86 TOY

Nice looking 4Runner you picked up! Great choices on the upgrades...keep us posted on the 4.88's. Will you be installing them? Tons of writeups on here...

chrismcdowell25

I was thinking about doing them myself but after reading threads and talking to my dad I am a bit leery. I just haven't done them before and it doesn't sound like it's just drop them in. I'll see though, I still may do them.

86 TOY

4.88's in yet???

chrismcdowell25

I got all the parts in but haven't had a chance to install them yet. I am still debating on doing it myself or having someone else do it. I am waiting on my brother to put some new tires on his truck and swap the old tires to his other truck which has really really bad old tires. So I'll have a truck to drive if my install goes longer than a weekend. I did finally get my torsion bars and front shocks that I ordered 3 months ago. Guess ARB USA was out of stock on the OME torsion bars and it was on a boat from Australia. They are finally here so I now have a whole ton of parts to install. Will probably do it all at once if I end up doing it. I'll keep you posted when I get around to installing it or having it done.

chrismcdowell25

I installed the front torsion bars and shocks so now it is sitting a bit more level. The new torsion bars are quite stiff but with more people or a future bumper they smooth out very nicely. They took me about 4 hours to install because of a few seized bolts but otherwise a fairly easy install. I have decided to take the truck to have the ring and pinion installed that way it is correct and I don't end up screwing it up. They should be finishing it up tomorrow. Here is a picture of the new torsion bars and shocks after install.

chrismcdowell25

Ring and pinion 4.88s are in. Much more power. I haven't hit the big hill over Sunol yet but around town it's beautiful. I'm doing the break in on them so I haven't gotten it into fifth yet. It's tempting to try it but I wanna baby them for a while.

RMA

yea they make a huge difference .
who installed them for you ?
is your speedometer off ?

When we installed them in my friends 88 4runner 3.0 automatic with 31x10.50 the speedometer was way off .
now that we switched the cluster (sc400) tranny (a341e) transfer case (t-100) and speed sensor from a sc400 the speedo is dead on compared to the gps.

chrismcdowell25

Before I was 5 under with the new tires. Now I'm 5 over. Think 4.56 is correct for 32. 4.88 should be correct for 33. Or so I've heard. I think you can get a different gear for the tranny to adjust it. I'm not too worried yet. I'll run it for as many months as I ran the big tires with no gears and make up the odometer difference.

chrismcdowell25

Oh and they were installed by http://rearendspecialties.com in Santa Clara. $857. Drop off the parts and truck then picked it up 5 hours later. I'd like to have tried myself but ive been quite busy and it's my daily driver and I need it for work. I figure just have it done by someone that knows all about diffs. Guy was telling me about his two yotas. An 86 pu and 89 runner I think it was. That was extra points in my book.

87 'runner boosted

really wish you had done it, was looking forward to hearing about it. Also, does anyone know if I can take the 4.88 chunk out of a 95 4runner and plop it right into my axle housing as is??? i found some 4.88's at the junk yard I wanna nab....

jason in tn

good lookin runner

chrismcdowell25

I'm not sure on the 95.

I would have liked to have tried but being my only car I def couldn't mess around too much. I also didn't have a press which I heard was needed. Tool wise time wise and needing to go to work won out. Maybe I'll get one done one day. I'd like to have a designated daily in addition to the tinker truck. Brother sold his backup truck also.

Thanks Jason.

chrismcdowell25

I have finished breaking in the gears. I did the 100 miles stopping to let cool after 20 miles, then under 65 for the remainder miles up to 500. I left it in 4Hi but with the front hubs unlocked. I was looking around and heard tons of different proper ways to break in the gears. Some people even said just put them in and your done. I just drained all the fluids to change them out. I figured I would do the whole drive line since I didn't know when or if anything was done last so I did the transmission, transfer and the two differentials. I went with the mobil1 75W90 in everything. It wasn't too tough and probably took me about 3 hours. I used a fluid pump only for the transmission. Everything else was easily fillable. It may be my imagination but it seems to run smoother and more quiet. I ordered 9 Quarts and used every last drop which I think was just the perfect amount as each one ran over. I was getting a bit panicked on the front diff at 9 at night and the auto stores closed. If you don't want to worry or you spill a lot get 10 quarts and you'll have some left over for your parts bin.

alex_mcnair

i like the lift..i think my truck will need new rear leafs also because mine now arent too great...does it have a locker on it?

alex_mcnair

where did you get the torsion bars from?

chrismcdowell25

I do not have a locker. It's on my list but I have some other lists to take care of first. I got all of my suspension parts from... http://www.4by4connection.com/ifsrearleafs.html It's nice to have everything lifted. My rear springs were so bad it was hitting the bump stops when I would hit the millions of potholes on the california highways. Figured it was time to fix them.

chrismcdowell25

My window stopped rolling up or down. I took it apart and tried to fix it but the gear was stripped and none of my fixes seemed to hold. I ended up machining some new parts for it. I made the crank shaft, spring housing and gear. I don't have a photo of the gear but these are the parts I made and a video of cutting the gear. It came out pretty good. Though I think if I made another one I could tighten the process up a bit more.




Videos
http://chrismcdowell.net/Misc/4Runner/IMG_1251.MOV

http://chrismcdowell.net/Misc/4Runner/IMG_1258.MOV

stockwell45

iTrader: (1)

Damn thats sweet. Wish I could make my own stuff like that

chrismcdowell25

I also got around to remaking a door panel for the drivers side door. On the old ones the lower strip was all beat up and falling off so I decided to extend the door panel all the way down to the bottom. I plan on doing the passenger side also but maybe not right away. I re-stuffed the top vinyl trim piece also so that it is full and not all saggy and wrinkly. I think it came out fairly well and looks almost oem.

I took two of the new one and a comparison with the passenger side.

Philbert

iTrader: (2)

That looks CLEAN! Nice work!