89 toyota 4x4??

[danw82]

I've been wanting a older toyota truck for a while now. Well my friend is selling his and I'm looking at getting it. It's a 89, single cab, small size bed, 4 banger, 4x4 pop up roof, 5 speed, white, 184,000 miles clean inside and out besides a "lil" surface rust below the drivers door. He's owned it for as long as I can remember and I never seen him beat on it. He's asking $1800 for it which doesn't seem bad from the prices I've seen on ebay in alot worst shape.

The main ? I want to ask is what bad things should I look for before I buy it? What are known to go wrong with them? Are parts hard to find? What can be done to the motor to give it a lil extra hp but still keep it reliable? And what do you guys think about the price? $1800

He just recently replaced the alternator, radiator and had a new valve cover gasket installed. Any input would be great along with links specifically for this kinda truck and or parts.

[rbmcveigh]

My wife just god rid of her 95 Toyota, same specs though. She had that truck for about 5 years, never had a single problem that I didn't cause. The obvious things you want to look for in that old of a truck are leaks. Crawl underneath and see if any of the main seals are leaking, they aren't hard to fix, but requires some time. See if the transfer case is in good shape, finding a replacement for those are a little more difficult and costly.
Another suggestion, look up the recalls for that truck and see if everything was/has been fixed in a timely manner. When the wife and I got married, she had an outstanding recall for about 3 years.
As for helping with the HP, other than the obvious, there aren't too many simple tricks for the Toyota engines, they are just about tweeked out as they can get without replacing parts and spending some cash. However, $1800 doesn't sound too bad assuming there isn't much wrong with it.