Well, purchased a new fridge today. It was a good deal, catch was it was 100 miles away. I checked the measurements and thought, ehh it ahould fit in the 4runner, dont want to bug my friend to use his truck. Plus, the 4runner needs to earn its Keep some more!!

So, I had to take a couple of the doors off And leave the gate open for the trip back. The fridge is Huge!! No room for packaging either..

 

Hey! Not too much squatting, eh??

What's a Toyota for if you don't work it!

 

Hey Roark,

yah it did great!
And it's been working hard still. I am very happy with the HD downey coils.

 

Hey, just curious, what was the height measurement from floor to ceiling in the 4Runner?

I've got a pickup, but am thinking about picking up a 4Runner, too...

 

Dang, cant remember. The ossues is not the inside though, its the hatch opening. I think the hatch cleared 28".

 

Our 4runners are brothers.

 

jday, but mine is 1991, your front end looks like post 1992? Close enough though

SO, haven't been on yotatech for a few months. Bought a house and all I have been doing is renovating and moving! Just as I got busy with the house, my transmission decided that it was going to continue to be ˟˟˟˟ty.

So, the quick summary.. and my rant... I had been having high tranny temp issues (running up to 250deg regularly). It was rebuilt less than 12k miles prior to these symptoms. Did an oil change, and nothing, then decided to change to synthetic oil to protect the oil from breaking down due to the heat and ruining more of the tranny. Well, that backfired big time. Right away the various gears started not working properly, switched back to regular oil and it was good... a few hundred miles later my 1st and 4th gears went to transmission heaven. It has been 2500 miles since, and I have been driving on 2nd and 3rd gear the whole time. I just havent had the time to swap the trany with my spare.

damn!

 

SPARE TRANNY IN! Spent ALL, and I mean ALL of yesterday on removing and installing the new tranny. The reason it took so long, i suspect, is because I didn't have a helper. What a pain in the neck, back and fingers job it was too. Had to get a transmission jack, and some more oil, but that's it.

So some info for future search-ers.

an A340H transmission from a 1991 does swap with an A340H from a 1995 4runner. You do have to swap one piece out, see below.

The two trannys saying hello.




This is the electro-mechanical piece that you swap. In the pic, the 1991 gear selector indicator is the one installed onto the 1995 tranny. The one in my hand is what the 1995 comes with. I thought it would be easier to swap these and hope it worked rather than rewiring the ECU.




As I finished at 2:30 am last night, I haven't tested it out yet. It did go into reverse, and it did go into a forward gear. Since the problem with the previous transmission was that it had no 1st and 4th gear, i am still nervous that this may have the same issue... thinking that the problem was from without the tranny not within. However, I did do the manual shift test on the old tranny and it did fail.

So, I am nervously sitting at work today, sleepy, many bruises and cuts on my hands, contemplating about how pissed I'm going to be if this tranny turns out to be a dud as well. lol

PS: In the absence of a helping pair of hands, you use two ratchet straps and a bottle jack to help you guide the thread into the damn needle!

 

For my records and future reference. The transmission went into the car with 233k miles on the car and 155k miles on the new transmission.

So far, everythign is working perfectly. it's now a matter of how long this will last. I had an extra tranny oil cooler in line (yes, two aftermarket ones for the previous tranny) and I need a nice hot day in traffic to test the heating characteristics of this new tranny and most likely remove one of the coolers.

 

Really nice thread with lots of good info! Thank you for sharing and it looks awesome!

 

Thanks peevedkitten! I'm glad something I post is useful. The forum community wouldn't work unless we all provide our experience and input

 

Pic with the fridge is awesome, I remember at one time, I got a side by side fridge for a kegerator project but didn't have a truck so I went and picked it up about 70 miles from my house with a Subaru Legacy station wagon. Took the doors off the fridge and strapped them on the roof and the fridge fit all the way in with my seat as far forward as I could get it.

 

Needed to jump in here and update! Finally took some time off of home renovations and took a look at my rig. I ordered the rock sliders today, differential armor and working on the front locker. My tires are nearing the end of their life finally... I have been eyeing the new KO-2 tires I have 4.88 gears from my 95 donor ready to go, once I get locker for front i'll start that work.

Meanwhile, the tranny swap has been going very well. SO far about 6000 miles on the donor tranny, I'm cautiously happy

Going on a ride on the 23rd, can't wait

Been quietly following many of your builds here, getting great ideas and such.

Also, ordered a 24-inch light bar, i'll show that installation when I get it done

Anyway, happy new year everyone!

 

Alright, light bar installed! It will stay in this location until I get a nice, offroad, front bumper. I was able to set it about an inch behind the leading edge of the bumper incase of any accidents.





Cut the valence.





I like it. Although, something still seems odd on the overall look. I think too much chrome. That will change soon enough





Set about 1-inch back.

 

Also got all of the rock sliders cut, test mounted, tack welded, final welded the components... Cleaned, primed, painted... Will do final welding/install to the vehicle frame tonight

Finally catching up to the rest of the offroading community.





Ready to be fully welded





Primed

 

Light bar harness installed!




Regular headlights.

 

Just posting some pics of the completed product. Catching up on the mods!!

 

Just posting up some pics of a mostly fun day of riding.

Let down. Miller jeep trail in Frazier was closed


So, we headed to the nearby Hungary Valley area.
A broken down jeep.. uhummm...





Too bad pictures can't do the depth of the image justice.







And then we were all standing around, my bud's jeep on it's side, scratching our heads. How the heck did he do that on an open road.... right.




Nothing a couple of recovery straps can't fix.



I'll add more pics when my friend send them over. All in all, tested out the light bar all day, no issues. The rock sliders didn't get much use specifically, but it did make me a lot more confident in the rocky areas, or getting to close to a cliff or something. 4Runner performed flawlessly as always

 

Finally was able to do some stuff on the 4Runner.

New tires. before / after



after




before.

 

In more news, I have ordered the front IFS locker from Aussie. Will install that ans swap in the 4.88 diffs in the next couple of weeks