Great to hear how well your rig has taken care of you and the miles. I think I read somewhere that Toyota will give you a High Miler Sticker somewhere. Might ask your local dealer. I seen it on another site a long time ago. I have seen pictures of the sticker.

With over 500k miles, it bound to need a few parts, but if it was me I would need a new body. That is amazing for it age and condition it is in.

 

Hahaha. That would be awesome if they sent you something. I can talk to one of my friends that teaches the T-ten program in Cedar rapids. See what he says.

 

truck looks great.

like fine wine, gets better with age...

 

Finally did my first real "mod" by putting some LED lights under the hood. If you haven't done this mod you are missing out! I spent 12$ on the lights and 6$ on the hood switch and of course had all the wire and connectors already. I used these waterproof LED strip lights
I recommend really spending the time to lay out all the wiring but that really is a suggestion for any project. Also this switch works by interrupting the ground so it has to make a good connection with the body or where ever you mount it. You can see I sanded away the paint around the switch. Which also means you do have to run wires for the ground rather than just grounding it to the hood, assuming you want them to turn off now and again. Makes the truck seem so modern now haha.

I used a metal pin switch on the edge of engine bay and tied it in to the hot wire I had are setup for my CB. Pictures speak volumes here. The over all pictures of the engine bay is lit up just by the LED lights alone. Amazing how bright this actually is. Wish I had this last time I had to replace an alternator in a dark parking lot.

 

Sweet mod man. I have thought about doing something like this to my runner for quite some time. I usually carry a light on me all the time but it would be nice to have both hands free to make repairs at night.

 

Wow that is a great idea. I'm kinda electronically challenged

Do you have the hot wire going from battery --> interrupter switch --> lights? And then the ground just tied off to the body?

 

No, the red, hot, goes from the battery through a fuse then to the lights. Since the switch in the picture is mounted to the body you run a wire from the ground, black on the lights to the switch that acts as the interrupt.

86 4runner, 515,xxx miles on the original motor never been rebuilt, currently stock, mods planned as soon as I fix everything wrong.

 

Nice Led Light Setup... Where did you get the lights and how much did the setup cost you.

 

Just Amazon, I posted the link to the LED's above. About 10$ for the LED and 6 for the pin switch. You could easily lift the pin switch from some other car if you were at a junk yard. I already had all the wire and connectors. Cheap mod and works way better than expected. I am going to buy more of these to go inside the truck.

86 4runner, 515,xxx miles on the original motor never been rebuilt, currently stock, mods planned as soon as I fix everything wrong.

 

X2 on that. I'm also interested

 

See above

86 4runner, 515,xxx miles on the original motor never been rebuilt, currently stock, mods planned as soon as I fix everything wrong.

 

I had to replace the right caliper a little before it's time today. I replaced the left caliper because the rubber was bad but, after replacing the truck was pulling to the left. I wanted to share a trick that I picked up along the way. Also this illustrates a MUST HAVE in the truck, bailing wire. If you attache a tube to the bleeder valve and then run the tube into a clear water bottle filled with a little new DOT 3 fluid. That way when the brake pedal releases it just sucks up fluid yet allows the air bubbles to come out. Great one man bleeder kit and did cost me crap! Although having your wife pump the brake makes it even easier so you can watch until the bubbles stop coming out. One thing to pay attention to though is to release the bleeder valve as little as possible. The first time I did this I opened it too much and it was sucking air back in.

 

I recently moved to Texas and just got my plates changed. It was sad taking off the California licence plate. That plate has been on there for 28 years. Crazy to take it off. But it does look like the Texas plates were meant for the rig. That or they just look good because I can see them now.

 

Since I bought the 4runner the horn has been troublesome. From going off randomly in the driveway, to not working at all and everything in between. In Texas I am required to pass an inspection every year to get the vehicle registered and the horn is part of that. So I took things apart to find out that the small pin on the steering column that makes contact with the ring attached to the steering column, had actually worn the head right off and thus lost the spring that makes the whole thing work. So I ordered a new pin from ebay for about 7$ and got it changed. I had to take the steering wheel off, then pull the pin out until the electrical connector came loose. The just slide the new pin back in making sure it slides into the connector until it clicks. There is also a small retainer ring to put on the back of the pin, use some needle nose pliers.

You can see the new part in the picture versus the old and it's missing head. I circled the electrical connector and where it meets the pin.

That is quite a few years of wear.







The contact ring on the back of the steering wheel, the other metal pin is on a spring and contacts this while you move the steering wheel.

 

I also replace most of the cooling system today, water pump, thermostat and put the proper red coolant in it. Here is to hoping it fixes the rather erratic temperature fluctuations.

 

You have a nice runner and you are doing some great mods with nice writeups as well.

 

Thanks, trying to add to the wealth by making mistakes and doing research.

86 4runner, 515,xxx miles on the original motor never been rebuilt, currently stock, mods planned as soon as I fix everything wrong.

 

Nice rig! I had 300,000 miles on my 22re 4Runner when it was totaled and I thought that was a lot, but 515,000! Dang!

 

I need to do the horn contact as well, I think you just gave me some motivation to get out and do it. I just happen to have the part in front of me and the part number is 84312-20011 if anyone also needs this.

Great looking runner. Just keep chipping away at fixing things. There will be a point when you just drive it with total confidence nothing will happen.

Also, learning how to rebuild your hubs are a must for any Toyota owner. The hubs you have are rebuildable for about $20 in seals and paint. It's super easy and good looking hubs really dress up the look. Just don't forget to lubricate your spindle bushings in the spindles. Most people forget that and end up with a grinding sound. Search and you will find some threads on it. Slee offroad in Golden Colorado makes a nice tool to do this.

Keep at it...

 

Thanks, I actually feel like this truck is pretty reliable. I drive it all over and don't stress to much. Funny thing about it is nothing really ever breaks. It kinda wears out and seems to tell me something is wrong far before it actually breaks. I am looking forward to the days I can spend a little money on upgrades and not just replacement parts. Pretty soon, this week I fixed most of the really bad parts. And got a new windshield which is pretty awesome.

I crammed as much grease in that hub as I could get. The grease was very broken down when I took it all apart. I wish I had painted the hubs when I had them apart it would look SOOOO much better. Oh well I am sure there will be a reason soon.