Wow, my bald 255s look small in that last pic. Good thing 35s are on the way...

 

That looks great! If I start bashing on rocks, I'll do some trimming too. Way to bust out the cutting wheel and change what you don't like.

 

Thanks!

Here's some before and after shots..

 

Not only does it give you more clearance, but I think it looks a lot better too.

 

The trimmed ARB came out really nice, good work! Have you gotten a chance to test the clearance on the trails yet?

 

I went down to J-money$$$'s a couple weeks ago and we started clearancing my fenders for the 35s that are coming very soon! I got a 35" spare mounted on my spare wheel so we are clearancing with that so when my tires come in, it'll be ready for them.

With my 1" body lift, we did not have to tub the front firewall (as many on here think is necessary). I had to make the arc of the front fenders a little bigger on the side closest to the firewall with an angle grinder. We just marked what I needed to cut off with some tape and it literally only took a few minutes. Then we were able to pound the actual firewall back a little more than an inch with a large sledgehammer.

To check the clearance, we put the front on stands to droop the suspension, then we removed both front struts. We then put a jack under the lower control arms and raised the 35" tire until the bump stops were fully squashed. With the tire fully stuffed, we cycled the steering, looked where it rubbed, lowered the tire and took it off, and pounded the area with the sledge. We had to repeat the process a few times for each side, but now I can steer from lock to lock with a 35" tire fully stuffed and don't get any rubbing (except a little on the frame which you can't do anything about). Best part is, very little trimming an no welding was necessary.

On to the pics..

Comparison shot (315/75/16 next to my 255/85/16)..



Shot of the firewall pounded in and painted and the fender cut..


Shot of what I trimmed off the front fenders..


Shot of the finished product (still with 33s on)..


Full shot..


I still have to do the rear, but my biggest worry was the front so that done now!

On a side note, the extra leverage that's caused by my panhard drop actually bent the holy ˟˟˟˟˟ out of the frame side panhard bar mount. So....
PANHARD DROPS SUCK! unless they are heavily reinforced and you put a spacer in the old bolt holes to keep the mount from collapsing in on itself.

I had to basically reshape the mount by prying on it for a 1/2 hour just to get the panhard bar back in the stock location. Then I hacked the drop bracket off with a sawzall. It will be staying in the stock position for good now because extended panhard bars shove your driveshaft right into the gas tank/gas tank skid and panhard drop brackets just ruin the whole damn mount. The lesser of all the evils is to just keep it in the stock location and deal with the axle being off center a little. On my hour long drive home up the mountain, I couldn't tell one bit of difference in the handling without the panhard drop installed so I'm 100% convinced now that they don't do jack anyways.

 

Another thing that we did during the clearancing that I forgot to mention was, the 35" tire hit one of the pumps on the washer fluid reservoir. There are 2 pumps on the reservoir (one for the front windshield and one for the rear). The tire rubbed badly on the plastic skirt that covers the reservoir and also the pump itself for the rear windshield and all the tubing coming out of it. So I removed the skirt for good and I had to remove the pump for the rear. No big deal to me, I never really used the sprayer for the rear much anyways and at least the front sprayer still works. Now it just barely rubs the body of the reservoir when it's at full compression and full lock, but definitely not enough to make me want to make a custom reservoir. This rubbing was with the strut removed also, so I doubt the strut will even compress enough to allow it to rub on the trail.

When you take the pump out, it leaves a large hole so I think I'm just gonna stick a cork in there and call it done..


On a side note, I was a little worried that a 35" tire wouldn't fit on my CBI bumper next to my custom cooler holder, but it just squeezes in there!..

 

I also made some hoops a couple of weeks ago to protect the rear quarter panels, and also to make the bumper not look stupid now that I removed my flares.

When I ordered the CBI, they didn't specify the width at that time so my bumper was made to fit flush with Limited/Sport flares. With no flares, it sticks out a couple inches and looks not quite right.

I'll be welding the hoops so the front part sits on top of the "shelf" (the part that sticks out) so it will look natural. The rear part of the hoops will be welded to the side of the bumper. They are much taller than they will be once they are installed, I just made them extra long so I could choose how high I wanted them to be..

 

I forgot to mention earlier that if you clearance for 35s like I did in the front, you need to remove the interior plastic panels in front of the doors, down by your feet on both D and P sides. We had to shave a 1/4-1/2" off the side and bottom of the panels with a razor knife to make them fit right once we banged the firewall in with the sledge. And in case you are wondering, pounding the firewall in extensively like I did does not interfere with the pedals or your leg room whatsoever.

On the passenger side, the ABS computer is attached to the side of the body, behind the panel mentioned above. You may want to remove the ABS computer before you start pounding because the bottom corner of it may come into contact with the floor, and I'm sure the vibrations probably aren't too great for it either. Mine was ok, but I disabled my ABS years ago so I didn't give a crap if I broke it anyways, lol. If you like your ABS, then I'd remove it.

 

Man it seems like everyone is going up to 35's! I can't wait to see what they look like on the truck! Both you and Dirtco have inspired me to move up to 35's as soon as I need new tires.

I am hoping that my 3" suspension + 1.5" of body lift should mean that I only have to do some minor cutting and pounding to make them fit. Keep up the good work and make sure that you post plenty of pics!

 

Thanks! That's the coolest thing about these forums! I was inspired to get 35s after I saw Troyboy's rig in person and realized I can fit 35s without having to do a full tub. As you probably know, Dirtco and I only have 1" body lifts so you'll be fine with a 3"+1.5" if you do the same kind of trimming and pounding we did (a little less for you actually because the body lift is the only thing that makes a difference at full compression).

I still have to clearance the rear, but that'll be fun and hopefully go quickly.

 

I got a great deal on some stock 5 spokes this weekend from my friend Bill. And I got my 315/75/16 Cooper Discoverer STTs mounted on them today!! I was going back and forth on painting them gunmetal or black, but in the end, I miss the way my truck looked with the old alloys so I decided to leave them alone...
for now anyways.

I'm gonna do my inner TREs tomorrow (because they seem to have play in them) and I also ordered a new steering rack guide which should be here this week. Gotta fix the steering before I can put these big 'ol suckers on!

I still have to trim the back fenders too, but I should have little to no rubbing on the road (and the front is already clearanced) so I'll just trim the back whenever I get time. I'm waiting for a set of 1" wheel spacers for the back which should be here tomorrow too.

But for now, here's a teaser pic...

 

I took my skid plate off to do my inner TREs tomorrow. Snapped a pic..
You can't say I don't get some use outta this thing!



The oil stains are because my rear main went out for the 2nd time after the engine got rebuilt back in February. I ended up getting a refund for my engine rebuild (after I had to threaten to get "my" attorney involved - who doesn't exist BTW). I didn't get all of the money back, but I got ~80% back and avoided having to go to court over it so I took it and ran!

Good news is, I have a '97 3.4 waiting to be swapped in which a good friend is going to sell me for a great price! The motor is in great shape, relatively low mileage and it's got the fuel upgrades for a SC already (URD 6 injector kit and URD computer)!

 

Wait what happened to the treadwrights? I was going to let you be my guinea pig

 

They pissed me off, lol.
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-ge...ght-sucks.html

 

Yeah they are definitely helpful!

Do you have any more detailied or better quality pics of the inner fender and how you went about cutting the pinch weld and hammering back the firewall? I am just trying to get a better feel for what I am going to be doing...Also, what sort of tools did you use/need to get the job done.

Good luck with the rear and be sure to keep us updated!

 

Sorry, that's about as good of pics as my crappy phone will take, I don't have a good camera right now, but it's pretty self-explainatory though, once you start doing it. I hammered the pinch weld flat as possible and then cut and ground the excess hanging crap. And then hammered it some more.

I put the front end on stands so the suspension would be drooped and I took the struts out. I put a jack under the control arms and cranked it until the control arms couldn't go any higher. I would cycle the steering at full comp, and then take the tire off and pound. Repeat as necc. until the tire doesn't touch anymore and then put the struts back in.

All you need is an angle grinder with cutting, grinding and flapper discs and a nice big sledgehammer... and a good breakfast because you have to hit the firewall with some hard force many times to move it back far enough not to rub at full compression.

I used painter's tape to mark the line where I trimmed the fenders with the angle grinder/cutting disc. Then I put the flapper on and cleaned up the edges. I could see that I needed to trim about an inch off the bottom of the fenders, so I just made a line with the tape that followed the arc decently and went at it. Took about 1 or 2 minutes per side to actually cut and flap it.

 

Before (with bald 255/85/16s)...



After (with new Cooper Discoverer STT 315/75/16s)...

 

MMMMM... BEEFY

I love the look of that tire. From the rear your rig almost looks like a full size bronco.

What size spacers are you running with those limited wheels?

 

Thanks! I have 1" hub/lug centric spacers from Motorsport Tech. So my end backspacing is 3 5/8".