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Good build thread, looks like you've done lots of work on that beast in a few years! Looks like you brought a basket-case back to life, nice work.
Once I got the kinks out of it, this machine has been a very faithful friend. We have been to many places together and it is my daily driver. I hope to have it long enough to share with my son when he is of age.
Gevo - congrats on the baby. Got 2 little boys myself, which has kindof tied up a lot of my time as well. Been thinking a lot lately about getting something with 4 doors and a bit more comfortable for the whole family to go out wheeling. I missed a good 2nd gen 4Runner on craigslist for $2500, it was mint...I should have bought it. Enjoyed browsing your build.
Thanks Coryc! Yes, they do tie up our time don't they?
At the moment, my 4runner bumper removal and new tube bumper installation is pending my wife's return... till then I am babysitting. lol. Can't wait for this little guy to be big enough to be in the garage with me
This morning got new rear disk brake pads and rotor on the Audi A4. $600 at the dealer. Before you think i'm a dumbass for paying them that much... the rears have those wonderful electromechanical breaking system and ONLY the dealer is able to 'back them off' via a computer. Bastards! $300 labor. what a joke. lol.
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ok. now, progress pics till I can continue
bumper off. Need new place to mount light bar.
Primed and 1st coat of paint
Don't want to have ugly stock parts and guts hanging out from below or elsewhere, so started chopping stuff. Will do more chopping, maybe some sheet metal to cover things up later.
Got it all painted, test fit, banged on support tabs a bit and eventually everything bolted up well.
Unfortunately I have some dissapointments from the Trail Gear bumper. I do like the look, definitely. But once it's bolted up, I didnt expect for it to be so far away from the body. Yes, the 1.5 inch body lift doesnt help.
You can see too much of the stuff that the stock bumper covers.
So I ran over to Home sepot and picked up some expanded metal for some experiments. Idea is to hide the guts. Started rough shaping for quick cover, paint and test idea.
It's not too bad actually. I will finish cleaning up some fab work on the expanded metal today and bolt it all up for now.
I have some thoughts on making it look better though. I think I want to cut off the current bolting tabs and weld my own on there with the 1.5 inch lift and other clearance issues in mind. I just have to figure out what to do with the winch plate bolting tabs. Or, I may leave it the way it is and add another tube with a very low profile stinger and the light bar in the middle. I mocked up a terrible drawing on paint . Additionally, I will probably keep the expanded metal regardless of my final design. I think it will add protection to the sensitive stuff from flying rocks and tree branches. ANy other ideas, please share!
Well, finished fabricated the expanded metal and installation of bumper with light bar. Actually, I may not need to do any other fabrication after all. I think it's pretty good now
I'm not a very patient or good fabricator. But I am pleased with my work on this.
Finally, getting closer to the look I imagined for it 3 years ago
Just wanted to share some more thoughts on the trail gear bumper. Overall it is well built, and definitely the look I like. Another problem I ran into.. The hole on the mounting brackets are too large. THe bolt that goes through there is a number 12 (I think) and the holes are much larger. So much so that the medium washers are no good, I need some heavy duty ones so they don't cave in. This presents a problem, upon an impact with imovable objects, this adds a dimension of movement that will put a LOT of stress on the two bolts in the front and the front cross member. No good! I will eventually find some sleeves to fit in these holes for a tight fit.
4.1 diffs out, 4.88 diffs in with new front locker
So, since I got the new tires I needed to regear. I kept the tires at 32 inches for several reasons. FOr the stuff I ever plan on doing this is good enough. It balances the additional stresses on the drivetrain with trail ability well. Larger tires cause more and more stress on the IFS system which I plan on keeping for sometime still. Also, I was going to be adding an Aussie locker in the IFS diff which adds a ton of stress to the system that it wasn't exactly designed for.
(thank you to gearinstalls.com and this forum for the wealth of information to help me through all of these decisions and knowledge for installation!!!)
Here is goes. I first installed the locker in the new IFS diff. It has 150k miles and it is replacing the 4.1 diff on my car currently which has 240k miles
the new 4.88 front Diff comes out of hiding and gets gutted and cleaned.
Locker installed, pretty easy, everything fit just right.
Covered and sealed, ready to be installed.
Old one dropped out.
I keep finding uses for this wonderful jack I decided not to sell because I love tools. This was a HUGE help.
OK! This really pissed me off. I had a 1.5 inch suspension lift, so I knew it wasn't going to be fun taking the CV out (torn boot, warranty replacement). So, after a bunch of time spent wiggling and jiggling and jacking the car up (in previous pic you can see I put jack on opposite corner which would put most weight on this corner) and finally it came out a little further then got stuck again. When I got out of my own head, I looked on the other side and saw what was in the way. lol. <br/>
Finally, it is out. Notice the stupid re-builder did not put in a new dust seal on the new one!
So, I went ahead and replaced it with the one I removed.
Everything back in, again, the tranny jack was invaluable here!
Time for the rear. I had done some temporary oil leak pluggage
Removed the locker from the 4.1, put it in the 4.88 diff.
Meanwhile changed all 3 brake hoses.
Everything back in. Took me a million years to bleed the brakes, and still it is not perfect :/
Thanks for the suggestion Reluctance. I had never seen that style.pump before. However, I have a nice gun style bleeder pump. I couldnt seem to stop getting air bubbles. I used grease on the threads and all the tricks I knew and found online. I went through about 1 quart of brake fluid, maybe I need to be more patient :/ . Drove it today a few miles finallly and it was doing ok but the pedal was going all the way to a mechanical stop and wheels still not locking up.
Ill check on rear pad adjustment, again, but my parking brake seems to be doing fine.
One other thing, and you may be doing this, but make sure you are bleeding in the right order - right rear, left rear, right front, left front - basically start as far from the master cylinder as you can and work in closer.
One other thing, and you may be doing this, but make sure you are bleeding in the right order - right rear, left rear, right front, left front - basically start as far from the master cylinder as you can and work in closer.
BTW good choice of beer!
Yessir I have been, with the addition of the lspv valve.
Once I got the kinks out of it, this machine has been a very faithful friend. We have been to many places together and it is my daily driver. I hope to have it long enough to share with my son when he is of age.
Cute! I remember thinking something like that back when....
now my son's saving up for his own!
Like what you did with the expanded metal, came out pretty darned nice.
Thanks! I am hoping to hide more of the guts as I install turn signals and maybe other offroad lights?
Meanwhile, I am working on a few mods. Got a camera, front/rear including backup. Got new turn signals. Got new hood mount LED lights.... Just have no time between work and baby duty to install any of this!
The goodies are in! Other things I want to do before our camping trip in mid August is a dual battery setup. We will be taking the baby and there are some things that will need power. Can't wait!
First attempt. Was going to install them in the corner light housing like others have. I was very dissatisfied with the lack of brightness. So, I abandoned these.
2nd attempt at turn signals. I got these 17 inch LED lights. They are nice and bright, AND have 2 circuits, one for lower powered running lights and one for turn signals or brake. Obviously in my application I don't have the need for a braking circuit. I think they will look good and not ghetto like some 'led strips' that I see around. This mounts very well just beneath the headlight and extends to about where the light bar starts. Once it's installed, I hope I like the look!
Today I was able to work on the 4Runner all day! Wifey had the baby all day, and it only cost me a trip to Palm Springs tomorrow
We have two camping trips planned for August, one is with the baby (will be 3 months then). So, I wanted to do some mods that would make camping a little easier. We always get there very late Thursday night, it's not a developed campground so no lights or people. I thought I will install some lights to make the nighttime camp setup quicker. Also, I will be installing a dual battery since the baby comes with some accessories that need power. Hopefully I will have another day to do the dual battery and inverter work. I also bought a 12 volt water pump and an inline filter for quick clean water access from the creek
I'll let the pics and the descriptions do the talking.
First thing, must finish mounting the new turn signals / running lights. In the image the running lights are on. I was skeptical at first, but I totally like the outcome now. Maybe it's because of all the labor? lol..
On to some more offroad lights. Before I can start that, I had to clean up the overwhelmed battery terminal and overall the whole area looks crappy. The new fuse block with a negative block should solve that problem I also found a nice place to mount all of the relays, you can see one of them screwed onto the firewall. I will eventually have 5 or so. No pic, but by the end of the day I had two of them mounted there and the rest will wait. Also, have to get a 2 gauge end cap thingy.
I wasn't liking the idea of fabricating my own mounts for these lights. The only ones I found for this application were for a jeep, or like $50. Well, I remembered that firestick has some for there antennas. Got a pair for about $25 and it came with the antenna mount. Now I have 2 spare antenna mounts. lol. I decided I can mount these under the cowling, which it ended up working nicely. As long as you are ok with modifying the cowling ends.
Test mounted to make sure I get some range of motion. I plan on using these more for the camp site than anything. I gotta get some hardware to allow me to turn them to the side without loosening the bolt.
Trying to route all the wires as neatly as possible.
The guts of the switch setup. I had previously used plastic to fabricate a switch housing, today I used some 16 gauge aluminum.
Here is said aluminum with a generous layer of plastic dip. I need to plastidip the screws too!
New traffic recording cam (front and rear) doubles as a backup camera, triples as offroad trip camera I installed the main unit but haven't finished installing the rear camera yet.
OK, it's dark out so I can check the lights out and enjoy all the hard work. This is without lights.
This is just the 24" light bar infront of the grille.
This is only the new, two, 3X3 offroad lights on the hood
This is both.Still have some painting to do on the front bumper and grille.
I'm here to talk about some more progress and relieve work stress before I get to go home
So, I got most of my items for the dual battery setup. Only thing in the mail is a 6 terminal fuse block. I pondered and pondered where to install the 2nd battery. I ruled out the hood, to much crap to move around. I was really hoping I would be able to hide it somewhere in the car, no go. I looked under the rear seats, which would be a pretty decent location, but definitely not enough space. In the near future I am going to move the gas tank to the stock spare tire location, so then I may have more options for the battery location. So, I decided, in the meanwhile, just leave it in the box in the cargo area and secure it.
I got some 1 gauge welding wire, did a test run to make sure that I can start the car with 20-ft of wire and a totally dead main battery. No problem I will share pictures of the final box with fuseblock and power outlets and all... soon.
Had a little camping trip this past weekend. Here is a pic of the rig out where it belongs. Looking decent, especially with a photographer as a trail buddy!
07-05-2016, 10:53 PM
