Turbo 4runner (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

I don't think mine has seen over 25 since I bought it:grinpimp: Now it has seen 80 behind my tow rig. I've been trying to get the best answers on 22ret trucks on how to spool really low but no one really seems to crawl. maybe a 4.3 chevy eventually?

Smaller turbo or a vnt turbo :D
 
Garrett's website has a wealth of knowledge about how to pick the right turbo for your application. Has a big formula you can fill out to get the turbo power range exactly where you want. Match that with a similar cam and you are set. Excluding the fact that the ECU might not keep up with all those changes which is my problem.
 
If it was a turbo diesel i'd mess with it, I love diesel's for simplicity and torque:grinpimp: The 22ret to me is just an expensive motor to modify for gains I could get 3 times over with a junkyard 5.3ls motor :flipoff2:
 
Haha for sure. This just has a really high "cool factor" to a very small percentage of the world.
 
Almost three years since I've updated this? Wow Time flies. I still love driving the 4runner. I just turned over 25K so I took it into the dealer (me) for a valve adjustment and to fix an exhaust leak.

I would love to work on this thing more, but being that I'm in college I am limited to a gravel patch and an 8x10 garden shed. Basically I've had to scale down the size of the stuff I work on. Enter: motorcycles. This really isn't new, I've ridden since I was a kid. Turns out that bikes are a really efficient way to get around a college town and I don't have to buy a parking pass. Which sadly means the 4runner has been on trailer duty. Towing my utility trailer with two bikes makes the 4runner feel like an empty, stock 22re.

Here's my Xr600 on my last long ride.




Here are the two best friends together



I traded my xr250 for this Cx500 in the spring for an on-road commuter. I like the magic button that starts it and the 9000 rpm red line. That's it. So I will probably be selling it in the future.



I also have an Xr350 that has been in a box the last 22 years and across three states. I've been slowly putting it back together.










My embarrassingly full and disorganized shed. Who knew you could fit so much crap in such a small space.

 
Last edited:
I had a GL500 "Silver Wing" that I bought new in '84, essentially the same as your CX but with a fairing, trunk, and side bags. It was like a mini Gold Wing. It was a GREAT bike, I loved it. Looked just like this:

2004_09_23_bikepics-216310-full.jpg
 
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1409341732.855811.jpg


Took the 4runner out camping. I seem to have some exhaust leaks now. I pretty good one from the back (which might be a good excuse to get a new muffler) and then one from the front that worries me a little more. Some of the exhaust nuts were loose, but the turbo is in the way for most of the bottom ones.
 
I guess this is my annual "check-in".

Legitimately turned wrenches on the 4runner this weekend. Was driving it home from riding my dirt bike (first time in the midwest) when all of a sudden it just lost any kind of power as I could barely sustain 50mph (thank goodness for slow Iowa speed limits and relatively flat terrain?). My first thought was "oh crap my turbo just died". I'm apparently still scarred from dropping $1k on my last one - not to mention all the work involved. So I pulled my intake apart and didn't find any obvious smoking gun. I was secretly hoping it was just a vacuum leak. I did find that two of my silicone elbows have pretty good wear marks in them and my cheap ebay blow-off valve looks kind of jacked up. So I'm kind of deciding what to do there...

I also found that my spark plugs look like crap too. Kind of look like I may have some pinging going on. I'll put up some pictures tonight. One of them was actually loose enough that I could turn it by hand. Quite a bit of carbon/soot in between the #2 and #3 cylinders where it was loose.

As to my previous post, my exhaust leak still persists. The one at the manifold hasn't changed; my muffler has detached itself from the rest of the exhaust. One of these day's I'll stop being a cheap-ass and get a real exhaust made. I'm afraid to go down the slippery slope of "while i'm in there" but now would sure be the time to look into my manifold.

In the last 4-5 years (basically the time I've been in school) I've noticed my hood gets pretty hot above the turbo (duh). I should probably address this too before my paint does something I won't appreciate. The same goes for some items placed near the turbo.

My steering has also gotten rather loose over the last, you guessed it, 4-5 years. My guess on that is my idler steering box's (or whatever it's called) bushings are worn out. That or my tie rod ends.

It's amazing what seems ok to a 20 year old, looks less ok 5 years later. I am just thankful the 4runner held together when funds were extremely tight, time was non-existent and I had no where to work on it.
 
Well I never really found a smoking-gun, but I put it all back together with a different set of spark plugs (new one's soon) and changed the spring-rate in my blow off valve. Runs just as good, if not better than it did before. It's amazing what a little maintenance can do.

My suspicion was confirmed that my blow off valve has not been working as i designed. However, it makes a terrible "ricer" noise now.

I did start to take apart my idler box and it seems to be ok. I also didn't have a way to separate the joint, so I gave up on that job for now.

I finally got everything back together because my wife said she would "buy" me a new toolbox for my birthday/christmas and the one I want won't fit in my A4. I've been seriously eyeing the US General (HF) 42" base box. It's on sale right now for $369. Quite a few guys at work have them and have no complaints - the only one being that it's not a snap-on. I've been pretty diligent looking on CL for used boxes, but they are either crappy craftsman boxes like I have or $3000 Snap-on's.




In other news, I no longer live in the (inland) North West. I moved out to Eastern Iowa in June, but my stuff moved out in May with my wife when she started a new job while I finished up school. Before I started school, I had bought a 20' shipping container to put my cruiser and associated stuff in, knowing that it was not practical to move all of that up with me for four years, it stayed in Boise. My brothers in-law drove out from Iowa in this jalopy to move us.



They drove first to Bosie for the important things, then up Nort' there to Moscow for the rest of it. To say it was a snug fit was an understatement... thought about moving the Cx500, but we never really a serious connection so I sold it to another broke college student and netted some $$.

From front to back on the flat-bead are: my welding table with 2x cruiser axles, 2x minitruck axles, 1 3rd gen axle and a few drive shafts; the cruiser packed full of crap, my Xr600 and my 4runenr packed full of crap.



Saved us a lot of time having to them come out, but I think I've indentured myself to them inadvertently for "putting so many damn miles on my truck". They have a love for their Duramax's like I do for my cruiser and 4runner. Now being 2hrs away means that i'm only a call away... But I guess I get to drive heavy equipment and such so it's not all bad.



We Found a great place to live 30 miles out of town. Dare I say we found it on facebook? There's really no one around, so I can shoot my gun, have a bonfire and generally do American things without people watching me. Total contrast to our last place in Moscow - it was a popular walking route and my yard was not enclosed.



Because I have a legitimate commute I bought a "commuter car". '02 A4 Quatro with a tiptronic (so the wife can drive it when her car dies).
It snowed 6-8 inches before thanksgiving and I took the car out for a shakedown run. For summer tires it did pretty dang good. Would easily drive through the 6 in snow with a little speed and blasted through probably a foot deep drift at our driveway. I got stuck in my driveway trying to turn into the garage. Clearly I couldn't get a run at it and the front left hit a deep spot. I'm convinced that if it had all seasons or winter tires there wouldn't have been a problem. So far it's been a fun car, but time will tell if the Audi stereotypes are true.

 
Last edited:
As stated previously, the steering in the 4runner has been getting progressively worse, possibly exacerbated by driving an awd car. I had a pretty strong inclination about a year ago that the IFS steering idler bushings had worn themselves out over the last 29 years. So I bought the bushings from toyota (I think the were $5 each?) - again, a year ago. They got thrown in my toolbox, moved to Iowa, and found again after moving my tools to my new toolbox (best wife/chirstmas EVER!).

A few weeks ago I had my wife move the steering wheel while I looked at the steering linkages for what might be wrong. Came up with nothing. TRE's looked good, none of the boots were torn, no real slop when being agressive (think - grab and shake) and, while the gear box did have some slop in it, it did not seem too far out of spec. A few weeks later when she had a friend over, I played hooky in the garage (on a balmy 15 *F day) and decided - the hell with it, I'm going to tear down the idler since I have everything I need. Just for grins, I grabbed it and yanked on it and I could see that the bushing were giving some. I tried to take a video but it looks like I'm having a seizure - so use your imaginations.

I did a terrible job recording how I took I off. Basically it attaches to the frame with three 14mm bolts and a single nut to the steering linkages. You then use your favorite TRE removal tool - I used my $5 pickle fork from HF. I had to remove my front tire to get a solid swing while lining up the fork square in the joint. Once I got the idler off, I threw it in my vice and then did I decide to start taking pictures.



Once the idler is securely in the vice, take a small chisel (or flat blade screwdriver if you have to) and tap off the cap. It has a slight press fit and has some adhesive on the inside, so it's not just going to pop off - you also don't need to go crazy on it either. You can see I either got a little rambunctious or my chisel was a little too large.



Here's how everything came apart.



Old Vs. new



The part number that I used.



That's where the pictures stop. There was a very thick, translucent/yellow grease inside the cavity. I cleaned the grease out thoroughly and scraped/brushed the the housing. The shaft had some slight pitting. I used emery cloth to remove the worst of it. The joint still felt tight - so that's good. After I warmed the housing, arm, cap and paint up above freezing (did I mention my garage is heated by a small 1200W heater?) by pointing my heater in a box, I painted everything and let it set for a few days - it was pretty cold that week.

This last weekend I got everything put back together. I replaced the original grease with the all-purpose stuff I had around. Maybe not the same viscosity, but should be fine. I found it easiest to get grease in the housing by using my grease gun. I very lightly lubed up the OD of the new bushing before hand pressing them in - kind of a tight fit actually. Once in, I lubed the ID of the bushing, made sure I had all my parts in the right place, and finished reassembly.

It definitely helped, but clearly was not the only issue. I'll probably tighten up the steering box next and see what that gets me.

Thanks for tuning in.
 
Alright, I'm a little early on my annual check-in. But about three posts ago I mentioned that the 4runner was running like crap. Turns out it was a number of things: First and foremost, my #3 spark plug blew out about 2 hours from my house. It was running really well, then I had a pretty big loss of power all of a sudden. Pulled over and my #3 plug was loose. I tried to tighten it, but it had that terrible feeling like i was about to strip it out. Started it back up and ran/idled fine. Made it a 100ft down the road and I lost power again. I made it to my destination and bought NAPA special spark plugs and they seemed to torque down pretty well. On the way home I had decent power with no major issues - granted I really babied it. Then I hopped in it to drive to work and I had a terrible knocking noise and, again, loss of power. I was pretty convinced I had just spun a bearing. Turned around and drove a different car to work - it's nice having a fleet. That following weekend I was trying to diagnose a spun bearing when I, again, noticed that my #3 plug was loose. I tightened it back down, started the truck up and there was no knock to be found - Still ran like crap, but weird. So I changed my game plan thinking I had a vacuum leak, or my TPS or AFM was bad or something. Finally I got around to doing a compression check. #1 and #2 looked good (can't remember the numbers) but I couldn't really get the tester to thread in #3 - weird. #4 threaded in fine, but didn't get squat for compression - bad.

This leads me to issue #2: After hoping and trying to find any way out of pulling the head off, I started pulling things to get the head off. After all the accessories were off the head, I had a hell of a time getting the head over my head studs and passed the heater core lines on the firewall. After about an hour of screwing around and making a ghetto over head "crane" I remembered that you have to unthread the studs to get the head off the block. It's amazing what you forget in 5-6 years. After I pulled the studs off, the head came right off - no problem.







Can you see it? Yeup #3 and #4 were trying to help each other out -bad news bears. This is how my truck has sat for the last month or so. I started working on this about the time my j-o-b started getting really busy. I've got everything pretty welly cleaned up. I put a heli coil in the #3 spark plug hole (looks more like a time-sert than a standard heli coil). I can't comprehend why the instructions recommend using RTV, so I used red loctite instead - I guess time will tell.

Now I just need to stop being a tight-wad and buy some crap. I think I'm going to go with an OEM head gasket set, but have been seriously intrigued with 22re performances's aluminum half-moon's. I thought that part of the purpose of the rubber ones was the ability to be compressed by the valve cover, but maybe that is incorrect.
half-moons.jpg


Looking back through the A4's records, I noticed that the timing belt needed to be done VERY soon. So in between troubleshooting the 4runner I changed that and fixed a stuck rear caliper. Both of which weren't that terrible, but i sure got all the life out of that pad.





Until next time.
 
IIRC, you don't have to remove all the head studs, just the 2 at the very back. I can't remember why, but that was what I found.
 
Hmm. That doesn't seem to make any sense. Unless by removing the back 2, it allows you to tilt the head around the coolant tubes?

Speaking of heater core tubes, you can see that mine are *hmh* not in the best condition. Has anyone tried to make them round again?
 
Speaking of heater core tubes, you can see that mine are *hmh* not in the best condition. Has anyone tried to make them round again?
Yep. PO tightened the hose clamps down on mine and squished the tubes much worse than yours. I used a pair of external snap ring pliers to get them back to round. No leaks and the heater works much better now.
 
Cool turbo! Tight spot to run all the piping. I like that intercooler setup. Might have to go get me one.
 
A little late on my annual update...

In short, I replaced the headgasket. With that I had to put a timesert in the #3 sparkplug hole, and found some pitting on the threaded tappets which was a bit concerning. Nothing on the valve end though. So I replaced all the tappets. I also fixed by bent-to-hell heater tubes with a similar sized OD round center punch. Worked like a charm. Why didn't I do that the other 4 times I've had the head off is beyond me. Got'er all buttoned back up - except that pesky turbo oil return line and dumped 1/2 gallon of oil on the ground... I then tried to burp the cooling system and was somewhat successful. Drove it to work the next day and a small coolant line to the air valve (under the intake manifold) popped off and dumped water everywhere. But once those issues where ironed out, I drove it to work a few times and, sadly, mostly parked it. Somewhere in there I sold my Audi, bought a older CB750, bought a TDI, bought a parts 40 for my 40, had a baby girl and lately have been very serious about getting my 40 on the road this summer. I should probably start driving it again before something drastic happens - like someone offers me an obscene amount of money for it. Its just hard to justify when my Golf has heated seats, cruise and gets 40 something mpg.











 
Nice 4Runner man! Lots of good work going on in this thread.

I know you've got it figured out, but the piece that you were missing that you made the plate for looks like this:

s-l1600.jpg


I'm dealing with the same dilemma as my truck has a R151F and no shifter bezel as well. I have something that I'm thinking about using, but not sure yet.
 
Thanks! If you find something as a replacement, post it up and share the wealth!
 
Haven't really found another one honestly, I saw an ad on eBay for a middle console and that piece on the end and was able to purchase it separately!

I do need a shifter bezel though just like yours...got any extras? :hillbilly:
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom