I found my '80 in a newspaper ad in the parts section.  It said there was a title and it ran when parked but the trans was probably bad.  It was a ranch truck that hadn't left the dirt for about 13 years, so while it had just barely turned over 100K it had some abuse and odd issues.

We were actually able to start it in gear and drive it onto the trailer.

Here is a list of the bad and odd things...

1)  Bad clutch slave.  This was all that was wrong with the trans

2)  The brakes pulled hard to the left.  I bled them and found red hydraulic fluid coming out of one side and brake fluid coming out the other.

3)  Seat belts wouldn't latch.  I went to replace them with some spares and found what looked like old grass plugging up the slots. 
     Turns out they were full of cow poop.   

4)  Bed rails were kind of S shaped.  A little work with a jack, ratchet straps and a BFH fixed that.

5)  One missing headlight.

6)  Bullet hole through the passenger side inner fender.  The angle looked as if if would have taken out the radiator. 
     That must have been interesting.

7)  Yellow cab top grafted on to a tan pickup.  Underside of the hood is yellow too.  Must have been in a rollover at one time.

8)  After a bit of driving I kept getting my fuel filter plugged up with this black stuff. 
     I finally dropped the tank and blew out the lines and found about 18" of deteriorating black hose in the tank.

9)  Intermittent dash lights and heater blower.  The fuse block was all crusty and green.  Unhooked the battery and took a wire brush to it. 
     Problem solved.

10) Had a gun rack in it.  Not sure how your head is supposed to fit in there with a gun rack, much less with guns in it.

Really wasn't that bad at all, especially for $250.

What are you even talking about here?

Drum brakes

I thought it might be entertaining to have a thread about the signs of abuse, strange quirks, badly done maintainance, etc that we have found on used Toyotas.

I don’t think there is anything particularly entertaining about finding a legendary early Toyota vehicle like the pickups and 4Runners that has been pathetically and stupidly misused, not properly maintained, and carelessly driven until it won’t run.

How many people who own and drive a vehicle do not know it requires proper maintenance or it will fail to operate?

Buying a used vehicle that has been thrashed is a choice.  I have bought used vehicles and chose NOT to buy one that was obviously not maintained or abused.  Resurrecting and bringing back to life a classic vehicle from a coffin, or rescuing a vehicle from a life of abuse is commendable and many people do it with incredible pride, talent, time, and money.

A major disappointing and sad reality during my 33 years of 4-wheeling is witnessing the guy who starts his journey into the ego-boosted-adrenalin-pumping 4-wheeling hobby with a beautiful pristine $30,000 vehicle and within a year or two it’s almost unrecognizable because it’s been damaged and thrashed, and sometimes literally destroyed in a rollover.  Then he spends $10,000 adding parts to it so it he can go out and thrash it some more.  At the end of a several years the $40,000 spent on his vehicle is worth $400 in used junk spare parts on Craig’s List......

..... BUT...  he might tell you that he had a REALLY great time.

Gnarls.

What are you even talking about here?

According to the FSM and the parts list, there is a spring to keep the front calipers from dragging on the disks when the brakes are not applied. Apparently, at some point someone decided that part was optional because when we did the front brake job it was just gone.

The DIYer probably couldn't figure out how they went back in after switching pads, have found them installed backwards before, or they had broke and he was too cheep to buy buy new hardware.

Given that this was the guy who used a grease zerk as a brake bleeder and put some thin brown not-transmission fluid into the transmission, none of the above would surprise me

According to the FSM and the parts list, there is a spring to keep the front calipers from dragging on the disks when the brakes are not applied. Apparently, at some point someone decided that part was optional because when we did the front brake job it was just gone.

Now I know what you are talking about. These are springs to hold the pads away from the rotors. The part that retracts the caliper pistons is the square-cut seal.

Oh, and shoes go with drum brakes and have a few springs to retract them.

Oh, right...

The radio in my truck is an aftermarket job. To get power to the unit the installer ran a wire to the driver's side fuse box and jammed a spade terminal in beside a fuse. Then they left a loose wire with a bare end that intermittently contacted bare metal and caused the horn fuse to blow.

Also, at one point they apparently had trouble with the horn blowing constantly, or something. I don't know. The previous owner's brilliant solution was to file down the brass horn contact in the steering wheel until it couldn't work any more.

The driver's seat was mounted with one roller out of it's track, and one track broken so it couldn't lean forward or move properly. Then they mounted the track with a sketchy welded bracket that made it impossible to get a wrench on the mounting bolt.

How?

Had a friend put His clutch in backwards twice. 

How?