DarkMonohue said:
How did the alignment and oil leak work come out? The problems you have had with this old 4Runner are sort of astonishing, especially given how incredibly forgiving my old Corollas were. Even my MR2 seldom gives me any grief. I expect it from the J20, but Toyotas of the golden age...they're just not supposed to be that way.
VikkiDpsaid:
Bill, have you fixed the truck?
Well, I thought I did I wasn't going to do a writeup on it, but the poor truck has had a hard life before I got to her. Here goes:
So Monday being a bust, I put down the tools before I broke something I couldn't fix. And a good call, I thought, because on Tuesday I had a revalation. When I went tearing through my engine, I remembered that I was too lazy to change my oil pan gasket because after everything I did I didn't want to disconnect my motor mounts and pick up the engine to do the job. It sounded like I might have found my leak.
Sure enough, Tuesday was a knuckle-buster of a day but things progressed. I got the old gasket out, and got everything in place. I was able to take a bit of a shortcut as I did drop the motor mounts, and I did pick up the engine a "little" but only enough to worm the new gasket in place. After that, I saw what I found to be the points of failure:
That's the front, the driver's side middle, and the back of the gasket there and it matches perfectly with where I see oil coming from so I had high hopes that this would be it.
Wednesday started very much like this:
I dont have a second set of hands, so what I did was scrounge through my coffee can of bolts and found the longest ones I could that had the correct pitch. The way the gasket was packaged, it wants to curl up any time you take your hands off of it. With enough long bolts in place, I was able to force it flat and then finish the install with the correct bolts.
Easy money.
I did a quick leak check from underneath while the engine was running and I decided that what I was seeing coming out was within "acceptable limits" and called it good. In about 15 minutes of running, two drops hit my driveway, and with my head under there I could see exactly where it was coming from. The crankshaft seal on the oil pump was letting a little by, and it was being flung off by the crank pulley as it was turning. Two drips wasn't anything I was going to spend another day correcting, so I gave the truck a wash and decided she was ready for Thursday (today).
Today, I take off. Loaded to the axle with donations:
99% of those are for Pastor Kovacs, but earlier in the week I did get in touch with Ira, who is still doing art therapy with the Ukrainian children. She moved positions and is now working with 30 kids. The school she is with is expecting to host as many as 40 total . I'm glad I checked with her, because she said she could use some supplies. We still had 50,000huf in our "Ira" account so I went to two local paper stores and bought everything on the shelves when it came to the items she needed (staplers, rulers, colored papers, binders, etc)
We're a small town, so "everything on the shelf" isn't always much. Hence why I went to a second store As we got chatting, she sent me some pictures of the art they were making with the previous donations:
I like these. I'm hoping what we brought will help her make more.
Anyhoo, my schedule today is pretty loose. I'm able to get the kids off to school early and it's looking like I'll be in Budapest by 10. I wont meet with Ira until noon, so there's plenty of time to play with, and from there I just need to be back at work by 1430. Easy money, right?
Well, almost. I'm bouncing down the road and this time I'm seeing none of the signs of an oil leak. I had a spot in mind where I'd stop and double check the leak at before I got on the big M-way, but it was clogged up with delivery vehicles so I decided not to stop. Once on the M-way, I was being my usual speedy self and was passing two semis when the next opportunity to stop appeared. Needless to say, I didn't stop there either. BUT I could tell that I was leaking a bit. No one was behaving unusual behind me, so I didn't think it was that bad, but I did think I definitely needed to stop for a quantity check before I got too much further.
The next gas station was an easy off, and it had a rest area I could pull into:
Oof!
When I checked what was left in the engine, I measured 2-liters low.
Double oof.
I bought three liters of 10w-40 at the gas station and topped everything back up. If this had been any earlier, I probably would have turned around but this was at the "one hour in" mark, and I decided that 2-liters in an hour was a neat enough drop rate that I could stop often enough to top up. Besides, I've driven worse for much longer
And so it goes. I stop at the 45-minute mark (just outside of Budapest). 2-liters low.
Yikes!
That's gotten a bit faster, hasn't it... This time I fill up with 20w-50
In Budapest now, and I'm running WAY behind. It's 11am when I get to Pastor Kovacs's place and he's in a hurry as well. We unload in record speed and he literally leaves me with the keys to the place and runs off
He did assure me that he hadn't run out of our previous donations. Just the baby stuff, and the food. The clothes move slower so they get stored elsewhere. Either way, we just happened to have LOTs of baby stuff, and food in this run so that worked out perfectly.
When I was done unloading, my truck was done puking all over his driveway, but I didn't see a measurable loss on the dipstick. Hmm... That 20w-50 must be doing the trick
Off to Ira's and she's running behind as well. She had an appointment at the immigration office at 8am, and by 12:00 it still wasn't done. No worries, I message her over the phone. I couldn't stay for a visit anyways.
She gives me directions to the new school's classroom and they are busy with the kids. It was super cool to see them in action. I didn't want to disturb them, so I dropped off our box in their supply/kitchen area and ducked out. Back in the schools parking garage, the truck is still bleedin. One more quart down.
Back on the road, I'm not going to make it to work on time. I call the boss, no problem, but I still gotta stop every so often and top her up. By the time I'm within 30km of backroads from my house, the leak rate is pretty intuitive. I don't even bother checking. Just stop, and dump another quart in (15w-40 now, as the last gas station didn't have 20w-50).
When we get back home, I pat her dash and tell her "good job". She can rest for a bit, and I'll take her back apart on Tuesday. Here's how she looked:
Conclusion:
The gasket set I bought locally, was some off-brand I've never heard of. Furthermore, it was for a Volkswagen Van that just happened to share the same engine as I have in the truck. There are differences between a car and a truck 22RE engine, but when you're this remote these are the chances you just have to take sometimes. I'll get the correct stuff on order and start replacing things with quality OEM components. For now, I'm relatively certain I have the new seals I need on hand. The reason is, I had an oil pump leak once on my previous Toyota truck. It dumped oil everywhere then too. It's a $5 part that ends up causing you $500 in headaches, so I always like to have one on hand in case I need it. One weekend of work, a million dollars worth of good.
Saturday is the party, and I want to have the truck on display (cleaned first) with some of the donations we've already received. After that, the youngest Hungarling has an appointment in Budapest on Monday, but after THAT I'll tear back into the truck.
I think we're good though. Everyone should have sufficient inventory to get them through the week
Just remember the "Four-R's" of 4-Runnin:
1) Run it
2) Ruin it
3) Rench it
4) Repeat
Besides, there are positives to having such major oil leaks:
1) when you're dumping 2-liters an hour, you never need to change your oil!
2) if it's covered in oil, it probably isn't covered in rust.
Good times.