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I managed to fill in those nasty holes in the foam and get it all trimmed a little neater and smoother. One more go with 36 grit sandpaper to get the final shape and I will be ready to apply some fiberglass. If you look closely, you can see that the bottom edge of the metal is coated with gray. That is POR 15, which I put on after sandblasting and etching with Must-for-Rust, a phosphoric acid based metal prep.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 12-21-2017 at 05:01 PM.
I had been daily driving the 4runner in the warmer months. It is useful for pulling around a 5 x 10 trailer that I use for a number of purposes. Since I got it a few years ago, I have been able to keep it off the roads in winter, so no more salt than it already had. I didn't know what I would do this winter until I stumbled across a deal on this 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee for the awesome price of one dollar! The previous owner got an estimate for $1800 dollars worth of repairs needed on the jeep. He didn't think it was worth it so now I am the new owner. I think it's a pretty good idea, sacrifice a jeep to save a Toyota The estimate said that it needed CV shafts, wheel bearings and brakes up front. It also needs a new shift linkage for the transfer case. As far as I can tell though it drives okay as it is. In any case, I can do all that work for about 400 bucks worth of parts. The engine and trans seem strong and there are no leaks or oil burning. It's got the 4.0 L straight six, which makes the Toyota 3VZE seem even less powerful if that can be imagined.
In the meantime, I will soldier on with the 3.0 in the 4runner while I pursue some projects like swapping out the automatic transmission for a five-speed manual, making a soft top and building a back bumper with a swingout spare tire carrier. I also have a black removable hardtop that needs rehabilitation. I'm thinking of having both white and black removable hardtops. I like the way the black top looks on a white 4runner, but I would like to run a white top during the hottest months (maybe I need to investigate rear A/C as well).
Last edited by wrenchtech; 12-29-2017 at 10:57 PM.
Winter is finally winding down here in southeastern Wisconsin and I am happy to be getting back to my Toyota projects. During the winter I played around with a 3-D design tool called Sketchup. I worked on two projects, designing a rear bumper for my 4runner, and a bracket for a disc brake swap for the rear axle. A couple of days ago, with my design drawings in hand, I started making a prototype of the bumper out of wood.
It has been a pretty interesting process. I have been able to stick pretty close to my design except in one detail. In my drawing I have the bottom face tapering upwards and outwards to the ends both left and right. Once I started building the wooden model, that looked like it was going introduce more complications than were really justified. In actually building it out I am finding that I'm okay with the bumper being not quite so tall and being flat on the bottom. The next step is to see how I am going to make this out of steel and incorporate a hitch receiver at the middle. Following that, I will need to re-work the mounting brackets of the existing trailer hitch to repurpose them to provide some good strong attachment points for this bumper, which will feature a spare tire carrier and the ability to carry some other gear on a pair of swing-arms .
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Great project. The mandrel bent exhaust came out awesome, clever job on the foam and fibreglass mold, should,look really nice when you finish. I like the low profile bumper design too.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. The more I study my prototype the more I'm realizing that I have created a project that Is going to be a lot harder to construct out of steel. I'm also realizing that it would be a lot easier if I had about $1000 worth of tools that I don't have right now, Like a metal cutting miter saw and a large stationary disc sander. Oh well. Onward!
I like the low-profile bumper!
Don't forget access for jack handle extension to spare tire hoist, unless you have your spare elsewhere. Maybe extension can go through the hitch opening?
I like the low-profile bumper!
Don't forget access for jack handle extension to spare tire hoist, unless you have your spare elsewhere. Maybe extension can go through the hitch opening?
My 4runner project has been at a standstill for too long. I moved back in March and I am still not fully settled into a new place, but I do have some storage space at a nearby farm where I store some vehicles and keep my tools. I have started to work over there and I am really turning up the heat now. I hope to be showing some good progress in the next few weeks.
Here is some of what I’ve got going on:
The 3VZE engine is going to get replaced in the not too distant future, but for now it is just getting some better cylinder heads. It has around 178,000 Miles and has a problem with very low compression on two cylinders. The other cylinders have good compression at around 180 psi. I suspect that whoever did the head gaskets for the prior owner failed to set the valve clearances properly and so I ended up burning up a couple of exhaust valves. I think I have confirmed this by doing a leak down test that demonstrated that pressure was leaking into the exhaust system from one or more cylinders. The engine is currently only using 1 quart of oil every 2000 miles, so I suspect that the rings are good and that as soon as I get some proper heads installed I will have a good running engine. In any case I found a set of heads with only 115,000 miles on them that look really good, almost like new compared to other heads that I’ve seen. I sent these heads in for a valve job and should have them back tomorrow. In addition to the reconditioned heads, I have a new timing set, water pump and oil pump ready to go. Those parts are all Japanese OEM quality stuff. I also have some new aftermarket fuel injectors. The cooling system will also get a new radiator and new hoses. For the exhaust system I have a new head pipe and a Denso oxygen sensor.
The next week or two will also see the front end get quite a bit of attention. I will be installing brake rotors, pads, shocks, lower control arms, ball joints, wheel bearings and a new idler arm.
Last week I got new tires and wheels. Nothing special, just some Yokohama all-terrain‘s in P265 75 16 on some new black, steel Daytona wheels.
And of course, last but not least, the fiberglass patch panels I made to repair the rusty rear quarter panel’s are getting finishing touches.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 08-07-2019 at 01:39 AM.
I thought I had decided that the 1UZFE Lexus V8 would be the best engine for my 4runner, however new information has come to light. I recently bought a 2005 Volkswagen Golf TDI. It is now my daily driver and I am really loving the TDI diesel experience. I also found the TDI swaps Facebook group, which is a lot like YotaTech, in that it’s full of friendly people and great information. I also happened to stumble across a 2002 Volkswagen Jetta TDI, which is a little bit rusty and beat up , and has a fairly low mileage, running TDI engine. I was able to buy it for $400! My Golf puts out 100 horse power and 180 foot pounds of torque. With a five speed manual it’s a blast to drive. It also looks like these engines are fairy easy to modify at a relatively low price, and quite durable once they are modified. Apparently, 180 hp and 300+ foot pounds of torque is a reasonable goal. And 30 mpg on the highway. So many positives, no downside that I can see. How often does life give you a deal like this?
I got my heads back from the machine shop.I tried adjusting the valve clearances today. It’s been a while since I took the heads up part, and I can’t seem to find the lifters and shims, so I took the parts I needed from an extra pair of heads that I have. Working with just the driver side head I installed the shims at random and began to check the clearances. One was within the normal range, but just barely. Two others had clearance, but they were too tight. And three have no clearance at all. Tomorrow I will use a different approach. I will use the thinnest shim I’ve got and try to use it as a measuring standard. If it works I will be able to measure the clearance between that shim and the cam lobe. Then I will subtract the desired clearance from that number and add the result to the thickness of the measuring shim to get the thickness of the shim that I need. If the thinnest shim I have is too thick to get a measurement at even one valve, I will be forced to buy a thinner shim to continue the measuring part of the process. I hope my nearest Toyota dealer (26 miles away) has the shim I need in stock. toyotapartsdeal.com has shims for $8.73/ea., which is the best price I’ve seen so far. If the dealer is priced much higher I will just buy one shim to use as my measuring standard and order the rest online.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 08-08-2019 at 08:38 PM.
In preparation for the new cylinder heads, I am trying to address as many potential problems as I can so that when I turn the key on the new cylinder heads it will be under the best possible condition. The current oxygen sensor is one that I salvaged off of another vehicle some years ago. I don’t know if it was a quality component in the first place and I certainly don’t know how many miles it has on it . So out with that and in with a new quality Japanese OEM part, I also wasn’t going to install it on the rusty head pipe, which had very little of the O2 sensor mounting flange left. rockauto.com came to the rescue! The head pipe cost $70 and the oxygen sensor $61. The oxygen sensor is a Denso brand part which sells for $146 at my local NAPA. The pipe is Bosal brand. I see the same pipe for sale at Amazon.com and maybe on eBay with similar pricing. That fitment of the pipe I got is excellent, but I went ahead and cut off the flange that was meant to attach to the catalytic converter because I don’t like those kind of flanges and because I needed to add a short section of exhaust tubing. I really like v-band flanges and so I got a cheap one from eBay to make the connection between the headpipe and the catalytic converter.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 08-09-2019 at 01:04 AM.
I managed to fill in those nasty holes in the foam and get it all trimmed a little neater and smoother. One more go with 36 grit sandpaper to get the final shape and I will be ready to apply some fiberglass. If you look closely, you can see that the bottom edge of the metal is coated with gray. That is POR 15, which I put on after sandblasting and etching with Must-for-Rust, a phosphoric acid based metal prep.
I hope this works out for you. Expanding foam is not the best to use on cars. It holds moisture really well and will rot the panel out from the back.
Your doing a lot of really great work, would hate to just have it rust again.
I hope this works out for you. Expanding foam is not the best to use on cars. It holds moisture really well and will rot the panel out from the back.
Your doing a lot of really great work, would hate to just have it rust again.
You are absolutely right. I only use the foam temporarily as a form for the fiberglass. After the fiberglass hardens I scrape the foam out and clean up with wire brushes.
After I get it all finished and painted I am going to make a mold of the lower section of the quarter panel, including the wheel arch, and make some copies for people who might be interested in an over-fender solution for a quick rust repair.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 08-10-2019 at 07:13 AM.
My scheme for measuring the valve clearances got me dimensions for 11 of the 12 shims, but just as I feared one of the valves has less than zero clearance , in other words I couldn’t put even the thinnest feeler gauge in between the cam and the shim . I am going to guesstimate the thickness of that shim. If it doesn’t work out it will probably be useful for helping me to measure the correct dimension. In any case this valve clearance procedure is a real pain in the neck. It took me a little while to master the valve shim tools, but once I got it figured out, it was really helpful. At this point I know the dimensions of 11 shiims and I have four that I can reuse, which means that I’ll need to buy eight shims. The best price I have found so far is $8.50 per piece.
This morning I ran over to the Toyota dealer in Janesville to get some shims to finish adjusting the valves on my recently machined cylinder heads. They wanted $12.89 for each shim. I can get them online for $8.79, so I tried to make a deal for a lower price, I have succeeded in negotiating with this parts department before, Unfortunately there was no manager available to authorize any price reduction. So instead of buying eight shims, I just bought the one I needed to allow me to get the final measurement on the valve that was too tight to measure. By installing a thinner shim I would increase the gap enough to get a measurement and determine what size shim was actually needed. There was a chance that I could guess and find the correct shim the first time, so that’s what I did. If I was successful my choice would get me within the specified range of clearances and I would not need to go to the second round of swapping shims and taking measurements. It turned out I was pretty far off, but it did allow me to measure for the correct size. So now I still need eight shims. I might end up going back to the same dealer on Monday, because I just can’t afford to wait several days to have parts shipped . I want to have this engine running and all my new front end parts installed by the end of the week. Summer is passing by very quickly and I need to start working on the TDI diesel swap I have planned for my 1993 extra cab 4 x 4. And of course I am quite eager to ditch the 4runner’s automatic transmission. I have all the parts, I just need the time.
I also wanted to talk about how I am sanding my quarter panels to get good clean contour lines. In the picture above you can see the leading edge of the driver side rear wheel opening. That section was mostly lost to rust. I rebuilt it by squirting insulating foam inside the quarter panel. Once the foam harden I sanded it with 36 grit sandpaper until I got the shape I wanted . Then I covered it with fiberglass matt and resin. When I felt that I was pretty close to having the shape I wanted, I started coating it with body filler. Now I have my contour lines laid out in pencil and I just sand carefully up to the edge of the pencil line. I can also use the pencil lines as a guide for spreading filler. Between these two methods I expect to get pretty decent contour lines.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 08-11-2019 at 10:00 AM.
This is a pretty good example of what I’m aiming for in the first stage of my build. Mine will include IFS, 33” tires, bumpers, sliders, rear locker, 63” Chevy leafs in the rear, soft top.
Last edited by wrenchtech; 08-11-2019 at 11:02 AM.
The scrapper who took away the remains of my 1984 extra cab was not supposed to take this axle. He did, but now I have it back. Someday I am going to SAS the 4runner. When I do it will be a three link set-up with coil overs.
12-21-2017, 05:00 PM
The estimate said that it needed CV shafts, wheel bearings and brakes up front. It also needs a new shift linkage for the transfer case. As far as I can tell though it drives okay as it is. In any case, I can do all that work for about 400 bucks worth of parts. The engine and trans seem strong and there are no leaks or oil burning. It's got the 4.0 L straight six, which makes the Toyota 3VZE seem even less powerful if that can be imagined.
