That’s sheetmetal that has basically just turned to brown sand.
Then there’s the bottom of his frame rail, which looked okay (see left image) but actually wasn’t, as Jamie found when administering a few light taps (he later cut the holes in the bottom of the frame to fit patch panels).
After many years of camping in a midsize pop-up trailer pulled by an invincible 2004 Mazda MPV, our family of 4 decided to shop around for a larger camping trailer. We quickly chose the model we wanted but with a weight of nearly 5,000 pounds we also needed a more capable tow vehicle. Luckily this was in fall of 2020 before vehicle prices went fully bonkers. My wife’s parents were considering an upgrade to their 2014 Ram 1500 and would have sold it to us at a great price if we were interested, but “full size” trucks/SUVs are just too enormous for our liking. Plus with us having no intention of starting a landscaping or construction business, we had no need for a pickup truck anyway.
As any good engineer would do, I then created a matrix of midsize SUVs that would be able to tow our desired camper and gave them weighted scores for different attributes. The top three vehicles were the Dodge Durango, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Toyota 4Runner, all of them with V8 engines. It then came down to the 2 factors I care about the most: Price and reliability. After some searching on the usual car sites, it was obvious that an 03-09 V8 4Runner was going to cost a lot less than the much newer WD/WK sisters. And with the “million mile” 2UZ-FE engine in the 4Runner along with a vastly less complicated electrical system, it was a no-brainer that the older Toyota would be more reliable than the newer Chryslers.
So while I started hunting for the perfect 4Runner, my wife began searching for a camper. The summer of 2020 saw record RV sales nationwide as people saw camping to be a COVID-safe vacation plan. We couldn’t find a new or used trailer we wanted within at least 500 miles and it seemed people were at the mercy of dealers and putting down deposits to order new trailers to be built. We pretty much decided to go this route and my wife asked in a Facebook group dedicated to Michigan camping for recommendations of dealers in the Ann Arbor area that would be good to do business with. She got many recommendations for dealers, but one person commented and said that they were thinking about selling their camper rather than putting it in storage for the winter. It just so happened to be the exact model we were looking for and this person lived 20 miles from us. The camper was one year old, in perfect condition and they floated us a price that we knew was fantastic. We sealed the deal a few days later. However, I hadn’t even looked at a single 4Runner yet. Oof.
So with all rear seats removed, the rear suspension airbags inflated to max pressure and an electric brake controller freshly installed, I headed 20 miles west to pick up the camper with the MPV odometer showing 304k miles on its all-original drivetrain. Should you tow a ~4,600 lbs trailer with a minivan that has a 3,000 lb maximum tow rating? No. Can it be done safely in a pinch for a short drive late in the evening with light traffic? Yes. Safety third, right?
With the camper purchased and safely parked in the driveway a day before Thanksgiving, my urgency to buy a new tow vehicle was actually pretty low since we had no plans for winter camping. I figured I’d just keep an eye out and wait for the right 4Runner to show itself. At the time the only one I saw nearby worth possibly considering was a private seller who had traded it for some other vehicle and “hadn’t driven it all that much” and said “it seemed to run great.” Not an ideal candidate. I then realized that I had somehow forgotten about the OG of cheap used car listings, Craigslist. With low expectations I put in a search and saw this as the one local result:
268k was definitely more miles than desired but I figured for that price on a known-durable machine that was 45 minutes from home, it was definitely worth a look. Once I got there and took a drive, I knew it was the one. Plus the small used car dealer provided the Carfax report and it showed a long history of timely services that were primarily done at the Toyota dealership. The timing belt was fresh, the radiator was new, it had brand new wheels and Michelin tires, all fluids were clean and it drove like a dream. The interior showed a little wear but overall was in good shape with no funny odors. The only thing left was to get a look at the frame since I knew Toyotas of this vintage were known to have rust issues.
With a small hammer in hand that I brought along I clunked on the frame in multiple areas and everything seemed quite solid. Sure, there was some visible surface rust here and there and I could tell there was fresh black spray paint on a lot of the visible areas but nothing that seemed to be hiding any defects and the same thing I’d do to make it look better to a potential buyer. $4,900 seemed more than fair so I took it home for that price. With it being early December and my small garage filled with kitchen renovation items, I didn’t have the opportunity to inspect it much more. A few weeks later we drove it to Chicago for Christmas and it did great, handling some snow along the way like a boss. I proudly showed it to my father-in-law and told him I’d much rather have something like a 4Runner that’s way more sensible to drive every day compared to his huge pickup truck.
Since I could park in their garage while visiting, I ordered some “Woolwax” rustproofing spray to give the frame a coating and protect it from future corrosion. All was going well until I got underneath the rear of the vehicle. This is the bottom of the frame rail just behind the rear axle. This is not the sort of thing I want to see on a vehicle that’s going to haul my family and 5,000 lbs of camper to summer vacations.
I sprayed it with rustproofing in anger and tried to not feel too deflated. After all, I got it at a good price and already knew it ran great. Plus I own a welder and I’m pretty handy with it, even if the resulting welds from a $99 Harbor Freight machine don’t look very pretty. I was all set to design my own repair pieces and have them laser-cut at Alro Steel, but then I saw people recommending “Saf-T-Cap” frame repair sections (see below). While this was going to cost a fair bit more than welding my own individual pieces together, I decided that it was worth the time savings and would ultimately end up being a stronger and easier repair. It was still a PITA job but turned out great. I coated everything in POR-15 and felt good about the truck once again. We took many camping trips in 2021 and the 4Runner handled them with ease.
These days I work from home and still have the MPV so I decided to park the 4Runner for the winter unless the roads were completely salt-free. Sure, a 4WD 4Runner would be better in the snow than a FWD minivan but we also have my wife’s 2016 Outback on snow tires if winter travel is really a concern. I figured why get any salt in that 4Runner frame if I don’t have to. Fast-forward to March of 2022 and I realized that was a very good decision. What started out as a mission to “clean up the visible surface rust and give the frame some more rust protection” quickly turned into a huge repair project. Any form of hammering on the bottom of the frame resulted in clouds of rust nuggets and dust pouring out of the intentional drain holes and small rust holes that had developed in the steel. With more hammering, chunks fell off. I eventually grabbed the angle grinder and cut most of the bottom out on both sides of the vehicle. The sides of the body mounts were even turning to dust.Since the rust was so widespread, I decided to prioritize. Sure, having the bottom of a rectangular frame rail rotted-out is a bummer, but did it greatly affect the rigidity or safety of the vehicle? This former automotive engineer says no (many vehicles make do with C-channel frames, as you may know). But what can be a big safety issue is if suspension points or loaded mounting areas are compromised. So first I repaired the crusty body mount areas.The next area of concern was the forward mount for the rear lower control arm (see below). I could see some small rust holes had developed and sure enough most of the frame in that area was rusted to hell. After getting all the rotten steel cut out, coating everything in weld-through primer and creating the necessary patch panels out of thick steel angle and plate, I welded it all back together. A few days later we hitched up the largest UHaul cargo trailer you can rent and took it to Chicago to move a bunch of furniture from my in-laws house and back to our place in Ann Arbor. As always, the 4Runner worked flawlessly.While I still have plenty of cutting and welding left to do in order to have the frame of our 4Runner 100% “perfect,”with each repair I do it makes the overall task seem less daunting. Replacing rusty steel with fresh thick steel isn’t all that hard, it’s just time consuming. I may end up swearing at the truck and the universe while I lay on the garage floor under a shower of welding sparks but it never pushes me any closer to the concept of spending a large amount of money each month on a new vehicle.For me there’s a ton of satisfaction in fully owning the vehicles I rely upon and being the only one to keep them in order. Last week we celebrated 10 years of owning our 2004 MPV (now with 316k miles), a $6000 vehicle that brought our 9 year old son home from the hospital and our 11 year old daughter has no memory of the brief time when she was alive and we didn’t have it. To me cars are more than the sum of their parts, they’re capsules of memories and experiences that are worthy of the effort it takes to keep them ready for the next adventure.-Jamie
Wow, having done this same project about 3 years ago, seeing that rust triggered some memories. It took me 4 months in my garage, Safe-T-Caps and my welder to rid my truck of 98% of it’s rust issues. When I swept up the remains on the floor, I filled a 5 gallon bucket… Lessons learned:
1. Invest in a needle scaler. I had my boys using what they called the “rust tickler” and it really removes rust.
2. Corroseal works! It’s reassuring to paint it on white and watch it turn black as it has the chemical reaction with the rust and steel.
3. Safe-T-Cap saves the day. My 2wd, Regular cab, 5spd Tacoma was a perfect little workhorse of a truck. I traded a 1956 Lincoln Premiere for it and the truck now has 279K and runs great.
First: It’s many years since I learned how to weld, and almost as many years since the last time I welded something.
IMHO, those welds are too cold, the original steel is not heated up enough to make a good attachment.
Also, that car would get towed away to the scrapyard the first time it went to a bi-yearly inspection. Here in Denmark, what that guy does is illegal for safety reasons.
Same thing in New York state. My parents were proud members of the “drive it into the ground” club, and they’ve had a couple of cars fail state inspection after so many winters and frame repairs.
I’ve seen too many breaks at weld joints. If I was using a cheap welder, I’d be fearing the same thing. Driving isn’t a pleasurable experience if you’re devoting even a little bit of brainpower to “please don’t break please don’t break” along the way.
This made me log off of my work computer to go look and poke under my 4Runner. Serious question, why don’t people put sacrificial zinc anodes on car frames in areas where they salt the roads? Zinc anodes are common on boats, why not cars?
Because they wouldn’t work on cars. Air is not a conductor which essentially isolates each segment of the metal. Water on the other hand is a conductor so a sacrificial anode will protect the more ‘noble’ metals.
Here’s some more sciency stuff
https://findanyanswer.com/do-sacrificial-anodes-work-on-cars
Good on spraying WoolWax. Living in the Northeast, rust is a way of life.
By the way, that stuff or the OG Fluid Film works. I’ve annually sprayed my 10 year old daily driver since new with Fluid Film. First in the rattle cans then from a proper spray gun. There’s a little surface rust here and there, and that’s it. The first few years I soaked the car. Now there’s a bit of a layer of waxy crud built up, so only the areas that get blasted with slush get coated.
I really need to learn how to weld.
So should the guy in the article.
Toyota should’ve just given this guy a new frame.
Why? It’s an 19 year old vehicle with 270k miles…it’s lived more than it’s anticipated service life.
I’m going to have my kids read this so that they can appreciate how good that they have it being carted around exclusively in new cars!
Surprised there isn’t a recall for this one as with the Tundra- although it is 18 years old now – I would have parked it in a sketchy area with the keys in it myself
I applaud taking this on as a project, but let’s not overlook those welds and frame patches. I’m not concerned with how they look so much as you’re using that $99 HF welder and not getting the penetration you need for structural parts like this. Also, just boxing around the frame does very little for the overall structure other than making it look “whole” again. Again, I don’t mean to come off rude, but you’re going to put your family in this and tow a camper with it, please do it right or have someone do it for you.
I agree 100% . I can appreciate Jamie’s tenacity in addressing the frame rot issues, but his repairs are largely cosmetic.
There is no way I’d be using this vehicle to tow a trailer much less with my family in it!
Welcome to my world. The frame of my 13 FJ (with only 70k miles) isn’t this bad, no holes, but I am breaking my back to keep it that way stripping and painting the frame. I’m glad he found the Safe-T-Caps. I need to get a welder and teach myself so that I can do similar patching if things get worse. It’s a 500k mile drivetrain attached to a 50k mile frame. One of the most difficult problems here is the top of the frame, which you cannot reach or remediate without lifting the body.
The owner may wish to check if this is covered by one of several class action lawsuits against Toyota. The one for the FJ is spinning up now, but I believe there was at least one 4Runner lawsuit that succeeded. The difficulty is, now that he has fixed it himself, what does that mean for any potential frame replacement settlement? I’m in that position with my FJ – I’m trying to prevent it from getting bad but does that mean I won’t be able to get a replacement or show material damages if the lawsuit succeeds?
It is absolutely unconscionable that the dealer sold him this vehicle. It was absolutely not safe to drive before the repairs. Frankly, the vehicle is scrap…any accident at all would have *easily* totaled it. It was totaled even before he bought it. That he has the skill and, more importantly, the willingness to take on a project of this magnitude doesn’t change the fact that the dealer sold him a vehicle that was not in any way roadworthy. He should have taken it back. I greatly admire the work he has done, but there is no world in which this situation was defensible from the dealer’s standpoint.
to the best of my knowledge, the class action for the 4runner is still “ongoing” – i highly doubt its going anywhere. as a fellow v8 4th gen owner who recently paid to have professional frame rust repair completed, i am both jealous and in awe of jamie’s resolve here.
If it’s in the cards, pick up a cheap stick welder on amazon. I regularly use a “Deko Pro” 160 amp machine I paid roughly $120 for. I’ve used the flux core machines from HF in the past, and they will work in a pinch. However on thicker steel like frame rails, I found that they don’t get quite the penetration needed. Looking at the welds in the pictures, I would worry about them failing if the frame ever received a decent amount of flex. Looks like all of the weld is piled on top of the metal.
Something else, that I used on my WK2 originally from Massachusetts, is the Rustoleum Rust Reformer. Any light surface rust it will turn into black oxide. So it stops the rust, converts it to an inert coating, and protects from future rust. Thankfully, I didn’t have any big rust holes such as this (especially considering the WK2 is unibody) however I treated all of the areas with surface rust (entire undercarriage) with the rust reformer when I purchased the vehicle and so far the rust hasn’t popped back up. Living in Central NC also might help keep the rust at bay…
For real. They’re $100 and can stick, flux core or lift TIG. I have one and I’ve only used it to ‘learn’ how to weld better. Haven’t actually used it for anything yet, but I kind of have this fear of societal breakdown in which having all these things will be nice. Welder, 3D printers, CNC machines, tools. Not quite prepper level stuff, just a ‘ehhhhh just in case’ kinda thing.
This is pretty horrifying, I think the 1912 Renault that’s still inside the Titanic has less corrosion
Coming from California rust absolutely terrifies us, any car I bought from out of state (even in those cities that only get an inch of snow a year) has me crawling all over that thing searching for any sign (which I am sure has amused many a buyer) – and we generally won’t touch a vehicle that has it, no matter how small…but I think it’s just because we don’t have to deal with it as much so we a) don’t want to and/or b) have the experience or confidence dealing with it.
Y’all are better than I am, I’ll give you that.
Oh, and the weld jobs are great, I’ve welded trailers together piece by piece before which is much easier/less precision (and less life/safety dependant) than that!
Throw up a little? This will be giving me nightmares for the foreseeable future!
Man, as a Californian who has spent plenty of time at work under Toyota trucks, I’d rather deal with draconian smog laws than this any day of the week.
that’s how to do it.
takes someone elses problem and turn it into your asset.
kudos!!
Also, jalopnik getting rid of photos on older articles is extremely annoying. Some of the decisions that site has made…yikes.
Yesterday they posted a two year old news article to the front page. Today, a four year old investigation. They are desperate for content. I feel sorry for Mercedes and Elizabeth and kinda hope Autopian picks them up, then I won’t have to head back again.
The only two good writers left over at the ol Jello Picnic.
Bradley Brownell, Rob Emslie, and Lawrence Hodge aren’t too bad either. Rest of em leave a lot to be desired….
Hodge is kind of a dick. Regularly fighting with people in the comments, and I know it’s a corporate directive, but the ‘Hey guys, here’s a question for you’ and 4 hours later ‘Here’s the answers you gave us in the last post! Only in slideshow format.’
I assume people must like Lawrence from his days on Oppo, because his writing since getting hired at Jalopnik has ranged from uninspiring to trash. I remember a bunch of people being excited when he started but I’ve never understood it.
Bradley also has a bad habit of getting into it with commenters on some of his articles. He’s a bit hit or miss for me, but maybe with some better direction from the higher ups he could work out here.
Honestly, my trips to Jalopnik lately have gotten more pleasant since I just stopped clicking on certain authors and they (finally) started noting when they’re reposting old articles. Still not remotely on the level of The Autopian, but at least I can still enjoy the good writers they have left.
Life long Michigan resident here – obviously know that rust can be an issue, but never noticed any on vehicles I’ve owned…and now kinda horrified at what was potentially going on below…
You should look. Also refrain from attempting to repair it with some harbor freight welder.
I have a 2005 Land Cruiser that’s previous owner reported “surface rust” which has turned out to be so much more. This article helped me feel like there is a way out that doesn’t involve just dumping a vehicle my wife and I have put blood, sweat, and tears into.
It’s a shame Volvo never made a “truck” truck. I’ve had myriad Volvos since the early 2000s and none of them have every rusted through unless there was prior damage. Volvo has been getting rust resistance right for a long time.
In British English that sounds funny, because Volvo are well known for making lorries.
I guess you mean pickup truck though right?
Yes, I meant the carmaker business, not the long-time cleaved-from truckmaker business. Body on Frame SUV or Pickup from Volvo cars would have been absolutely cool.
> It’s a shame Volvo never made a “truck” truck.
A significant share of the semi tractors I see are Volvos. The truck biz may have spun off from the auto biz, but apparently there’s a number of Volvo brands, including Mack and Renault (trucks). And in the last few decades, they’ve owned (or participated in) other brands, including Autocar, White, Western Star, Sterling, and GMC.
This reminds me David, I’ll be bringing my TJ up to your place for you to install a full set of SafeTCaps to fix its rotted out frame. I figure while I’m there you can fix the 65mph shake as well to make the drive home a bit more pleasurable.
Of course I’m happy to pay you in exposure by allowing you to write an article about it. Say nothing if you agree to these terms.
After living most of my life in Michigan and then moving to the PNW about 9 years ago, I wouldn’t mess with any of that rusty stuff like that again. I’ve done my fair share. There is so much clean 15-30 year old stuff here, that it would be worth it to fly out and drive something back. As long as it didn’t live near the shoreline it’s generally clean.
Even in this current car market, albeit a little less so than before, many people are willing to declare a vehicle totaled, and then they head down to the dealership to jump back on the payment carousel. Sure, the back might be stiff, the neck and joints a bit sore after the job, but elbow grease is almost always a better solution to a problem than throwing more money at it.
I’m glad to be a part of a community that’s more supportive of the latter than the former.
Can relate to this recently. Car developed a vibration in the clutch pedal which I knew right away was a bent rod. Hadn’t started knocking yet but I knew it was only a matter of time so I spent a few days combing dealerships for a replacement.
Decided I didn’t want to start the payment cycle all over again so I picked up a low mileage engine and combined that with several long nights in the garage and here I am back in action.
Side note, the day after the replacement engine showed up the old one finally kicked a rod and put 4 holes in the block.
If DT finds the amount of rust alarming it must be a truly terrifying amount of rust.
Jamie here. Thanks for the post David. It’s always good to spread awareness that rust can be defeated, and make people from the west and south throw up in their mouths a little 😉
Wow, now that’s rusty, nice job on the rebuild.
Thanks for sharing this, Jamie.
speaking of rust, the brake calipers like to get rusty and seize which can make your braking feel a little erratic. the “popular” upgrade is the 2010-2012 5th gen calipers, but ive had decent luck (so far) with oem replacements. youre towing a decent amount of weight, keep an eye on these!
I’ve been lucky with the brake calipers and have kept an eye on them after hearing similar warnings from other 4th gen owners. The trailer has its own electric brakes which are quite good. Not to mention the fact that the land is relatively flat here in Michigan.
And just like that, with a little bit of work, a trusty rig gets a new lease on life. Good for that guy.
I’ll never forget the day I found out you could buy weld-in frame pieces for Jeep Tjs. A whole new world of cheap TJ’s was opened up to me, and I never had to pay more than $2500 for a TJ again.
EXACTLY! I always prefer to invest a little sweat equity and get much more car for my money, along with the feeling of superiority that comes with it. 😉
And honestly, no way you’re getting a 4Runner that clean any other way.
I still feel a little angry that the rust wasnt disclosed to him at the dealer. There’s absolutely zero chance that they didn’t know about it.
Yeah, I thought the same after discovering the situation at the rear of the frame. Clearly they took a look underneath since they put some fresh paint on it. But I just chalked it up to “now I know why the price was so low.” Other than frame rust it continues to be a great machine.
The dealer is a complete dirtbag. They absolutely knew that the vehicle wasn’t even roadworthy and sold it to him anyway. This is a very well known issue.
Exactly!!! If it were me, I’d sue them!!
You can definitely get Toyotas with clean frames from outside the salt belt. They’re not that hard to find.
And dude. Welding upside down underneath a car with a 100 dollar setup from HF you’re not going to get instagram weld-porn welds. Trust me, you did great. It Doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to work!
My wife literally lit herself on fire when we tried this on our Land Cruiser. It turns out when welding it’s important that you are wearing a 100% natural fabric. I thought 88% was good enough.