Thanks!

 

So I took the 4runner on its first 'trip' yesterday. Drove about 50 miles on the freeway back to my house from my parents. This revealed a few things, as its really the first time iv been able to get up to highway speed for any length of time. Overall it handled great with the new tires and alignment, I also put new front rotors, pads, re-greased the wheel bearings and put a new OME front stabilizer damper on.

I did hear an odd gear whine at freeway speeds though, seemed like anything maybe over 50. It would go quiet during acceleration or deceleration, but if under light load you could hear a whirring kind of noise. It *sounded* like it was coming from the transmission but at highway speed theres so much road noise, and considering vibrations travel so well through the drivelines, I really couldn't tell you if it was the differential or transmission. I did some searching around and found little information on hearing gear noise under light loading. It was mostly under acceleration or decel that seemed to point to diff issues. I checked the transmission and transfercase oil this morning and both were full. Actually the trans was maybe 12oz over full. I find it hard to believe that would cause the noise, but i guess its possible.

I think im going to change the oil in the trans and get some MT90 in there, its was pretty dark.

Please chime in if you have any thoughts!

 

Awesome build! I really appreciate your eye for detail.

 

Thanks bend!

I had been trying to get the 4Runner ready for my bachelor party camping trip to Yosemite. Nothing fancy just a few friends going for the weekend, we explored a bit and did some fishing, it was my first time actually camping there. What an awesome place, the scenery was amazing. Thanks to the 4runner we got there with out any issues too! Its the first time iv had a vehicle that could actually take more than 1 other person on a trip like that, and it was great.







Pretty sure my right hand caliper needs to be rebuild, I think im going to just order a set of remanufactured calipers and try to rebuild the currently installed ones someday. My new rotors are warped again, and when I get on the brakes hard it pulls to the right pretty bad. Would be nice to have a backup set since both my trucks use the same brakes.

I got to spend a lot of time listening to the gear whine. I think its probably the differential, just a hunch but im leaning towards that being the issue after talking with my dad again about it. This feels like a good excuse to try and get a locking rear diff out of a tacoma/4runner and do that fun mod. Going to have to start researching that.

Other than that, everything seemed great, put about 400 miles on it over the weekend and nothing major to report. It was a such a relief to make it to Yosemite with out any issues since I had not really had much time to put it through its paces before the trip.

Phew!

 

Beautiful scenery!

 

Looks great! I wouldn't use anything other than actual Toyota rotors. Too many bad experiences with cheap aftermarket rotors on hondas and toyotas. They always seem to warp sooner than OEM.

 

Yeah I think your probably right Melrose, I should have gone that route.

Well the 4runner has been doing great. Slowly fixing little bits here and there. Put in some new headlight housings and h4 led bulbs that work so much better. The LED stuff is much better than it used to be it seems. Got a replacement front valence installed, its not OEM but I like the look a lot better than no valence. Oh I also got a less cracked dash pad installed, fixed the cigarette lighter wiring and undid some more hacked up wiring I found. There are a lot more hiding spots in the 4runner than the pickup for this wiring!

I also picked up an axle housing, it was too cheap and in good condition to pass up. I think I will end up doing a solid axle swap on this 4runner someday, so I brought this thing home. Still a lot of research to do, but at least this is out in the garage staring at me every day when I go out there to keep me motivated.




Hope everyone is doing well, and ready for winter!

 

Nice!

Yep a SAS would look sweet and hold up better than those BJ spacers.

 

It has been a busy few months! Between moving to a new place, getting married and the holidays its been tough to find the motivation to work on the 4runner. I worked up the courage to try my hand at vinyl wrapping it, my first ever venture into this craft and it is going slowly.. I am doing one panel at a time and it is coming out OK. I didn't have super high expectations going into it because the paint job I am trying to cover up is less than ideal, and there is some bodywork that should be done that I am avoiding. All in all though, I think in the end its going to look much better than it currently sits with the rattle can flat black drip fest that had little to no care taken when being applied. How long will it hold up? Time will tell, I am not totally sure, it says 5-7 years life expectancy. Im guessing less than that in the hot sun here.

I purchased a full roll of Vvivid Gloss Slate Gray for $500. You dont need a full roll to do a vehicle but I figured since this is my first attempt there would be some screw ups, and when the time comes if I have to recover a panel from getting scratched up on the trail, that would be some easy peace of mind knowing I have spare stuff in the garage to easily fix it.

I really didnt want to have to do any body work but to get at least a half way decent result, I have been wet sanding down each panel before wrapping it. This is getting most of the dry old dead paint off and allowing me to see and get rid of the dozens of runs in the flat black paint you couldnt see before. It is truly amazing how many runs are on each panel..

I started off with the hood and cowl, easy flat pieces right? Well sort of, there is quite a bit of technique to do this stuff right. I decided to try and keep the existing sr5 stripes but instead of laying new ones on top, I used the remaining faint lines of where the stripes used to be as a guide and tediously recreated them. Once those were all laid on, I did the complete wrap on top of the new stripes to give a kind of embossed look. I think it looks ok, would be nice to have it pop a little more but Ill have to wait and see how it feels once the whole thing is done to really get an idea on it I think.





It doesnt look half bad, but up close you can see a lot of imperfections, mostly from the terrible rattle can paint job. The issue im really having is that when applying vinyl, there is a lot of repositioning, lifting the film back off, stretching a bit and applying again that you do to allow it contour to different curves. That is all fine except that this stuff is pretty tacky and grabs the paint really well, so well that its ripping patches of poorly prepped paint areas off when you try to reposition the film. This new challenge has added a an extra layer of stress while learning how to apply the vinyl. I have started to identify where the prep in the pain is extra bad and trying to sand that off more aggressively, in addition, I am applying a light coat of waterless wash/wax to some of the larger flat areas of the panel to reduce the tendency of the film to stick so much in areas that look questionable. It still sticks but doesnt like to pull up the paint as much which is helping quite a bit. They make a 'tack reducer' you can apply, which is basically what im trying to do.

Next up is the fenders, I got a roll of 3m knifeless tape and started tracing out some of the harder to cut sections of the stripes, once the first layer of film is laid down, you pull out the very fine string in this tape and it cuts the vinyl that is laying on top of it. Pretty cool stuff. The edges are not as perfect as when you cut with a razor but you can't tell at all when the stripes lay under the top layer of film that covers the whole panel.






Now with some of the easier panels completed I thought it was time to finally tackle what I think is the hardest job on this truck. I searched for quite a while on some tips for this next portion, and I came up empty handed. The roof! So as you guys know we have these lovely drip sills on our trucks. They dont make vehicles like this anymore, and I dont think people wrap them either. Well I couldnt just leave them silver and I wasnt sure what the ideal process would be to wrap them, since they are very intricate in shape and would require a lot of fiddling around, tons of wrinkles probably and even more patience.

I guess pretty much right.. After pondering how to approach this section for weeks, I finally came up with a plan. I decided to wrap the whole inside of the door jamb and extend those pieces up and over the drip sill, terminating them in the top gutter of the sill. Then lay the roof wrap on top of it, so there are essentially 2 layers of wrap overlapping inside the sill gutter, that is where the seam is. Each end of the sill/gutter is a pretty fiddly to finish up, and not perfect by any means, I dont even know how you could do this better but hopefully if anyone knows, chime in! Just lots of trimming, and creating little tabs thats wrap around and under/over the other side of the sill/gutter to kind of close it up, followed by a nice application of heat gun to try and get it to stay put. It will probably fail here first..




I am just about to finish up the whole front half of the truck today, and then it will be time to start tackling the back half. I really need to paint the top in the back, badly. I just cant decide if its worth trying to pop the windows out and do a really nice job on it or tape it off. I will most likely do a roll on finish with some rustoleom marine deck top coat that a friend of mine suggest. He did his and it looks great. Once that is on and the fiberglass is sealed back up again, I will try to wrap on top of that to get a fully color matched look, crossing my fingers that goes as planned..

Merry Holidays guys, hope you all are getting in some toyota time.

 

Looks great so far! How long is this product supposed to last?

 

Thanks jakey, it claims 5-7 years with a 3 year warranty. I imagine in direct sunlight outside in CA summers it will be much less, time will tell.

 

Should of just done Macco, 599 clear coat all in one with a 3 year warranty, cheaper with a coupon

 

I was skeptical but that door and fender look pretty darn good!

 

I think that looks great for your first attempt at a wrap!!

 

Thanks guys, the wrap is coming along pretty good, I have everything done except the bed sides. I need to take the top off to do a good job, and I am waiting until I can paint the top before I take it off. Its been too cold!

Besides the wrap, I finally got around to installing some reman calipers, got the new but instantly warped rotors resurfaces and also swapped out the toyota auto locking hubs with manuals.

I am planning on some big moves here soon with the suspension. I did buy that axle housing, but that was to only throw you guys off the scent! I am actually pretty set on going with a Blazeland kit on this. For how Im going to use this truck, it seems like the best choice for me.

Which brings me to wheels and tires.. basically im trying to decide if I should run 35x12.5s on the stock 15x7 alloys or not. I tried researching this and it feels like more of a religion than logic in all of the answers you can find. This guy on IG has a pretty sweet looking 1st gen on this tire/wheel combo, really want to try it out.

Tell me what you guys think!

 

Thanks for the update!

I think 35s on the stock alloys looks pretty badass. Especially if they were painted a darker color.

 

Wont the fronts rub on the inside when turning?

 

The guy on instagram said they will and he runs a spacer.

 

Thanks 84 yota dude. I would think they would also clear with the blazeland kit.

 

Yeah, iv seen a few people claiming you can get away with it with out too much rubbing. Blazeland suggests doing a 4" drop bracket lift to clear 35s, but im sure thats to 100% clear no trimming and going full jump mode. I would really rather not do that if I can get away with it, I do have a 1" body lift, and the KM3s tend to run a little smaller than other 35's so I am hoping between those two things and with maybe a bit more T-Bar I can clear enough. Im willing to trim the front fenders some if needed, they are pretty beat up as is so I dont feel like im losing out on some nice OEM panels. The right and left fenders both have been crunched on the bottom near the cab at some point. Found some body filler on the driver side there, and the passenger side is still tweaked. Ill definitely post some pictures as things start to unravel