4biker

That's awesome snow! I lived in Running Springs for a few months - absolutely beautiful there. Probably the only place I'd live in California again.

brian2sun

Nice, they got about 3.5' of snow in Springs outta ths storm!

brian2sun

So I got my OME 861s in (thanks to J-money$$ for helping me out). Those coils are so long, I tried to do them by myself, but it wasn't happening. The easiest way we found to do it is to take out the lower shock bolt and let the shock hang, drive up a hill to flex it out and have your buddy swap the coil. Then repeat for the other side.


I also got my upper and lower links all in and they are great! We improved our design and the new links still have heim joints on the axle mounts, but we went with poly bushings on the frame mounts. This eliminated all the clunky noise and also allows some give so the bolt holes won't get rounded out. Here's a pic of the uppers (the lowers are basically the same except they're bigger, they're .250" wall instead of .120" wall, and the bushings on the lowers are welded directly to the tubes)...


Here's how she sits today (pics are in front of the rifle range near my house - I was out there plinking with my .22 Henry repeater today)...

brian2sun

Got bored today so I painted behind my front emblem. I think it looks pretty cool.

jbudhram015

Good work on the thread the rig looks sweet. Was wondering what the ballpark figure was on your engine rebuild was and what the total parts list looked like? Hows your tranny?

brian2sun

Thanks! My tranny is still shifting great and I've never felt any slippage so I'm hoping to get 300K+ out of it. I got the engine rebuild done for $2,236.00 total. That included:
Removal, rebuild, and installation labor
Hot tank
Main bearings
Rod and cam bearings
Timing belt and idlers
Water pump
New-to-me (used) heads that they resurfaced - because both my heads were cracked
Spark plugs
Oil, filter, and all fluids
Freeze plugs
All gaskets
Regrind valves/seats
Rings
Oil pump
New crankshaft (not reground)
New camshafts

jbudhram015

Wow that's a chunk of change, glad to hear it runs well. How many miles are you up to on it? Warranty? Im going to start saving pennies because I just hit 200k......im going to need a lot of pennies from what it sounds like.

brian2sun

I have about 1600 miles on the new motor so far and I got a 1 year/12K mile warranty with it.

brian2sun

A little update..
I went down to a friend's house yesterday and we got my TRD exhaust on (thanks Jay!). We also cleared some debris out of my front brake calipers and adjusted my rear brakes. I actually gained a little bit of power from the new exhaust too. Not much but enough to notice a difference coming up the mountain on my way back home.

The exhaust sounds really nice. It's almost as quiet as my stock exhaust at idle, but it comes alive after you get to about 2200 rpms and above. I like that it won't wake up the neighbors when I'm warming it up in the morning, but it gets a nice low tone on the road.
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brian2sun

I put my front sway bar back on this weekend. Driving around with no sways in the mountains with all the curvy roads just got to me after a while. The 4runner is my DD again (I sold the CR-V a couple months ago after I got the 3.4 rebuilt) so I want it to handle nice on the road again. And man, it makes a difference after driving without them for so long.

I think my mpgs will even improve because I was having to slow way down around every turn and then gas it afterwards to get back up to a decent speed. Now I can hold the throttle a little more and keep my momentum up through the turns. I'm leaving the rear sway bar off still because I get enough control out of just the front and I like having the extra flex back there.

I've been thinking of getting some WabFab quick discos, but in all reality, it took me about 1.5 minutes per side to take off/install the stock endlinks. So I think I'll be sticking with those for now. They are a little short with my lift, but they'll be ok on road.

I washed the truck this weekend too and also repainted my sliders and rear bumper. I must say, she still cleans up pretty darn nice for a 15 year old truck that wheels about once a week. I still need to clay bar this thing and give it a proper detail and wax soon though. Now on with the glamour shots..







Before and after..

brian2sun

So my 4runner made it's way into a CBI ad in the new 4WD Toyota Owner Magazine!


It's my avatar!

CodyX36

Congrats on getting the magazine! I actually turned to that page first when I got the magazine inn the mail last week!

Hulk311

I have to say that you have one of the nicest 4runnners out there, really like the color combo of the wheels and truck.

brian2sun

Thanks man, I appreciate it!

brian2sun

I have a lot of pics of my truck on my build thread, but not very many of the underside. I figured I'd take some armor shots.. some of it's custom, some of it's not..

ARB and front BudBuilt skid..


Front Bud (a little chewed up, but holding up well)..


The Bud belly pan attached to the front skid. You can kinda see the Lil' Skip's gas tank skid too..


Bud belly pan, Lil' Skip's gas tank skid and my 4xInnovations sliders..


Rear LCA mount (just welded plate on them for bashing)..


Side shot of LCA mount (added plate to side to keep bolts from rounding out the holes in the thin stock mounts). They're definitely not as nice looking as the Lotus LCA guards, but they weren't around yet..


Custom rear LCAs that J-money$$$ and I made. They're a poly bushing on the frame end and a 7/8" heim joint on the axle end. The tubing is .250" wall 1.75" DOM. Also, the lower shock mount skids are made by Icon..

brian2sun

Side shot of the rear LCA..


We also made some rear UCAs to replace the puny stock ones. These are also a poly bushing on the frame side and a heim on the axle side. The heims are 5/8" and the tubing is 1" .125" wall DOM..


Both UCAs, my diff breather, and my Trail Gear Taco diff armor (slightly modified to fit a 3rd gen diff)..


A closer shot of the TG diff armor..


Custom pan hard drop (made by J-money$$$ and welded on by Driffter33)...


What it looks like under there..


And a shot of the underside of the CBI rear bumper..

brian2sun

J-money$$$ and I made a cooler holder to mount on my bumper a while back, but I realized once I filled the cooler full of drinks and ice it was too heavy and would probably break the holder and I'd loose my cooler out on the trails.

So my friend Jay came up to my house a couple weeks ago (to help me put on my Tundra brakes and my pan hard drop) and he took the cooler holder back home with him to reinforce it for me. He came back up to wheel this weekend and brought it back to me!! He did an excellent job (thanks Jay)! I painted it yesterday and put it on this morning..



It mounts to the same holes that my jerry can mounts to so I can choose to take the cooler for close runs or extra gas for long trips.

4ever4running

iTrader: (1)

Sweet rig! I can only hope and dream that mine will get there someday. Man that CBI bumper is so sweet! I can't wait until I can afford one...

brian2sun

Thank you!

A little update..
I ordered some 35s today (315/75/16s)!! I got Treadwright M/Ts with Goodyear MTR casings (so they'll look just like the old MTRs). They were $712 shipped for the set of 4, that's pretty cheap for 35s!

I probably won't be running them until about Oct. because I want to use up my current tires and put the freshies on right before it starts snowing. But that'll give me a few months to clearance for them. I can't wait!

brian2sun

I went to my friend Jason's house today and after talking about it for a couple months, we went for it and trimmed the fat off my ARB bumper. We both smash the crap out of our ARBs on the rocks all the time so we've been talking about either hacking up our rock slammers for clearance or just ditching them and buying tube bumpers. I decided I'd get to hackin'...

I cut the whole bottom "flap" off on each side, so I gained ~2" more clearance towards the bottom/center and ~1" towards the top/outside. Then we cut the sides off, following the natural bend, so we cut 1" off at the corners going to ~3" towards the tires.



Jason also welded some small angle iron along the entire bottom to add rigidity. I took a pic, but it sucks..



Were able to cut 1" off along the entire bottom center portion of the bumper without disturbing the way it mounts and still keep the D-ring mounts functional too. We did have to move the bumper back to the original mounting holes because I had previously drilled new holes to accommodate for my body lift. Jason cut the actual mounts and re-welded them both up 1" today.



I bought my ARB used about 3 years ago for $200 so I didn't feel bad about being the guinea pig. I haven't tested it out yet on the trails, but I'm very happy with the result, both looks and clearance-wise. I honestly think it looks better than before. I'll take better pics with it painted, but I ran out of daylight today.

We did have a casualty today also..
The bumper fell off some stools and smashed the crap outta one of my fog lights. You can kinda see it in one of the pics. No biggie.

And thank you Jason (J-money$$$) for all your work and help!! I'll be happy to drive down there to help you hack yours if you decide to!