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It all started with a 3.4 swap, Ruby the 93 is slowly growing
I've been doing so much work without documenting, I thought I'd start a build up on my ol girl Ruby. Swapped in a 3.4 at 365,000 miles, and installed a rear ARB airlocker, then immediately took it to Moab and ran Fins n Things, Hells Revenge, and a trip to Chicken Corner. She performed beautifully, except for 1 issue... the poor trans cross member took an absolute beating. Every obstacle, SMACK. So the next upgrade HAD to be a lift. Wound up going with the Rough Country 4" IFS lift, since a SAS just isn't in the cards right now.
I'll post a few pics here, currently still on my 31's, but have a set of 33x12.5s in the shed, just waiting on the local tire shop to get me in.
Had 1" BJ spacers and 2" rear lift springs with 2 broken leaf springs on the left and 1 broken on the right.
Never could find a new set of shackles, wound up cutting out the old studs and refurbishing the originals.
So far, pretty happy with the lift. Though it did drop my LCA angle a bit, I have new torsion bars on order to correct the issue. Mine are original and I have no adjustment left in them. They're as worn out as they can get without breaking.
Youve got the best little Toy there ever was, old school pickup with the 3.4. Just keep a box of IFS parts with you when youre wheeling. Sounds like you do some hard trails.
And make sure that 4runner has good ball joints on it, thats the weak link in the 3rd gen IFS. I forget of its upper or lower that wear first. I think lower but dont quote me on it.
Thanks! It's been with me since 2006, so it's been a lot of fun to finally be building it up.
On that ball joint note, I installed a 3" Rough Country lift on the girlfriends 99 Runner, and the first trip out we snapped the right lower. Fortunately we had another rig with us that day, and after about a 4 hour round trip to town and back I had the pleasure of changing a LBJ on the trail.
As a thank you for doing all the work installing the lift on her Runner, my gf bought me a set of tube doors for Ruby.
I ordered some color match spray paint from ERA Paints on ebay (highly recommended seller, very good customer service!), and painted them last week. Finally got them installed a couple days ago and we took her out wheeling yesterday. I am in love, they really elevate the experience!
Yessir. Next steps, install the new torsion bars (not expected to ship til the end of November), do something about a front bumper and winch, and eventually fix the body damage and get it LINE-X'd. I love how the paint looks but I'd cry the first time a branch scraped down the side if I got it repainted.
Quick update. I was browsing around Marketplace and I found a lady with a pile of older parts in her shed. I barely noticed in one of the pictures a manual locking hub sticking out of the rubble. After a quick back and forth she told me she wanted to sell the whole pile and not piece by piece, so I resigned and went on my way. About a month later she messaged me and asked if I was still interested. I finally have manual hubs! They were nasty, full of rat scat and covered with grease and who knows what else. There are still rat turds in the bed of my Chevy that I need to clean out.
Anyways, pulled them apart, cleaned up, repainted and installed.
Yessir. Next steps, install the new torsion bars (not expected to ship til the end of November), do something about a front bumper and winch, and eventually fix the body damage and get it LINE-X'd. I love how the paint looks but I'd cry the first time a branch scraped down the side if I got it repainted.
Just go with the scratches, "Custom ghost flames by Willow Branch and Berry Bush".
Aug 28, 2021 | 06:53 PM
