Stive2699

whats up,
well i got my RB body lift in today. im gonna try to put in on this saturday. Anyways its a 3" so you have to do a little more fab work to get it all on there. My dad and I are not experienced in this what so ever.... but where gonna give it a try anyways. I need someone that HAS done a 3" body lift on there 4runner. Mine is a 99 which might make a difference if yours isnt a 99 or 00. anyways please post so i can PM you and hopefully answer some of the questions i have. (also i KNOW that there is directions on RB site but these are mostly for the 1". there are also some directions for the 3" on what u have to modify. the thing is i dont no how to do some of that stuff. I know i where to put the blocks and things like that. just the fab work i have to do on moving brackets and brake lines and such.)

Thanx

PoBoy

Bump for ya, but I think you are one of the very few with a 3 inch BL on a 3rd gen...

Many of us have done a 2incher and can help you out with the lot of it. What is the list of items that you are unsure of?

Stive2699

Heres a list...

1. It says to loosen the steering shaft clamp at the rag joint, and loosen the nut on the transmission shifter. My car is a automatic so i dont have to do the transmission shifter thing do I? or does it not matter i have to do that to my automatic as well? Is the steering shaft clamp the thing i put the spacer in after i put the body lift on?

2. You need to detach the brackets that hold the hard lines for the front brakes to the frame. With a 2" lift, those lines can stretch enough where you don't have to do this, but with 3", you may have to fab up an extension for these brackets or re-attach them in a different location. (how do i do this????) fab up an extension for the brackets? re-attach them in a diff location??? eh..i dunno.

3. There is some bracketry on the driver's side wheel well inside the engine compartment that holds a wire harness of some sort. With a 2" lift, there is no problem with this bracket, but with a 3" lift, the hole the bracket screws into is off by a 1/8". Anways, this bracket needs to be unscrewed. (unscrewed and just left unscrewed dangling they mean?)

4.An extension for the transfer case shifter may need to be welded in or screwed on. I don't know about the 2" lift, but with a 3" the column needs about 1/8" - 1/4" of clearance on the left side of the opening to go through the shifting pattern properly. (i dont have 4wd so i dont have to worry about this do I?

5. There is a hard line for the rear brakes on the inside of the drivers side of the frame. this needs to be detached. (does this have to be re-attached somewhere else? doesnt say....)

6. The valence on the front bumper rides on top of the ends of the frame that stick out. No big deal, it squishes the valence a little bit, but thats all.(I have know clue what this is but i guess it doenst matter .. like he said "no big deal"

Well these are the only questions i have for now. If you can only answer 1 or however many please state which one your answering when you post.

THANX!!

Stive2699

ok this is kinda scarey... no one is respawnding.....ahhhhh i guess ill give it a day or to.. i got till saturday..hope someone by then see's the link and knows some stuff

shazaam

ok Here is a pic of the steering shaft clamp. There are four bolts there, you need to remove the two shorts ones. Use lots of pb blaster, actually start today pb blasting everything. Just this one step took me over 2-3 hours, b/c it was rusted. and I didn't want to turn too hard in fear of breaking the steering shaft. After you jack up the front of the 4runner go ahead and slip in the extender piece.

click here

Also have a digital camera ready and e-mail Roger. He usually responds back in less then a minute. Also ask if its ok to call him. I called him up and he was really helpful.

Other then that, the only other hint I can give you. Is loosen all the body mounts, but do not completely remove them. Do one side at a time. I don't know how your going to get one side in the air 3" up while the other side is still sitting there. good luck. Like poboy said this isn't something a lot of people do. Usually its just an inchor two to give that extra tire clearance.
let us know how it goes.

shazaam

I forgot to mention loosen the steering shaft clamp first, and then proceed with the body lift.

Also make sure you disconnect the battery cable.

Stive2699

where is the steering shaft clamp located? I'm see im gonna need alot of help to put this thing on. I'm not even sure im gonna be able to put it on. ill see how much a shop would charge me. ill show the directions to some of my friends at school tommarrow and see if they have an idea of some of the stuff. i just got into this stuff so i dont no much yet but im learnin everyday.

Stive2699

wow i see by my last post im really tired and can barely put a decent sentence togeather. im going to bed and think about this stuff tommarrow.

shazaam

you want the honest truth. It took me I would say a good 12+ hours, and this is spread out over almost two weeks. I had another car to drive so I could take my time. This isn't hard, its just time consuming if you have never done it before, or anything like this. Its the rust that slows you down. Also if you have an extra pair of hands, it helps a lot. I did it on my own, and it took longer. I would give it a shot yourself first, before going to a mechanic. Your going to pay him more for labor then what you paid for the kit.

shazaam

Open the hood, follow the shaft down on the drivers side, then crawl under the rig. Right behind the spring, can't miss it, just look at the pic and compare with what you see.

Stive2699

ok i was just wondering if this was the same thing as the steering extender thing that someone pointed out to me the other day.. should i go ahead and install the extender before hand? Can i install the extender and still drive stock fine?
do i have to jack the car up to remove the bolts from the extender and make it drop this way?

shazaam

You have to disconnect the body from the frame first, create the 3" gap and then slip in the steering wheel spacer. Otherwise there is no way to slip it in there.

Stive2699

Thanx sdastg1. keep checking back here over the week if you could. i might take some digital pics of some stuff and ask questions about it.

Stive2699

should i take off my running boards to put on this lift? or should i just take them off and leave them off.. i cant decide. i know if i take them off it will look like i have a bigger lift.. any opinions?

shazaam

they come off. will make things a lot easier. I had sliders welded on. That was another pain in the ass.

Here is another tip for you. Hopefully you have one of those nice floor jacks. I went out to sears and bought one. But place some long boards on the jack and lift with that. That way you you won't bend the body. In your case your going to have to stack something under the jack too.

Stive2699

alright well ill take those off tommarrow. alright thanx for the board advice. I will make sure I do that. I'm not sure what im gonna use to place under the jack so I can get the body high enough but ill try to find something.

I bought some PB Blaster today. should I start spraying all the nuts on the bolts friday? and spray some on the steering clamp thing?

on the sides you have to take off the plastic peices then unroll the carpet a bit to take off the caps to revel the top of the bolt. did you have to take off the Side peices of plastic or just the bottem peices that unscrew? and the back? did you just have to undo that back strip of plastic or did you have to take off that BIG peice of plastic where that space is in the door for a jack or something.

shazaam

spray the pb blaster now and don't stop till your nose hairs start burning.

yup you have to pop off all the pieces (including side pieces) makes things a lot easier. On the back, try to get to it without pulling off the side piece. But I just ended up pulling it back a little (not completely off) so I could slip a socket wrench in there to hold the top of the bolt while I loosened the nut from the bottom. Roger says there is something there to keep the bolt from spinning, I guess they forgot to put that on my truck, b/c I always had to hold the top of the bolt while I was turning the nut from the bottom.

Stive2699

alright ill spray some on tommarrow after i take off the running boards. Do you have a website or any pics of your 4runner. sounds really nice and ur icon kicksa$$.

will check back in tommarrow. im out.

Stive2699

alright, so after i unloosen all the bolts and nuts around all sides...then i am going to want to loosen the steering shaft clamp. actually im gonna want to take the 2 bolts completely off(looks like theres 4 im gonna have to take out but maybe only 2 like everyone else says). then take out the front few mounts. then should i put the jack Under my rig and jack it up in the front 3" to fit the drive shaft extender in there? then bolt on with the new bolts? can i lower the jack back out and then take the jack on one side of the car and start putting in the blocks? OR should I take the bolts completely out of the drive shaft and leave them out untill i put all the blocks into there places then go back and put the 3" extender in after the blocks are on/bumper brackets/ basicly end the lift with this last step.

outlaw27

Hey man,

Before I bought my 2" Rb lift I looked everywhere and I found this write up on doin a 3" body lift. This guy used a tacoma performance accessories 3", but you can learn from the things he had to change with the lift.

http://www.geocities.com/pmurf1/bodyliftmain.html

Hope it helps, good luck, mine was an easy install but it took me all day to get it done.