85 4runner Piglett (1 Viewer)

[CruiserReady]

I just picked up an 85 4runner from a friend. Some on this forum may actually know of him and this truck. Ron Kibbe was president of Gold Coast Cruisers. The good news for me is that Ron did a great job getting this truck sorted over the last 25ish years that he owned it. On my end, most of the things I intend to do are geared towards getting the interior built out to a setup that will work well for me. After I spend more time wheeling it, I will figure out if I feel it needs any performance changes. That said, I've not been a big fan of the auto trans thus far. The main goal was to have something with higher clearance and narrower track width for the places I don't want to squeeze the LC200 into.

 

[Oneops]

Nice! Congrats she’s a beaut! Love a first gen! I need one!

 

[CruiserReady]

Nice! Congrats she’s a beaut! Love a first gen! I need one!

Don't wait too long. The prices are going up by the day.

 

[msahr]

Nice 4Runner! But... 85 with an automatic?

 

[IslandJ]

Nice find!

 

[gnob]

Relatively common, unfortunately.

Nice 4Runner! But... 85 with an automatic?

 

[CruiserReady]

Relatively common, unfortunately.

From my understanding, it's actually the opposite for a 1985. I was told only 800 85 autos were sold in the US. The numbers increased with the older years...... not that that makes it any better.

 

[gnob]

There one in my garage too

 

[CruiserReady]

Nice 4Runner! But... 85 with an automatic?

Unfortunately, yes. In some ways I like an auto for off road, but I'm definitely not sold on this one yet. The crawl ratio leaves a lot to be desired. On the highway, the auto doesn't bother me too much, but that said I expect it to be one of the things that fails and needs replacement at which point I can swap in a manual. It is original and still running fine at 401,000 miles.

 

[Oneops]

Don't wait too long. The prices are going up by the day.

Yeah it’s crazy how fast it’s moving.

 

[IslandJ]

Unfortunately, yes. In some ways I like an auto for off road, but I'm definitely not sold on this one yet. The crawl ratio leaves a lot to be desired. On the highway, the auto doesn't bother me too much, but that said I expect it to be one of the things that fails and needs replacement at which point I can swap in a manual. It is original and still running fine at 401,000 miles.

I may be wrong but I believe the autos have a larger gear ratio from the factory. That’s a plus.

 

[pappy]

I may be wrong but I believe the autos have a larger gear ratio from the factory. That’s a plus.

I believe 4.30 vs. 4.10 in the manuals.

 

[liveoak]

I may be wrong but I believe the autos have a larger gear ratio from the factory. That’s a plus.

If I remember correctly, the autos came with the less desirable chain driven transfer case.
tha A340F is reliable but not well suited to the underpowered 22r/e motors

 

[aztoyman]

Our first new vehicle and Toyota was an 86 4Runner with the 22RE and auto trans. My wife will not drive a manual. It was her daily driver anyway. It felt gutless to me compared to the manual trans trucks but, it' was her baby.

She put over 450K miles on it before our son totaled it. That auto trans never even leaked. All I ever did was change the fluid every 100 K miles.

 

[CruiserReady]

If I remember correctly, the autos came with the less desirable chain driven transfer case.
tha A340F is reliable but not well suited to the underpowered 22r/e motors

Checks out with what I read somewhere as well.

 

[CruiserReady]

If I remember correctly, the autos came with the less desirable chain driven transfer case.
tha A340F is reliable but not well suited to the underpowered 22r/e motors

Checks out with what I read somewhere. I feel like a reverse manual valve body would be the best thing you could do for it.

 

[ntsqd]

I used to see him driving it around once in a while and wondered what had become of it. One of you peeled all of the CERT stickers off.

What size tires and what axle ratio?
I'm running 4.56's and pandemic enforced 31's (235/85R16's or 235?80R17's are the target size), and while not a sportscar it's not a slug either. That is with a 3.0 though, not a 22R. I don't do hard core crawling, but I've found the crawl ratio to be better than Patch's manual everything with 4.88's. X 33-10.50's. If you do the math and don't add in a factor for the torque converter the numbers don't look very good. However, if you include 2.5 factor for the converter* suddenly the math looks a WHOLE lot better.

*Approximate, different converters have different unstalled torque multiplication values with 2.6:1 being the max that I've ever heard or read of.

 

[CruiserReady]

I used to see him driving it around once in a while and wondered what had become of it. One of you peeled all of the CERT stickers off.

What size tires and what axle ratio?
I'm running 4.56's and pandemic enforced 31's (235/85R16's or 235?80R17's are the target size), and while not a sportscar it's not a slug either. That is with a 3.0 though, not a 22R. I don't do hard core crawling, but I've found the crawl ratio to be better than Patch's manual everything with 4.88's. X 33-10.50's. If you do the math and don't add in a factor for the torque converter the numbers don't look very good. However, if you include 2.5 factor for the converter* suddenly the math looks a WHOLE lot better.

*Approximate, different converters have different unstalled torque multiplication values with 2.6:1 being the max that I've ever heard or read of.

Ron took the CERT stickers off in 2020. There were rumors being spread that CERT would be used for enforcing COVID mandates and he didn't want himself or the truck to be targeted by disgruntled people.

It's on 33x10.5 with 5.29s. It's slower than my auto 85 Corolla SR5 (70hp 3.9 gears). Torque converter could certainly be an issue. In 4L its got plenty of torque, it's descending where I wish it had slower crawl speed under engine braking so I don't have to ride the brakes so much which is just a function of gear ratios. A 4.7 case might be a decent solution for me.

Getting on an uphill freeway on ramp is pretty scary. I'm lucky to be at 47mph by the end of the ramp with semis flying by at 70. I just stay in the shoulder until I hit roughly 60 before I even try to merge.

 

[ntsqd]

One thing that I've learned about mine is that it will not lock-up until the trans is up to temp. I take the longer route from the house to the fwy in the mornings because by the time reach the on-ramp it's warm enough to lock-up. The shorter route has me spinning high revs to stay in the traffic flow for a couple of miles before it will lock-up.

By the old RoT for tire size vs. gearing you should be on 35's with those gears.

Compression braking with an auto has never been a strong suit. Guys used to force the converter lock-up when 700R4's first became popular just for that use. They learned the hard way that it's a really great way to burn up a converter.

Marlin makes (made?) an adapter for the gear drive t/c's to fit the auto behind the 3.4's in the T-100's because a friend of mine paid him enough to make developing it worthwhile. To my knowledge there is no such adapter for these autos. I have almost all of the bits to put a W series with a doubler in mine should this auto ever start to die.

 

[CruiserReady]

One thing that I've learned about mine is that it will not lock-up until the trans is up to temp. I take the longer route from the house to the fwy in the mornings because by the time reach the on-ramp it's warm enough to lock-up. The shorter route has me spinning high revs to stay in the traffic flow for a couple of miles before it will lock-up.

By the old RoT for tire size vs. gearing you should be on 35's with those gears.

Compression braking with an auto has never been a strong suit. Guys used to force the converter lock-up when 700R4's first became popular just for that use. They learned the hard way that it's a really great way to burn up a converter.

Marlin makes (made?) an adapter for the gear drive t/c's to fit the auto behind the 3.4's in the T-100's because a friend of mine paid him enough to make developing it worthwhile. To my knowledge there is no such adapter for these autos. I have almost all of the bits to put a W series with a doubler in mine should this auto ever start to die.

I haven't noticed an issue with lock up. If anything part of what this trans seems to do is upshift too early keeping the rpms pretty low.

The gears are definitely tall for the tire size. That said, if anything, it should have better acceleration with the smaller tires.

You're saying the forced lockup was burning up converters or using it for decel was?

I think I'd like a w56 with doubler, but with as much money as that would cost, I'd probably be considering just swapping the entire engine and driveline. That's all for when something gives up. In the meantime, I'll keep running as is.