Gault95

Alright im a newb at 4x4 so take it easy on me. The only other 4wd i have ever owned is a 2002 Grand Cherokee Overland and its my wifes rig. This will be my first build for an off road vehicle and it seemed like a 4Runner was the perfect choice. I liked the styling and the amount of parts available for it. The only down fall of the 2nd gen runners is the 3.0 head gasket issues.

I found my victim locally with of coarse a blown head gasket, i was able to pick it up for 1250$. It was cosmetically in great condition. Previous owner had put a rebuilt transmission and new front axles with boots in, drove it 50 miles and blew the head gasket. here is how it sat when i first brought it to its new forever home.

Gault95

First thing i had to do is tear the top of the engine down to replace the head gasket with quality parts. along with the head gasket i planned on spend 1k on new parts belts filters and tune up. I took lots of pics during the process, i have never had to deal with so many vacuum lines in my life.

Gault95

time to start taking off the vacuum hoses

toyota4x4907

That truck deserves a 3.4L swap!

Gault95

Next its down to the business of getting the heads off. So far its been easy to disassemble.

Gault95

it only had 177k on the motor, so im hoping to double that with minimal issues. i guess we will see

Gault95

And with the heads off i see that the block and pistons are in good shape.

this is the right bank


Left Bank

Gault95

next i noticed somethin a little odd, i just hope it wasnt a toyota tech that did this.....


here is a full view of the woopsidaisy

Gault95

Here you can see that it actually blew the head gasket at the #1 cylinder. I did alot of reading and seems most of the time they go out on the back two cylinders #5 or #6 because of the heat from the crossover pipe. This makes me believe that when the gasket recall was done or if the gasket was just replaced that they didnt check for the warpage in the the cylinder head. Probably reused the stock head bolts too, at least they use felpro gaskets.....





You can also tell the coolant was leaking because of how clean the top of the piston is in this pic. the coolant cleaned all the carbon off of it.

Gault95

And of coarse when i got the heads back from the machine shop, where they did shave the heads and do a full valve job because i had to intake valves that failed a pressure test. I went to torque the cams back down i pulled the threads out of 3 bolt holes....figures.







Here is one of the bolts with the aluminum threads still on it



Thank god for helicoils

NickMiller

Lookin forward to progress!

Gault95

Next on the list is doing a small lift that consists of

2.5" Fat Bobs BJ Spacer:
+3'' FrontPro Comp ES3000 Twin Tube Gas Shock
+4'' Rear Pro Comp ES9000 Nitrogen gas-charged Shock Item Number:
+4" Pro Comp Rear Coil Springs Manufacturer Number:

i kinda stole that list of things to do from digitaldisciple but is there anything that im missing. didnt know if i need the panhard drop kit? I did some searching and this will suit me as far as the lift goes. The tire of choice is going to be some 33x12.50 rubbers maybe on the stock wheels. What do you guys think?

JonnyBoy

Well if the last time the heads were off was for the recall, you wouldn't have felpro gaskets on there. I'd bet it wasn't a Toyota tech that installed the caps wrong.

I would recommend the panhard drop bracket. I only have 1.25" spacers in the rear of mine, and the panhard bar is not parallel with the axle like it is supposed to be.

Gault95

Well the cat at the machine shop said since there wasn't any scaring on the caps or cam then it was fine to replace them in the right order. From the broken sensors I found and broken intake bolts, didn't look like the work of a tech.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Great looking little runner. You are making quick work of the rebuild. Welcome to Yotatech.

Gault95

Time to catch everyone up on some progress with my mall crawler.

I have decided on going with a 325/60R20 KM2 tires for my 4runner. I know that running a 35" tire on a 20" wheel doesnt leave a lot of sidewall for grip on the rocks. I dont plan on doing my rock crawling here in SC.

Gault95

here are a few pics of the new tires compared to the one on it now

Gault95

I not 100% set on a lift yet but im leaning towards the rough country 5" lift. I am also planning to do a small body lift. And i have already bought my 2"wheel spacers so that way i can run these late model 20's with ease and give the runner a wider stance.

My whole goal with my runner is to make it a trail capable rig that i can pack my family into and go camping or to the river. I hope that it will perform good enough to go play in a mud hole or two.

I have been into custom rides my whole life, but as previously stated this is my first 4x4. there are still several things i have been playing around with in my head. Since it has coil springs in the rear, how hard would it be to actually fabricate a air ride suspension so it would have some adjustment for heavier loads....?

Gault95

here are a few pics of the wheels and tires mounted

Mike S.

Thank you for such details in taking pictures on the head gaskets, im going to do mine and was looking up information. If you have any other info plz let me know.