My new (to me) project truck: A 2000 Toyota 4Runner

Restoring an old 4Runner: rugged, analog, and built to last.

I’ve almost always had a project car. Most of my life, they weren't really "project cars", they were "the piece of junk I could afford and now needed to keep running." But I usually tried to make them interesting pieces of junk.

My first car, when I was all of 15 years old, was a Triumph GT-6 that was already older than I was and didn't run. I got it running, and from there I went on to have two more Triumphs, three MGs, a run of air-cooled Volkswagens -- Beetle, Karmann Ghia and a Type 3 Squareback -- a couple of early BMW 3-series, and other assorted heaps. It was a steady run of vehicles to restore, repair, or simply keep alive longer than anyone expected. And I admit, I enjoyed knowing every nut, bolt, and detail, and knowing I'd put it right.

A near-twin to my first car, although this one is in far, far better condition than I ever managed. Photo from Bring A Trailer.

Eventually I could afford better cars, and I moved on to other projects, so I went years without a project car. But I found something else creeping in: a growing distrust of the technology I’ve spent most of my career helping build, and a growing reverence for simple, analog, durable machines. Whether that's grandma's old kitchen appliances that still work, an automatic watch, or an old bicycle, I've increasingly grown to love the things that were built to be around and just work. No forced upgrades, no forced deprecation, they just work, day after day, year after year. Which took me to the idea that I needed an old truck of some sort.

What's the automotive equivalent of a cast iron skillet? Except maybe easier to wash? Photo from Lodge Cast Iron Cookware

The Search for the Right Truck#

I started looking around, researching, weighing all the truck-like possibilities: old-body-style Ford F-150s and Rangers, Jeep Wranglers and Cherokees, and so on. I wanted a rugged and simple rock of a vehicle, just new enough to live with every day but not yet old enough to demand classic-car prices.

My criteria looked something like this:

• A reputation for durability and reliability. I wanted something I could fix with a hammer, in the unlikely case it ever broke.
• Livable for everyday use. I mean, some creature comforts are nice.
• Small enough to fit in my garage (sorry, F-150).
• $10K budget.
• Not rusted away or “modded” to death.
• Capable of dirty jobs, hauling kayaks, and generally being a useful workhorse.

Eventually, I started looking more at the third-gen Toyota 4Runner, made from 1996-2002. I already liked the Tacoma from that era (but couldn't find one in my price range), and the the 4Runner has the same reputation: straightforward, rock-solid reliable, and overbuilt. In many ways, the 4Runner back then was just a Tacoma with an enclosed bed. The more I looked, the more it made sense.

The first-generation 4Runner was literally just a Tacoma with a fiberglass top enclosing the bed. You could remove the top.

Why a 4Runner?#

The third-generation 4Runner hits the sweet spot for me: It’s a Toyota, so it comes with legendary reliability, it has modern conveniences, but it isn't overly computerized. The 3.4L V6 and stout suspension are still accessible for a shadetree mechanic. It's modern enought to be a daily driver, but not too modern. It's also smaller than modern 4Runners, while still being big enough to haul gear.

Eventually I landed on this 2000 Toyota 4Runner SR5 with 220,000 miles. It has no real rust, original paint, and a filthy but fundamentally solid interior. It’s far from perfect, but for a 25-year-old truck it’s in good shape. It looks good, drives well, and has just enough small issues to make it an interesting project.

The big killer of 4Runners is frame rust. This one spent most of its life in the Southwest, so the frame is clean. There’s a little rust on the rear bumper to address, but that’s it.

So I've had it about a week now, and we're in that "getting to know you" phase, where I'm taking care of a lot of little tiny things and making mental notes about what to do next.

Taking the sales posting pics at the car wash is always a good way to make the paint just a bit shinier.

I didn't think the interior looked all that dirty. I was wrong.

The much-hated slip-on (and always slipping) steering wheel cover.

The seats were in pretty good condition, although they also needed a deep cleaning.

That's a lot of stains in that carpet.

First Week Fixes#

The very first job was round one of a deep clean. I say round one because there will definitely be at least one more round. Maybe two. This thing had picked up a lot of dirt and grime over 25 years — plus a Jumbo Big Gulp's worth of soda in the carpets. I spent hours just cleaning the interior, pulling out mats, steam-cleaning the carpets, scrubbing everything, and giving the whole thing a good once-over.

There’s something deeply satisfying about the act of cleaning and restoring, especially when you can see the immediate results. In this case, I couldn't really say it was transformatively better, but I could at least call it cleaner and keep working on it.

Other first week fixes:

• Replaced some missing interior trim fasteners.
• Replaced the obnoxious slip-on steering wheel cover (I hate those) with a lace-on leather one. The steering wheel leather is in rough shape, but this'll do for a long time before I need to worry about it.
• Located and repaired the overhead console sunglass holder. I found it in one of the seatbacks. It is now back where it belongs.
• Replaced a missing hood strut clip.
• Adjusted the loose throttle cable for much better response.
• Painted the rusty trailer hitch. It was just surface rust, but it looked terrible.
• Fixed a vacuum leak.
• More cleaning. And more cleaning.

Nothing dramatic — just small wins, and a chance to learn the truck.

The Plan: Slow, Steady, and Thoughtful#

I’m not trying to build a rock crawler or showpiece. The goal is to preserve the 4Runner character while improving reliability, comfort and usability. Slow, steady and thoughtful. Much like the 4Runner itself.

First, I’ll tackle safety and reliability: From the pre-purchase inspection, I know I need an alignment soon, so while we're in there I'm going to have suspension components like the lower ball joints and tie rods checked a second time. They're worth double-checking on a 4Runner (you can lose a front wheel if they break). I also need to track down what's making the airbag light flash intermittently. I think it's a short, likely caused by a seatbelt tensioner sensor. I also have a seatbelt that doesn't like retracting, so I wonder if the two are related.

Comfort and interior upgrades will follow. I plan to add sound deadening in the doors and cargo area, especially if I have to replace that old soda-stained carpet. There are also more rattles and squeaks to track down. And finally, I want to swap out the stereo with a proper in-dash double-din head unit — the "floating" style in there now is in the way of everything — and better speakers. I need to figure out my order of operations, so I don't end up stripping the whole interior down at once. I don't want to do that.

I also need to get some preventive maintenance going soon: fluids, belts, maybe the radiator if it seems questionable. I don't have service records, so I need to figure out what's been neglected.

Why This Matters to me#

This isn’t just about fixing up an old truck. It’s about celebrating something built to last. Durable. Reliable. Better than it needed to be. Better than what it cost.

We don’t see much of that these days, when everything we buy is the cheapest version someone thought they could get away with — more expensive, yet worse than before. We live in a world where even mac and cheese was changed to be cheaper and crappier, while the price went up. To maximize shareholder value. I don't care all that much what's good for shareholders, I want something that's good for me, the purchaser. Something that's not designed or packaged to cheat me, to stop working, or to extract value from me, the purchaser. I paid for a thing, that's it.

An old 4Runner is never going to serve me ads, never going to spy on me, and never going to be remotely bricked because I rejected some new AI-enabled update.

It will just keep going — if I take care of it. I like that reminder: with care, a thoughtfully designed, well-built machine can last. I like things that last. I am rejecting disposability.

So this is the start. The journey should be as interesting as the destination. If not, I'm probably doing it wrong.

Published 24 September 2025 in Vehicles