thewanderlustking

Mechanic here. Be careful how you approach this and "pre-diagnose" it. You spent a small fortune having the shop do a head job (and more) for you. Honestly, it is their responsibility to do that diagnostics and then to MAKE SURE the system is now functioning correctly. If you go in there with the mentality of "it is this" you inadvertently write them a blank check with no guarantee of it solving the problem. I have an awesome boss and an equally amazing service writer. Usually they ask customers the right questions and prevent this. But as honest and as much of straight shooters as we all are, if I am replacing a radiator (or anything else) and don't see a reason why and I ask "Why are we doing this, it isn't leaking?" and the response is "This is what the customer asked for, give them what they want." I am no longer worried about actual diagnosing the issue. At this point I have no responsibility to do more than make sure the job I did, is done to its best. Anyways,, I am not saying you are doing this. I just see this pretty often where people come into the shop after having done a lot of internet/forum diagnostics and have preconceived ideas of what the problem is and waste lots of money and time throwing parts at it instead of letting the shop do a proper diagnostic job. And I also know there are a LOT of shops I wouldn't let diagnose a stuck thermostat either... With that disclaimer out of the way, here is where I would start as a mechanic. I would verify there is an actual overheating problem first. I would check the temperature right at the sensor with a laser thermometer and verify the new gauge is reading correctly. Do this at a couple points as it heats up. As it gets hotter, a bad sensor frequently has more drift from the actual temp point. I had a customer come in last week with their jeep claiming it was overheating, and it was actually fine, but had a bad sensor. At 120, the actual temp and the reading in the scan tool were identical. As it got to 190, the temp in the ecu was actually reading 215. When it hit 200, the temp the ecu was seeing was 250! And the fan of course was screaming. Obviously this is a slightly different scenario than yours, but the general concept is the same. Verify the concern, then systematically check and see what is actually causing the concern. In your case I would be checking the basics, thermostat working? Fan working effectively? Look at the radiator with a thermal camera for hotspots and flow. Verify the last job done, is there air in the system? Water pump correctly installed? Timing? Unless your mechanic already knows there is an issue with the gauge... 280 is an INSANE amount of heat. I would be concerned as soon as it went to 220-230. An efficient cooling system on an older vehicle really should operate closer to 200-220. BTW, internet and forum hunting/diagnoxtics is still extremely valuable tool. I am NOT knocking that. Heck, I do it also when I see something out of the norm to at least give me a direction to start in. Just realize that a GOOD shop should be doing proper diagnostics themselves. And If I had your truck at my shop, it would have been test driven and verified after the job was done. It probably would have sat idling for 2-3hrs first, and then been driven at least 10-15 miles.

Since getting rid of my Mini Cruiser, I have kept looking for another Toy RV... I sometimes regret letting mine go, and have to remind myself it was too much of a project time wise. The interior shell/ceiling repairs were way out of my comfort zone. Ironically, I would happily trade a mint interior and shell for one needing an engine/head gaskets/transmission or some other serious mechanical problems. Event two years or so ago it seemed you could still find nice ones at almost reasonable prices. $10k could get you one with a mint shell/interior. You could sometimes even find Sunraders for close to $20k. Unusually not the more desirable shorty ones, but still a Sunrader. There were still "needs work" Toy options available for under $5k. In all fairness, I usually just look for Sunraders... If I get another Toy, I really want one of the fiberglass shell ones. Ideally, a shorty Sunder that is 4x4. If not one of the fiberglass Toys, it needs to be super clean with near zero water incursion issues. Now oddly, Sunraders seem more plentiful these days. But the ones I would consider are out of reach for now at $50-60k. But my mentality has changed a bit too. As a side note, I now have two 4Runners now I got for WELL UNDER market value. Both had blown transmissions and various other smaller mechanical issues. The first one I got a couple years ago when I sold the Mini Cruiser. It is my main daily driver. The second one I got about several months ago with an almost identical story, and also a blown transmission. It sat about a month with no real progress, just me dreading doing that job in my driveway. I could have taken it to work and done it in a few evenings or over a weekend.... But I got a very fair quote from Aamco to put it in, so I went that route. I realized that just because I can do it, doesn't mean I have to. Sometimes paying to have a big job like that sorted out, is well worth you not having to do it. I have had more time to then do other more fun jobs I enjoy much more.

I went with the "roll my own" approach. I used the Depo housings I already had, and put Morimoto D2s projectors inside. I initially went with Morimoto HID blasts and bulbs. I had a failure caused by a bad connection of the ignitor cable to bulb that wiped out the ballast. I found out I could use a different bulb type that eliminated that cable, so I grabbed that and used some other ballasts I had on hand for my 1993 (yes, I bought another one lol...) Unfortunately for the RGB Demon eyes, I just went with some cheap Amazon ones. This part was just for fun, but I still should have sprung for better quality on anything going inside the headlight housings. Within a few minutes of powering them up and playing around with them on the app, one side was dimmer/slightly different color. I think it is a bad light/chip in the housing, as swapping the outputs from the controller doesn't change anything. Lesson learned. Fortunately, opening up the housings was much easier than I expected. This was the part that I had been dreading, and it turned out to actually be the simplest step in the whole process. The hardest part was wiring it up... Toyota's dual ground headlight system made things unnecessarily difficult. I thought I could use the H4 headlight conversion harness that was already installed, but it didn't play nice with the new HID system after I spent all the time swapping plugs out. In the end I did find a cheap off the shelf controller/harness that worked without modification. Interesting sidenote: On my 1993 I noticed the the high beam indicator is really bright. On my 1994, it is almost impossible to see. When I was trying to get the HID setup working on the 1993, the high beam indicator stopped working with the system plugged in. My theory was the relay system didn't have enough resistance to light up the indicator. To test this theory out, I went hunting for some "LED can-bus anti flicker resistors". The relay harnesses just use one side/headlight input. leaving the driver side open. This is the same for the high power halogen upgrade harnesses and for the HID controller setups. So I plugged one of the resistor setups into the drivers side plug, and viola! I now have a visible and BRIGHT high beam indicator! So with the right harnesses, wiring it up becomes almost plug and play. Light output is MILES above the original halogen setup. And I have room for improvement too. Still trying to get the perfect aim dialed in. I went from too high, to too low. Also, I am using much cheaper HID bulbs and lower wattage ballasts. It isn't quite up to the level of my 2023 4Runner, yet, but I think I can get it there.

Well my “before anything else” starting point is going to be charging wiring upgrades…. I redid my grounds, but the other week my truck shut down on lunchtime. The power wire on the alternator vibrated itself apart. I was able to strip it back and replace the terminal and get back online in a few minutes, but it’s a silly small like 12g wire. I think I will run a larger gauge wire from the battery to the alternator, and repurpose the current wire to install a secondary fuse box on the driver’s side. Housings…. The only way I get off inexpensively, is to DIY something and use what I have. I already spent money on crystal Depo housings for my truck. The other has Toyota fluted housings that are also supposed to be pretty good. If I’m buying a premade option, I’m going with the “Crazythegod” projector housings. Those at least let me swap bulbs out. But for that money I can probably DIY a better quality setup for a little less and use high end Morimoto parts….

Figure out where the oil leak is coming from on that 3.0…. They have several common spots. Two spots can have minor drips that can quickly go to blowout all the oil status. The back cam seal plugs, and the oil cooler/heat exchanger on the side of the block (oil filter bolts to it). If you are handy, neither of these is horribly hard or expensive to fix. The oil cooler is more likely to cause a cursing fit though.

Yea but that’s okay as the info is great and very suited to the pickup platform most of our RVs are on. In theory I can run those koito housings on my ‘runner, if I grill swap it. I almost went down this route too, but a couple pieces needed are really hard to find. But you may hit on a point I hadn’t considered too… I had been running some good quality halogen bulbs I order from the UK, but my last set popped a bulb and I threw in some replacements I found that may have been dubious quality…. The good bulb may have burned out as at some point around that time I lost the ground from the battery to body. So everything was going through the noisy engine ground…. I’m going to have to look into those HIR bulbs some more, VERY INTERESTING! Currently, I have some vintage KC Daylighter auxiliaries on my daily. They take H1 bulbs and I’ve tried a couple different things out. The wiring burned up after tropical storm Debbie came through…. Even a week after some, of the main roads around here were still flooded out. I took a turn down a road that looked okay at first, but it quickly got deep. I ended up having to go into 4Lo. It was 18-24” deep for close to a mile. The only causality was that wiring, so I considered it a big win lol! Anyways lots of homework and studying to go do!

On the Mini Cruiser, upgrading to H4 housings, rally bulbs (140/100watt), and new relay harnesses seemed to do the trick. Although I didn't have a ton of seat time at night, the lights never felt like an issue. My 4Runners though, SUCK. Okay the new 2024 is actually pretty amazing,, and contributes greatly to my dissatisfaction with the 1993 and 1994 light outputs... I don't know when/if there was a crossover point on the pickup chassis? But 1992-1995 for the 4Runners used factory housings, and not the rectangular easily replaceable sealed beam sizes the earlier pickups and 4runners used. On my 1994 I upgraded housings to clear Depo, and have tried a whole gambit of bulbs. Even the rally type 140/100watt h4 bulbs with relay harnesses don't cut it. I have LED bulbs in there now, they are probably worse than the halogens. I haven't thrown any HID in there yet, but I am not a big fan of doing that in standard halogen housings. Option A: HID might be an option still, and its cheap as chips these days. But I would want a dual neon setup and fitting those would require removing the forward reflector. I am not sure I can do that non/destructively. I guess it doesn't matter though if I can get them out without opening the housings up. 1) Any real point to trying HID in there without projectors? My 1994 has the clear lens Depo's, but the 1993 has factory Toyota fluted housings, so I am probably not burning money if they don't work in the Depos as well as I want... 2) Buy or make projector housings??? Next question before this one gets answered... 3) LED or HID? Option B: So there are only three companies making projectors specifically for my truck. One uses LED modules and has a handful of design options. Its a "cottage/garage" shop that I have used before. I am confident the workmanship is on point. Price is a touch steep at $550-600 a set. I managed to reverse engineer and figure out the LED modules he uses. They seem to be of reasonable quality, but I am not fully confident in them. I don't like that I am stuck with the one color choice and light output option... Still these are at least American Assembled and supporting a small business. Option 😄 The next option is most defiantly a Chinese company, CrazyTheGod. Need I say more lol? They are pretty big and make lights for a LOT of vehicles. Their housings are under $500, and come with HID. They use H1 style bulbs, so replacing them with different color HID, LED, or even halogen bulbs would be simple. This is appealing and the biggest selling point for these, other than they are already built. Blue tinted lights give me eye strain. Ultra white seem to be okay, but I do prefer the halogen yellow color. The only drawback to these lights is the lack of reviews I can find on them, and if I am spending more than $400, I really want RGB demon eyes... They appear to have a DRL bulb socket, so I "might" be able to use that, but info is kinda scarce. Price and simplicity is right though. Option D: The last pre-made option is a reputable tuner shop/company in the states. They can customize and I can get the RGB eyes too. They use hight quality modules, I believe Morimoto. They are way too much with the options I picked out though, over a grand I believe it was. And they were offering only LED modules for the primary light. If I buy a pre-made setup, I am leaning towards C. I am skeptical on its quality, but the bulb is easily replaceable. If the high?low cutoff beam solenoid is up to the task, then its worth the risk. The final option is to just DIY it myself. This isn't the cheapest way to do it, but it does seem easy enough. Actually I COULD do it this way for MUCH less than the other options, if I use less expensive eBay parts. I could get it done for under $100. But if I am going to DIY it, I will probably use all Morimoto parts. It is a little difficult to nail a price down until I decide on every little detail, but it looks to be about $400-600. I could likely cut that down a bit by using a cheap HID setup instead of the Morimoto HID bulbs and ballasts. But if I am in for a pound, might as well lol. Anyways, has anyone here done the Projectors or DIY Projectors route? Should I even bother, or just try tossing some HID bulbs into the housings as is? My rig does see some brutal conditions and go off-road now and again. LED modules are preferred by the off-road/overland guys for reliability. But if I loose a bulb or ballast in a water crossing, they are easily replaceable. And the amount of times that's going to be an issue, isn't a big concern. Its a trade off I am willing to take to have flexibility in color choice. With that said, I need to rewire my KC auxiliary lights I took out in the last storm crossing....

Any idea what the value should be? I know it is a broad range that will keep the light off, but that's a different story. I forget what I used before, its in my cupholder though. I probably have the resistors that came with the EGR delete kit around here somewhere also. Whatever value I should pop in there, I am sure I have in my other electronics parts piles too. The heads are brand new. I used a 3M Roloc finger disc to clean the block. Nothing special. Its been back online and daily driven for over a month now with no issues, so I am sure its going to be fine. As for torque values, I used neither the 3.0 or 3.4 values. I head studded it with ARP studs custom made for LCEngineering. Thats a whole different ballgame lol. I have contemplated wrapping the exhaust crossover for some more thermal protection.... Not sure if it would help, but it won't hurt anything except the longevity of that pipe... As for my catalyst, pretty sure it is a modern honeycomb style. I haven't looked recently on my 1994 (this one), but I know my older 1993 has a honeycomb. But somebody has replaced some/most of the exhaust so who knows. I am going to do whatever I can to safeguard the head gaskets on both of these trucks, I don't want to do this job again anytime soon!

Personally, I wouldn't go with factory injectors on the 3VZE. There are plenty of upgraded 4 hole injectors out there now. These will give better atomization and thus improve on performance and fuel economy. And there are actually plenty of option with factory plugs now, it used to be you had to use adapter harnesses. You have two problems though... 1) You're not doing the job. If your mechanic says "Get Denso" welll then just get what he is asking for. Denso is probably the factory supplied brand, and its is WELL known for quality. If you aren't putting them in, then this is insurance against getting charged labor again if you have a failed injector. I have an injector test bench/dyno setup and I can clean old injectors, and burn/break in new ones. I can test any I use, and I can also change them out in under an hour. Injectors are simple and for the most part cheap ones are as good as the expensive ones. The big difference is the expensive ones have undergone much more stringent testing and quality control. Usually they have been tested and "burned in" for a long enough period that any failures can be weeded out. 2) 2-4 days... If you are in this much of a hurry, good luck. Go with whatever you can get off the shelf at the local parts store, or have the mechanic/shop order them. If 4 days is too long to wait, then your options will be limited to what you may be able to pick up immediately. Advance, Autozone, and O'reillies all have them on the shelf today in my area. The Advanced ones were remanufactured, so they should be Denso. Injectors rarely fail, they just get dirty and seals get crunchy. So remanufactured means they clean, flow test, and replace the seals and the little basket filter.

It was a tough call for me... On one hand I really wanted to do the swap. On the other, I know what swaps like this take and that the only smart way to do such, is just like you did and grab a whole donor vehicle. The 1994 is actually my daily driver, and it being down 1-2 months for the swap wasn't going to happen without buying two additional vehicles... Ironically, two weeks in one of my good friends (and a tuning customer) heard I was down and lent me a spare car (knowing that going into it, might have swayed the decision towards the swap). For me the biggest hurdle to doing the 3.4 swap was multiple large purchases. While the heads and parts weren't cheap, and in the end probably totaled about what you have into yours with the money back from parts sold, I was able to spread out the purchases on my credit and shop accounts so it wasn't too bad. Paying for a parts vehicle alone, and needing a spare also, just wasn't really feasible. Also, I don't have a good place to keep a parts vehicle. Are these problems I could have gotten around? Probably. But not sure the added stress/time would have been worth it. Now if my truck was handling the extra weight of a house behind it, the decision would have again leaned more towards the swap, but also time wouldn't have been a big factor to consider as it wouldn't be a daily at that point. The poor running issues mostly ended up being timed incorrectly. Using the 22RE "cheat code" of loosening the TPS got it most of the way there. I have three issues left to address though. My kick down cable is junk/coming apart, and it's also not adjusted to the sweet spot it needs to be. My Check Engine light came on for two things, codes 41 and 71. TPS sensor fault, and EGR fault. Not sure what either of those are about yet, haven't had a chance to dig into them. I did rewire the TPS plug though... I have an OBD1 scan tool on the way though. So that should help with diagnosing it.

Yes it is. It's been a while and I forget the exact details, but I had owned the truck for maybe a year when the check Engine light came on. Now I also remember seeing it come on when the gas level got low a couple times, then go back out. This time was different, the tank wasn't low and the light stayed on. I figured out the code and it pulled up something like EGR flow or thermister. Details are fuzzy here but the diag flowchart had me check the thermistor and I think I found it unplugged. Plugged it in, but the light came back on at some point. I remembered the EGR delete kits came with resistors, so I stuffed one in there and the light stayed off until now. Again, I don't remember exactly what I found that day, but something I saw led me to believe the EGR system had been disabled. Maybe the plug had been unplugged with a resistor in it, and the resistor had finally fallen out? Whatever the case, I want to get it sorted out and correctly working. As you said too much flow can cause some ugly damage too. I qm hoping the EGR temp is available in the data stream. We shall know soon enough!!!

DISCLAIMER: You guys know me lol, this isn't an ad, or spam. I am not getting any kickback, I just purchased this with my own money! I don't know how many of the Toyota Motorhomes this actually covers, but if yours has OBD 1, it should work! So I am keyboard diagnosing, wasting time, and going down many rabbit holes (instead of two minutes stuffing a paperclip in just two specific holes...), and I found a SUPER INTERESTING product I just have to share with you guys! Alright, so I have known for a while that there is rudimentary OBD 1 diagnostics data that can be accessed with some high-end professional tools. I managed to view it with one of mine (I forget which one, but I suspect it was my Snap-On Zeus). It was interesting, but setup was a pain and it was only mildly useful as you can't (easily) drive around with it hooked up. There was no real point to go hunting further than the paperclip scan tool. But I knew there is much more data available on that plug. And also the paperclip doesn't always seem to connect really well for me. I was hunting for some sort of factory "diagnostics box" SST. I have collected some interesting SST for this truck, including an ABS diagnostic/bleeder tool kit. I haven't foundd that yet, but I found something way cooler and probably more useful. Plus, its actually affordable! It is called TOYOBD1, or OBD1READ by ZF-Scantools. Here is an overview of what it does. But what I stumbled across first, and started looking for this product even before I got halfway through... Was this video on YouTube. I was a bit bummed out when I read that no more were being made. But searching the internet I stumbled across a post requests for more, and a link to a web store. And it was in stock! It's coming out of Canada. Everything looks legit, and the Android app was just updated a couple months ago. Oh yeah, Android app! So for anyone still reading this post and not engrossed in the above links, here is what it actually is. It is a bluetooth dongle with some wires sticking out of it. You connect these wires up to a diagnostics adapter plug (readily available on Amazon). On an Android phone, or headunit you download the app. Then open app and connect to the dongle. Now you have live data, and a whole bunch of cool features! Not only can the live data be graphed, it can also be saved into a datalog .csv file. Also it has a trip computer that can calculate fuel usage. Best of all the price is pretty reasonable, with shipping it came to $75 for me. If this only does half of what they say, I will be pretty happy with it! One feature I am especially hoping for is timing logging. This last part is what caught my excitement on fire, and I saw this after I placed my order! I will post updates when the order arrives and I get to set it up. I am very interested to try this out and see how it works. I doubt I will get so lucky, but if transmission shift data is in there, that's a SERIOUS goldmine!

I did end up putting the EGR and PAIR systems back together. I had to replace all the vacuum lines on both systems, and every other line one was either replaced, or repaired. The idle up line (for AC/PS/etc) I didn't have the correct size for, so I silicone tape wrapped it. According to Toyota, EGR's purpose is to cool combustion and allow for more timing advance. Specifically for better power and economy. It also helps cool the exhaust valves. PAIR is to help light off the 3way cat for better emissions (I think it mentioned NOX specifically). I see no reason to disable either of these systems. When I start to tune on MegaSquirt, I think I will need to disable PAIR temporarily, but I believe I can leave EGR enabled. I am not sure the poor running issue was EGR/PAIR related though... Timing was off. Fixing the EGR and PAIR systems got it running better, but the last/biggest improvement was more time spent with the timing light. I am set to 12 right now. It wants more, but I think 12 is safe until I can get a good baseline. The Check Engine Light did come back on tonight. I haven't pulled the codes yet with my expensive Toyota OBD1 scan tool (a paperclip). I removed the resistor from the EGT sensor plug though and plugged it back in. So I suspect that's why the light came back on. Ironically, there actually are OBD1 "scan tools" for Toyota... Most just are a fancy plug with a handle you pop in and then it shorts the jumper. About 60-100 on eBay. Kinda silly when a paperclip is free. But, I did actually get one of my high end modern professional scan tools to connect and read actual PID data! The jumper thing is a pain in the keister to get to work sometimes. I am tempted to make up a diagnostic box that plugs in, lets you select the jumpers, reads battery/02 voltages, and accesses some of the other functions available on that plug. There are a handful of pretty cool features on it! For this to work, I need a converter plug that actually has all the pins populated...

Well no matter what I did, the timing was a bit "bouncy"... But loosening the TPS and turning it back defiantly made it bump down. I couldn't get the timing change between jumper in/out. Although its also hard to see a 2 degree change when its not a rock steady flash anyways. Whatever the case, the truck was not timed correctly. It is super sensitive to the TPS position, and idle air speed. Jumper in, loosening the TPS, adjusting the idle to 800rpm (per the timing light), adjusting timing to 12, adjusting idle back, checking timing again... I was able to get it happy and then crank the timing gun advance to 12 to verify on the zero mark. For whatever reason this seems to steady the timing flash. But it also gave me a clearer reference to look at. Truck is running pretty good now! Three LONG loops around the neighborhood with zero hiccups, burps, misfires, or backfires. Before I was only making it about halfway through the short loop, and then barely making it back. I'm actually looking forward to playing around with timing via a laptop/MegaSquirt. This engine starts to come alive at 12, and I suspect a little more would make it even happier. I am not sure what it was actually timed at, but it was WAY advanced because the idea was too high. I am likely going to have to revisit this soon after a bit of a "break in" period on the heads. The valves sounded a bit noisy, compared to before. I am likely going to need to adjust them, then I will pop a light back on it.

That is WAY more than you need. The hard parts to get are the spindle extensions on the front, and a full set of matching wheels. All I did was take the brake hose off the caliper, pop the tie rod off, then unbolt the balljoints, and took the whole spindle/brake assembly. I probably took the extension thing off to lighten it up some. There was one gotcha when I got home. The balljoints, I'm not sure if it was one or both, had to be popped off the spindle. I think I had to remove the caliper and the bar the tie rod bolts to do this. But it wasn't a big deal. It took less than 45 minutes. As far as condition, well you "should" replace the expendables anyways. Brakes, balljoints.... Once you get into it, it's super easy to figure out. I read a bunch of threads and overthought the whole process too as I was going to try and replace it all with new parts. But getting those dually extenders for the front is impossible. So when I found the truck I wanted them off, it was so simple to just take the whole spindle and sort it out later. There is one small catch possibly to this swap. The calipers are bigger, a bonus. But the master cylinder should be switched out to match. I swapped mine out.