That looks really nice for being 38 years old and congrats. Also nice to see your driving the old gal again.
Yup! The timing chain is quiet for now, not sure if I have metal or plastic backed timing chain guides. If the rings are indeed worn that maintenance will get done on an engine stand when it gets re-built. Might be a while as it runs great.@AdmiralYoda beware of a plastic timing chain sprocket and possible burned valves from a warped exhaust manifold.
Yeah no doubt you could fix this up really nicely and make some money on it or keep and enjoy forever. Hope you can get the engine oil consumption issue fixed! Talk to Dave at HPL and see what he recommends.This will take a minute to explain.
As I said above, I got this when I was 18. My father had an auto repair shop so we had access to a lot of vehicles people wanted to get rid of. This particular 4Runner had a TON of body rust and bad engine. I got it for $200 and put a junkyard engine in it. I had a 78 Camaro that I put together and had painted and my father didn't want me driving it in the winter...so this 4Runner was going to be my "winter beater".
I drove it in college but the body panels were just getting real bad. We ordered some Genuine Toyota full length quarter panels and front fenders as they were surprisingly cheap at the time. This was around 2002. As college kids do...I found another beater to drive and parked this behind my dads shop.
It didn't take long for it to be boxed in by other projects and junk parts where it got forgotten about until around 2013. My father was cleaning up the shop and told me to put a chain on it drag it out front to go to the junkyard.
As I was crawling under it airing up the tires and hooking up the chain I noticed that the floor and frame were mint. So since we already had all of the OEM body panels, I decided to fix it up and restore it. New rubber bushings, new weatherstripping, carpet, painted the interior panels and had the truck painted.
No rot, and no rust on anything important. The differentials have bit of surface rust and I treated everything with POR15. It doesn't get driven in the winter anymore since it was fixed up and now is a garage queen that goes out for trips when its nice out.
1st gen 4Runners hardly exist in the rust belt, and the ones that do are usually far gone. Believe it or not these are getting pretty valuable. Good examples on BringaTrailer bring north of $20k!
Thank you for clearing that up. What do you get with the higher priced HPL offerings?My concern, given that it sat for years at a time, is there may have been some surface rust on the cylinder walls that's compromised the crosshatch. The ability to hold oil on the walls would then be compromised, resulting in poor ring seal with increased blow-by and oil consumption. If this is the case, no amount of cleaning will fix it. It is possible that the rings are coked, however. In such a case, HPL's strong cleaning action could be of benefit.
Rust prevention is a strong point for HPL. They test all of their oils to a more stringent 24 hour test in saltwater (API is 4 hours in freshwater) and accept nothing less than excellence.
If it was mine, I would run it through the gauntlet. Valvoline R&P 5W-30 with HPL EC SAE 40 at an 80/20 ratio. Run this for 2x 1k mile OCIs, then switch to HPL PCMO 5W-40 for 2,500 miles, then 5,000 miles or 1 year until consumption slows or stops. Then consider going longer. You don't need the higher priced offerings as the base level PCMO has the same ester/AN content and same cleaning action. I would take advantage of the 4th of July sale to stock up.
Thank you for clearing that up. What do you get with the higher priced HPL offerings?
That is the right thing to do! But I've got a bit of a problem. When I did the B12 soak one of the spark plugs came out tough and went in even tougher. I'm certain the threads are toast and the next time it comes out I'll need to do a heli-coil.Do a compression test and/or leak down test to get an idea of how the cylinders are doing.
Run a chase or tap through the plug hole first. May save your but. Worked for me.That is the right thing to do! But I've got a bit of a problem. When I did the B12 soak one of the spark plugs came out tough and went in even tougher. I'm certain the threads are toast and the next time it comes out I'll need to do a heli-coil.
As soon as this happened I had a flash back to 10 years ago when I put in new plugs. Same thing happened except this time it was much worse.
And btw...no one has asked but it has a new PCV valve and I've verified that it is functional.