Hey guys,

So, this is my very first sojourn into the world of Toyota van ownership. I'm negotiating a purchase right now for a 1981 Toyota HiAce. I've been in the old-school BMW world for quite some time, and this thing just grabbed my attention and won't let go. While I am no newbie to owning project vehicles, a diesel Toyota HiAce is definitely a new one to me!

The van has some rust, which I'll have addressed by my bodyshop. The one big issue is that it currently has a stuck throttle - just runs at a super-high RPM when you crank the thing on. The seller thinks it has something to do with the injection pump but doesn't have any real clue as to what caused it. He claims it was running fine one day, then this symptom developed when driving it home the next.

Anyway, I have zero knowledge of these motors and would like any insights I can gather on how difficult to work on they are, how hard they are to find parts for, etc. From the preliminary research I've done, this van has the 2.2L "L" diesel engine with a 4-speed column shift. Beyond that...I don't know how widely used this engine was, or how hard it will be to find parts for.

I'm not too worried about it, as I own a grey-market 1980 BMW 320/6 with a carb'd motor never sold in the U.S., so I'm accustomed to finding rebuilders for things like brake boosters and distributors, not to mention parts recyclers all over the globe. However, this is new territory for me and any help on potentially diagnosing what this issue is with the throttle sticking would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Jeff