fix what's wrong, make her watertight like I said, get a window to replace the broken one and make her more quiet on the inside.

In order to propperly gauge the noise level, I need to first fix the window and them tighten down the top with all it's bolts an washers. And potentially redo the seal of the windshield because it looks like a gang of rampaging monkeys put it on. There is black tar-like sealant all over the place, even on the roof.

First I want dependability, and later I will decide whether she's worth body work and paint. I would like to get a bumper though. She looks ridiculous so tall with tha teeny weeny stock bumper and no valence. I'll snag a valence from the picknpull if I can find one.

 

The 3.0 is not a bad motor. its just not as sought after as the 22re.
Maintenance goes a long way. The engine sounds to of had some work done.
good luck and hope i can help in some way?
i just dont know 1st gen runners too well

 

Hello Kroum.. Welcome to the site. Alot of good info here. Truck has potential. As far as your backglass on my 185-186 post I tried to put up alot of info on the backglass. It isnt as bad as some make it out to be and as far as noise control I used the Peel and Seal for the interior and liked the results.

On your valance, on ebay they are farily resonable, seems to me around $30, you might luckout on a salvage yard, but not around here.

Seeing this is your first 4 wheel drive and you are getting new tires for the back, you need to stay with the same brand and size. I have gotten same size and different brands before and it will bind your transfer case. Didnt know if you knew that or not, so just trying to help out.

Alot on my first post in my thread, I tried to deal with alot of common issues on these and tell where I fixed mine. Welcome again.

 

Thanks guys.

Terry, could you elaborate a bit on the tires? If I change both rear tires to ones of the same size and brand, but different from the front tires which are also of the same brand and size, why would that bind up my transfer case? I guess I don't see how the tread would matter that much. I understand if they
Are different sizes... Or are you saying that because ones are new, they will have a larger diameter?
That's a little depressing, I was hoping to get away with ~$300 in tires to last me through the winter.

I ended up being too lazy to go to the picknpull today. The nearest one which had a 1st gen 4runner is 45mi and there is only one car like mine there. Instead, tomorrow I'm meeting a guy from CL for a tubular rear bumper $50, two tubular steps/rock guards $50.

My gf is having trouble climbing into the beast

I have decided to get my window from an auto glass shop and have it installed by them. I may even have them reseat my windshield, or just put a new one in because the current one was done in a very shady way, and there may be rust along the roof underneath it.

Also, a question: how necessary is a fan shrowd? Without it, do I risk overheating if I'm stopped for a while idling or moving at slow speed?

 

So today I decided to try and figure out why the tailgate window isn't working. I found that one of the leads coming off the switch had broken off so I soldered it. After pressing the button up and down a few times, it finally started moving. Suffice it to say, I was pretty excited, but my excitement was short lived.

I notices that when rolling the window down, it would sag on the driver's side. I rolled it all the way down so I could open the tailgate and lube the mechanism up a bit. After doing that, I tried to roll it up again, only this time it was even more crooked and it got stuck. I took the top off, with my brothers help we didn't break the window.

Long story short, I took the window completely out along with the regulator and lock mechanism and one of the two arms is loose from the gear. I have to go out tonight, but I guess tomorrow I will take the motor off, re-mate the two gears and try to put it back in the tailgate along with the window. I'm just not sure how it's gonna fit back in there. Taking it out was easy once we freed one of the regulator arms.

I also found out that the windshield is leaking pretty badly. I guess I expected that from the ugly job and slathered tar and silicone all around it. I may have to take it off in order to get to all the rust and prep it for either reattaching the same one assuming I don't break it, or just have someone install a new one. Oh boy.

My brother is not happy about the body... Something about cutting my losses, but I don't see it that way at all. Ya, there is rust and ya, it's all overestimate in dents and dings, but the drivetrain and engine are very well taken care of and I think once I get this window working and replace the broken one, I'll be in good shape for the winter. The body I'll have to take care of slowly after the rains stop.

 

Hello Kroum.. On the tires, even thought they maybe same size but different brands. Usually one will be taller then the other. Next time you are at a tire store, for example , get a 15 inch 205 tire. One from Goodyear and one from Michelin. You will see some difference in height.

These are just numbers I am going to use but will help get he idea across. Lets say in one full rotation the Goodyear rolled 4 feet. The Michelin in one complete rotation only rolled 3 feet and 10 inches.

When you have your transfer case engaged, it is basically one complete drive shaft. Even two inches on one rotatation and going a mile, the smaller tire would have to make 20-30 more rotations in to go the same mile that the larger tires will go enven though they are same size.

These numbers are nowhere near close but hope it helps to make it a little understandable.

You could still use it as long as you stay in 2 wheel and in a pinch if you were in snow or mud, but on pavement with no slipping is possible, it is really hard on your drive line.

I learned the hard way. Changed 2 tires with a different brand and when I kicked in 4 wheel, the tcase went to whining. Went back and got the front matched with the back and worked great.

It is actually a good idea not to run your 4 wheel engaged on dry pavement. Another example would be if you ever heard a posi track rear end on a hot rod most normally and when they are cutting a hard right turn, you will hear a little sliding or chirping of the tires. This is because the left tire is having to turn more then right because of the distance it needs to travel and there is no give in the rear end.

 

Ok, I understand, that's what I thought. And I know you shouldnt engage 4wd on dry pavement at all, but if it's in snow of on dirt where the tires are free to spin a bit, as long as I have a matching set on the front and a different matching set in the rear, wouldn't I be alright?

So, a little update. Today I met up with a guy in alameda who rolled his 4runner and is parting her out... I got two tubular side steps/ rock guards so my girl will have an easier time getting in the old beast, a tubular 4x4 rear bumper to eventually swap out, along with te most exciting thing: a window to replace the one that's missing! On the phone he said he only had the passenger side, but when I got there, it turned out he only had the driver's side which is the one I needed. That plus a rear windshield wiper for a total of $150

He also has some other good stuff for sale like the whole rear end with leaf springs for 4inch suspension lift for $150 and a 22r-E motor that needs some parts that have to do with the timing chain (forgot what he said exactly) for $400. I'd love to get both, but I told myself I'm only investing the minimum I need to get it going, watertight, and reliable for the moment.

It would be good to have a 22R-E in the garage to take completely apart and learn how to rebuild, but now is not the time.

Now my agenda will be as follows:
1. Mount missing window on the removable top
2. Fix tailgate window regulator and put window back in tailgate
3. Put top back on and get all missing bolts and washers for it.
4. Remove windshield and clean all the silicone and tar gunk from frame
5. Sand and rusoleum any rust on windshield frame
6. Have windshield put back in or new windshield back in if I break it while removing it
7. Go to junkyard and find missing or damaged interior panels and trim

 

Last night I managed to put the replacement window on the top, I put the top back on, and I rolled the tailgate window up and locked it.

Unfortunately, the window regulator is shot. When I try to roll the window all the way down, it skips a tooth, and the window goes up crooked. I think the abuse the regulator has taken through it's life has warped the sheet metal that keeps the gears meshed and at the lower extreme, it buckles and allows the arm that the motor is connected to to skip.

If I want full functionality, I will have to replace it.

Good news is that now that I have the top tightened down with the 5 bolts the PO had and some extensive use of tiewraps, and the replaced window, it is much quieter at high speeds. Ther is just a bunch or clattering from the tailgate that is still semi-disassembled.

 

I'm glad to see that it's coming along!