well hi everyone i'm new on yotatech and this will be my 1's post here! i'm also on toyotanation under the same username!

here is my project! a 1986 toyota 4runner SR5 4X4 22re 5speed. i picked up this bad boy for 1500$ including the rims and near new tires. the truck was running and i was able to get it home all by its own power. the body is rough as the previous owner backed in it with his other truck also everything underneath is covered in rust as it sat 2 years on tall grass ... frame has 3 holes in it from the inside but the rest appears to be still pretty solid judging by a quick hammer test! i has a 3.5 inch body lift to it

first thing i noticed was that the front end would bounce horribly while driving. two blown shocks were the cause. after changing the shocks the driveability was GREATLY improved lol. while i was in the ifs aera i noticed that all my balljoints,tie rod and cv axles boots were ripped -_- so i decided to overhaul the front end entirely so i would have a reliable truck! oh yeah front brakes were destroyed so i'm replacing that as well! lower balljoints were having like 1/4'' play in them ouch!

rear end will be to be rebuilt also as the brakes are shot and the hyd lines too... the rod on the lspv is broken and i have no idea if its letting any fluid go to the rear brakes... my plan is to just scrap the lspv and run a line straight from the master cylinder with a manual wilwood valve on it to the back whell cylinders. diff may have to be reajusted or its bearins changed as its making a rumbling noise when i accelerate. the universal joint on the rear diff's pinion was destroyed, i replaced it but the noise is still there. parking brake obviously doesnt work but the cables are not seized!



so here i am, i completely torn the front end appart and i torched the bushings out of the control arms to replace them with prothane bushings! i bought the truck as a second DD / fishing truck so i wont mind the polyurethane bushings, also they were MUCH cheaper than oem! i am currently in the process of brushing/sandblasting the control arms, spindles and knuckels so i can paint them with chassis paint!

i have a big rockauto box full of balljoints,tie rods, brake parts,seals,cv boots, idler arm, pittman arm and well... everything to rebuild the front end in new! i just ordered a polyurethane link kit for the sway bar

both brake hoses had bubbles in them so i got 2 new ones. now i discovered that the hardlines are so brittle that they crack upon the smalles impact changing those too

when i first drove it the clutch felt funny... turns out the slave AND the master cylinder were leaking, got new ones

i managed a whopping 100km on 40 bucks of gas on the first run! outch! o2 sensor was blown changed that too. also the timing was off by 5* so it lacked a lot of power and was backfiring in the exhaust

now i'm stuck on two things; the backing plates on the spindles were completely gone exept for the bolts and some crust, i'm wondering if i should fab up new plates from 1/8 steel or just do nothing!

second the big seal behind the spindle were the cv axle go is kaput and i cant seems to find it on rockauto... maybe i'll go check at the dealer

well turns out the truck is way more of a project than i thought it would be but i like making old and busted things come back to life!

pics time!

 

Welcome. Seeing all that rust just wants to make me cry. Good luck with the resto and when you're done, let me know and i'll drive up to fish. Canada has some of the best steelhead around.

 

thanks man! i was plannig on buying a boat this summer but after i realized the work i had to do to the truck i said next summer maybe lol

yeah i hate rust too... but currently all my project cars are covered in rust lol the 4 runner and my ae86 in the garage (rust bucket) even my camry has some rust that i need to deal with before it goes out of hand!

 

Need some larger tire on that bad boy....good luck with the build...Bill

 

haha! yeah i know! thanks!

i got these for cheap and they are going to do just fine until i get everything back in good working order!

 

tonight i started rebuilding the power steering pump and made a puller to try to pull the pittman arm out of the steering box's shaft, wont budge. then i called myself stupid as the pittman arm is already destroyed! so i'm just going to grind it off tomorrow!

will try to take pics of the current progress!

 

Yea, it's easy when you cut it out and replace... Keep us posted

 

here is acouple pics of the work i've been doing these last weeks





































2 of the contol arm cam bolts were seized in the bushings by rust so i had to cut them off with a zipcut. while doing this i quite damaged 3 of the dimpled washers that goes on ech side of the sleeve... since i am installing polyurethane bushings i have to reuse these components. 2 of the sleeves were destroyed by the zipcut and the 2 others were so badly pitted by rust that i decided to have some machined from billet steel!

i also restored 3 of the washers by welding the zipcut marks in them, facing them flat on my lathe, then i welded a bead all around the middle, faced it flat and then made some cuts with my grinder to try to kinda replicate the dimples

















here is what i did to block the washers on the new sleeves

the rounded side of the mini hammer in the press expanded the thin metal lip of the bushing inside the washer











starting to reassemble the diver's side!

 

 

ok well got a whole lot of things done lately!

new control arm bolts

finally got the extremly expensive cv joint and knuckle seals from the dealer! they fit perfectly and i did not had any issues putting the c-clip back on while installing the cv axle in the theel hub!

i finished putting the front end together and stuck the wheels back on it so i can go lift the rear! now all left to do in the front end is make new brake lines.






















i lifted the rear up in the air and dissasembled the drums... they were an insane amount of huge spiders that made a home of my drums! lol. drums are very rusted and probably were not even working! parking brake mechanism inside both drums is seized/little cables broken! lots of fun ahead -_-. i probaly found a set of used drums locally that i hope i can scavenge the mechanism to rebuild mines!

after i undid the axles i removed the 3'rd member from the housing to inspect it! the nut on the pinion had been retorqued as the oem dimple was ripped off and a new dimple had been made further!

i completely dissasembled the 3'rd and found out that both pinion bearing, especially the outer bearing, was very badly pitted! also carrier bearings were looking very used! so a master install kit will be needed to rebuild the 3'rd

before i dissasembled the 3'rd from the truck i went to read on www.gearinstalls.com and got a very good lot of information! thanks ZUK! i recommend everyone that needs to do 3'rd member work to go read on ken's pages! very informative articles! to properly rebuild my 3'rd i made myself a long spanner wrench to tighten the adjuster rings on the carrier and also a torque wrench adaptor to easily put 100+ lbs/ft of torque on the carrier bearings when i'll be reassembling it

i will also need a new pinion flange as mine has a deep groove in it! i migh end up welding the groove and machine it straight again but a new triple drilled flange wouls be a lot less work haha!

only thing i need to get my hands on is a mini beam type torque wrench to measure pinion preload and a big bearing separator for removing the pinion bearing when shimming it!



































i also adjusted my valve clearances as the engine was sounding like a diesel! they were pretty off! sounds like they guys who put in the new head did not do a very good job at adjusting them! once i was done i idled way quieter and softer! also noticed a huge improvement in throttle snapiness lol

while under the valve cover i also noticed that the guys who put in the new head re-used the oem timing chain guides -_- driver side one is broken at the bolt and will have to be changed eventually! dang!

thats pretty much it for now! cant wait to drive the thing!

 

I recommend P.O.R. 15 for your rust problems. It wont restore lost metal, but it seems to do an excellent job of stopping the rust IMO. It's pretty expensive at around $30 per pint, but it seems to do it's job.

 

Holy great pics and details wow keep up the good work

 

you did a great job doing the maintenance on the front end of that runner. congrats

 

thanks everyone!

yeah i heard about that por-15 stuff and it does seems like a good solution!

i met up with a very nice local guy tonight who is a 4runner/truck nuts abd have a whole backyard full of parts! i ended up buying 2 front fenders, a drivers side door, rear window wiper, heater controls and 2 drums and the little damned parking brake cables that goes inside the drum!

also he showed me a very nice condition 88 frame that he has for sale for 300$ i think i'm going to leave him a deposit and go pick it up later! some minor rust patch up to do an it would make a solid base to replace my rustbucket frame! also had a 22re for 250$ i think i might pick it up as a spare/builder engine! (i mayyyyybe plan on making a supercharger kit for the 22re)

 

brake lines are all done under the hood and to both front calipers! took me 45 mins to learn to make good flares hahaha! i also installed my manual proportionning valve and plugged the ''t'' going to the back. it was my first time doing brake line work and i think i did not do so bad!

also made a little bracket to secure the manual valve in place.

placed my order for all the parts needed to rebuild the rear end! from the diff to the wheel bearings!
























i wanted a press in a long time but i kept using the ones at work (80 and 200 ton) so last week i began building one for ME! lol i whipped this little 12 ton press during my breaks at work! this will be super useful for diff and axle work!

 

Nice work on fabricating those parts and making your own press

 

thanks!


i had a friend of mine bring the press home in his truck!

then i quickly made a SST using a cnc plasma cut flange i did on my lunch break today!

then i pressed the axles off the backing plates! DANG! they were in there stiff! it took the 12 ton cylinder a lot of effort to separate them!

now i'll try to clean up the backing plates a little but they are soooo rusted!

also i'll be sure to loosen up the parking brake pivot and drown it into anti seize paste

 

today i sandblasted the backing plates and the 3'rd member as they were awfully rusty/dirty. then painted them

also painted the adjusters and brake arms. un-stuck the parking brake pivots and reassembled them with a LOT of nickel based anti seize!





























machined new pins for the parking brake cable as the original ones had the cotter pin so badly rusted in them and they were wery corroded!

 

woah its been a while since i posted but i got a TON of stuff done to the truck! the problem is i wait too long before posting so i have a huge amount of stuff to post and not enough computer time to do it lol


so i got my parts in and i rebuilt the rear diff myself! i bought a mini beam style torque wrench to set the proper pinion bearing preload and i fabbed up a bearing separator to remove the pinion bearing to adjust it's depth with shims!

























after a couple of tries with the shims i ended up going with a "ok" pattern... since theses are 26 year old oem gears there was quite a bit of wear in them and i wasnt able to nail a perfect pattern!

i adjusted the backlash to about 8 thou and cranked the barrier bearings to about 150 lb/ft while banging on the bearing towers with a hammer to equalize the tension in both bearings!
























i then reinstalled the diff and rebuilt both axles with new bearings and seals! i finished some brake lines and bled the system with my handy new hand vacuum pump! dang these things save some work!


after that i went for a test drive of my "new" truck! WOW no more noise from the diff its dead silent! also the brakes and steering/handling has been dramaticly increased!

so the next weekend my buddy invited me to go for a trail ride. i did some mud bogging and some light rock crawling! i was stunned to see where a stock unlocked truck could go! after the ride i went home and as i was washing off huge amounts of mud from my truck i noticed that both inner cv axle boots came off! noooooooooooo! they were full of water and mud so i decided to remove the cv axles for a complete cleanup AGAIN! i re dissasembled the spindles for the a arms and unbolted the cv axle... its when i undid the first bolt that i noticed that the whole diff was moving around! uh oh! turns out i ripped the driver's side diff mount bolt straight through the mount! :S well the mount was attacked by rust so that didnt help! so i finished unbolting the cv's and took the sawzall to the oem mount!

oh and btw the chains you see on the motor mount is to prevent the motor from exiting the truck while in the trail! haha! my motor mounts and tranny mount are shot so i welded 5 links of chain on each mounts as a temporary band aid while i order some fancy polyurethane mounts!








more to come soon i need to upload a bunch of other pictures!

 

the weirdo looking vise grips are a sst i made to crimp my new cv joint boot straps! works almost too good!

































here is the new mount i fabbed up from 1/8 steel plate