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Found the coolant leak, heater hose had a slit in it. Replaced the hose and burped the system. No Drips of any fluid coming from the truck! Leak free for the first time since I've owned it... well, for now anyway.
Rented an A/C Manifold gauge set and a vacuum pump to test out the "retrofitted" AC that has never worked. Turns out it wont hold vacuum so there is a leak somewhere. I have a new dryer for it but wont put it in until I find the leak. Dont know the status of the system so I guess a full system flush and all O-rings replacement is in my future. Might as well grab a expansion valve too. Or just charge it with some stop leak R134a, but I dont want to clog the system.
Doing a shake down run in the desert this weekend out in Johnson Valley OHV. A quick weekend camp/dirtbike/4x4 weekend with the family. I wish I had my A/C fixed, cant win 'em all.
R134 runs at a higher pressure than the old r12 and typically will blow out the compressor shaft seal.
I tried 414b in mine and a week later the compressor seal went kaput. I would venture to guess that's the most likely cause of your leak.
Although mostly I'll advised you can put some pressure in it with an air compressor and find the leak that way. Then just change the leaking parts, and the filter drier then pull a good long vacuum to remove moistureand air from the system
R134 runs at a higher pressure than the old r12 and typically will blow out the compressor shaft seal.
I tried 414b in mine and a week later the compressor seal went kaput. I would venture to guess that's the most likely cause of your leak.
Although mostly I'll advised you can put some pressure in it with an air compressor and find the leak that way. Then just change the leaking parts, and the filter drier then pull a good long vacuum to remove moistureand air from the system
Wow you called that one! Pulled a vacuum injected some UV dye and jumpped the compressor for a minute or so... Well, time to source a new compressor. I'll slowly start gathering parts to do it properly; expansion valve, new Orings, compressor, already have a new drier. etc. looks like I wont have A/C for some time.
Some photos of our camping trip out to Johnson Valley last weekend. We went out to help my cousin in the pits for his desert dirt bike race.
The runner did very well, even loaded down going 50 on the dirt roads before we unloaded the camp sight. Did some very mild trails and some fun fast dirt roads. Upon leaving we were packing up as the storm headed in, hit a dirt storm right as we were crossing the dry lake leaving on Sunday, visibility was about 10 feet at one point. Started pouring rain right as we came up on the paved road. Lucked out with good timing.
The Wilco HitchGate was Awesome! Swing out tire carrier that is mounted in the tow hitch is a great idea. Carried my ammo can tool box/first aid kit and 5Gal water Jerry can and my 31" spare. Plus it still has a 2" receiver for my hitch rack to carry the fire pit and cooler. I threw on some Autozone Cheapo longer shackles for the trip to help out with the extra load.
Loaded!
Unloaded camp set up, note the TP and Paper Towel holder...
Heading up to some mild ridge trails with the kids, had my 8 year old shooting some of the photos... as you can tell by the finger in the corner, about 30 of the pics had fingers in them, haha.
Dirt storm while crossing the dry lake heading out to the highway. There is a truck in front of us if you can see it.
Unloading
Thanks for checking it out.
Last edited by Spacemonkee23; 04-24-2017 at 09:42 AM.
Lots of rain recently so I played in some water with the yota; went a little deep and saturated all my carpet. Pulled out the soaked carpet and did a pressure wash to clean them up a bit. Decided to grab a bottle of RIT dye from the grocery store and tint the carpet a little darker to hide some of the stains. Mixed a gallon of warm water and the bottle of liquid dye (black), applied it with a spray bottle worked it in by hand and with a brush. Dry time took longer than expected, about 2 days in the garage because it was raining.
Can't beat 6 bucks for a bottle of dye and a few hours of work. Overall I am happy with it. We'll see how long it holds up.
Carpet came out great. Hmm, I might have to look into that tire gate...my spare won't really fit under where it goes too well. Also, curious to what you end up doing with your AC, mine has been my nemesis. It's really needed almost all year here in South Florida, I have rehab'd it twice now, first time was just a few fresh o-rings, vac, and recharge with r134 and it worked good for a little while. Next time I changed drier, flushed everything out including compressor, and changed every o-ring I could, even the ones under the manifold in the compressor...vac'd & recharged with r134 and it worked ok for a little while. Now it doesn't work at all, but I'm thinking of pulling the compressor and rebuilding it...RockAuto has kits with the shaft seal and all the gaskets for the compressor, plus I can change all the o-rings again, drier, expansion valve...just another in a looong line of projects.
You REALLY load up for camping...here's a shot of me loaded up for my last family camping trip.
For the A/C I will probably just rebuild the compressor and change out the drier along with some O-rings that I can access. I plan to charge it with R152a (computer duster cans) Ive had success with some other retrofits using it and it doesn't run at such a high pressure as R132a so I might be able to keep the shaft seals in working order. The weather isn't too brutal right now so I'll prob wait until summer.
On a side note I got some LED lights for the dome, doors, cargo and SR5 Map lights from superbrightleds.com - The interior is VERY bright at night now. I also ordered some cheap red LEDs from amazon to test out in my gauges. Pack of 20 for 8 bucks. 194s. I'll throw a pic up when I get them in.
SR5 Map light. Ba9
Dome Light 80 lumen 4 LED festoon.
This is just the dome light on.
Had a busy weekend in the garage.
LCE vacuum kit
Late model plenum and throttle body swap finally ditched the aux air valve garbage.
220cc 4 hole injectors
Viair Heavy Duty on board air system
No Cut Zuk Mod Southwest Speed 11"x5" 125# springs
Low Range Offroad greasable 6" shackles
Eibach protruck shocks
Recessed a 20" LED bar in the front bumper
LED Pods on the bumper
Built a relay board but haven't installed it yet. I have a bunch of switches and stuff to put together too. Got a dual diaphragm booster and 1" master to put in too.
Since I did all this work, I have noticed a slight drop in MPG because of the injectors. Kind of expected it because they are 220cc where the stockers were around 185cc I think. It was a good sacrifice for me because it is so much smoother in the higher RPM range. I noticed a struggle above 3500 RPM previously that I thought was weak valve springs or something. Now I know it was just starving for fuel. It runs strong all the way up to 5500.
Just got back from a +1000 mile trip from socal to norcal hitting Hollister OHV park on the way. The truck did awesome! Loaded down with about 500 extra pounds and 3 adults in the truck the ZUK mod still kept it from sagging. Overall really happy with the latest mods. Oh and not having to find a compressor or gas station to refill tires after the trails was great as well.
Took the top off and used it as a camping table.
Home base at a car show I was judging for work.
Did a Q&A with VIAIR about their Heavy Duty OBA system I installed for the trip out to Overland Expo West 2017. Nice to see a first gen getting some love.
Took about 100 miles of the Mojave road heading out there. Along with some Colorado River fun and Grand Canyon at sunrise while heading home. Over the course of 2 weeks I put 2500 miles on my 87! It did great, except up hill, haha.
Here is an album link to a some pics. http://imgur.com/a/NbKig
Thanks!
This bridge is literally right off the I-40 crossing the Colorado River.
That bridge is for a train but in this pic you can see the bridge for the 40. https://i.imgur.com/4moZLW4.jpg
You really get out there with this 4Runner, love the pics. What is your affiliation with Tread magazine?
Thanks, I wish I could get out there more!
TL;DR: I do a bunch of stuff for TREAD.
I wear many hats for TREAD. I go to events to build relationships with our contributors, help find new companies, look for new freelancers to help write features, I do advertising sales, help with our content and much more. We are all enthusiasts who work for this magazine along with our other titles we put out like; Street Trucks,C/10 Builders Guide and F100 Builders Guide, Diesel World, Ultimate Diesel Builders Guide, Drive and Drag Racer, these are just our automotive titles which is what I'm in. We also have many outdoor titles, gun/knife related titles, bugout titles and even a bunch of Homes titles. We are a fairly small company but we look big, haha. We have a team of roughly 10 people putting out all of our automotive titles so we share a lot of duties. Our entire company is called Engaged Media Inc.
10-18-2016, 06:09 AM
