Good find, and not too much work for what you paid. Aside from agreeing with absynthe77 and theweaselking, here's my $.02.
Looking at the uneven wear along the inner half on the front tires, they're shot. Did they quote you an alignment?
Did they give you a rationale for replacing the head gasket? Signs of oil or coolant leaking between the head and block?
Other than replacing the water pump, did they explain the overheat issue? when was the last time the thermostat was replaced?
The connection between the head gasket and overheating could be the gasket split at one of the cylinders. The compression for that cylinder forced into the cooling system, and the increased strain from the loss of power, will overheat the engine. A quick test for this is to remove the cap from the radiator or overflow tank, warm up the engine and look for air bubbles coming up from the coolant.
Are the Bilsteins your choice or Canadian Tire's? Rancho can be had cheaper, followed by Monroe and Gabriel.
As for your parking brake cables, according to Toyota Parts Zone there are three, but the local parts shops would only tell info for left and right cables.
The head gasket is the result of apparent gunk where it shouldn't be - 2 Canadian Tire mechanics and my friend (qualified amateur very familiar with 4Runners) all saw it.
The overheating wasn't thoroughly investigated - with a small leak from the water pump in addition to what was seen re the head gasket there didn't seem much point. I'll get those 2 things resolved and go forward :)
The Bilsteins were my choice. While I'm not planning to go broke fixing this up, I'm also not planning to *completely* cheap out across the board.
Good catch re the tires. They didn't explain why I needed new tires and it wasn't apparent to me at all. I'm looking into the Pro Comp Radial All Terrain as new tires, just need to see if I can get them in Calgary. Unfortunately that's likely to be the most expensive thing I end up doing to it!
Already have the full repair manual thank god. Came with the truck :)
Bilsteins are a good choice, Ranchos are usually what comes to mind for truck/off road duty. Good tires aren't cheap, better tires even more so. Throw in that they're truck tires and it just goes up.
Aside from agreeing with absynthe77 and theweaselking, here's my $.02.
Looking at the uneven wear along the inner half on the front tires, they're shot. Did they quote you an alignment?
Did they give you a rationale for replacing the head gasket? Signs of oil or coolant leaking between the head and block?
Other than replacing the water pump, did they explain the overheat issue? when was the last time the thermostat was replaced?
The connection between the head gasket and overheating could be the gasket split at one of the cylinders. The compression for that cylinder forced into the cooling system, and the increased strain from the loss of power, will overheat the engine. A quick test for this is to remove the cap from the radiator or overflow tank, warm up the engine and look for air bubbles coming up from the coolant.
Are the Bilsteins your choice or Canadian Tire's? Rancho can be had cheaper, followed by Monroe and Gabriel.
As for your parking brake cables, according to Toyota Parts Zone there are three, but the local parts shops would only tell info for left and right cables.
If you haven't yet, pick up a repair manual.
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The overheating wasn't thoroughly investigated - with a small leak from the water pump in addition to what was seen re the head gasket there didn't seem much point. I'll get those 2 things resolved and go forward :)
The Bilsteins were my choice. While I'm not planning to go broke fixing this up, I'm also not planning to *completely* cheap out across the board.
Good catch re the tires. They didn't explain why I needed new tires and it wasn't apparent to me at all. I'm looking into the Pro Comp Radial All Terrain as new tires, just need to see if I can get them in Calgary. Unfortunately that's likely to be the most expensive thing I end up doing to it!
Already have the full repair manual thank god. Came with the truck :)
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