First off sorry for no pictures yet, my cell phone camera wasn't cooperating. A few weeks ago someone in a Checkers parking lot asked me if I was interested in an old 4runner, and normally I wouldn't really care since I have 2 already and the guy told me that it has at least a blown head gasket. But I checked it out anyway

It's a 1989 22r-e/auto, < 3 year old cherry red paint, 4" bracket lift/blocked rear fitting 33x12.5" BFG MT KM1s on $centerline$ alloys, gears (havent spun them yet to figure out the ratio, praying for 5.29s), LSD in the rear, header, flowmaster 2.25" exhaust, excellent interior (this thing has plastic trim i didnt even know existed until now), tint, AC intact, very smooth mostly-rust-free body, crack-free glass, nicer stereo than my current ride has.

so I bit..





price?





$900.

compression test tomorrow. battery is on charger

 

Compression test results:

.......1.....2.....3.....4
DRY..138 105 103 99
WET.160 149 165 119

 

to follow up, when I got the head off it was pretty grim. sludge everywhere. the timing chain guides were nonexistent and the chain itself was off 2 teeth ccw on the cam sprocket. the oil pan had chain guide stew inside it. this was on par with the outside, which was covered in about 200,000 miles worth of grime and what looks like a pretty fresh coat of dried mud. i was cleaning mud out of the spark plug holes.

now, a new water pump, timing chain + tensioner and guides, cleaned everything, painted the oil pan and valve cover, valves lapped, head resurfaced, new engnbldr 261 cam, new fuel filter, etc

more to come and maybe some pictures once its running

 

done!




still dirty. yea that's a K&N


you can't see it in this picture, but .50 is stamped into each piston head


and I decided to compare a toyota head gasket to a felpro

i'll give it a compression test when i clear out all the residual nasty stuff still in it. it idles like a hot rod and i'm assuming (and hoping) it's from the cam. pulls hard, runs great above idle. i *might* have mixed up a vac line or 2, but i made really sure to label it all since i'm not familiar with all this california smog nonsense.