I figure with all the years some of us have had with our 4Runners and Tacos, there have got to be some great stories of endurance, dependability and shear insanity. This is the thread for such stories. So sit back and read through or even add your own tribulation with Toyota Trucks.

 

My 87 4runner has 240,000 miles on it and about 2 years ago the motor started knocking, it had piston slap(piston slapping the bottom of the head)and the timing chain was slopping around.Anyway,I have had to use the 87 quite a few times while the new 2nd gen was at the dealer.My 87 with a bad motor has been more reliable than the 91.I have dumped more than 2500 into the 91 in the last year and in the last 4 years I have put maybe 300 into the 87.I drive 12 miles to work and climb almost 2000 ft doing it.My 87 chugs right along with no problems.I have had to pull people out of snow banks,tow my moms car home with a tow rope.I am replacing the engine and tranny in a few weeks so it's getting whats do to it.

 

It was spring break of 2004. My family wanted to go to Big Bend (from Houston) and of course I planned on taking my rig for a little fun in the sun. Well it had recently been a little under powered and not I or a couple master mechanics could pinpoint what the problem was. I figured we were taking my truck and my wife’s 2WD Durango, cell phones and running on I10 for the most part, so let’s just take my Truck and see how she does. I brought the tools just in case.

We got off to a late start so my wife was driving rather fast and my truck (fully loaded with camping gear and supplies) was having some trouble making it up overpasses doing 80mph. The strain on the engine was causing the transmission to start to over heat and we had to pull over shortly after getting out of Houston (over 1 hour into our trip). I became a bit concerned but allowed it to cool off and pressed on at a more relaxed rate.

When we started into the hill country, I could only get enough power out of my truck to make it up steep hills doing about 40-50mph without my tranny overheating. Learning how it had to be nursed to make it up the hills, we pressed on, determined to at least let it die on a wilderness trail in Big Bend. After 14 consecutive hours behind the wheel and a sleepless night of driving, we made it to Big Bend to discover all campsites were full. We drove to the nearest city (about 70 miles away) and got a hotel room for the night ready to embark on an early morning trek to catch a freshly left campsite.

After finally getting to a campsite the next morning, the truck was unloaded and put to the trails. We did the all day off-road (actually dirt road) River Road drive just fine. Hauled butt up and down some great trails and caught some air here and there. The truck and I had lots of fun. Then we gimped all the way back home, though a bit easier considering this journey was downhill.

Within a month after returning, I found my problem with the loss of power. I was driving to work and accelerating onto the freeway when my engine just quit delivering any power. I was able to get it back home without overheating or having any metallic knocking. I knew it was something bad, but if I could get it home without causing any more harm, I was going to. Once home I realized it was time to pull apart the block and find the root of the troubles.

Long story short:
I made it all the way across Texas and back with a fully weighted down rig on only five cylinders due to a burnt out exhaust valve. Not to mention, that caused my catalytic converter to become clogged putting more strain on my engine, which attributed to a couple main bearings to start to wear out. The truck was still running when I took it apart, not well, but I bet it would have made it another few hundred miles.

All this proves; if you want to get there, take a jeep, a bronco, a range rover, whatever, but if you feel like coming back home, take your Toyota!

 

80mph?! Dang. I'm lucky if I can hit 65-70 on a downhill... Well for me, my truck has had a malfunctioning carburetor that will trickle fuel down into the cylinders after the engine is shut off, leaving it to a rich start almost everytime. Sometimes the fuel will leak past the pistons and into the oil (small trace amounts). Driving on the highway one day after about 4 hours the engine started stammering when I pulled off the truck was shuddering and pulsing with the acceleration and sounded like a bat out of hell on fire. Pulled over, couldn't find what was wrong so I limped it to my dorms. Took it to a shop since I had no tools at my dorm, they said my number 2 plug was shot and it had 60PSI compression less then every other cylinder. The trucked needed the head redone. So was the shops claim. I had them put new plugs in, then I went to walmart, got the tools I needed and over the span of 3 days between classes I adjusted my valves. After discovering my vacuum advance on the distributor had come off, I re-attached that and have put another 3000 miles on it and haven't had another problem related to the cylinders yet. If there is a problem with a piston, or the head, or compression, I sure haven't noticed it. But I do take it a little easier on the highway. In the last three years that I have owned the truck I have put about 30K miles on it, and if all goes well, I'll probably put another 30k on it before I move onto more powerful and sporty things.

 

TRunner

Is that pic in your avatar from Big Bend? I took my Taco out there last May and had a blast. The wheeling isn't really challenging but there's a lot of cool stuff to see. We drove the Black Gap Road, visited the old mercury mine, and just did a lot of exploring.

I wanna go back!

 

A customer at my bar came running in all breathless from sprinting up the road from where his full sized ford pickup was stuck in a ditch. He was hopeing someone had a rig "big enough to pull him out". I told him I would be glad to. He kinda looked at me funny, and asked if I thought my little yoter was "up to it". I said " Well you can call a tow truck if you want...."
He figured it was worth a try.
Needless to say, I hooked up the tow strap, droped her into 4-low, and pulled his "big rig" out neat as you please.
("up to it".....Sheeesh!)

 

yup... That is a view of my truck from the mine on River Road. I wasn't able to do Black Gap as my MIL was with us... Next time I get my truck out there, I found that there is a 4x4 club that knows of lots of trails outside of Big Bend that you can run on. You are right about the trails being a bit easy. Like I said, they were dirt roads, not off-road.