I saw a nice shiny 4Runner near my studio the other day and headed to take a gander. I did a double-take when I noticed the “TURBO diesel” badge on the rear as I had never heard of any 4Runners being such equipped. Then I saw the Yota-Benz logo and was further puzzled.
From the back, apart from the turbo badge, it appears to be a first-gen 4Runner with t-tops. Not at all an uncommon sight around Oregon. I could only guess as to what was in the engine bay until a few nights ago when the hood was up:
Sure enough it’s a venerable 5-cylinder MB diesel; a swap I had never heard of, unlike the common 350 swap. And according to Wiki, no Turbo diesel 4Runners were sold in the United States, although they were available in many parts of the globe. How many Yota-Benzes do you think are out there?
While we’re on the subject of interesting 4Runners, here’s a real gem just a few parking spots away from the Yota-Benz:
I haven’t seen this one in the business park for a while, so it may be long gone by now, whereas the Yota-Benz is still a work-in-progress for one of my neighbors. I Googled “4Runner Diamond edition” and found nothing like this one.
A guy that wanted to buy my 220D had a four cylinder Mercedes diesel powered 4Runner rather like this one. He wanted my car’s engine to repower a 80s Toyota pickup. I felt the Benz still had still life in her yet.
I used to own a rhd Toyota Hilux SURF (4Runner) that originally had a diesel motor in it. From what my ex-brother in-law said the Toyota diesel motor is not that great and had a reputation of overheating and head gasket issues. He swapped a 22R into it prior to my ownership.
The turbo ones (2LT) were the bad ones. The normally aspirated 2L diesel was a great engine for durability. I imported a HiAce pickup from Japan with the 2L and put 250k on it over five years of delivering rural mail. It was so so slow accelerating that my daughter dusted me for ten seconds off the line on her ten speed and top speed was 100 kph flat out with a tailwind, but I averaged 28 mpg doing stop and go driving in a quad cab one ton truck so I was pretty pleased overall…
Toyota’s 2CT diesel (Liteaces/Townaces) and 3CT (Previa/Estima) have a similar reputation here for being bad, although I always wondered if that was more due to the mid-engined mounting and reduced cooling etc. On the other hand, the 3L 2.8 non-turbo diesel in the 1989+ Hiace is known as indestructable – I did 574,000km faultless in mine over 6 years (until the cambelt broke…).
Nice looking rig. It’s too bad the 4Runner was never offered in the USA with a diesel engine, even if it were provided from another car maker (Mercedes-Benz, etc.) Are there any interior photos of this truck? It looks stock on the outside, but I like to see the interior, check out the instrument cluster, see what changes were made.
I peeked inside earlier (didn’t have a camera handy) and the dash and interior is all stock Toyota but there’s a 3-gauge cluster under the stereo and two other gauges under the speedometer.
I figured as much. I don’t mind aftermarket gauges, but under the radio doesn’t seem like a very good location for them. I would think it’d be easier to read the gauges if they were up on the dash, or with the stock gauges.
ToYota-Benz. YotaTech is a forum for Toyota off-roaders. Googling Yota-Benz leads here: http://www.yotatech.com/f162/om617-benz-swaps-188616/
I’d guess that “Diamond Edition” was a dealership appearance package (stick on graphics) designed to up the asking price. A very common sight back in the days of voluntary import restrictions, which matches the time period of these 4Runners.
Here in the East these are all but forgotten…except for a coworker and friend who remembers his black ’87 4-Runner quite fondly. He brought it with him to Pittsburgh when he moved here from Los Angeles. It was gas and had a stick and was obviously rust-free…
…until it was stolen.
Never recovered…that was close to 15 years ago. Now drives a BMW Z4 with a stick and Blizzaks which get him up the hill to our offices no problem.
Looks like a guy with a camera is trapped inside that badge.
And a VW T3 trapped inside the front seat!
It’s mooning the car in front.
I had a Lincoln mark 4 1/2. Which was really a 78 ltd landau with a 74 front end on it with an aftermarket grill with Lincoln badges and turbine wheels. It had a 460 in it. Not to many people knew what kind of car it really was. It actually looked OK.
I know what a Mark IV looks like. It was the best looking Lincoln Mark series cars I’ve seen.
That last pic – there’s something about an ’80s Toyota 4×4 with the non-SR5 plain white steelies that just does it for me.
So is this the world’s most reliable car?
This was interesting to me when it came out. Since then I bought a 954Runner that resembles the white one with four doors and better looking wheels. Now it is very interesting. I would love to have the swap in mine but it’s another 5 years until I could get away with it. Need an older one like this one. 25 years old is smog exempt in Texas.
There are a lot. I have one I built, and there are FB pages set up for this kind of swap. Also, Doomsday Diesel makes the adapter kit.