New member from Vancouver!

[LiamMcMillan]

Hey guys,

I'm new to the forums.. just bought my manual 86' 4x4 DLX wagon a month ago. It was the one posted in Vancouver by the used car dealer. Wasn't sure about it at first but the engine sounded great and it was in pretty good condition with 236,000 km. Only thing I noticed is that the CV joints are a little loose - I can hear a cyclical thumping when I do sharp turns. Got the price lowered to $1250, which seems like a pretty good deal when I look at similar mileage tercel's for sale.

This is going to be my camping vehicle so of course I had to turn it into a camping mobile, with kitchenette and "sleeping quarters"!

Here's a pic

Just curious... I noticed that going over 115km/hr feels pretty sketchy, even 105km/hr sometimes. I wasn't that surprised, but what I'm wondering is how much the CV joints might be affecting how it feels. Does your terc manage 115 okay?

Anyways, that's my terc! Looking forward to hanging out on the forums, cheers!

[TominMO]

Welcome to the forum! I'm pretty new here too.

You could be having probs with your tires, steering components or alignment. How are you at doing repairs yourself? Installing outer tie rods is no big deal, and a decent alignment can be done with a piece of string. You can inspect your tires for issues like a broken sidewall belt (bubble showing) or a missing wheel weight. Might try swapping front tires with rear tires (one at a time), to see if the problem goes away.

Get a Chilton's repair manual for convenience; and there is a manual here on the site, which you may have found already. Browse around in the repair sections, and you will learn a lot!

You can sense a theme here--learn to do it yourself and save a lot of money!

[Mark]

I was actually wondering why that one took so long to sell. It seems like you got a good deal. When I bought mine it had the worst clunk I've ever heard from the passenger side CV joint. I let it go since I've never had one break before. It finally broke apart when I was up around Parksville (about 150 km away). It was a weekend evening and no parts places were open so I had it towed back to Victoria. Now I'm paranoid whenever I do slow, tight turns. I almost wince when I turn the steering wheel hard over.
The max speed I've done was about 110km/hr for a few days of highway driving and it felt fine. On previous cars, every time I've felt a high-speed vibration or wobble it's been the tires. I don't know if yours are worn or have any bulges.

[Petros]

welcome to the fourm!

Great buy, but there is something else to look for besides a worn CV joint to cause it to feel unstable at that speed. I had driven an old beater Tercel4wd across Texas at speeds of 85 mph (I could only hit a max of 94 on a down hill run). In Texas they have a high speed limit, and I was getting passed even at 85 mph! It should not feel loose and unstable at speed, even loaded up.

Have your tires checked for decontamination, and have the balance checked while you are at it. Make sure all of the bushings, ball joints and tie-rod ends are in good shape (no play) and the alignment is good. If you take it to an alignment shop they will check this stuff out first since they can not do an alignment with badly worn suspension parts. Also check the front bearings for wear or excessive play (in and out, and back and forth-wobble). Also see if there is any slop in the rack and pinion, usually not with that low of miles, but it is worth checking.

You will likely find a few issues, I would not let an enlightenment shop replace any parts unless they give you a good deal. they are not hard nor costly to replace most suspension parts. Usually once you fix all the problems the aliment comes back to within spec. Also, check the condition of the bushings on the panhard rod (or track bar) on the rear axle. You will likely find something between all of this stuff.

to make it feel even more solid on the highway, consider switching to 195/60x14 tires with 14" alloy wheels, they have the same rolling dia and will be more stable and give a much more solid ride than the skinny flexy steel 13" stock wheels.

You should check this out soon since there could be something dangerous that should be fixed right away. Most likely not, but I would want to know for sure before I drove it anymore.

good luck.

[4doorVIP]

welcome to the club, the wagon looks good

when i purchased my tercel it had a worn out drivers side cv and shot ball joints on both sides
after replacing those it feels way more confident on the parkway, it will hit 120km/hr without shakes, before it was started getting a bit hairy after 110km/r
all those nasty clunks disasppeared as well

[dlb]

welcome, liam. great to have you. there are a handful of us over here on southern vancouver island but only a few on the lower mainland. bruce (aka tough tercel) is over in your area. he has been a huge help to me a number of times for parts and what not so if you need help finding some obscure part, you should look him up on here and send him a private message using the 'PM' icon.

your camping mod for the back looks great. really simple and effective. can you post some more pics of it? too bad the back bumper sticks out so far, it means you have to lean forward to use the table top. if you added a part to your camping rack like a keyboard tray on a computer desk, something on tracks that slides in and out, it would make it more ergonomic and give you more work space.

like mark, i also wondered why your terc took so long to sell. one member in victoria said she spoke to the salesman but said he sounded shifty so she didn't pursue it any further. it looked pretty nice in the pictures. my advice, if you're interested in some fun, easy upgrades: get the seats, dash cluster, and inclinometer from an sr5 terc and swap them into yours. the sr5 seats are cloth and more adjustable. the sr5 dash cluster has a tachometer, which is super important to me. inclinometers are useless but so, so cool. all of these are really easy to swap, installing an inclinometer takes the longest but even that only takes a few hours.

on a few rare occasions, i took my terc up to 115 or 120 km/h. i had no problems but i don't usually drive tercs like that because the engine is screaming at about 4000 rpm then, and fuel economy gets exponentially worse past about 100 km/h. it sounds like the tires could require balancing but if you know your CVs are worn, i would replace those first and check all the other front end components while you're at it—ball joints, tie rods, sway bar and its end bushings, etc. the sway bar and its end bushings are especially crucial to check because that area is prone to trapping moisture, rusting away, and the ends of the bar can snap. i posted a guide on checking/replacing those bushings so check it out here:

https://tercel4wd.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7481

note that the metal sleeve and end bushings are only available through toyota, and pricy, but they're extremely important.