1985 4Runner "Aretha... the DD build" (1 Viewer)

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Laurel, MS
I accidentily posted this thread before it was finished. The title is suppose to be (1985 4Runner "Aretha... DD Build")
Because her name is Aretha, not Gert... SMH

I am a young student who is going to be DDing this thing for a long while ,Lord willing, so this is going to be a simple build based on reliability. I will spend where important and save where not so important. That doesn't mean cheap parts... it just means not the most expensive and nice. So today is the begining: It has low oil pressure, rust on fram and body, and a much needed re-gear for the front axle. My goal is go get all of this taken careof before October. Should be easy given the long deadline. Today I decided to pull the oil pan and make sure my pickup tube isnt all junked up. I also decided to pull the rear fender and check for rust... Not horrible, but not very good either...
IMG_1980.JPG

So onto the oil pan removal and checkup. Wasn't great news.
IMG_1987.JPG

Lots of these little plastic pieces all in the bottom of the pan. It seems like they were broken pieces of a timing chain guide from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Let's hope when the timing cover was off they replaced them and did so with steel guides. There was little sealant to speak of in the mix of plastic. I cleaned the screen of the pickup tube. I didn't take it off and do a full blown cleanup like I should have, but I'm outside and I don't have anywhere to safely clean it properly.

Eventually I got most of the pieces out. I'm not sure that I got everything as it was difficult to grab them when they got into the crevasses. But 99% of them are out.

I put the pan back up. Let the sealant do it's thing and then gave it a crank. Oil pressure pretty much instantly jumped to right above the 1st line. PERFECT!.... ya not really. When you are driving around the needle is suppose to be at the 3rd line. The one below very top. I let it idel about five minutes. It stayed in the same place. I drove it around all the way to 3,000K in 5th gear.... aaaaaand well... this is as high as the oil pressure guage went.
IMG_1992.JPG

Wonderful. So anyway, I went back home and let it idle some. By this time it obviously is at operating temp and the oil pressure needle dropped to JUST ABOVE the bottom line. Not just above the first line like before when it wasn't at operating temp, but JUST ABOVE the VERY BOTTOM line. So my next thing to do I guess would be replace the oil pump. If that doesn't fix the problem, MAYBE its the oil sending unit. If not any of those I guess the next option is to do a rebuild? I'm guessing at that point it would mean the low oil pressure means bad bearings and or races?

So I HAVE GOT to figure this oil pressure thing out. I'd like to not destroy my engine.
 
Last edited:
I accidentily posted this thread before it was finished. The title is suppose to be (1985 4Runner "Aretha... DD Build")
Because her name is Aretha, not Gert... SMH

I am a young student who is going to be DDing this thing for a long while ,Lord willing, so this is going to be a simple build based on reliability. I will spend where important and save where not so important. That doesn't mean cheap parts... it just means not the most expensive and nice. So today is the begining: It has low oil pressure, rust on fram and body, and a much needed re-gear for the front axle. My goal is go get all of this taken careof before October. Should be easy given the long deadline. Today I decided to pull the oil pan and make sure my pickup tube isnt all junked up. I also decided to pull the rear fender and check for rust... Not horrible, but not very good either...View attachment 1383385
So onto the oil pan removal and checkup. Wasn't great news.
View attachment 1383392
Lots of these little plastic pieces all in the bottom of the pan. It seems like they were broken pieces of a timing chain guide from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Let's hope when the timing cover was off they replaced them and did so with steel guides. There was little sealant to speak of in the mix of plastic. I cleaned the screen of the pickup tube. I didn't take it off and do a full blown cleanup like I should have, but I'm outside and I don't have anywhere to safely clean it properly.

Eventually I got most of the pieces out. I'm not sure that I got everything as it was difficult to grab them when they got into the crevasses. But 99% of them are out.

I put the pan back up. Let the sealant do it's thing and then gave it a crank. Oil pressure pretty much instantly jumped to right above the 1st line. PERFECT!.... ya not really. When you are driving around the needle is suppose to be at the 3rd line. The one below very top. I let it idel about five minutes. It stayed in the same place. I drove it around all the way to 3,000K in 5th gear.... aaaaaand well... this is as high as the oil pressure guage went.
View attachment 1383399
Wonderful. So anyway, I went back home and let it idle some. By this time it obviously is at operating temp and the oil pressure needle dropped to JUST ABOVE the bottom line. Not just above the first line like before when it wasn't at operating temp, but JUST ABOVE the VERY BOTTOM line. So my next thing to do I guess would be replace the oil pump. If that doesn't fix the problem, MAYBE its the oil sending unit. If not any of those I guess the next option is to do a rebuild? I'm guessing at that point it would mean the low oil pressure means bad bearings and or races?

So I HAVE GOT to figure this oil pressure thing out. I'd like to not destroy my engine.
How many miles are on the engine? What weight oil does the manual call for and what weight did you put in it?
 
How many miles are on the engine? What weight oil does the manual call for and what weight did you put in it?
226,000 So it's not like it couldn't use a rebuild. Manual calls for 10W-30. I put in 10W-40 mainly due to the lack of relatively cold weather in MS. LOL
 
The pickup tube cleaning seems to have still helped a little because the needle is slightly above where it usually is. So maybe what it really needs is to be thoroughly cleaned.
 
As the thread originator, I believe you can edit the title too by going to the top of page to Thread Tools. Works mo' betta when you are on a full size browser instead of a phone. Hover over Thread Tools then click on Edit Thread. You can adjust the title there.
 
I've had (2) 22REs now. I wouldn't get caught up with the "should be's". Each engine seems to have a few quirks, and the oil pressure for me has always been about where yours is.
 
Did you pull the pick up tube off of the trick and clean it out? If so I wouldn't worry too much about the oil pressure gauge. If it worries you too bad put a manual gauge on it and see what it says. I also run 15W40 diesel oil in my 22re as well as my 2F in my 40. Oil pressure in my buggy (22re) is about 60 at high rev when cold. Hot it's about 15-20. Don't know the mileage on the motor.?? I wouldn't sweat it.
 
Did you pull the pick up tube off of the trick and clean it out? If so I wouldn't worry too much about the oil pressure gauge. If it worries you too bad put a manual gauge on it and see what it says. I also run 15W40 diesel oil in my 22re as well as my 2F in my 40. Oil pressure in my buggy (22re) is about 60 at high rev when cold. Hot it's about 15-20. Don't know the mileage on the motor.?? I wouldn't sweat it.
Didn't pull the tube off. I didn't feel comfortable enough doing that because I don't have a closed space to clean it in. I was doing this all outside on the dirt. Mileage on the truck is about 227,000 miles. I'm going to hopefully be building a small shop in the next few months so I'll be able to do these projects/jobs correctly as they should be.
 
UPDATE: So Friday at school I dropped off the truck in the automotive garage to have then run a compression test. I was curious and wanted to know how things were doing in there. Compression came out 148-150psi on all 4 cylinders. Toyota for the win! After the text the automotive instructor came to me with my spark plugs in hand. They looked absolutely horrible. He said the cap was cracked on the main plug, the wires were secerely corroded, and my rotor didnt look like it had much life left. So I told him while he was in there just to go ahead and replace everything NGK or OEM. Well come to find out nobody in the area had any parts that would work. Eventually they had to put the crap parts back in so I could drive to the next town where I work and buy/replace the parts there. After I did it inmediatly started to run a good bit better. At least 300 horses were added to my engine... which is like 3 in 22RE terms. It was enough for me to definitely notice. My engine revved up faster and I was able to hold speed at 75mph on the highway up a hill better. So instead of dropping to 65 or 60 up a hill, I was dropping to 73mph and at the most 70 from 75mph.
So that's good news. Now heres the thing... has my motor been rebuilt before? The previous owner didnt mention that. It would make sense if it had, but IDK. Guess I'll find out from diggin back to the previous previous owner.
 
UPDATE: Today our instructor's wife had a child early yesterday morning, so machine class was canceled. I took the time to go through some things on the truck. Even though after the new plugs, wires, and cap the truck improved, I felt it still wasn't like it was suppose to be. I decided to check the timing... and wouldn't you know my truck was so out of wack I couldn't even see the notch. I figured maybe something was wrong elsewhere. RPM was right at 750, engine temp was right where it should be, and my EFI was jumped. After I while I finally spotted the notch at the very edge to the right. It looked like it was a -12 degrees. I don't even know how it was running. I adjusted the timing and the RPMs went a good bit higher and the engine quieted down tremendously! I double checked everything, adjusted the RPMs, and took it for a test drive. It drove exactly like it should have! Finally, that was it. I was in 5th gear pulling up a hill from 75mph to 80mph, and I wasn't even flooring it. For you land cruiser guys out there, IK IK... that's not impressive, but for me it's luxury. But don't ya'll worry, when I can properly afford a wonderful LandCruiser, I will own one. As for now, my 4Runner will do just fine as a great DD and a mild off road/ overland vehicle. Best part is that it only took maybe an hour from start to finished test drive and I gained probably 20HP!
 
UPDATE: Today our instructor's wife had a child early yesterday morning, so machine class was canceled. I took the time to go through some things on the truck. Even though after the new plugs, wires, and cap the truck improved, I felt it still wasn't like it was suppose to be. I decided to check the timing... and wouldn't you know my truck was so out of wack I couldn't even see the notch. I figured maybe something was wrong elsewhere. RPM was right at 750, engine temp was right where it should be, and my EFI was jumped. After I while I finally spotted the notch at the very edge to the right. It looked like it was a -12 degrees. I don't even know how it was running. I adjusted the timing and the RPMs went a good bit higher and the engine quieted down tremendously! I double checked everything, adjusted the RPMs, and took it for a test drive. It drove exactly like it should have! Finally, that was it. I was in 5th gear pulling up a hill from 75mph to 80mph, and I wasn't even flooring it. For you land cruiser guys out there, IK IK... that's not impressive, but for me it's luxury. But don't ya'll worry, when I can properly afford a wonderful LandCruiser, I will own one. As for now, my 4Runner will do just fine as a great DD and a mild off road/ overland vehicle. Best part is that it only took maybe an hour from start to finished test drive and I gained probably 20HP!
That's great news! Nothing quite like finding a quick, easy, FREE fix that makes a profound difference in performance!
 
I'm glad you got it running better! I agree with the others above, I wouldn't take oil pressure gauge as gospel. Old Toyota gauges are infamous for giving only "approximations."

Another thing that I would like to add is that the timing notch on those harmonic balancers isn't always right either. There's a rubber isolator between the pulley drive and the crankshaft connection on the balancer, and the pulley drive isn't mounted fast to the inner ring in any way. So over time the rubber isolator can start to break down and delaminate from either side, allowing the pulley drive with the timing mark on it to move out of alignment from the crankshaft. I only know this because I had this problem when I first got my truck. I set the timing and it barely ran. When I pulled the spark plug and marked where the piston hit TDC, I found out the mark was off.

That's not to say that the timing isn't right on your truck, it's just a testament to what I experienced.
 
I'm glad you got it running better! I agree with the others above, I wouldn't take oil pressure gauge as gospel. Old Toyota gauges are infamous for giving only "approximations."

Another thing that I would like to add is that the timing notch on those harmonic balancers isn't always right either. There's a rubber isolator between the pulley drive and the crankshaft connection on the balancer, and the pulley drive isn't mounted fast to the inner ring in any way. So over time the rubber isolator can start to break down and delaminate from either side, allowing the pulley drive with the timing mark on it to move out of alignment from the crankshaft. I only know this because I had this problem when I first got my truck. I set the timing and it barely ran. When I pulled the spark plug and marked where the piston hit TDC, I found out the mark was off.

That's not to say that the timing isn't right on your truck, it's just a testament to what I experienced.
Great to know! I had no idea. I'll be doing an oil pump job soon though, as I have a front main seal leak (that's what it seems to be). I also will be changing me master and slave cylinders. The master is leaking horribly. Other than that I will probably do a big engine bay cleaning here soon. While I'm at it I'll do a valve adjustment and paint the valve cover. I like for everything to be as clean as possible. Eventually I'll do some body work, repaint it, do a chassis swap, put in my TRD e-locker, and call it done.... until I become a self made millionare.
 
Which reminds me! I saw a few really nice and built LC's today at Laurel Machine and Foundryz Does anybody happen to have friends that work there? If so what do they do?
 

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