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Went up north from FL to KY for the Xmas holiday. 985 miles each way, whew long and brutal ride. Did some offroading at my dad's farms. I took this shot since this 4Runner has been a FL truck all its life, I'm sure it had never seen snow before:
Back in May I re-surfaced the exhaust manifold, new gaskets, and new studs/nuts. I did that because 2 of the studs were missing, and the truck smelled very exhausty in the cab. Well, I'm pretty sure that all that work made it worse. Seems like the air injection tubes did not seal up very well and I'm pretty sure the downpipe to manifold joint was leaking. I'm tired of messing around with it, I decided to buy a header, but wasn't sure which one, obx, pacesetter, LCE, thorley...anyway, today I saw Trail Gear had their Rock Ripper on sale for $249, and on top of that I found that frontier 4x4 (TG dealer) had free shipping so I jumped on it and bought the header and the air injection block off plates. My studs and nuts are pretty new, so I should be good to go.
Trail-gear RockRipper header and I ordered the air injection blockoff plates too. Will get it installed this weekend, hopefully my exhaust leaks are a thing of the past.
Been a few weeks of hiccups. The TG header flange holes were not drilled properly so it would not mount to the head. They sent me a new header and the install went very easy...
During the downtime, I ordered an OEM distributor cap, rotor, and 4 Denso plugs from toyotapartzone. I've never been really hardlined on OEM stuff, but I'll say that this cap and rotor are MUCH heavier duty that those cheapy aftermarket ones.
Ok, LOTs of stuff has happened. My buckshot mudders were totally shot after that trip to KY, so in January I ordered BFG KM2s in 33x10.50. I shopped around a lot and finally found them for $174 a tire on discounttire.com, free shipping too. Turns out they were backordered, so I had to wait. Finally got them the last week in April.
In the meantime, I picked up this 22re off the local craigslist. Don't really need it, but I don't see them too often down here. Got a bunch of extra parts with it, like alternator, starter, intake, exhaust, etc.
While waiting for the tires, I finally put new brake shoes on the rear. Been wanting to do that for a while, my e-brake wasn't really working and I found out once I got inside there that the adjusters were seized. Got it all back and working now and the pedal feels good.
Here are the new shoes, got a fresh alignment too.
Since I got the new tires on (and fixed my AFM which was stuck open causing me to run rich), I decided I needed a trip. Went up to Brooksville, FL with the Florida Landrover Club to their Spring Rally. Those guys are fearless with their rovers and they put on a good rally. Showed those guys what a little Toyota can do too. Here's me going through one of the shallower crossings. Some DEEP stuff out there in Richloam Wildlife Management area.
The first night out there, we quickly relocated my ECU to the glovebox because the water was so deep. It came up into the floor of the cab, but then I got afraid that I would suck some into the engine. Bottom of the headlights is my limit until I can get a snorkel.
Some of my short term plans are to put on my IFS brace, get some new CVs, build a rear tire carrier, thinking of a 1" body lift and new poly bushings.
Slowly getting a few more odds and ends taken care of.
First off, I have been trying to troubleshoot my dome light since I've had the truck. Checked the door switches, power to the light, etc. Anyway, reading Terrys87 thread he noted that you have to have the key buzzer hooked up for the dome to come on. Looked up there and of course I see the plug hanging, but no buzzer. Finally found one in the Classifieds and grabbed it. Lo and behold, dome now works with driver door. Key buzzer too, although I might eventually disable that thing.
Next up, my exhaust has always been really smelly in this truck. Just unburnt fuel smelling. I've got new plugs, new cap & rotor, header, exhaust gaskets, new exhaust, etc and still stinks. Finally ordered a new catalytic converter for it yesterday. I'm really hoping that will help the smell. Also, in preparation for the new cat, I Seafoam'd the truck yesterday. Poured maybe half the can into the fuel tank, the other half into a vac line and boy did it smoke. Haven't really test driven it yet, but hopefully some of the gunk got broken loose.
By the way, I bought a Walker direct fit cat, they are offering a $40 mail in rebate right now. So found it online at advance auto parts for like $130, but they had a 20% code (P20) to bring it down to $106 and free shipping, with the $40 rebate, this is $66 for the cat.
Hello coryc85.. Nice runner, really like your truck. Looks like you are making great progress. How do you like your header? I think I want to get rid of the air injection and a little more power. Also to get a little more room under there.
Glad my buzzer post helped get your light working. Guess our 88s are little different from the rest such as injectors and AC. I really appreciate you posting your pic for me.
Got to spend a couple of hours on the truck this weekend. We just had a baby in May, so I don't have a lot of extra time these days.
Installed that new catalytic converter. Exhaust seems to smell slightly better, have to take it on a few more drives with the rear window down to know for sure.
Also, as noted above, I finally got the dome light working, but now that buzzer was killing me. It's not very useful, I wish it buzzed when you left your lights on and removed the key and not every time you turned the key to ON. Anyway, pulled the little box and again thanks to Terry's thread, I bent that little tab. Silence is golden.
I've had a new fuel filter for a while, but never felt like changing it. Well, finally did. It's not that tough of a job, but you do need to contort yourself a little to reach up there and get one wrench on the filter housing and another on the fuel banjo bolt. I poured a little SeaFoam right into the filter before hooking up the IN side just to get some right to the injectors.
And one final thing, I installed my new Cobra handheld CB. I had an old cheap radio shack CB, but I wanted one with the speaker right in the mic housing. Makes hearing the CB MUCH easier in this loud truck. I'll get some pictures up of where I mounted it. It's also easy to unplug and hide so nobody gets the itch to steal it.
That's all I had time for. I still need to fix my AC, wire up my rear speakers, get some new shocks and on and on.
Having a new baby is rough for the first 6 months. Seemed like every 2 hours we were always getting woken up. Congrats on the kid.
On the exhaust, I have mine bent to the side behind the rear tire and I dont notice any exhaust fumes coming in. My smell isnt so great, but think I might would notice it. Im still alive and kicking so guess it is ok.
What yo have on your list is about what i have got left to do, I keep thinking the list will get shorte or done someday, but sometimes wonder.lol
Congrats on the kid again and enjoy, they dont stay little for long.
Terry - thanks for your response. Yeah, having a child is amazing, we love every minute of it. I can't wait to get him out there in the 4Runner. It's so hot here in FL, like 90+ with lots and lots of humidity, so I really need the AC working for the little guy to be comfy. I feel like I've got a huge list of things to do, it really needs time and money, but I'm trying to limit the money I spend on this old truck and I just have no time. I'm resource limited I guess.
Anyway, I love watching other people's progress, gets me motivated to get out there and turn a few bolts on mine. So keep yours going, I've really learned a lot by reading through your thread.
Florida is known for its humidity, we get a good dose of it here in the mid west. I didnt understand what humidity was until I got away from it an came back to it. ugggh!!
I still need to do AC on mine, it was miserable without it. Defineitly going to get it before summer time. But with it cooling off it has slipped to the back burner.
I understand the resource limits. Time, money, BOTH!!! Just never enough of each. Just checking in. Hope all is well.
Terry - oh boy do I know about humidity. I'm in Fort Lauderdale and the summer is pretty unbearable here sometimes. I still did not manage to fix my AC, but I don't drive the 4Runner much. It's just starting to drop a few degrees here now, so I did drive it to work yesterday with the vent windows blasting me down the Turnpike. Your Runner is really looking great, I don't have the patience for the detail work that you have, like painting all those trim pieces.
Last time I posted, I had just installed a new Walker direct fit catalytic converter. Definitely has made an improvement to the smell of my exhaust.
Also, saw these BJ spacers in the classifieds here for $70 shipped, so I jumped on them:
I want to find some longer shocks now and then I'll install these. For the rear, I've got a set of Jeep YJ springs that I may use to mix in with some of my Yota leaves.
Finding that deal on the BJ spacers kindof kicked my butt in gear to get my suspension where I want it. I spent some time yesterday reading every thread on BJ spacers and I decided on Gabriel shocks. My 4Runner spends 90% of its life on the road so I think I'll be good for several years with these.
Anyway, I found a thread that had some Gabriel part numbers for the rear shocks. I ordered the 61658 Pro Guards, they have an extended length of 24.48in, compressed length 14.7in, and stroke of 9.78in.
The fronts were a little tougher. I basically punched in part numbers on the Gabriel website until I found a shock with the lengths I wanted and the mounts I wanted. They don't have any way to search by length or mounting option, so I had to go through probably 20 or so.
Anyway, I settled on the 61561 Pro Guards for the front. They are 15.09in extended, 10.06in compressed, and stroke is 5.03 inches. The upper mount is the same S1 stud mount as stock, the bottom eyelet does not have a sleeve so I'll have to press the sleeves out of my old shocks.
I ordered the Gabriels from Autozone, they were $24.99 a piece, plus free shipping and there was a 20% mail in rebate, so all 4 shocks will end up costing me $80.
Once I get those, I'll have the spacers, the longer shocks, and then I'm planning to stick a leaf or two from a YJ leaf pack into my rear springs.
I'll probably need some longer brake lines, so that will be the final piece of this. I believe I read that you can just double up the stock lines but I'm still investigating.
Doing some reading on the BJ spacers, so I went out and measured my fenders before I start the install:
Front Rim to Fender Measurements:
Pass: 13.25"
Driver: 13.625"
Rear Rim to Fender Measurents:
Pass: 11.75"
Driver: 11.625"
I read that factory height is between 13.5 and 14", so my truck is right in there, although I've got a little side to side variance that I will adjust out. I'm shooting for an inch of lift, so I'll probably relax the tbars a bit once I get the spacers in. A good link on adjusting the tbars is http://www.off-road.com/trucks-4x4/t...ent-19258.html
Got some garage time to myself this weekend, so I threw my new Gabriel ProGuards in.
The front 61561's were a breeze. They fit right in there with no modifications at all, I was very happy with that since I had to just punch in part numbers on the Gabriel website until I found suitable lengths and mounts.
The rears were a little tougher. After removing my old shocks, I could clearly see the new Gabriel eye had a rubber bushing with a sleeve and the sleeve was way too small to fit over my shock mounts. So I pressed the sleeves out using a 10mm deepwell socket and my 12ton press, with the sleeve out I could just pry the bushing out with a screwdriver.
The last dilemma was that I needed some new bushings that would fit into the shock eye and also fit over my shock mount studs. Turns out I had some on the shelf from some other project years ago. It's good to hang onto stuff. Anyway, stuffed the new bushings in and mounted the shocks.
I still need to install the BJ spacers, but I really wanted to make sure these shocks fit first. Next up will be those spacers and the rear leaf pack adjustment.
Glad you had a successful time in the garage. Sometimes it can be difficult to get that little bit of time. Way to solve a problem. That can be rewarding also. Great job.
12-28-2010, 07:02 AM
